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● 01.11.22

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● Links 11/1/2022: DragonFly 6.2.1 and Latte Dock 0.10.7

Posted in News Roundup at 5:55 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Connect Two PCs Together… Or Two Phones.. Thanks To KDE! – Kockatoo Tube

=> ↺ Enterprise Linux Security Episode 15 – High Availability – Invidious

• It’s frustrating when critical infrastructure encounters an issue that results in a disruption of service. High Availability is a concept that aims to help alleviate (or hopefully eliminate) such downtime, and is a very attractive goal for system administrators. In this episode, Jay and Joao discuss high availability, as well as its pros and cons.

=> ↺ UbuntuDDE Remix 21.10 overview | Powerful Ubuntu with the most beautiful desktop environment. – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of UbuntuDDE Remix 21.10 and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ Hands-on with the Turing Pi 2! – Invidious

• The Turing Pi 2 is quite an exciting project that might even be a game-changer when it comes to homelab. With it, you can set up Raspberry Pi Compute Modules as individual servers, and even cluster them! The Turing Pi 2 gives you access to many additional features that Compute Modules wouldn’t normally have access to, such as mPCIe, SATA, and more. This gives you access to build a data-center in a box, and Jay gives it a first-look on the channel in this video.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux 5.15.14

=> ↺ Linux 5.10.91

=> ↺ Linux 5.4.171

=> ↺ Linux 4.19.225

=> ↺ Linux 4.14.262

=> ↺ Linux 4.9.297

=> ↺ Linux 4.4.299

=> ↺ New AMD P-State Driver Headlines The Power Management Updates For Linux 5.17 – Phoronix

• The power management subsystem updates were sent out yesterday and already mainlined for the in-development Linux 5.17 kernel. Most notable with the power management changes for this new version of the Linux kernel is the introduction of the AMD P-State driver developed in cooperation with Valve for the Steam Deck but stands to help CPU/SoC power efficiency across Zen 2 and newer hardware.

• Linux PM/ACPI maintainer Rafael Wysocki of Intel sent in the power management updates yesterday to which Linus Torvalds has already merged them.

=> ↺ Linux 5.17 Adds Sensor Monitoring Support To Many More ASUS Motherboards – Phoronix

• The Linux 5.17 hardware monitoring “HWMON” subsystem updates include the new NZXT driver, new drivers to greatly expand sensor coverage on modern ASUS desktop motherboards, temperature monitoring for next-gen AMD Zen processors, and more.

• Guenter Roeck submitted the HWMON feature updates on Monday for the Linux 5.17 kernel. There is a lot of notable changes this cycle, especially on the desktop side. It’s been great seeing all the desktop-related hardware monitoring enhancements in recent versions of the Linux kernel, but unfortunate that most of it has been driven by the independent open-source community rather than the hardware vendors themselves.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Radeon RADV Optimizations In Mesa 22.0 Improve PRIME/Hybrid GPU Performance – Phoronix

• While RADV is not AMD’s official Radeon Vulkan driver for Linux systems, for Mesa 22.0 they have contributed a set of optimizations to improve the “DRI_PRIME” performance for hybrid GPU setups such as the growing number of AMD powered notebooks with discrete graphics.

• More last minute feature work to land for Mesa 22.0 ahead of its imminent feature freeze are DRI_PRIME optimizations. These improvements by AMD engineer Pierre-Eric Pelloux-Prayer are based on prior patches to the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver.

=> ↺ Intel Lands 20~40% Performance Optimization For Arc Graphics In Mesa 22.0 – Phoronix

• Intel’s pixel pipeline optimization work focused on speeding up DG2/Alchemist graphics cards with their open-source graphics driver has managed to land in Mesa 22.0.

• With Mesa 22.0 set to be branched this week that marks the feature freeze in preparation for releasing as stable in February, Intel managed to squeeze their Xe HP pixel pipeline optimization work into this next quarterly release. Getting this big optimization in Mesa 22.0 is important considering Intel continues to report that they will begin shipping Intel Arc discrete graphics later this quarter.

=> ↺ NVIDIA 510.39.01 Beta driver out for Linux | GamingOnLinux

• After silently launching the RTX 3080 12GB, NVIDIA has also today put out a brand new Beta driver for Linux with version 510.39.01 now available.

