● 02.07.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 8/2/2022: Fragments 2.0 and Comparing Various GNU/Linux Distros Online

Posted in News Roundup at 7:30 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ 5 Reasons to Install Linux on an Old Computer

• Short on cash to upgrade your PC? Installing Linux is a great way to breathe new life into your aging computer and save money.

• A lot of people like to use Linux on older machines. The reasons for doing so obviously vary from person to person. Some may want to save money by not upgrading to a new computer, whereas others may wish to avoid e-waste. And yes, you’ll also find many people who think running Linux is fun.

• If you’re struggling to find a solid excuse, we’ll list out various reasons why you should consider installing Linux on your old computer.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ WP Briefing: Episode 24: Three Goals in 2022

• In episode 24 of the WordPress Briefing, the Project’s Executive Director reviews three big-picture goals for the year: Increased Gutenberg adoption, support of all open source alternatives, and stewarding the open source ethos.

=> ↺ Late Night Linux – Episode 163 – Late Night Linux

• Why FOSS is unlikely to gain traction in education, what’s great about Discourse, Linux gaming, the uncertain future of Termux, our thoughts on Snap and Flatpak, and more.

=> ↺ Middle Mouse On Linux Is Incredibly Powerful – Invidious

• I rarely touch my middle mouse button but it turns out it has a lot more power than I ever knew, there’s the obvious autoscroll feature in browsers which I didn’t know worked on Linux but there’s so much more

=> ↺ If you’re not using Flatpaks, you’re doing Linux wrong. – Invidious

• They’re the future of Linux app distribution. Distros like Elementary, Pop, and even Steam OS support them by default. So here’s what they are, how they work, and a bit of their history!

Applications

=> ↺ Flatpak App of the Week: Fragments – Modern BitTorrent Client for the GNOME Desktop

• Fragments is an easy-to-use BitTorrent client based on the well-known Transmission BitTorrent client (uses transmission-daemon), which is used as a backend for transferring data. The app is written in GTK and it’s designed specifically for use with the GNOME desktop environment.

• You’re probably already using Fragments since it is being developed for a few years now. But the latest release, Fragments 2.0, caught my attention as it brings lots of new features and improvements, and it’s completely rebuilt using Rust, GTK4, and the libadwaita library.

=> ↺ GNOME BitTorrent Client Fragments 2.0 Released! GTK4, Libadwaita & Remote Control

• The Fragments BitTorrent client finally released version 2.0. It’s now uses Rust, GTK4 and the new Libadwaita library to provide a stylish user interface for those running Linux with GNOME desktop.

• For those never heard of Fragments, it’s a free open-source torrent app that uses Transmission as backend for transferring data. With it, user may starting downloading via…

=> ↺ BitTorrent Client ‘Fragments 2.0′ for Linux is Here, Rebuilt Using Rust with a New UI

• Fragments is one of the best torrent clients for Linux.

• The latest Fragments 2.0 is a significant upgrade, completely rewritten from scratch using Rust, GTK 4, and Libadwaita.

• In addition to the technical improvements, you will also find some new features and an improved user interface.

=> ↺ The road to Fragments 2.0

• It was a bit quiet around Fragments, many had the fear that Fragments will no longer be maintained.

• These rumors I can proudly counter, and can now announce that Fragments 2.0 is now available after about a year of development!

=> ↺ Twine: Open Source Tool for Making Games with Words, aka Interactive Fiction

• Everyone has a game inside them waiting to come out, just like a chestburster. Unfortunately, not everyone has the skills to create a game, especially one complete with graphics. Thankfully, there is a way to create a fun game using only words. Let me share an application that could help you with it.

• As I alluded to above, Twine allows anyone to create a game without needing to know how to write code. Remember those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books? That’s essentially how Twine works.

• You create a series of passages, which can be one sentence or a wall of text. You named each of these passages, so you can keep track of them. After that, you connect these passages and create several paths for the player to follow based on their decisions.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Metasploit Tutorial for Beginners – Basics to Advanced

• Metasploit, one of the most widely used penetration testing tools, is a very powerful all-in-one tool for performing different steps of a penetration test.

