● 02.04.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 4/2/2022: Zenwalk 15.0 and Libinput 1.20 RC1

Posted in News Roundup at 5:49 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ Year MMXVII in 1 ⅓ minute – The Open Sourcerer

• Curiously looked at powertop numbers and wondered why I can’t seem to break below the 50-60 wakeups-per-second barrier on modern Linux desktops: part 1 and part 2. Those observations may or may not be outdated by now.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Reality 2.0 Episode 98: You Win Some, You Lose Some (Billions)

• New episode of the Reality 2.0 podcast is uploaded and out today: Reality 2.0 Episode 98: You Win Some, You Lose Some (Billions). Tune in to our new episode! Katherine Druckman and Doc Searls talk to Petros Koutoupis about how big tech navigates the ad tech landscape, for better or worse.

=> ↺ Hackaday Podcast 154: A Good Enough CNC, Stepper Motors Unrolled, Smart Two-Wire LEDs, A Volcano Heard Around The World | Hackaday

• Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for this week’s podcast as we talk about Elliot’s “defection” to another podcast, the pros and cons of CNC builds, and making Nixie clocks better with more clicking. We’ll explore how citizen scientists are keeping a finger on the pulse of planet Earth, watch a 2D stepper go through its paces, and figure out how a minimalist addressable LED strip works. From solving a Rubik’s cube to answering the age-old question, “Does a watched pot boil?” — spoiler alert: if it’s well designed, yes — this episode has something for everyone.

=> ↺ STOP RECOMMENDING DISTROS, recommend DESKTOPS instead! – Invidious

=> ↺ A Linux PC in the palm of your hand! The Pantera Pico PC from XDO – Invidious

• In this video, Jay provides a quick review of the Pico PC from XDO, which is the smallest Linux PC that’s ever been reviewed on the channel. The Pico PC claims to be ultra quiet and fully compatible with Linux. Check out this review and find out if the Pico PC lives up to its claims.

=> ↺ Live – Interview and Lesson from a Bash Scripting Master – Invidious

• This is Michael Mikowski and he has designed and engineered some of the most impressive bash scripts I have ever seen. I wanted to bring him on to explain how he scripts and gain some insight into how to evolve our skills and improve.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ libinput 1.20rc1

=> ↺ AMD officially approves GPU support for MI200 “Alderbaran” for use in Linux

• In November of 2021, AMD announced the Instinct MI200 GPU accelerator for the Linux open-source driver support. The development was under “experimental” consideration for the “Aldebaran” graphics card as far back as February of last year. AMD’s team of open-source developers are officially withdrawing the “experimental” labeling and now offering it for complete release on the Linux platform.

=> ↺ Wayland v. X.Org for NVIDIA Linux gaming performance on Ubuntu 22.04: Which one reigns supreme?

• NVIDIA launches their 510 Linux driver series that pairs with the recent XWayland and a modern version of the Wayland compositor. This new compositor is similar to the current GNOME/Mutter packages. Now, NVIDIA and their (X)Wayland venture appear to deliver identical performance to the standard X.Org session.

Applications

=> ↺ Puddletag Audio Tag Editor 2.1.0 Released [What’s New & How to Install] | UbuntuHandbook

• After Python3 and PyQt5 port, the Puddletag audio tag editor finally got a new update after almost 1 year and half of development.

• Puddletag 2.1.0 fixed many crash issues, including crashes when using Update From Tag function, mass tagging search button, adding custom tag with language lyrics, searching with AcoustId, specifying ‘Export artwork to file’ in action, and more!!

• Besides, there are some minor new features. When refreshing in preview mode, it now asks confirm before discarding changes; New Actions menu option ‘Go to parent folder‘; Copy & Paste cover from/to clipboard.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Install Neofetch on Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 LTS- Display system information

• Neofetch and Screenfetch both are lightweight tools for Linux to fetch the system version and resources details on the command terminal but in an intuitive way. Here we learn the commands to install Neofetch & Screenfetch on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish and 20.04 Focal fossa.

=> ↺ How to use a VM as a Jenkins agent | Enable Sysadmin

• I have worked with Red Hat’s migration team for the last two years. Early on, I was part of a large group working on the CloudForms management tool. A dedicated team did DevOps, so whenever I got into trouble with Jenkins or made changes to the Jenkins job, I would just email them. Like Genie following Aladdin’s wishes, they did everything for me. That felt really good, and it enabled me to focus on test automation, which was my main job.

• Recently, I joined a new group that doesn’t have a separate infrastructure team. We’re establishing processes and tools from scratch. We don’t have a dedicated team to manage testing, so I must now automate my testing, create a Jenkins job for it, and publish the reports generated.

=> ↺ How to Install Sublime Text 4 Editor on Ubuntu

• Sublime Text is one of the most popular text and source code editors which is designed for software and web development. It is fast, flexible, and comes with a lot of sophisticated features. Custom settings and hundreds of plugins are available for the customization of sublime text. Its functionality can be enhanced to the extent that many professionals refer to it as an Integrated Development Environment(IDE) instead of a simple editor.

• Also because of its flexibility, it provides more control over their editor or environment. In this article, You will learn how to install Sublime Text on the Ubuntu operating system.

=> ↺ How to Install Jenkins Automation Server on AlmaLinux 8 – VITUX

• Jenkins is a free and open-source automation server written in Java. It can be deployed on a single server or as a distributed application. It is one of the most popular open-source solutions for continuous integration and continuous delivery of software applications.

• Continuous integration (CI) is a software development practice that requires developers to integrate their code into the main repository (usually on a daily basis) as early and often as possible in order to detect integration errors, build new features, and provide feedback for all stages of the software life cycle.

=> ↺ How to Install Syncthing Remote File Synchronization Software on Debian 11

• Syncthing is a free and open-source file syncing application used to sync files between multiple remote devices over the internet. It works on peer-to-peer architecture and exchanges the data automatically between two devices. It helps you to keep files and directories synchronized in real-time. All data transmission between multiple devices is safe and encrypted with TLS. It has clients for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It also has an Android app to sync from and to smartphones!

• In this post, we will show you how to install Syncthing file synchronization software on Debian 11 server.

=> ↺ How to install Linux Lite 5.8 – Invidious

=> ↺ How To Install IonCube Loader on Debian 11 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install IonCube Loader on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, IonCube is a PHP extension that can be used for decoding secured encrypted PHP files at runtime. The IonCube encoder is used by commercial PHP program vendors to protect applications and the loader. IonCube needs to be installed in your webserver and made accessible to your PHP to use it.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the CMake on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

=> ↺ How To Install Apache Cassandra on AlmaLinux 8 | Rocky Linux 8

• Learn the commands to install Apache Cassandra on Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux 8 server using your terminal given in this tutorial.

• Apache Cassandra is the most popular NoSQL column-oriented database and is written in Java, unlike both MongoDB (C++) and HBase. Due to its architectural properties, Cassandra is often used in big data projects, but can also be used well for complex web applications in cooperation with an application server/framework.

• Cassandra is a distributed database management system that is designed to manage very large amounts of structured data and belongs to the class of NoSQL database systems,

• In addition to being used as a distributed database in social networks – the database is also used, for example, by the social news aggregator Reddit and the social bookmarks provider Digg.

=> ↺ Create And Manage Kubernetes Pods In Linux – OSTechNix

• In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to create and manage Kubernetes Pods. First, we will start with what is a Pod in Kubernetes and how does a Pod work. Next, we shall take a brief look at the types of Pods. And then we will see how to create a new Pod and how to view the information of Pod from the command line. Finally, we will learn how to delete the Pod when it’s no longer needed.

=> ↺ How To Install RPM Packages On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | Itsubuntu.com

• Linux is all about Installing, patching, and removing software packages and package management is a method of installing, updating, removing, and keeping track of software updates from specific repositories (repos) in the Linux system. Different Linux uses their own package management tools. One of the popular Linux distros, Red Hat Linux uses RPM (RPM Package Manager) and YUM/DNF (Yellow Dog Updater, Modified/Dandified YUM) to manage the packages.

• In this tutorial, we are going to show you the method to install RPM packages on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

=> ↺ Create your own online shop for free with Abantecart on Ubuntu 20.04!