• The interesting part is, the changelog mentions quite a number of things that were added in previous driver releases like support for the GBM API. There’s also mentions of extensions that were added in previous stable releases too. It’s likely that this will be their new “Production Branch” driver that has pulled over lots of changes from their “New Feature Branch”.

=> ↺ NVIDIA 510.39.01 Linux Beta Brings Vulkan Dynamic Rendering, AV1 VDPAU Decode & More – Phoronix

• In addition to announcing the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB graphics card this morning, NVIDIA has published their first public beta of the new NVIDIA 510 Linux driver series.

• The NVIDIA 510.39.01 Linux beta driver is available today with a variety of fixes while a bulk of the updates are on the Vulkan driver side. There is Vulkan dynamic rendering support along with an assortment of other extensions previously only found in NVIDIA’s dedicated Vulkan beta builds.

• Besides all of the Vulkan updates, also exciting with the NVIDIA 510 series for Linux is adding AV1 decode support to their VDPAU driver to complement the existing NVDEC AV1 support for latest-generation RTX 30 series graphics cards.

• NVIDIA’s 510 Linux beta also has a ReBAR indicator, updated Linux kernel support, refined GBM API support, and other updates.

=> ↺ NVIDIA releases a 12GB GeForce RTX 3080 | GamingOnLinux

• For those of you with money to burn who want a new GPU, perhaps the latest from NVIDIA will catch your eye? They’ve introduced a new model of the GeForce RTX 3080. It’s a small but noticeable upgrade to the original, and only available to a select few partners right now

• The bump not only ups the memory from 10GB to 12GB but also goes from 8704 to 8960 CUDA Cores, and you’re also getting a memory bus jump from 320-bit to 384-bit. You’re going to need just a little bit more power for it too, as NVIDIA say it needs 350 watts compared with the 320 on the 10GB model.

=> ↺ DirectX 12 support is infiltrating Linux under the radar

=> ↺ Microsoft infiltrating Linux to undermine it

• In the realm of PC gaming, there is an enormous industry push toward open-source graphics APIs like Vulkan. Performant, cross-platform software like Vulkan enables the incredible performance of games like Doom Eternal and allows low budget titles like Farming Simulator 22 to run on Mac OS X and Linux.

Applications

=> ↺ 3 Best Free Hard Disk Imaging Software

• The hard disk and partition imaging software take a snapshot of your hard disk so that you can restore your system at a later time to the exact same state the system was when you imaged the disk or partition.

• Data is probably the most important asset in today’s world. One of the worst fears of every computer user is what if the hard drive that has an enormous amount of valuable data in it corrupts suddenly? Losing files critical to your day-to-day work can be incredibly frustrating and damaging to your business.

• Unfortunately, you can never predict when your system might crash or get infected, and you lose your entire data to it. That is where the disk image software comes into the picture.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install and Use NMAP on Fedora 35 – NextGenTips

• Welcome to today’s topic where we will be talking about how to install Nmap on Fedora 35.

• Nmap (Network mapper) is a free and open-source software for network discovery and security auditing. It is also used for network inventory services, managing service upgrades, and monitoring hosts’ downtime.

• Nmap is designed for bigger networks but it can also work fine with standalone hosts. Nmap suite includes an advanced GUI and results viewer called Zenmap, a flexible data transfer, redirection and a debugging tool called Ncat, a utility for comparing scan results called Ndiff, and a packet generation and response analysis tool called Nping.

=> ↺ Docker Exec Command – Tutorial with Examples – buildVirtual

• The Docker exec command is a very useful command for interacting with your running docker containers. When working with Docker you will likely have the need to access the shell or CLI of the docker containers you have deployed, which you can do using docker exec.

=> ↺ How to Install Linux Kernel 5.16 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• Linux kernel 5.16 is out with many new features, support, and security. The Linux 5.16 kernel release has a great new featured FUTEX2, or futex_watv(), which aims to improve the Linux gaming experience, growing considerably with better native Linux porting for games running Windows by utilizing Wine.

• Other improvements have seen write include improved write congestion management, task scheduler for CPU clusters sharing L2/L3 cache, amongst many other additions. More information can be found on the Linux 5.16 Kernel release changelog.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest 5.16 Linux Kernel on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

=> ↺ How to Install Cockpit on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 LTS – Linux Shout

• Manage your command line or graphical desktop Linux system remotely using browser by installing Cockpit on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish or 20.04 Focal Fossa.