• If you ever tried to exploit some vulnerable systems, chances are you have used Metasploit, or at least, are familiar with the name. It allows you to find information about system vulnerabilities, use existing exploits to penetrate the system, helps create your own exploits, and much more.

• In this tutorial, we’ll be covering the basics of Metasploit Framework in detail and show you real examples of how to use this powerful tool to the fullest.

=> ↺ Running unit tests in Jenkins – Octopus Deploy

• Verifying code changes with unit tests is a critical process in typical development workflows. Jenkins provides a number of plugins to collect and process the results of tests allowing developers to browse the results, debug failed tests, ignore some test failures, and generate reports on the history of tests over time.

• In this post, you learn how to add unit tests to a Jenkins project and configure plugins to process the results.

=> ↺ Running end-to-end tests in Jenkins – Octopus Deploy

• End-to-end (E2E) tests represent the final stages of automated testing. E2E tests are long-running, especially compared to unit tests which can complete thousands of checks in seconds. They are typically executed by external tools which interact with the application under test, through public interfaces like web pages or HTTP APIs.

• In this post, you learn how to run E2E tests with Cypress to validate interactions with web pages and with Newman, the command-line test runner for Postman, to validate HTTP APIs.

=> ↺ Install Facebook Messenger On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS [Update]

• No doubt Facebook is one of the most popular social media networks these days. Now under Meta, Facebook has a massive userbase with a high volume of usage. 1.93 billion people use Facebook on daily basis. You can access Facebook from the web browser or from its official mobile application. Meanwhile, there are plenty of third-party apps available these days from where you can access and manage your Facebook account. In this tutorial post, we are going to show you the process to Install Facebook Messenger on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

=> ↺ How to Setup Django with Postgres, Nginx and Gunicorn on Ubuntu 20.04 – RoseHosting

• Django is an open-source web framework written in Python. It is a popular all-in-one web framework and one of the top choices for many developers. Django offers many advantages, such as MVT (Model View Template) architecture, automatic admin panel, and powerful ORM (Object Relational Mapping) database support. It also offers awesome debugging tools for developers. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Django with PostgreSQL as the database storage instead of the default SQLite, Nginx as the reverse proxy, and Gunicorn as the application server on Ubuntu 20.04.

=> ↺ How to Install Angular on Ubuntu – VITUX

• Angular is a free and open-source JavaScript-based framework for developing single-page applications, it is the successor of the AngularJS framework. It is maintained by Google, the same company that created JavaScript and made Angular a household name. According to Google Developers, it can be used on top of “MongoDB, Node.js by IBM, Express by Nodejitsu”, etc., which makes it possible for you to develop an app without having to worry about what technologies will power your application.

• If you’re looking to get started with Angular, one of the best ways to do that is to install it on your own Ubuntu server. This will allow you to test your app on different browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

• In this guide, we’ll show you how to install Angular on Ubuntu 20.04. The same procedure works on Ubuntu 22.04 as well. We’ll also cover some basic steps for getting started with Angular development. So, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, this guide is for you!

=> ↺ How to Set Up Nginx with Google Pagespeed Module on Debian 11

• Google Pagespeed Module is an open-source module for optimizing your websites under the Nginx and Apache web-server. The Pagespeed module is a server-level module installed alongside the Nginx and Apache webserver.

• The Pagespeed module improves the performance and speed of your website by optimizing static files on your websites. The Pagespeed module optimizes images on your websites, minify static files such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and optimize file caching.

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to build the Nginx Pagespeed module on the latest Debian 11 Bullseye. This guide can be applied to the current of your Nginx installation because you just build the Nginx module.

=> ↺ Linux for freshers: How to Install ranger in Ubuntu 18.04?

• Ranger is a free and open-source command-line file manager for Linux. It comes with a minimalistic text-based user interface and VI key bindings support. The main design goal of this file manager is switch directories and browse files in a quick and easy way. Some of the main features are preview the selected file or directory and automatically determining file types and running them with correct programs. It supports VIM like hotkeys, UTF-8, multi-column display, mouse support, builds in Tabs, and bookmarks support.