• Hello, friends. Having an online store is vital for your business. In this post, you will learn how to install AbanteCart on Ubuntu 20.04. With this application, you will be able to deploy a store quickly and easily.

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade Avidemux on Linux Mint 20 LTS – LinuxCapable

• Avidemux is a free and open-source software application for non-linear video editing and transcoding multimedia files. It is trendy as it allows a user to cut, join, split, rotate videos, adds filters, and support many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4, and ASF, using a variety of codecs.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to Install the latest Avidemux on Linux Mint 20 LTS.

=> ↺ Install OpenRGB on Linux Mint 20 LTS – LinuxCapable

• OpenRGB is free and open-source software used to control RGB lighting control that does not require manufacturer software. The software allows for RGB amber lighting, game integrations, music visualization, and much more. OpenRGB also comes with a plugin interface that can extend the software’s functionality even further.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install OpenRGB on Linux Mint 20 LTS.

=> ↺ Install UNRAR on Linux Mint 20 LTS – LinuxCapable

• UNRAR is widely known and used amongst Windows users. RAR files are much smaller archives and compress better than ZIP for most files by compressing files “together,” saving more space. UNRAR does not come pre-installed natively on Linux Mint, but it is available to install from its repository.

• The following tutorial will show you how to install UNRAR on Linux Mint 20 LTS, along with the most commonly used commands.

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade LibreOffice on Linux Mint 20 LTS – LinuxCapable

• LibreOffice is a free, open-source office productivity suite used by millions worldwide. The office suite software uses a native file format ODF or Open Document Format, an accepted and almost required structure in multiple organizations across the globe.

• LibreOffice includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

=> ↺ Revoke Users SUDO privileges in Linux – TREND OCEANS

• Serving SUDO privileges in the wrong hand might disrupt your Linux system with unusual packages and applications.

• We often follow the same standard method while creating a new user account for someone, like creating an account using adduser or useradd and then giving them sudo permission with the help of the usermod command.

• In performing these steps, you might give less attention to the sudo command while assigning to the user, which may be unnecessary and can lead you to conflicts with that user’s actions.

• Today we will guide you to the steps required to perform while revoking sudo privileges from users in the Linux system.

=> ↺ Install Neofetch on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• Neofetch is a free, open-source command-line system information tool written in bash 3.2+. Neofetch displays system information in a beautiful aesthetic way, such as system, software, memory resources, kernel version, and much more.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Neofetch along with some basic commands on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish.

=> ↺ how I wound up causing a major outage of my services and destroying my home directory by accident – Ariadne’s Space

• As a result of my FOSS maintenance and activism work, I have a significant IT footprint, to support the services and development environments needed to facilitate everything I do. Unfortunately, I am also my own system administrator, and I am quite terrible at this. This is a story about how I wound up knocking most of my services offline and wiping out my home directory, because of a combination of Linux mdraid bugs and a faulty SSD. Hopefully this will be helpful to somebody in the future, but if not, you can at least share in some catharsis.

• [...]

• My primary development server, is named treefort. It is an x86 box with AMD EPYC processors and 256 GB of RAM. It had a 3-way RAID-1 setup using Linux mdraid on 4TB Samsung 860 EVO SSDs. I use KVM with libvirt to manage various VMs on this server, but most of the server’s resources are dedicated to the treefort environment. This environment also acts as a kubernetes worker, and is also the kubernetes controller for the entire cluster.

• Recently I had a stick of RAM fail on treefort. I ordered a replacement stick and had a friend replace it. All seemed well, but then I decided to improve my monitoring so that I could be alerted to any future hardware failures, as having random things crash on the machine due to uncorrected ECC errors is not fun. In the process of implementing this monitoring, I learned that one of the SSDs had fallen out of the RAID.

• I thought it was a little weird that one drive failed out of the three, so I assumed it was just due to maintenance, perhaps the drive had been reseated after the RAM stick was replaced, after all. As the price of a replacement 4TB Samsung SSD is presently around $700 retail, I thought I would re-add the drive to the array, assuming it would fail out of the array again during rebuild if it had actually failed.

=> ↺ 16 Basic Cron Command In Linux With Examples | LinuxTeck

• By using the cron command, we can schedule and run many tasks automatically in Linux/Unix. You can execute them once or on a regular basis. Cron is widely used to schedule repetitive tasks at regular intervals (using commands listed in a file called ‘crontab’), and the ‘at’ function is a way of scheduling a task once during a specific period.For each user, Crontab maintains a crontab file. Automated jobs will be extremely helpful for many administrators who manage Linux servers.

Games

=> ↺ Cyberpunk 2077 Running Great On the Steam Deck! – Boiling Steam

• This is just another quick post as new leaks keep coming up from different sources. This time it’s a video of someone playing Cyberpunk 2077 on the Steam Deck. It’s not clear what are the settings used, nevertheless even on lower settings this would demonstrate great and very acceptable performance for a PC you can carry in your hand! (Probably better than my older desktop with a dedicated GPU!). Note: since we cannot confirm the source, it’s entirely possible that this is the Steam Deck streaming the game from a more powerful machine, so take this video with a grain of salt until we have other sources confirming this kind of performance.

=> ↺ Steam Deck: GPU Settings Fully Customizable – Boiling Steam

• A quick news post as there has been some leak from a Chinese developer (probably) showcasing the Steam Deck‘s side bar menu within SteamOS when running a game.

=> ↺ Valve’s tweaking Linux drivers to squeeze more battery life out of the Steam Deck on SteamOS 3.0 | PC Gamer

• Valve engineers have been beavering away to try and improve the Steam Deck’s battery life ahead of its impending launch on February 25. In order to achieve this, its Linux devs have been making changes to the open-source Radeon Vulkan (RADV) driver, which the Steam Deck uses to control variable rate shading.

• Currently under review, the driver changes could help the Steam Deck battery last longer than first anticipated, and even give the much-anticipated, handheld gaming device a handy performance boost in supported games.

• Variable Rate Shading (VRS) is a wonderful thing when implemented properly. It gives developers intricate control over how intensely the shading is implemented for each portion of the screen, or frame region. That means it doesn’t need to put so many GPU resources into rendering parts of the scene that don’t change, or that the user isn’t really paying attention to.

• It’s easy to break down when you look at something like a racing game. Game devs will have it so the car and the road ahead use a higher shading rate than that of the road behind, or anything off at the edge of the screen. Basically, for anything you’re not going to be staring intently at, the devs will try to save processing power by making it less of a priority for the graphics card’s precious resources.

=> ↺ Tyler “Passionate Gamer” McVicker doesn’t trust Valve with the Steam Deck. Here’s why he should. – Invidious

• Tyler McVicker doesn’t trust Valve. And he definitely has a point when it comes to some of his criticisms. Valve are notorious when it comes to abandoning projects.

=> ↺ Free and open source space sim Pioneer gets a big UI upgrade | GamingOnLinux

• Pioneer started off life as a basic spiritual successor to Frontier: Elite II and nowadays it continues being upgraded, to give fans of classic 3D space exploration something fun. A new release went up on February 3 that has officially removed their old UI system, in favour of more modern interfaces using the very popular Dear ImGui.

=> ↺ Wadjet Eye Games brings over Resonance to Linux | GamingOnLinux

• What’s that? Yet another classic Wadjet Eye Games published point and click adventure is fully upgraded with a new Linux port? Yep! Say hello to Resonance from developer XII Games. Following on from their work to bring over Technobabylon, Unavowed, Gemini Rue and The Blackwell Bundle – they’ve sure been treating fans of native builds well lately.

• The latest update to the game brings an upgrade to Adventure Game Studio, bringing all the latest goodies with it including properly working Steam Achievements for Linux.

=> ↺ Check out the Fanatical Safe in Our World charity bundle | GamingOnLinux

• Fanatical has teamed up with Safe in Our World to offer a bundle of games for you, while also supporting important charity work to help destigmatize mental health within the games industry and for players too.

• At a price of £7.99 you get access to 13 games and 2 DLC. While there’s not many native Linux games included, plenty will work just fine with Steam Play Proton. In fact, the only ones you will have trouble with are…the DLC, as they’re for Fall Guys which doesn’t currently work on Linux due to the anti-cheat.