• Cockpit is a popular tool that comes with a web-based graphical interface for providing remote management for Linux users. RHEL based Linux distros out of the box offer this tool, and the user just need to access it. Where other users can install Cockpit directly using their system package manager.

• Well, Cockpit is open-source software and light in weight offers web GUI to manage Linux systems, beneficial especially to those who are running a command-line interface Linux such as CentOS and Ubuntu minimal servers. It helps advance users in quickly updating, enabling services, restarting the system, accessing Docker containers, Network, storage management, and all above the web-based terminal to issue commands remotely on a server.

=> ↺ An Introduction To Snowflake Data Warehouse – OSTechNix

• In this tutorial, we will be discussing what is Snowflake Data Warehouse, Snowflake architecture, how to create a free trail account for test drive, and finally how to access Snowflake WebUI.

=> ↺ Why Use Graphical User Interface For Version Control Git

• Git is the most popular tool for version management of files and applications. Git was developed to manage open-source software source codes primarily. Github is a widespread application today among all open source contributors and freelance developers. Though Git is mainly a CUI-based application, GUI also can be configured to work with Git. For new users, the Graphical user interface is a very good way to master the Git operations. If you are also one of them who is looking for a GUI solution for Git, I have a couple of options listed below.

=> ↺ The truth about Linux true and false commands | Network World

• True and false are common concepts in all forms of computing. They’re critical to Boolean logic after all, but did you know that true and false are also commands on Linux? Do you know how to use them?

• The simplest explanation is that the true command generates an exit code of 0 and that the false command generates an exit code of 1. This explanation, however, doesn’t provide much detail on how these commands can best be used.

• In this post, we’ll look at how the true and false commands work and how you might put them to use on the command line or in your scripts.

Games

=> ↺ Survival game Vintage Story gets another huge upgrade with improved combat | GamingOnLinux

• Vintage Story continues to impress with not just the rate they can churn out updates, but also how much they manage to stuff into each of them. The “Homesteading part 2 & Combat update” is out now, bringing some pretty fancy new features and so if you’ve been on the fence about it, perhaps it’s time to try it out if you’re after a different open-world survival experience. The price will also slightly increase soon.

=> ↺ Homesteading part 2 & Combat update, stable! (1.16.0)

• This is it community. v1.16 looks stable enough to me. There are still bugs, but I estimate there’s now less than in 1.15.10. This major update contains over 300 features, tweaks and fixes. It’s been quite a monumental task to get here. As always, it would not have been possible with the incredible amounts of feedback and bug reports by you, the community. I’m very grateful for your support, thank you so much!

=> ↺ Project Zomboid has big plans for 2022 and beyond, with NPCs on the way | GamingOnLinux

• After a great many years in Early Access, Project Zomboid has finally hit the big time with it regularly seeing multiple tens of thousands of players and they have some big plans. The latest release (Build 41) took a long time, as it reworked so much of the game but it’s done and they’re moving onto the next big chunk of features and it all sounds rather exciting.

• One big addition that has been talked about for years is the addition of NPCs, and they’re finally coming – for reals this time. They’ve split into different teams to work on different things, one team being focused on getting NPCs all hooked up and working.

=> ↺ Buck Up And Drive! is a retro-racing delight now on Steam | GamingOnLinux

• Buck Up And Drive! is a fusion of classic retro endless racing with a few fun twists, like 1v1 car fighting mode. Previously only available via itch.io, it’s screeched over to Steam now too.

• Since we last wrote about it in the Summer of 2021, it’s added a bunch of new content for the full release too and it’s looking like it’s quite amusing. I grew up with racers like this on the Amiga, so it speaks to me quite personally. The developer is quite funny about it too, saying “There is time to explain, I just don’t wanna.”. Not really selling us on it but the trailer below speaks enough for itself I think.

=> ↺ Humble Bundle decides you need another launcher for parts of Humble Choice | GamingOnLinux

• Humble Bundle has announced changes are coming in February for Humble Choice, so let’s go over what they’re going to be doing.

• First up, they’re moving back towards how it started with Humble Monthly. There’s only going to be one single tier at $11.99 / £8.99 / €9.99 – with regional pricing and more regions supported, except if you’re on the Classic plan you continue to be billed in USD. The amount of games will fluctuate, and hopefully mean they will be better and you will get access to all of them.