=> ↺ How to Install Lighttpd with PHP in Ubuntu 20.04

• The concept of web servers has crossed the minds of most, if not all, Linux enthusiasts; especially the ones interested in pursuing web-based projects and careers. Due to the numerous web servers offered to the Linux community, you might feel like tossing a coin or rolling a dice to find the one that ‘might’ suit your web-based needs.

• Lighttpd is best attributed as a compatible, very flexible, fast, and secure web server. It is therefore optimized for high performance on whichever operating system environment hosts it.

• Also, this web server is indeed light such that it needs very few resources to run or execute its functional objectives like handling AJAX applications. This web server is BSD licensed, open-source, with flawless compatibility on UNIX-like systems.

• This article seeks to walk you through the installation and configuration of Lighttpd as an ideal web server for your Ubuntu 20.04 operating system.

=> ↺ How To Install MySQL Workbench on AlmaLinux 8 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MySQL Workbench on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, MySQL Workbench is a graphical user interface tool for general administration and maintenance of MySQL/MariaDB database systems available in a free and a commercial edition. For detailed features differences among MySQL Workbench Edition have been described on MySQL Workbench features.

• 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 MySQL Workbench on an AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

=> ↺ How To Install Anaconda on Fedora 35 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Anaconda on Fedora 35. For those of you who didn’t know, Anaconda is an open-source package and environment manager that houses thousands of predictive analysis, machine learning, and data science packages. It is written in Python and R programming language by data scientists, for data scientists. It includes the packages related to data science for various platforms like Linux, Windows, and macOS.

• 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 the step-by-step installation of the Anaconda on a Fedora 35.

=> ↺ How to Use Hadolint to Lint Your Dockerfiles – CloudSavvy IT

• Dockerfiles define the content of Docker images as a set of instructions in a text file. The Dockerfile syntax is generally straightforward but there are some gotchas to avoid. Adhering to best practices while writing complex Dockerfiles in a team setting can be tricky unless you’re automatically validating your file’s content.

• Hadolint is a Dockerfile linter that can spot common issues for you. It uses an abstract syntax tree (AST) to parse your Dockerfile against predefined rulesets. Hadolint also incorporates ShellCheck so it can lint the shell scripts in your Dockerfile’s RUN instructions too.

=> ↺ How to get the directory size using the Linux command line – PragmaticLinux

• With the help of your desktop environment’s file manager, you can easily obtain the size of a directory’s contents. Right-click the directory and select Properties from the pop-up menu. When working on the command line in the terminal, it’s a different story. For example, when interacting with a server over SSH. This article explains who to get the size of a directory using the Linux command line, while working in the terminal.

=> ↺ How to create a custom image from a Docker container | TechRepublic

• Your containers are all based on images, most of which you probably pull from DockerHub or some other public repository. But why not create your own custom images? After all, it’s easier for you to not only get the exact image you need to work with, it’s also a better route to security. It’s also a great way to create a base image you can use for a repeatable development environment (so, it has exactly the tools you need).

=> ↺ How to install Friday Night Funkin on a Chromebook – Windows 64 Bit version

• Today we are looking at how to install Friday Night Funkin, the 64 bit Windows version, on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

=> ↺ How to install Friday Night Funkin on a Chromebook – Windows 64 Bit version

=> ↺ How to install YubiKey Manager GUI on Linux

• One can use a hardware security key such as YubiKey for OTP or FIDO2 for additional security on Linux to protect disks, ssh keys, password manager, web applications and more. Since I am a full-time Linux desktop user, I thought today I would document how to install the YubiKey GUI Manager to configure functionality on your YubiKey on a Linux desktop.

=> ↺ How to install whois on Ubuntu / Debian Linux

• While working on the client’s system, I found that the whois client was missing. So I used that in one of my deployment scripts. I should add that to cloud-init or Ansible, but the Ubuntu server was already running.

• The whois command searches an object in an RFC 3912 database without using online websites. For example, you can find out who is the owner of an IP address or domain name from your Debian Linux command-line. You can automate stuff in your shell script. Here is how to install whois client on your Debian or Ubuntu Linux.

=> ↺ Install Kate Text Editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• Kate is a powerful and intuitive editor that may be the perfect fit for you. With its robust yet straightforward interface, Kate offers everything from word processing to development tools in one place – which saves time! And with 200+ languages available on-board alongside plugins galore (think code hooks), this tool will help maximize productivity, whether it’s coding or content creation.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Kate Text Editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish.