=> ↺ Over 120 titles are now Steam Deck Verified | GamingOnLinux

• We’re now three weeks away from the official release date of the Steam Deck handheld Linux gaming machine. The good news is that Verified titles have been growing nicely!

• Still nothing compared to the overall Steam library but we do fully expect a lot more titles to appear. This is just the beginning and not being verified doesn’t mean a game won’t work.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Plasma makeover – Make it look like Gnome, whaaat

•  There we go. If, for some odd reason, you decide to get bored with the classic desktop layout formula, you can go top-left, global menu Mac-esque idea within seconds. Well, the global menu is an extra really, as I don’t recall seeing it in Gnome. But that’s not the point. We’re here to have fun, and that’s what we’re doing.

• As Monty Python would say, this article is becoming silly, and we will be forced to stop it. Hopefully, I’ve demonstrated the power and flexibility of Plasma once more, while giving you some fresh aesthetic ideas. Enjoy yourselves and such. Do ping me if you want any other Plasma wizardry spells. And now, for something completely different.

=> ↺ KDE Plasma Application Update » PCLinuxOS

• The KDE Plasma Desktop application packages have been updated to 21.12.2. This is a service release update.

=> ↺ Okular: Signature support now works on Windows

• Since a few hours ago the Okular version available in the Microsoft Store for Windows has the same signature support than the Linux/FreeBSD versions.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Felix Häcker: #29 New Year, New Calendar

• Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from January 28 to February 04.

Distributions

=> ↺ Best Linux Distributions For Everyone in 2022

• There are many Linux distributions. I can’t even think of coming up with an exact number because you would find loads of Linux distros that differ from one another in one way or the other.

• Some of them just turn out to be a clone of one another, while some of them tend to be unique. So, it’s kind of a mess—but that is the beauty of Linux.

• Fret not, even though thousands of distributions are around, in this article, I have compiled a list of the best Linux distros available now. Of course, the list can be subjective. But, here, we try to categorize the distros—so there’s something for everyone.

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 Education brings technology based education closer to everyone and everywhere

• Via this website I don’t do that much Linux news related articles. My focus is always more on application related tutorials and tutorial series and use cases supported by Linux and apps. But sometimes there are new things that I find interesting to share on this website, such as the just announced new Zorin OS 16 Education distribution. The team behind Zorin OS offers multiple variants of their distribution, including a version focused on education. The importance of this is the fact that such a Linux distribution is good for people and groups of people that normally do not have access to good educational solutions, such as in underdeveloped countries. But of course it can be implemented for all other situations and user groups as well. I was lucky enough to enjoy a good education, but I am also very aware that this is a luxury compared to so many who have fewer opportunities or no opportunities at all. Everyone has the right to and should have access to good education and the new Zorin OS 16 Education is in my opinion a big deal in bringing digital educational solutions closer to everyone and everywhere.

=> ↺ Best Linux Distros For 2022 [Latest Version]

• Linux is no doubt one of the most popular operating systems these days preferred by a range of users. Whether you are an expert or beginner, Linux is there for you to cater to your need. In this post, we are listing out some of the best Linux distros for 2022.

New Releases

=> ↺ Wean your child off of Windows 11 and get them on Zorin OS 16 Education Linux distro

• Back in August of 2021, we told you about Zorin OS 16 — an absolutely brilliant Linux distribution for those switching from Windows. Its familiarity, polish, and inclusion of excellent software makes it not only a solid choice for Linux newbies, but experts too.

• And now, Zorin OS 16 Education is here. This specialized version of the operating system is designed specifically for students. With many people believing Linux is the future, Zorin OS 16 Education should be a great way to teach your child about the open source kernel. If you let your young student rely solely on Windows 11, they could end up being unprepared and unequipped for the new Linux world.

• “This new release of Zorin OS Education takes advantage of the new features and enhancements in Zorin OS 16, our most advanced operating system ever. These include a faster and improved desktop, easier onboarding with the new Tour, quicker navigation with touchpad gestures, and access to more apps than ever before, just to name a few. Improved hardware support also ensures that you’re getting the best experience on computers old and new,” explains the Zorin OS development team.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2022/05

• Week 5 – 5 snapshots. I hope nobody expects that we keep up the ‘week number == number of snapshots’, or I’ll be in deep trouble very soon. Looking at the staging dashboard it seems like the vacation period is definitively over: almost all stagings are full, but as not too many submitted things have proven to be broken it makes the stagings still manageable. It gets really difficult if we end up with a lot of breakage in the Stagings, then need to chase fixes.

Slackware Family

=> ↺ The Wait is Over! Slackware 15.0 Stable Hit the Streets

• Slackware Linux 15.0 hit the streets on February 3, 2022. Either way, the latest version of the legendary Linux distro led by Patrick Volkerding is available for download.

• Slackware is, above whatever else, the world’s oldest surviving maintained Linux distribution. Patrick Volkerding created the Slackware Linux distribution in 1993, based on Softlanding Linux System.

• Slackware’s goal is to offer design stability and simplicity as the most Unix-like Linux distribution. It does that by avoiding as much as possible any modifications to upstream software packages.

• In addition, Slackware eschews the Linux distro trend of changing to the systemd initialization process. It’s a completely systemd-free Linux distro. It uses init rather than systemd as its process manager. Systemd has its roots in modern Linux distros, while init comes from the Unix System V design, and there is a difference.

• Probably because of this, Slackware Linux is noted for being the most Unix-like of all Linux distributions. Well, probably side by side with Void Linux.

• With five years and seven months in the making, I honestly have had some difficulty believing that this would eventually really happen, but yet here it is. 2044 days after the previous 14.2 release (June 30, 2016) the new Slackware Linux 15.0 stable is here! With that said, let’s quickly take a look at what’s new.

=> ↺ Linux, BSD, and everything else…: Slackware 15.0 Finally Released After 5 1/2 Years

• “Well folks, in spite of the dire predictions of YouTube pundits, this morning the Slackhog emerged from its development den, did not see its shadow, and Slackware 15.0 has been officially released – another six weeks (or years) of the development treadmill averted. This has been an interesting development cycle (in the “may you live in interesting times” sense). Anyone who has followed Linux development over the years has seen the new technology and a slow but steady drift away from the more UNIX-like structure. The challenge this time around was to adopt as much of the good stuff out there as we could without changing the character of the operating system. Keep it familiar, but make it modern. And boy did we have our work cut out for us. We adopted PAM (finally) as projects we needed dropped support for pure shadow passwords. We switched from ConsoleKit2 to elogind, making it much easier to support software that targets that Other Init System and bringing us up-to-date with the XDG standards. We added support for PipeWire as an alternate to PulseAudio, and for Wayland sessions in addition to X11. Dropped Qt4 and moved entirely to Qt5. Brought in Rust and Python 3. Added many, many new libraries to the system to help support all the various additions. We’ve upgraded to two of the finest desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.16, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and the KDE Plasma 5 graphical workspaces environment, version 5.23.5 (the Plasma 25th Anniversary Edition). This also supports running under Wayland or X11.”

=> ↺ Zenwalk GNU Linux: Zenwalk 15.0 “Skywalker” milestone is ready

• Following the release of the so long awaited Slackware 15.0 , here we go for the Zenwalk 15.0 “Skywalker”, aka “It must be very stable after all this time” milestone.

• As usual for a milestone release, most packages have been rebuilt down here or upstream.

• Desktop is the latest XFCE 4.16, with the special Zenwalk layout : this unusual NEXT/Windowmaker inspired dock system, with unique panel placement for ergonomic user access to the whole desktop area, is optimized for modern wide screens, making most other OS including the Fruit look a bit deprecated (jokin’ of course)).

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ New Red Hat CFO talks priorities after latest C-suite shuffle

• For the third time in a year, Red Hat is replacing a retiring executive with a woman – a rarity in the tech world. And her priorities will focus on analytics.

=> ↺ Red Hat Extends Comprehensive Kubernetes Platform with Consistent and Persistent Storage

• Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is now included in Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, bringing data services, including software-defined storage, to the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform in a single holistic solution. Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus provides a complete, multicloud Kubernetes stack out of the box, addressing crucial needs of DevSecOps and application development professionals. The addition of Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation gives developers a consistent data platform with persistent storage that can span clouds and infrastructure, combined with data management capabilities for IT operations teams.