• Humble said: “Our focus is to bring you maximum bang for your buck through an expertly curated mix of awesome games. The exact number of games might vary each month, but no matter what our scouts choose, our mission is to always bring you a ton of value that’s well worth the price of admission. And as always, you can skip a month whenever you want or cancel anytime.”

=> ↺ New Steam Games with Native Linux Clients – 2022-01-11 Edition – Boiling Steam

• Between 2022-01-04 and 2022-01-11 there were 17 new native Linux games released on Steam with Linux clients. For reference, during the same time, there were 197 games released for Windows on Steam, so the Linux versions represent about 8.6 % of total released titles.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Latte Dock v0.10.7 | Bug Fix Release

• Let’s welcome Latte Dock v0.10.7 the 7th Official Bug Fix Release of v0.10.x branch!

• Go get it from, download.kde.org*

Distributions

BSD

=> ↺ DragonFly 6.2.1 released

• DragonFly version 6.2.1 has been released. This version has hardware support for type-2 hypervisors with NVMM, an amdgpu driver, the experimental ability to remote-mount HAMMER2 volumes, and many other changes.

• The details of all commits between the 6.0 and 6.2 releases are available in the associated commit messages for 6.2.1. 6.2.0 was not released due to an error in tagging.

• Go to the 6.2 release page page for details on the release, and download via one of the mirrors.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Anaconda is getting a new suit – Fedora Community Blog

• It’s quite some time since we created the current GTK based UI for Anaconda: the OS installer for Fedora, RHEL, CentOS. For a long time we (the Anaconda team) were looking for possibilities to modernize and improve the user experience. In this post, we would like to explain what we are working on, and—most of all—inform you about what you can expect in the future.

• First, we need to express that we decided to share this information pretty early. We are currently at the stage where we have made the decisions. We have a ‘working prototype’ of the solution already available but don’t expect screenshots and demos yet!

=> ↺ Anaconda is getting a new suit (Fedora Community Blog) [LWN.net]

• The GTK-based Anaconda installer has long been used to set up Fedora, CentOS, and RHEL systems.

=> ↺ Run containers on Linux without sudo in Podman | Opensource.com

• Containers are an important part of modern computing, and as the infrastructure around containers evolves, new and better tools have started to surface. It used to be that you could run containers with just LXC, and then Docker gained popularity, and things started getting more complex. Eventually, we got the container management system we all deserved with Podman, a daemonless container engine that makes containers and pods easy to build, run, and manage.

• Containers interface directly with Linux kernel abilities like cgroups and namespaces, and they spawn lots of new processes within those namespaces. In short, running a container is literally running a Linux system inside a Linux system. From the operating system’s viewpoint, it looks very much like an administrative and privileged activity. Normal users don’t usually get to have free reign over system resources the way containers demand, so by default, root or sudo permissions are required to run Podman. However, that’s only the default setting, and it’s by no means the only setting available or intended. This article demonstrates how to configure your Linux system so that a normal user can run Podman without the use of sudo (“rootless”).

=> ↺ IT careers: 5 flourishing and 4 fading IT skills for 2022 | The Enterprisers Project

• There’s no dispute: An IT talent war is afoot. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of global technology leaders surveyed for IEEE’s Impact of Technology in 2022 and Beyond survey say recruiting technologists and filling open tech positions in the year ahead will be challenging.

• However, both the needs of the enterprise and the capabilities of the tech talent marketplace are a mixed bag. There are red-hot and lukewarm skills and a variety of enterprise technology requirements. Determining how best to match supply and demand has become as much art as science. This year, creating “micro career paths aligned to individual aspirations will be important,” says Yugal Joshi, a partner at Dallas, Texas-based strategic IT consultancy and research firm Everest Group.

• Understanding what capabilities are likely to be increasing in value and which are likely to decrease is also important, for both hiring managers and job candidates. Following are five flourishing ‒ and four fading ‒ IT skills for 2022.

=> ↺ IT leadership: 4 tips on achieving your goals in 2022 | The Enterprisers Project

• We made it through another topsy-turvy year. Many technology leaders are reflecting on some pretty massive achievements over the past two years ‒ from turning on a dime to pivot entire organizations to remote work to accelerating their digital transformation and driving business performance through collaborative, strategic efforts.