=> ↺ Install Fragments 2.0 On Ubuntu / Rocky Linux & Fedora | Tips On UNIX

• Fragments is an open-source BitTorrent client for Linux systems and developed by the GNOME desktop environment.

• This tutorial will be helpful for beginners to install fragments 2.0 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Rocky Linux 8, AlmaLinux 8, and Fedora 35.

• It is used to transfer huge files like videos, Installation media images and it uses BitTorrent protocol. Fragments 2.0 is the major update with many new features and improvements. Fragments now use the GTK4 and the new GNOME Libadwaitaa Library under the hood.

=> ↺ Install 7-Zip on Debian 11 Bullseye – LinuxCapable

• 7-Zip is a free, open-source file archiver software used to compress files into archive containers or, in more popular terms, zip files into archive containers that can beat most other forms of compression by 2 to 10% and strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats.

• 7-Zip isn’t as famous as some of the other archives, but it is capable of having multi archive format support across most known software. Another benefit is that it supports all cross-platforms, making it efficient to use amongst different operating systems.

=> ↺ Install/Upgrade GNOME Subtitles on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• GNOME Subtitles is an easy-to-use subtitle editor for Linux. It allows you to add subtitles and captions with preview, timing synchronization capabilities (including language translation), spell-checking support, and more options that are only possible in this simple tool!

• The interface of GNOME Subtitles includes emphasis styles such as bold/italic or underline applied automatically when needed alongside multi-level undo & redoes, making it the perfect choice if minimalism isn’t really what matters most here…

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install or upgrade your existing GNOME Subtitles using PPA for Pedro Castro, endorsed by the GNOME Subtitles team.

=> ↺ Install WhatsApp Client On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS/ Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | Itsubuntu.com

• WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps right now in the World. Facebook bought WhatsApp in February 2014, for $16 billion. WhatsApp is currently available for Android, iOS, and Windows operating systems. Sadly it is not available for Linux-based operating systems. WhatsApp’s official client app is not available to install on Linux but doesn’t worry we are here to help you in this process.

• In this post, we are going to show you the way to use the WhatsApp clients on Ubuntu. Thanks to the third-party tool WhatsDesk that lets us use WhatsApp client on Ubuntu. Whatsdesk is an unofficial WhatsApp client for Linux and is available as a Debian package. You can also get it on the snapcraft repository.

=> ↺ Install RPM Packages on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – LinuxCapable

• The Ubuntu repositories contain thousands of deb packages that can be installed from the Software Center or by using the apt command line. Deb is an installation package format used in all Debian-based distributions, including Ubuntu, but some aren’t available through these methods; alternative sources such as existing RPM repositories may contain these.

• RPM package format is used by Red Hat and its forks such as Almalinux, CentOS Stream, and Rocky Linux, to name a few. For Ubuntu users, an application called alien allows you to install RPM packages on Ubuntu or convert an RPM package into a Debian (.deb) file for Ubuntu.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install RPM packages and convert a Debian package into an RPM package on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish.

=> ↺ Install Neofetch on Debian 11 Bullseye – 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 and some basic commands on Debian 11 Bullseye desktop or server.

Games

=> ↺ FEX-Emu is a promising project for gaming on 64bit Arm | GamingOnLinux

• Want to play more games on Arm devices? Projects like Box86 and Box64 do already exist but is there a better option? FEX-Emu sounds like it’s going to be another great open source way to do what you want.

• The problem is that most games and software aren’t really built for Arm, games especially of course since we’re not exactly swimming in powerful Arm hardware market for gaming on Linux (or Windows). Emulation and translation layers once again to the rescue then. FEX-Emu is getting quite advanced now, and it’s even able to run Wine / Proton too.