=> ↺ Fedora Community Blog: CPE Weekly Update – Week of January 31st – February 4th

• Purpose of this team is to take care of day to day business regarding CentOS and Fedora Infrastructure and Fedora release engineering work.

=> ↺ Remi Collet: PHP version 8.0.16RC1 and 8.1.3RC1

• Release Candidate versions are available in testing repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for a parallel installation, perfect solution for such tests, and also as base packages.

• RPM of PHP version 8.1.3RC1 are available as SCL in remi-test repository and as base packages in the remi-php81-test repository for Fedora 33-35 and Enterprise Linux.

• RPM of PHP version 8.0.16RC1 are available as SCL in remi-test repository and as base packages in the remi-test repository for Fedora 35 or in the remi-php80-test repository for Fedora 33-34 and Enterprise Linux.

=> ↺ How we hired an open source developer | Opensource.com

• As the CEO and co-founder of Profian, a start-up security company, I’ve been part of our effort to hire developers to work on Enarx, a security project that deals with confidential computing, written almost exclusively in Rust (with a bit of Assembly). Profian has now found all the people it was looking for in this search, with a couple of developers due to start in the next few weeks. However, new contributors are absolutely welcome to Enarx, and if things continue to go well, the company will definitely want to hire more folks in the future.

• Hiring people is not easy, and Profian had a set of specialized requirements that made the task even more difficult. I thought it would be useful and interesting for the community to share how we approached the problem.

=> ↺ Irving Wladawsky-Berger: The Work of the Future Is Ours to Invent

• The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines, by David Autor, David Mindell and Elisabeth Reynolds was published last week. The new book is based on the multiyear MIT Task Force on The Work of the Future that they jointly co-chaired.

• The Task Force was commissioned by MIT President Rafael Reif in the spring of 2018 to address one of the most critical questions of the digital economy, – an economy that technology universities like MIT have played a major role in bringing about: as emerging technologies raise aggregate economic output and the wealth of nations, will they also enable people to attain higher living standards, better working conditions, greater economic security, and improved health and longevity? Led by Autor, Mindell and Reynolds, the task force involved over 20 faculty members from 12 departments at MIT as well as more than 20 graduate students. Its final report was released in November of 2020. In addition, the Task Force published a number of working papers and research briefs.

• “Amidst a technological ecosystem delivering rising productivity, and an economy generating plenty of jobs (at least until the COVID-19 crisis), we found a labor market in which the fruits are so unequally distributed, so skewed towards the top, that the majority of workers have tasted only a tiny morsel of a vast harvest.” was the Task Force overarching conclusion. But, it argued that with better policies in place, more people could enjoy good careers even as new technologies transform the very nature of work.

• [...]

• As I read the book’s concluding section, two major messages came through loud and clear. First, technological advances are not driving us toward a jobless future. More than 60% of today’s jobs hadn’t even been invented in 1940. “Inventing new ways of accomplishing existing work, new business models, and entirely new industries drives rising productivity and new jobs. Innovation brings new occupations to life, generates demands for new forms of expertise, and creates opportunities for rewarding work. What human work will look like a century from now is unknown, but most jobs of tomorrow will be distinct from those today, and will owe their existence to the innovations sprouting from scientific and technological progress.”

• Finally, the work of the future is ours to invent. The central challenge ahead is to advance labor market opportunities to meet, complement, and shape technological innovations. “The economic history of the twentieth century shows that a healthy labor market can serve as the foundation for shared prosperity. Well-designed institutions foster opportunity, buttress economic security, and spur democratic participation. The US must commit to rebuilding this foundation in the twenty-first century. It needs to strengthen and build these institutions, launch new investments, and forge policies that ensure that work remains a central, rewarded, esteemed, and economically viable avenue for most adults to prosper.”

=> ↺ IT leadership: 5 signs of a mentor with generational intelligence

• If your workplace is like many, your co-workers represent four, and maybe even five, generations: There are Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers, all of whom are defined by the world events, personal experiences, and, yes, technology that shaped them.

• On the surface, it would seem there’s plenty of opportunity for the more experienced employees to mentor those with less experience. And while that’s true, the opposite can be true as well. When it comes to mentoring, age and job title are irrelevant. Everyone has the potential to teach others and learn from others. You don’t have to be the CEO or the head of your IT department to mentor someone.

• Instead, what’s required these days is generational intelligence, which means being aware of others’ experiences or worldviews, understanding their preferences, and using this information to adapt and better collaborate.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Out of beta and ready for data: 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS is here

• The Raspberry Pi Foundation has officially released the 64-bit version of the Linux-based OS Formerly Known As Raspbian.

• A year and nine months after the beta was announced, the 64-bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS is ready for download.

• If you’re still rocking an older Pi, be aware that the first few models had 32-bit-only CPUs. The new 64-bit OS won’t run on a Pi 1, Pi 2, or Pi Zero.

• Nearly two years is long enough to iron out quite a few wrinkles, but not all. The release notes describe a gotcha: you’ll need to install a 32-bit version of Chromium to watch Netflix or Disney+. Since a lot of Pis are attached to TV sets for use as media players and streamers, that will be important to quite a few owners.

=> ↺ A 64-Bit Raspberry Pi OS At Last

• Long-term Raspberry Pi watchers will have seen a lot of OS upgrades in their time, from the first Debian Squeeze previews through the Raspbian years to the current Raspberry Pi OS. Their latest OS version is something different though, and could be one of the most important releases in the platform’s history so far, as finally there’s an official release of a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS.

• Would-be 64-bit Pi users have of course had the chance to run 64-bit GNU/Linux operating system builds from other distributions for nearly as long as there have been Pi models with 64-bit processors, but until now the official distribution has only been available as a 32-bit build. In their blog post they outline their reasons for this move in terms of compatibility and performance, and indeed we look forward to giving it a try.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ 12-year-old Rudra Saraswat’s Ubuntu projects • The Register

• There are some interesting developments to keep an eye on in the world of Ubuntu: a new client for the community software repo, a tool to help Ubuntu gamers – and Rudra Saraswat, the 12-year-old brains behind them.

• He announced Una on 1 February. It’s a client to simplify installing software from the MPR, or Makedeb Package Repository, a new home for community-contributed software analogous to Arch Linux’s AUR.

• He also created Gamebuntu, which he describes as “an app that helps to set up a complete environment for gaming on Ubuntu without any other tweaks.”

• Saraswat’s presenting a talk on it at the Ubuntu stand at this weekend’s virtual FOSDEM conference.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ India goes RISC, hooray!

• The Indian government has decided to develop its own microprocessor cores, by launching a Microprocessor Development Programme (MDP) that would help develop VEGA RISC-V microprocessor cores in the country…

=> ↺ The Fifteen Dollar Linux Computer

• Over the years we’ve seen many small computer boards of various abilities, among them many powerful enough to be almost-useful Linux general purpose computers. We’ve also seen more than a few computers that claimed the impossible, usually an amazing spec for a tiny price tag. Here for once is a small computer that’s neither of those two; a minimum viable Linux handheld terminal whose $15 USD price tag is openly discussed as a target price for a large production run rather than touted as its retail price.

• It’s the work of legendary former Hackaday writer [Brian Benchoff], and instead of being merely a PCB it’s a fully usable computer with case, keyboard and display. It’s based upon an Allwinner F1C100s SoC, it’s powered by AAA cells, and it sports a split rubber keyboard that likely builds on his previous experience with the VT-69 portable RS-232 terminal. On the back is a USB port and an SD reader, and in the centre of the front panel lies a 320 x 240 pixel display. It’s important to note that this is not intended to run a GUI, while it’s DOOM-capable it remains very much a command-line Linux tool. Perhaps most interestingly it’s claimed that all the parts are available in quantity here in the chip shortage, so maybe there’s even a chance we might see it as more than a project. We can hope.

Arduino

=> ↺ How to Read Analog Input and Serial Output

• To read the analog input of the Arduino the analogRead() function is used and the output of the read function is then displayed. Similarly, it can be said that if there is varying output of a device that is to be given to Arduino the analogRead() function can be used. Furthermore, the serial function in Arduino is used to print the output of the Arduino code. Here in this context reading of the analog input and the serial function is briefly explained by using analog read functions.