• Most of us feel like we’ve been running a marathon for the past two years. It’s not surprising that disengagement, burnout, and turnover are on the rise. But all signs point to more unpredictability ahead, and we need to make sure we and our teams have the mental and physical energy to not just tackle the next challenges but also keep an eye on what’s to come.

• As I was thinking about who could share some insights about how to help leaders kick things off on the right note this year, one name came to mind immediately. Rhonda Vetere is a technology executive whose CIO journey has spanned multiple industries and countries. Most recently CIO and EVP for global nutrition company Herbalife, she’s also an endurance athlete, a twice-published author, a board member, a mentor, and a change agent.

=> ↺ Red Hat and Temenos enable process automation for digital banking

• Today, banking software company and Red Hat partner, Temenos, announced the integration of Red Hat Process Automation Manager into the Temenos Infinity digital banking platform. This comes as a result of a long-standing collaboration between Red Hat and Temenos and our shared commitment in helping organizations navigate this new world of digital banking by leveraging cloud-native, open source solutions.

=> ↺ Kafka Monthly Digest: December 2021 | Red Hat Developer

• This Apache Kafka community report includes progress on Kafka 3.1.0, Kafka project milestones in 2021, and a look ahead to new features coming in 2022.

=> ↺ 5 design principles for microservices | Red Hat Developer

• The microservice-oriented application is a powerful model for large-scale software systems. Learn five key principles to implement one effectively.

Debian Family

=> ↺ ThinkPad AMD Debian

• After a hiatus of 6 years, it was nice to be back with the ThinkPad. This blog post briefly touches upon my impressions with the current generation ThinkPad T14 Gen2 AMD variant.

• The overall hardware support has been surprisingly decent. The MediaTek WiFi driver had some glitches but with Linux 5.15+, things have considerably improved. And I hope the trend will continue with forthcoming Linux releases. My previous device driver experience with MediaTek wasn’t good but I took the plunge, considering that in the worst scenario I’d have the option to swap the card.

• There’s a lot of marketing about Linux + Intel. But I took a jibe with Linux + AMD. There are glitches but nothing so far that has been a dealbreaker. If anything, I wish Lenovo/AMD would seriously work on the power/thermal issues.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Ubuntu 21.04 Support Ends Next Week

• For those who haven’t looked at a calendar in a while, January 20th is next week. Assuming you haven’t already, now is the time to start thinking about upgrade paths or alternative distro choices.

• Released last April, Ubuntu 21.04 received nine months of support from release. From January 20 it will get nothing else. No further kernel patches, no critical security fixes, and no further app updates though the standard Ubuntu repos.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ You Can Preorder the $399 Linux PinePhone Pro Today

• A new Linux phone is on the market called the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition. It comes with an impressive range of features and a $399 price tag that’s sure to catch anyone’s attention.

• The new PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition is set for preorder on January 11, 2022, at 2 pm Eastern. The price is pretty reasonable for what the phone brings to the table.

• The default operating system for the PinePhone Pro is Manjaro Linux with KDE Plasma Mobile, but the company has made its phone completely open, which means you can run all different operating systems on it. It just comes down to the community and what kinds of creative stuff they can come up with.

=> ↺ You Can Now Pre-Order the PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition Linux Smartphone

• Unveiled in mid-October 2021, the PinePhone Pro features a custom-made RK3399S Rockchip Hexa-Core processor that runs at at 1.5GHz, an ARM Mali T860 GPU, a gorgeous in-cell 1440×720 IPS display with 18:9 aspect ratio and Corning Gorilla Glass 4, 4GB of dual-channel 800MHz LPDDR4 RAM, and 128GB of internal eMMC flash storage.

• The Linux phone also features a high-fidelity 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front-facing camera for video calls and selfies, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, accelerator, gyroscope, proximity, compass, and ambient light sensors, status LED, vibration motor, Micro SD slot, pogo-pins, USB-C port for charging, and DP alt-mode video out.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ How To Manage Location Sharing on Your Android Device

=> ↺ google: How to use your Android smartphone to sign in to YouTube on smart TVs

=> ↺ How to back up pictures and videos on Android with Google Photos – 9to5Google

=> ↺ How to block YouTube ads on Android and computer for free – Technology News

=> ↺ Android 13 may give the output picker a new coat of paint

=> ↺ Google Pixel Android 12 bugs, problems, & issues tracker

=> ↺ Samsung Android 12 update: These devices have One UI 4.0 – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Realme UI 3.0 (Android 12) update tracker: Eligible devices, release date …