=> ↺ Top 10 New Games You Can Play on Linux with Proton – Feb 2022 Edition – Boiling Steam

• We are back with our usual monthly update! Boiling Steam looks at the latest data dumps from ProtonDB to give you a quick list of new games that work (pretty much?) perfectly with Proton since January 2022 – all of them work out of the box or well enough with tweaks…

=> ↺ Steam Deck Previews are up, plus dbrand announce Project Killswitch | GamingOnLinux

• The flood gates are beginning to open around the Steam Deck with a few big YouTube channels doing a hands-on preview now live. Plus, dbrand poke fun at Nintendo with their upcoming Steam Deck accessory kit.

=> ↺ Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer – Part 11: Forgotten Heresies | GamingOnLinux

• Almost from the very start Raven Software and id Software had a symbiotic relationship. Raven would use id tech to power their games for years, but one of their deepest collaborations was on Heretic, with then id Software designer John Romero even acting as producer. Given the Linux friendly atmosphere at id, it is no surprise that some of that would start to rub off on Raven, culminating in Loki Software negotiating to make a port of Heretic II.

=> ↺ RPG game engine Flare gets improved gamepad support, fonts and more in v1.13 | GamingOnLinux

• Flare is a free and open source game engine for creating RPGs, plus it also has its own Empyrean Campaign to play through and it continued to get enhanced to be a bit more modern. Version 1.13 was just recently release, bringing with it some pretty major enhancements.

• A big one is improved gamepad support that was overhauled. They’ve moved from using the SDL_Joystick API to using the SDL_GameController API, along with improved gamepad mapping and fixes to some deadzone issues. Navigating the UI is also quite a bit easier now too, as various actions give you a pop-up now to easily pick what to do.

=> ↺ Heroic Games Launcher for Epic Games on Linux gets some more fixes | GamingOnLinux

• Readying up for the onslaught of users on the Steam Deck who will probably want to play some of their Epic Store loot, the free and open source Heroic Games Launcher has a new bug fix release up.

• An application that has only become more important with the Steam Deck, since it ships with Linux and Epic Games don’t support Linux with their store. This at least gives Linux desktop gamers and Steam Deck users a really easy way to get all their games in one place.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel getting prepped for the Steam Deck | GamingOnLinux

• While it’s already known that the Steam Deck will ship with Valve’s own SteamOS 3 based on Arch Linux, what about running more standard Linux distributions? It will get easier in a future version of the Linux Kernel.

• Since it’s open source, Linux gives Valve a lot of true control on what they can do and tweak for the Steam Deck and that’s a big part of the reason they went with Linux instead of Windows. At release it will likely be using a good number of Valve special patches, many of which will be upstreamed to various projects and we’re starting to see part of that now.

=> ↺ Indie store itch.io comes out swinging against NFTs | GamingOnLinux

• Not only has Valve banned NFT games from Steam but another store has come out clearly against them, with the official itch.io Twitter account releasing a very clear statement.

=> ↺ Open source evolution sim Thrive adds a new cell to grow with | GamingOnLinux

• Currently in Early Access, Thrive is an impressive scientific evolution sim developed in Godot Engine that continues to mature with a new version up.

• Sounds like a pretty fun release too, adding in a “chemoreceptor organelle” cell you can evolve your creature with. This will allow you to sniff-out needed resources from quite a distance so you won’t get as lost once you manage to acquire it through a little basic exploration and growth. There’s also now a timeline tab in the reports screen, which allows you to view the current history of the microscopic world you’ve been exploring and surviving in. Plus, lots of bug fixes and optimizations and a Godot Engine upgrade too.

=> ↺ Online multiplayer for OpenMW (Morrowind) TES3MP is alive again | GamingOnLinux

• OpenMW is a fantastic open source game engine reimplementation for Morrowind, plus there’s the online fork of TES3MP which has sprung back to life with a new release. A project that should eventually merge with OpenMW officially, for now it’s a separate fork until OpenMW hits the big 1.0.

• TES3MP 0.8.0 is now out and based on the latest OpenMW 0.47.0 release, and the developer said it “fixes a large part of the remaining gameplay problems and also adds some major features”. It took a little while, as the developer explained how they “lost my motivation for TES3MP during the pandemic, but I’ve been regaining it recently because I want to look back on this project as one that I ended up finishing instead of one that I just got very far on”.