=> ↺ How to Interface LCD with Arduino in 4-bit and 8-bit Modes

• To display the output of an Arduino program mostly the liquid crystal display is used and there are two modes through which the display can be interfaced. One mode is using the four data pins from D4 to D7, and the other mode is using all the 8 data pins of the display that is from D0 to D7. The use of both modes of the 16×2 display is explained with the help of examples in this discourse.

=> ↺ How to Interface LCD with Arduino

• In Arduino programming there are multiple ways for displaying the output of the Arduino program or a project. One way of displaying the output is by using a display module and interfacing it with Arduino. This write-up discusses the interfacing of the liquid crystal display with the Arduino.

=> ↺ How to Use EEPROM library in Arduino

• In Arduino programming when a sketch is uploaded to the Arduino board it remains there and is stored in the Arduino until it is erased or another sketch is uploaded. This data is stored in the EEPROM built in the Arduino. The use of EEPROM and its library is explained in this following context.

=> ↺ Top Arduino Projects Ideas for Beginners

• To learn and work on the circuits for beginners Arduino is the simplest and the easiest way for them. So, to get familiar with the circuits one should start from making simple and easy circuits. So, we have given some start-up Arduino projects that can be helpful for the beginners to learn more about circuits and Arduino boards.

=> ↺ Arduino Liquid Crystal Library

• To display the output of an Arduino program there are multiple ways one of which is using the Liquid crystal display. To interface LCD with Arduino the library for the liquid crystal display is used and there are multiple functions of the library which can be used to perform various tasks for displaying the output.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ First Things To Do with Your New Android Phone

=> ↺ Galaxy A41 Receives New Update With January Patch, No Android 12 Yet

=> ↺ Android 12 Is No Match for This SwiftKey Bug – Review Geek

=> ↺ Add 256GB of storage to your Nintendo Switch, tablet or Android for just $30 today – CNET

=> ↺ Nacon MG-X Pro Android Controller Review: Comfortable Portable Gaming

=> ↺ Android TV: Must-have apps for 2022 [Video] – 9to5Google

=> ↺ How To Change USB Settings On Android | Screen Rant

=> ↺ Amlogic S905C2 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor supports digital TV tuners, CAS – CNX Software

=> ↺ 20% of Android Users Want to Buy the Latest Samsung Galaxy Phone According to This Survey / Digital Information World

=> ↺ android: Google wanted to make Android phones’ lockscreen and always-on display smarter – Times of India

=> ↺ The best Android gaming controllers in 2022

=> ↺ Xiaomi brings MIUI 13 and Android 12 to the POOC F3 GT with Mi Pilot build – NotebookCheck.net News

=> ↺ Google Pixel tablet to rely on Android 12L with optimisations for large displays – NotebookCheck.net News

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ New York Times editorial director of games on creating her ideal corner of the internet

• Unfortunately, I am obsessed with TikTok.

• [...]

• Frankly, I’m already kind of doing it! The existing puzzle community is super engaged, but I want to expose it to more people and bring in fresh blood. To do that, we’re working on shoring up social media spaces (as we speak I’m slacking on a TikTok account I’m supposed to be running), and publishing more stories and features. I have a lot of exciting stuff to announce in the New Year.

=> ↺ Here’s how to watch the games with Firefox because we all need a winter distraction

• If omicron canceled your winter plans, watching the Beijing games may be the next best thing. Can’t snowboard? See star athletes shred. Closed ski resort? Leave the poles to the pros. And yes, it feels like we just put out the flames on the torch — less than six months ago to be exact. But what else can we do? Our jobs? It’s year three of the pandemic. We deserve a little screen-time distraction.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ News – The Month in WordPress – January 2022 – WordPress.org

• There are a few significant moments in the history of the WordPress project. January 2022 is one of them, with the release of WordPress 5.9! But that’s not all. Read on to learn more about the latest updates and achievements from the community.

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ GStreamer 1.20.0 new major stable release

• The GStreamer team is excited to announce a new major feature release of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

• As always, this release is again packed with new features, bug fixes and many other improvements.

• The 1.20 release series adds new features on top of the previous 1.18 series and is part of the API and ABI-stable 1.x release series of the GStreamer multimedia framework.

=> ↺ GStreamer 1.20.0 released

• Version 1.20.0 of the GStreamer multimedia system is out. Changes include a new high-level playback library replacing GstPlayer, decoding support for WebM Alpha, updated Rust bindings, and more; see the announcement for lots of details.

=> ↺ If Software is My Copilot, Who Programmed My Software?

=> ↺ Software Freedom Conservancy

• Software freedom is our goal. Copyleft is a strategy to reach that goal. That tenet is oft forgotten by activists. Copyleft is even abused to advance proprietary goals. We too often see concern about the future of copyleft overshadow the necessary fundamental question: does a particular behavior or trend — and the inevitable outcomes of those behaviors and trends — increase or decrease users’ rights to copy, share, modify, and reinstall modified versions of their software? That question remains paramount as we face new challenges.

• Introduced first by Microsoft’s GitHub in their Copilot product, computer-assisted software authorship by way of machine learning models presents a formidable challenge to software freedom’s future. Yet, we can, in fact, imagine a software freedom utopia that embodies this technology. Imagine that all software authors have access to the global archive of machine learning models — and they are fullly reproducible. Everyone has equal rights to fork these models, train them further with their own datasets, provided that they must release new models (and the input code) freely in the global archive. All code produced by these models is also made freely available under copyleft. All code that builds the models, all historical input sets, and all trained models are all also made available to everyone under copyleft licenses.

• While activists might quibble about minor details to optimize imagined utopia, this thought experiment shows computer-assisted software authorship does not inherently negate software freedom. Rather, the rules, requirements, and policies that apply will determine whether software freedom is respected. To paraphrase Hamlet: there is nothing either good or bad, but the policy makes it so.

=> ↺ GNU dbm Version 1.23

• New in this version: Bucket cache switched from balanced tree to hash table (Change suggested by Terence Kelly) Speed up flushing the changed buckets on disk New option codes for gdbm_setopt GDBM_GETDBFORMAT – Get the current database format. GDBM_GETDIRDEPTH – Get the database directory depth. GDBM_GETBUCKETSIZE – Get maximum number of keys per bucket. GDBM_GETCACHEAUTO – Get the status of the automatic cache adjustment. GDBM_SETCACHEAUTO – Enable or disable automatic cache adjustment. No messages in Version 1.23

=> ↺ Analog or digital, prepping makes no sense | Stop at Zona-M

• Digital activists have been advocating for decades now that all software should be Free As In Freedom, or that everybody should run their own server for every online communication, to avoid being spied and controlled by governments or multinationals.

• Trouble is, too many of them have done this, and keep doing this, with the same attitude that Harley just abandoned: living in places far away from ordinary people. They are digital places instead of analog, physical wilderness, but too far away all the same.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Nibble Stew: Converting Godot game engine to Meson, how you can help

• Note that if you encounter bugs, please do not file them against the upstream project unless you have verified that they also occur with a regular SCons build.

• Currently it compiles and runs for me on Linux, Windows and macOS, but the more people can verify it the better.

• It would be especially useful if people could test it on Android. FWICT the original uses Android Studio for the Java bits and somehow uses SCons to build a shared library that is used. The Meson build does build the shared lib, but it has not been tested. If someone with Android dev experience could set up and test the whole pipeline it would be great.

• The same goes for iOS, though I know even less how it should be set up as I have not really done iOS development. It should build for iOS (there is a cross file in the repo) but FWICT it has never been tested beyond that.

=> ↺ The Curious Case of the Responsible Process

• As of some of you might remember, Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) added a new Privacy tab to the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences.

=> ↺ Qt 6.3 Beta Released

• We have released the first Qt 6.3 Beta today. During the beta phase we provide multiple subsequent beta releases via the online installer. Target is to finalize Qt 6.3 based on the feedback received during the beta phase and release the Qt 6.3.0 at the end of March.

• Qt 6.3 brings multiple new features and improvements, as well as adds two new modules compared to Qt 6.2. For more information about the Qt 6.3 release, please check out the overview of the most important changes in Qt 6.3. We have already blogged about some of the new items coming with Qt 6.3 and will be publishing more posts in this blog around Qt 6.3 in the weeks to come.