=> ↺ 15 Essential Shortcuts to Add to Your Android Home Screen

=> ↺ 8 tips to speed up your Android phone

=> ↺ i.MX 8M Plus solderable LGA module follows OSM Size-L standard – CNX Software

=> ↺ Is it safe to send your Android phone out for repair? | Android Central

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ New Year, New Privacy Protection for Firefox Focus on Android

• Have you ever signed up for a contest to win a big screen TV or a vacation to an exotic location? Or have you joined a big retailer loyalty program so you can save money? If you answered yes to either of these questions you may be exchanging your name, home address, email address, phone number and sometimes even your birthdate to companies who are building your profile with the information you freely provide. Companies use those profiles to help them make ads that are targeted at convincing you to purchase, like resurfacing an item you were shopping for. When you go online, there are similar tactics that work behind the scenes to gather information about you and your browsing behavior, and track you when you go from site to site.

• Mozilla has been leading the industry in privacy protections by putting our users first. Last year, we introduced one of our strongest privacy protections to date, Total Cookie Protection, to combat cross-site tracking, and we’re bringing it to Firefox Focus on Android, our simple, privacy by default companion app. Firefox Focus on Android will be the first Firefox mobile browser to have Total Cookie Protection. This will help mitigate the cross-site tracking where companies collect information about you like the sites you visit every day or the products you are searching for.

=> ↺ Firefox 96 improves noise cancellation on calls, bookmarks on Android, and more

• Firefox is one of the few web browsers left with a non-Chromium rendering engine engine, giving Mozilla the ability to try out new web features and low-level performance changes in a way that most other browsers can’t (without essentially becoming a fork, anyway). Firefox 95 rolled out last month with new security features and some macOS enhancements, and now Firefox 96 is officially available.

• Firefox 96 on desktop platforms (via TechDows) should be better than ever for video and audio calls, as Mozilla has “made significant improvements” to noise suppression, automatic gain control, and echo cancellation. Many communication platforms have their own noise cancellation technology, but if you happen to use a service that doesn’t, Firefox should at least help a little bit. Firefox also now uses the “Same-Site=lax” HTTP header by default when receiving data, which improves security.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ JavaScript developer screws over own popular npm packages • The Register

• Two popular open-source packages were recently sabotaged with mischievous commits, creating confusion among those using the software and exacerbating concerns about the fragility of the open-source software supply chain.

• The npm packages, faker.js and colors.js, were not hijacked by outsiders, as has been known to happen; rather their creator added code to the software libraries that made them malfunction.

• Three days ago, developer Marak Squires added a “new American flag module” to colors.js, a module to simplify printing colored text in the developer console. The new code printed the word “LIBERTY” multiple times and an ASCII-flag to the developer console and went into an endless loop.

• Six days ago, faker.js, used for generating fake data for API testing, also received an unexpected update: it removed the code, added the commit message “endgame,” and replaced the ReadMe file with the question, “What really happened with Aaron Swartz?”

=> ↺ Qbs 1.21 released

• The Qbs build tool version 1.21.0 is available.

• Qbs is a community-driven language-agnostic build automation system. It is fast and offers an easy-to-learn language based upon QML.

Python

=> ↺ 8 surprising things I learned about Python in 2021 | Opensource.com

• Python has long been one of the most popular programming languages, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing new to learn. This list of Opensource.com’s most-read articles about Python is an excellent place to start.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Display disk partition sizes Using awk, grep

Rust

=> ↺ 1.58.0 pre-release testing | Inside Rust Blog

• The 1.58.0 pre-release is ready for testing. The release is scheduled for this Thursday, January 13th. Release notes can be found here.

Leftovers

Science

=> ↺ Haber-Bosch And The Greening Of Ammonia Production | Hackaday

• We here on Earth live at the bottom of an ocean of nitrogen. Nearly 80% of every breath we take is nitrogen, and the element is a vital component of the building blocks of life. Nitrogen is critical to the backbone of proteins that form the scaffold that life hangs on and that catalyze the myriad reactions in our cells, and the information needed to build these biopolymers is encoded in nucleic acids, themselves nitrogen-rich molecules.