=> ↺ Yacht Club Games’ newest title is the upcoming Mina the Hollower | GamingOnLinux

• Yacht Club Games, know for the popular Shovel Knight series has a new game in development called Mina the Hollower, and it’s currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter with it being a clear early success.

• “Descend into a frightful world of action-adventure in Mina the Hollower. Take control of Mina, a renowned Hollower hurtled into a desperate mission to rescue a cursed island. Burrow beneath hazards and monsters, whip foes into oblivion, and gear up with an arsenal of sidearms and trinkets. Explore a vast world filled with pixel-perfect graphics, masterful gameplay, beastly bosses, and infectious music. Encounter a cast of bizarre characters, search out secrets in an array of exotic locales, and illuminate the omnipresent darkness in Mina the Hollower, a brand new game from the developers who brought you Shovel Knight!”

Distributions

=> ↺ Zorin OS 16 Educational Spin Now Available

• Zorin OS 16 Education is a Linux distribution aimed at pre-schools as well as primary and secondary schools. Building on their already-fantastic desktop experience, the developers have added a few tools to help educational institutions prepare students with the skills they need to navigate the waters of an ever-growing complicated world.

• One of the key pieces of software added is Kolibri, which aims to bridge the educational divide by giving access to an enormous library of educational content. Even better, an internet connection isn’t required to use the tool. With Kolibri, school administrators can either create their own curriculum or download materials from educational leaders such as Khan Academy, Open Stax, MIT, TED-Ed, and Sikana. Once downloaded, the content can be shared, peer to peer, over a local network.

=> ↺ Qubes OS 4.1.0 released

• Version 4.1.0 of the secure-desktop-oriented Qubes OS distribution has been released. “The culmination of years of development, this release brings a host of new features, major improvements, and numerous bug fixes”. New features an experimental GUI domain separate from dom0, the “Qrexec” policy system, progress toward a reproducible build, and more. See below and this article for more information.

=> ↺ How to Test Various Linux Distros Online

• Most Linux aficionados switch and test distros as often as they change their socks. However, searching and downloading your distro, creating a bootable USB drive, and installing and configuring the distro is time-consuming and oft-times an exercise in futility. DistroTest.net allows you to test drive 373 operating systems with 782 different versions, so you can “test it before you hate it.”

Slackware Family

=> ↺ Hello Slackware, our old friend: Veteran Linux distribution releases version 15.0 at last

• It’s been a long time coming but version 15 of Slackware finally showed up at the weekend.

• Fans of the distro, which debuted in 1993, have waited since 2016′s 14.2 for the full fat update. Now, nearly a year after the beta turned up, “the Slackhog emerged from its development den, did not see its shadow, and Slackware 15.0 has been officially released,” according to Benevolent Dictator For Life Patrick Volkerding.

• The release is a big one; after all – it’s been nearly six years since the previous, which came after 2013′s 14.1. Version 14 goes all the way back to 2012. Hopefully the next iteration will not take quite so long, although Volkerding warned that he would be taking “a bit of a breather” after the lengthy gestation period of version 15.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to IBM Maximo Application Suite

• International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York. They sell computer hardware, middleware and software employing over 370,000 people.

• IBM acquired Red Hat in 2019. But you can trace IBM’s history of open source far further back. They were one of the earliest champions of open source, backing influential communities like Linux, Apache, and Eclipse, advocating open licenses, open governance, and open standards.

=> ↺ This New Linux Distro Combines Fedora With Great Gaming Software

• What happens when a senior engineer at Red Hat, a member of the Lutris development team, and the creator of Proton-GE decides to create a Linux distribution? Well, the aforementioned titles belong to the same person, Thomas Crider (aka “Glorious Eggroll). And what you get is the promising Nobara Project, a distro powered by Fedora and targeted squarely at gamers and content creators.

• “Fedora is a very good workstation OS, however, anything involving any kind of 3rd party or proprietary packages is usually absent from a fresh install,” Crider says.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Qualcomm IPQ8076A WiFi 6E access point offers dual 10GbE, supports PoE++

• Lanner LWR-X8460 is an enterprise-grade 12-stream, tri-band Wi-Fi 6E access point powered by Qualcomm IPQ8076A quad-core Cortex-A53 processor also equipped with two 10GbE multi-speed ports, and four additional Gigabit Ethernet ports.