• After the first beta released today, we will push out multiple new beta releases using the online installer. With this approach, it is easy for users to test the new features and provide feedback. We are not planning to publish separate blog posts for the subsequent beta releases and release candidate(s). In addition to binaries, source packages of each beta release are also available for those who prefer to build themselves.

Perl/Raku

=> ↺ My Favorite Modules: re | Tom Wyant [blogs.perl.org]

• The re module provides functionality relating to Perl’s regular expressions. It is either a module in the sense of potentially exporting stuff into your name space or a pragma in the sense of modifying the behavior of Perl within a lexical scope, or both, depending on how you use it.

=> ↺ Perl Weekly Challenge 150: Fibonacci Words and Square Free Integers

• These are some answers to the Week 149 of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Java

=> ↺ Basic Datatypes in Java

• A data type in a programming language is an attribute that instructs the computer on how to interpret the value given to the data. Datatypes can be classified into various categories on the basis of the value they store. Datatypes in Java are generally categorized into the following types.

=> ↺ Binary Search in Java

• Searching an array for the position of a value, and sorting the array, are two different processes. Searching means verifying if a value called the key, is found in the array. Sorting means putting all the values in the array in a particular order (ascending or descending). If an array is not sorted and searching is required, then the program has to start from index zero, then to index 1, then index 2, and so on, until it reaches the index of the value it is looking for. If the value occurs more than once, the first index should be returned.

• If the array is sorted first, say in ascending order, then searching becomes easy. The index is either less than the index for the middle element, if the key is less than the value of the middle index, or the index is equal to or greater than that of the middle index, if the value is equal to or greater than that of the middle index value.

• So just split the array into two. If the value lies on the left side, no need to waste time searching the right side; just search the left side. If the value lies on the right side, no need to waste time searching the left side; just search the right side. Since the array is already sorted completely, when either side is arrived at, it is split again into two, and only one of the new pairs of sides is searched. In fact, searching this way is just by splitting into two, until the index of the value is arrived at. No actual search in terms of scanning takes place because the array is already sorted. There may be some slight moving right, and some slight moving left in the array during the search.

• Binary implies, two. And so this kind of searching is called binary searching. There are different sorting orders: All the values in the array can be sorted in ascending order or descending order completely. An array can also be sorted in what is known as Binary Search Tree format. This is not complete sorting in ascending or descending order. However, the binary algorithm search still works with this format.

• This article explains Java Binary Search. Binary search algorithm in Java works on an array that is already sorted. Only complete sorting in ascending order is considered in this article. This article begins with illustration of the binary search algorithm. It then goes on to explain how to use the binarySearch() methods of the Java Arrays class.

=> ↺ Booleans in Java explained

• The datatypes in Java are categorized into two broader categories. One is primitive and the other is the non-primitive data type. Boolean belongs to the primitive data type of Java. Java Boolean variable takes either true or false value, and thus a Boolean variable or expression plays a vital role in decision making for programmers. This article provides an informative guide about Java Boolean and Java expression.

=> ↺ Bubble Sort with Java

• Bubble sort is the simplest sorting algorithm: Assume that there are elements in a row that are not sorted. Bubble sort scans the row from the left, swapping any adjacent pair of elements that are not in the correct order. This scanning of the whole row is repeated repeatedly until the whole row is sorted. If the sorting is to be ascending, then the adjacent pair is swapped to make the element on the left less than the element on the right. If the sorting is to be descending, then the adjacent pair is swapped to make the element on the left greater than the element on the right.

=> ↺ How to Set Path in Java

• Java is a renowned object-oriented programming language that is used to build multiple software. Due to its numerous advantages, it has become a popular choice for programmers and developers. There are multiple crucial things that should be kept in mind while coding in Java; setting a path is one of them. After installing a java platform you need to set a path for the operating system to find JDK packages and convert the source code into an executable code.

• Note: If your java files are being saved inside the JDK/bin folder then there is no need to set the path because the required tools such as java, javac will lie inside the active directory.

=> ↺ Operator’s precedence in java

• There are several Java operators that handle operations such as addition, subtraction, division, comparison, and much more. All these operations are assisted by several operators. The operators are applied to operands and they form an expression.

• An expression may contain one or multiple operators. In the case of multiple operators, the operators that have higher precedence will be solved first and then other operators are evaluated based on the precedence order. Thus, the precedence of the order must be known when you are working on expressions that contain multiple operators. This article provides a descriptive guide on operators’ precedence in Java.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Adblocking People and Non-adblocking People Experience a Totally Different Web – I’m Left Handed

=> ↺ In Defence of the Boring Web

Leftovers

=> ↺ Our URGENT need for simplicity, summarized

• Building driverless cars and cities that can handle them is infinitely more complex than building pyramids, even with “artificial intelligence” (if nothing else because that, too, would have to be achieved by human cooperation on unseen scales). The same applies to bearing the maddening, ever growing bureaucracy that surrounds many of us.

• [...]

• In general, lots of technologies tend to get cheaper substantially in the early phases of their lifecycle only, when there is still plenty of room for improvement in their manufacturing processes, and raw material extraction is on the rise. Today however, photovoltaic and wind energy technologies are far-far away from being new, and their raw materials’ “production” are peaking soon.

• In other words: these are mature technologies, where a few cents saved here and there are considered great achievements. Anything more than that comes from forced labor (polysilicon production in China), or from crossing some pretty basic environmental and health standards (take cobalt extraction in the Congo for example).

Science

=> ↺ Living longer with THESE social media? NOT good | Stop at Zona-M

• Some days ago, in the context of a more general email conversation, fellow IPG writer Dana Blankenhorn said:

• “We live so long these days we forget how long a period 50 years is.”

• “We still play music from that time but we never did that before. Playing something from 1970 today is like playing something from 1919 in 1970. Obsessing over Vietnam today is like people during Vietnam obsessing over WWI. Yet people do both… I call this Moore’s Law of Politics. It impedes change.“

Hardware

=> ↺ Working in Arm’s engineering team? You’re probably happy with your pay rise

• Arm has agreed a pay increase for employees following the scrapping of a wellbeing allowance last year, yet it appears that while engineers were offered an 8 per cent jump, other types of worker fared less well.

• As revealed by The Register in May 2021, Arm ended its FlexPot scheme, an annual allowance granted to employees and fixed-term contract workers, a move seen by some as effectively being a pay cut.

• The chip designer had also imposed an engineering hiring freeze that meant departments around the world were blocked from hiring new staff, even to fill any vacancies caused by employees leaving the firm.

• The hiring freeze was expected to last until the current owners Softbank sold Arm to US chipmaker Nvidia. At the time, this was anticipated to be done and dusted by April 2022, however the sale is delayed due to regulatory concerns and doubts were recently cast over whether the transaction will even go ahead at all.

=> ↺ Amid a chip supply crunch, 28nm may end up underused • The Register

• Amid the semiconductor crunch, there’s an interesting cliff forming at 28nm.

• While demand for other process nodes exceeds supply, the tech world’s need for that mid-level node may drop below available manufacturing capacity, if not already.

• Early indications of a potential oversupply at 28nm emerged during an earnings call with UMC, a top contract microchip manufacturer headquartered in Taiwan.

• “On the supply side, based on the announced capacity expansion plan, we do see the oversupply situation at 28nm to happen beyond 2023, not before 2023,” Jason Wong, president of UMC, told analysts on the call.

=> ↺ Android devices, demand in China help keep Qualcomm from worrying too much about losing Apple

• No Apple as a modem customer for much longer? Not too much of a problem for Qualcomm, which is now relying more than ever on Android and China, and to some extent, Windows, to make up for the lost revenue.

• “Android is a success story for us,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told analysts on a conference call on Wednesday. He was speaking following the release [PDF] of Qualy’s financial figures for the first quarter of its fiscal 2022, the three months to December 26.

• It’s perhaps not surprising Android is a success story as that’s the OS running on the majority of Qualcomm’s system-on-chips. Amon said device makers in China that are adopting Qualcomm’s components for use in Android handsets are a growth driver.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

Security

=> ↺ Cisco inferno: Networking giant reveals three 10/10 rated critical router bugs

• Cisco has revealed five critical bugs, three of them rated 10/10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, that impact four of its router families aimed at small businesses. And it only has patches available for two of the affected ranges.