• And yet, in its abundant gaseous form, nitrogen remains directly unavailable to higher life forms, unusably inert and unreactive. We must steal our vital supply of nitrogen from the few species that have learned the biochemical trick of turning atmospheric nitrogen into more reactive compounds like ammonia. Or at least until relatively recently, when a couple of particularly clever members of our species found a way to pull nitrogen from the air using a combination of chemistry and engineering now known as the Haber-Bosch process.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Avira is adding a crypto miner to its products as well

• Et Tu, Avira? Ashwin reported last week that Norton was adding a new component, called Norton Crypto, to its security products. Norton Crypto is a crypto currency miner that will run when the system is detected as idle. It appears that Avira is doing the same.

Security

=> ↺ New KCodes NetUSB Bug Affect Millions of Routers from Different Vendors

• Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a high severity flaw in KCodes NetUSB component that’s integrated into millions of end-user router devices from Netgear, TP-Link, Tenda, EDiMAX, D-Link, and Western Digital, among others.

• KCodes NetUSB is a Linux kernel module that enables devices on a local network to provide USB-based services over IP. Printers, external hard drives, and flash drives plugged into a Linux-based embedded system (e.g., a router) are made available via the network using the driver.

=> ↺ Samba Releases Security Update | CISA

• The Samba Team has released a security update to address a vulnerability in multiple versions of Samba. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.

=> ↺ Security updates for Tuesday [LWN.net]

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (clamav, vim, and wordpress), Mageia (ghostscript, osgi-core, apache-commons-compress, python-django, squashfs-tools, and suricata), openSUSE (libsndfile, net-snmp, and systemd), Oracle (httpd:2.4, kernel, and kernel-container), SUSE (libsndfile, libvirt, net-snmp, and systemd), and Ubuntu (exiv2, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.11, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.11, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.11, linux-hwe-5.11, linux-kvm, linux-oem-5.10, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.11, linux-raspi, linux-oem-5.13, and linux-oem-5.14).

=> ↺ ‘Fully Undetected’ SysJoker Backdoor Malware Targets Windows, Linux & macOS | Threatpost

• The malware establishes initial access on targeted machines, then waits for additional code to execute.

• A brand-new multiplatform malware, likely distributed via malicious npm packages, is spreading under the radar with Linux and Mac versions going fully undetected in VirusTotal, researchers warned.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Apple’s Private Relay Is Being Blocked – Schneier on Security

• Some European cell phone carriers, and now T-Mobile, are blocking Apple’s Private Relay anonymous browsing feature.

• This could be an interesting battle to watch.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ CISA, FBI, and NSA Release Cybersecurity Advisory on Russian Cyber Threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure

• CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) that provides an overview of Russian state-sponsored cyber operations, including commonly observed tactics, techniques, and procedures. The CSA also provides detection actions, incident response guidance, and mitigations. CISA, the FBI, and NSA are releasing the joint CSA to help the cybersecurity community reduce the risk presented by Russian state-sponsored cyber threats.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ IFF assists Amina – who was targeted by the Bulli Bai App – in writing to the NCW and Telangana State Women Commission against the incident

• On 1st January 2022, we saw public outrage around an application titled “Bulli Bai” that was hosted on GitHub where pictures of around 100 Muslim women, sourced from their social media accounts, were put for ‘auction’. Muslim women were targeted due to their gender and religious identity. After much furore, some arrests have been made, and the investigation is still pending. One of the victims of this incident, with IFF’s assistance, wrote to the National Commission of Women, and the Telangana State Women Commission highlighting concerns about targeted harassment, and seeking their intervention in ensuring fair investigation. She also requested the Commissions to take steps to avoid such incidents from happening in the future.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ This John Deere Tractor Doesn’t Need a Driver

• While most autonomous vehicles are meant to travel over the highway, John Deere’s new 8R tractor shown at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show will likely only traverse fields and it will do so without a human at the wheel.

• The tractor is slated to be available to farmers in late 2022 and has six pairs of stereo cameras to generate a 360 degree view of obstacles. It also uses location technology, including GPS, to ensure it is where it is supposed to be with a claimed accuracy of 1 inch. You can see a video about the beast below.

• According to press releases, the company has been testing the technology for at least 3 years. It is controlled by — what else? — a smartphone app that can set it to its task and monitor it remotely, allowing the farmer to monitor and control the operation from anywhere. The company claims it can prepare 325 acres in 24 hours.

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