=> ↺ Nothing to scoff at: Crisps and nuts biz KP Snacks smacked in ransomware hack attack

=> ↺ Microsoft Windows TCO

=> ↺ as usual

• Bleeping Computer reported they’d seen leak pages showing that the attackers were the WizardSpider ransomware gang, known for unleashing their signature Conti ransomware in a paralysing attack last year on the Republic of Ireland’s state-run health service.

=> ↺ Phishing kits’ use of man-in-the-middle reverse proxies is growing, warns Proofpoint

=> ↺ Announcing Istio 1.11.6

• This release contains bug fixes to improve robustness. This release note describes what’s different between Istio 1.11.5 and Istio 1.11.6

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

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (apng2gif, ruby2.5, ruby2.7, and strongswan), Fedora (389-ds-base, glibc, java-latest-openjdk, keylime, mingw-python-pillow, perl-Image-ExifTool, python-pillow, rust-afterburn, rust-askalono-cli, rust-below, rust-cargo-c, rust-cargo-insta, rust-fd-find, rust-lsd, rust-oxipng, rust-python-launcher, rust-ripgrep, rust-skim, rust-thread_local, rust-tokei, strongswan, vim, xen, and zola), Mageia (cryptsetup and expat), openSUSE (containerd, docker, glibc, and xen), Oracle (firefox, thunderbird, varnish:6, and vim), Red Hat (rh-maven36-log4j12 and varnish:6), SUSE (containerd, docker, glibc, samba, and xen), and Ubuntu (gdisk, graphviz, libdbi-perl, and mysql-5.7).

=> ↺ Reproducible Builds (diffoscope): diffoscope 203 released

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 203. This version includes the following changes:

=> ↺ Linux Kernel Bug Allows Kubernetes Container Escape

• Hackers could exploit a Linux kernel bug to escape Kubernetes containers and access critical resources; however, the threat is minimized as any attacker needs to have the specific Linux capability CAP_SYS_ADMIN.

=> ↺ The Alpha and Omega of software supply chain security

=> ↺ “take over” the ‘security’ in the so-called ‘supply chain’

• What is the Alpha-Omega Project? Its purpose is to “improve global open source software supply chain security by working with project maintainers to systematically look for new, as-yet-undiscovered vulnerabilities in open-source code” and then fix them. This is vital to improving open-source security.

=> ↺ CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

=> ↺ Microsoft Windows TCO

=> ↺ This Week in Security: Samba, Wormhole Crypto Heist, And A Bogus CVE

• Samba has a very serious vulnerability, CVE-2021-44142, that was just patched in new releases 4.13.17, 4.14.12, and 4.15.5. Discovered by researchers at TrendMicro, this unauthenticated RCE bug weighs in at a CVSS 9.9. The saving grace is that it requires the fruit VFS module to be enabled, which is used to support MacOS client and server interop. If enabled, the default settings are vulnerable. Attacks haven’t been seen in the wild yet, but go ahead and get updated, as PoC code will likely drop soon.

=> ↺ Execs keep flinging money at us instead of understanding security, moan infosec pros

• Fresh from years of complaining about underfunding and not having enough staff to deal with problems, infosec bods are now complaining that corporate execs merely firehose cash at them without getting their own hands dirty or engaging with the problem.

• That’s one conclusion that could be drawn from a Trend Micro study published yesterday. Around half of businesses surveyed are spending more on “cyber attacks” than they used to, it said, while a similar number reckon their C-suites don’t know what “cyber risk management” means – possibly something about ensuring monitors are firmly bolted to desks.

• “Low C-suite engagement combined with increased investment suggests a tendency to ‘throw money’ at the problem rather than develop an understanding of the cybersecurity challenges and invest appropriately,” intoned Trend Micro.

• The firm’s survey of 5,000 “IT and business decision makers” from companies with more than 250 employees concluded that clueless captains of industry were still a problem, no matter how much money they threw at the IT security department.

=> ↺ Worried about occasional npm malware scares? It’s more common than you may think

• Malware gets spotted in GitHub’s npm registry every few months, elevating concerns about the software supply chain until attention gets diverted and worries recede until the next fire drill.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Ian Jackson: EUDCC QR codes vs NHS “Travel” barcodes vs TAC Verify

• The EU Digital Covid Certificate scheme is a format for (digitally signed) vaccination status certificates. Not only EU countries participate – the UK is now a participant in this scheme.

• I am currently on my way to go skiing in the French Alps. So I needed a certificate that would be accepted in France. AFAICT the official way to do this is to get the “international” certificate from the NHS, and take it to a French pharmacy who will convert it into something suitably French. (AIUI the NHS “international” barcode is the same regardless of whether you get it via the NHS website, the NHS app, or a paper letter. NB that there is one barcode per vaccine dose so you have to get the right one – probably that means your booster since there’s a 9 month rule!)

=> ↺ Privacy Shield: EU citizens might get right to challenge US access to their data

• Officials from the EU and US are nearing a solution in long-running negotiations over transatlantic data sharing.

• Previous legal arrangements for sharing data between the two jurisdictions, the so-called Privacy Shield, were struck down by the EU Court of Justice in what became known as the Schrems II ruling in 2020.

• The decision had ramifications for US cloud providers, social media sites, and providers of online tools which are still becoming clear. Although it had been commonly held that standard contractual clauses (SCCs) may offer a way to continue to share data legally, that was also in doubt. Earlier this month, the Austrian data protection authority ruled that those arrangements were insufficient for data sharing.

=> ↺ From FLoC to Google Topics? No thanks

• FLoC is a standard that Google launched in 2021 to make targeted online advertising alive, but less harmful. It was soon clear that the basic proposition of FLoC was to tell users “please do the profiling YOURSELF”, without even really getting rid of invasive cookies.

• For those and other reasons, Google has recently announced a successor of FloC called “Topics API”. The developers of the Brave browser promptly replied that Topics does not addresses FLoC’s serious privacy issues at all. Here is a much shorter, plain English version of that critique, for general consumption.

=> ↺ Facebook Quarterly Earnings Report Shows It’s Losing Users

• Many were a bit confused by the direction Mark Zuckerberg is taking Facebook. He announced last year a rebranding under the name “Meta” with a move toward the metaverse. But the most recent quarterly earnings report showed why changes are being made: Facebook is losing users.

• [...]

• For the first time since Zuckerberg conceived of Facebook while sitting in his college dorm room, the social network is losing daily users. It’s the first time in 18 years. This happened in the last three months of 2021, around the time of the Meta announcement.

=> ↺ Facebook loses users for first time in history – The Washington Post

=> ↺ Grab some tissues: Facebook’s user base and profits shrank, tanking Meta’s share price

• For the first time in its history, Facebook has reported a decline in user numbers. Investors hammered the share price of Meta – Facebook’s parent company – after the market closed, with scrip slumping from around $323 to $249.

• The company on Wednesday reported its Q4 and full year 2021 results, revealing the company earned $33.7 billion for Q4 and $118 billion for the full year – respective year-on-year rises of 20 per cent and 37 per cent. Net income for the quarter was $10.3 billion, a dip from Q4 2020′s $11.2 billion. For the full year, net income climbed 35 per cent to $29.1 billion.

=> ↺ Stop normalizing mass surveillance in Latin America – Access Now

• In many cities around the world, when you go out in public, you are unknowingly exposing yourself to surveillance, including the use of mass surveillance tools that record, analyze, and store your personal biometric data — your face, your voice, the way you walk, and more. Even if you know you may be under surveillance, most people have no idea how their personal data is being used or who has access to it. And in countries across Latin America, both governments and the companies that develop this type of technology refuse to be transparent, leaving citizens in the dark about the privacy violations and threats they face.

• Authorities that deploy mass surveillance technology often repeat a set of narratives to justify its adoption and expansion. We hear that “more technology is always an improvement,” “it’s better for public safety,” and “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” But are these arguments backed by the facts?

• It’s important to look at who is making these justifications. Both tech companies and governments have an interest in the “success” of surveillance systems and the power that data brings with it. Other authorities, eager for solutions, may incorporate dangerous new technologies without fully understanding their scope.

Finance

=> ↺ Indian PM says digital rupee will facilitate creation of global digital payment scheme

• Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has offered some more details about the nation’s newly revealed plan to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the next year.

• In a speech delivered to members of the Bharatiya Janata Party he leads, Modi explained that the proposed payment system will be the digital form of India’s physical currency and will be convertible into cash. The PM also said the digital currency will be accepted for digital, online, and retail transactions. In the latter scenario, he suggested merchants will appreciate a reduction in cash handling costs.

=> ↺ Russia’s Sputnik V and the WEF with Riley Waggaman

• In this episode, Whitney is joined by Moscow-based journalist Riley Waggaman to explore the oligarchs and bankers behind Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine and their ties to the dystopian rollout of Digital ID and CBDCs in the country.

=> ↺ Google Cloud loses $3bn despite delaying server purchases • The Register

• Google Cloud has racked up another 12 months of losses, despite extending the life of its hardware by a year.

• The search and ads giant in 2021 revealed that it extended the operational lifespan of its cloud servers from three to four years and found it could squeeze an extra couple of years out of some networking kit, sometimes going five years between refreshes.

• In its Q4 2021 results announcement Google’s parent company Alphabet revealed the financial impact of that change: for the full year Google Cloud reduced depreciation expenses by $2.6 billion.

• But even with those old servers generating savings, Google Cloud produced losses: $890 million in Q4 and $3.1 billion across the year.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ EARN IT Act — an attack on free expression and privacy — is back – Access Now

• This week U.S. Senators Blumenthal and Graham reintroduced the EARN IT Act, legislation that would jeopardize free expression, undermine online safety, and deprive people of the benefits of strong encryption. Access Now continues to oppose the bill, slated to be considered in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks.

• The EARN IT Act threatens to deprive internet intermediaries of safe harbor protection, and expose them to liability for content posted by third-party users, unless they take certain steps to block child sexual abuse material. The looming threat of litigation and liability under the EARN IT Act will result in a decline in encrypted services, and is an attack on the privacy, security, and online safety of all people in the United States.

=> ↺ The EARN IT Act Is Back

• Senators have reintroduced the EARN IT Act, requiring social media companies (among others) to administer a massive surveillance operation on their users…

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Student data exposed on Andhra Pradesh Government Examination website!

• Sai Sravan Prabhala, a cyber-security researcher, informed us of a critical vulnerability exposing the sensitive personal information of minors. This existed on the website of the Directorate of Government Examinations, Government of Andhra Pradesh’s for the 2021 examinations. While this functionality itself has been removed, to prevent it from occurring again assisted by Sai, we have written to them and CERT-In.

• Background

• On 22nd December 2021, cyber-security researcher Sai Sravan Prabhala reached out to us, to bring to our notice a vulnerability in the Andhra Pradesh Directorate of Government Examination website which put the sensitive personal information of minors at risk of misuse. The Directorate of Government Examinations is an independent department functioning under the ministry of secondary education, Government of Andhra Pradesh. The department is responsible for conducting the SSC/OSSC Public Examinations, along with other minor examinations.

• With the assistance of Mr. Prabhala, we discovered that the website of the Directorate of Government Examinations, Government Andhra Pradesh, which can be accessed at: https://www.bse.ap.gov.in/, suffered from a vulnerability that enabled any person to access and also edit the sensitive personal data of minors including their caste location, religious affiliation, and their disability status. Their phone number and identification marks as per school records could also be edited and accessed on the said website.

• The vulnerability could be discovered by clicking on the link: “SSC Public Examinations – 2021 – Edit Online Application”. This led to a login page, which could be accessed by entering the school number in both the “User ID” and “Password fields”. The school number could be obtained by clicking on the “SSC Public Examinations 2020 and 2021 Results” link and then going to the “Individual Student Wise Results of SSC Public Examinations 2021” page where a drop-down menu in the “school” field revealed a list of schools along with their school numbers. A more detailed list of steps along with screenshots explaining how the vulnerability is discovered can be found in our representation dated 02.02.2022.

=> ↺ CIC admonishes the MHA and seeks confirmation on affidavit of destruction of surveillance data

• IFF had filed six RTI applications with the Ministry of Home Affairs (‘MHA’) seeking statistical data on the e-surveillance authorised by the government. The information was initially denied by the MHA on grounds of national security, but when the matter was sent back for re-examination by the Central Information Commission (‘CIC’), the MHA claimed that it could not provide the information because it simply did not have it. We challenged this again before the CIC and the matter was heard on January 13, 2022. The CIC has “admonished” the CPIO for changing its stance and sought confirmation on non-availability of data on e-surveillance on affidavit

Monopolies

=> ↺ US Senate to vote on stopping Big Tech extracting ‘monopolist rent’ from app developers

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• The US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to pass the Open App Markets Act, despite intense lobbying from Apple and Google.

• The bill, S.2710 [PDF], limits the kinds of restrictions major app platforms can impose on competitors, developers, and customers, will now be considered by a full Senate vote.

• If approved, along with its companion bill H.R. 5017 [PDF] introduced in the House of Representatives last year, and then signed by President Biden, the legislation will remake an app economy that generates well over $100bn annually.

• During the committee hearing in Washington DC, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the bill’s sponsor, likened Apple and Google to past US railroad monopolies.

=> ↺ The job of regulation is to make decentralization work | Stop at Zona-M

• Especially in a digitally networked age.

• “100 years of whatever this will be” by @apenwarr is a great post about certain “patterns, of major things wrong with our society, [that] go far beyond tech, extending into economics and politics and culture”. Apenwarr also deserves extra points for saying in his website “Why would you follow me on twitter? Use RSS”, but that is another story.

• That post is great because it synthesizes clearly why and how the efforts towards atomization, decentralization, (only) individual freedom that pervades much of current society cannot work, in the long run.

=> ↺ Facebook fined 0.000006% of profits after Giphy staff quit • The Register

• British competition regulators have again fined Facebook, this time 0.000006 per cent of its annual profits, for ignoring them – a move that’s bound to have CEO Mark Zuckerberg sobbing for mercy.

• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first locked horns with Facebook in 2020, when it demanded more information on the company’s proposed $400m buy of Giphy. The sale was subsequently denied clearance last last year.

• The latest £1.5m ($2.03m) fine was imposed after three key staffers left Giphy. The CMA had imposed a legal order on Facebook owner Meta forcing the company to reveal if any “staff in positions of executive or managerial responsibility and/or whose performance affects the viability of the business” resigned.

• Referring to the tiny sum in a summary issued today [PDF], the CMA said: “It is not anomalous, nor would it affect Meta materially.” It is difficult to see what a non-material fine is supposed to achieve.

=> ↺ EU project Gaia-X hands out ID tech contracts • The Register

• The Gaia-X project has awarded work to a consortium including Vereign and DAASI International that takes it one step closer to realising Self Sovereign Identity technology.

• A goal of Gaia-X is to reduce the dependency of European companies and governments on US technology providers via a federated European data infrastructure.

• Just four months ago, French cloud hosting outfit Scaleway decided to leave the consortium, claiming: “Gaia-X as a construct is only reinforcing the status quo, which is that dominating players will keep dominating.”

• However, this week’s award does not mention the likes of Microsoft or Amazon at all. Instead it is a German (DAASI International) and a Swiss (Vereign) firm that will be popping the code in GitLab for a personal credential manager, organisational credential manager and a trust services API. The first fruits are expected within six months and interested parties are encouraged to get involved during the development phase.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Copyright, What You Need To Know | Hackaday

• Last week brought the story of a group of crypto enthusiasts who paid well over the going rate for a rare sci-fi book, then proposed encoding scans of all its pages in a blockchain before making and selling NFTs of them. To guarantee their rarity the book was then to be burned. Aside from the questionable imagery surrounding book burning in general, one of the sources of mirth in the story was their mistaken idea that in buying a copy of a rare book they had also acquired its copyright rather than simply paying too much for a book.

• It’s an excuse for a good laugh, but it’s also an opportunity to talk about copyright as it affects our community. I’m not a lawyer and I’m not here to give legal advice. Instead this is based on the working knowledge gathered over decades working in the content publishing industries.

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