• The access point also supports IEEE 802.3bt standard for the PoE++ power delivery, Bluetooth 5.1 for IoT management, and its features set makes it suitable for remote video conferencing, telehealth, distance learning, public safety monitoring, IoT applications, as well as general connectivity in any crowded and dense Wi-Fi environments.

=> ↺ Add four PCIe x1 slots to Raspberry Pi CM4 IO with Waveshare PCIe-Packet-Switch-4P board

• The 1-lane PCIe Gen 2 interface in Broadcom BCM2711 processor is exposed in Raspberry Pi CM4, and most carrier boards are exploiting the interface including the official Raspberry Pi Compute Module IO carrier board.

• But if you ever wanted to connect multiple PCIe cards to the CM4 IO board, Waveshare has got you covered with the PCIe-Packet-Switch-4P that provides four PCIe x1 slots through an ASMedia ASM1184e PCIe switch.

=> ↺ RPi HAT features high-frequency RFID reading at up to 200 tags/sec.

• SB Components is Kickstartering a “UHF HAT for Raspberry Pi” with high-frequency UFC RAIN RFID technology for reading up to 200 tags per second.

• If you read this before noon PST, you have a few minutes left to get the Kickstarter early bird special for the UHF HAT for Raspberry Pi at 199 UK Pounds ($269). Otherwise, it goes to 225 Pounds ($304), with shipments due in April. The Kickstarter packages ship with 5x UHF RFID tags.

• The UHF HAT is an RFID add-on for the Raspberry Pi that uses Ultra High Frequency (UHF) RFID technology operating over the 865MHz to 870MHz and 915MHz to 928MHz ranges. The UFC HAT offers adjustable RF output range of 0 dBm to +27 dBm with 0.01 dB increments and supports the reading of up to 200 tags per second.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Is Google Play Store Not Working? Here Are Some Possible Fixes

=> ↺ Video: Top 5 Must-Have Android Apps For February 2022 | NDTV Gadgets 360

=> ↺ Nokia G21 Android smartphone leaked – Geeky Gadgets

=> ↺ New CapraRAT Android Malware Targets Indian Government and Military Personnel

=> ↺ Android 12 February security patch OTA for Pixel rolling out – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Tecno Pop 5S goes official with 5.7″ LCD and Android 10 Go – comments

=> ↺ What is Android Auto and what can it do? – SlashGear

=> ↺ Tecno Pop 5S goes official with 5.7″ LCD and Android 10 Go – GSMArena.com news

=> ↺ How to free up space on Android – Geeky Gadgets

=> ↺ How to see deleted notifications on Android smartphones

=> ↺ Here’s An Easy Way To Block Websites On Android

=> ↺ YouTube For Android Is Reportedly Testing “Listen With YouTube Music” Button

=> ↺ Truecaller teams up with global Android smartphone manufacturers to preload app in key mkts | Business

=> ↺ PinePhone call quality

• I bought a PinePhone a couple of months ago, mainly for the opportunity to play with it and see what it could do. Since I work for a company that does voice call quality testing, the first thing I wanted to do was figure out how to play back our audio quality test files and then do some call audio quality tests.

• When doing call audio quality testing, it’s very important that the audio you’re playing back not be transcoded or even resampled, so using PulseAudio or PipeWire was completely out of the question. Figuring this process out turned out to be far harder than I expected, so I thought I should document how I made it work. My background is in IT infrastructure, and I am not an audio engineer or a telephony expert, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are better ways of doing things. Suggestions are very welcome on Twitter or via email.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ LibreOffice ecosystem interview: Caolán McNamara at Red Hat

• We try and do a lot of different things, from integration with the GNOME desktop, Calc and UNO work, and porting to architectures such as aarch64 and ppc64le, but I can highlight some of the efforts we make in detecting flaws close to when they get introduced into LibreOffice.

• We maintain the regular crashtesting infrastructure, where we import and export 120,000+ documents and typically fix, or identify the triggering commit, any new import/export failures as they are discovered.

=> ↺ Improving LibreOffice’s network file access

•  Thanks to a tender by The Document Foundation, we have been able to implement a new and much improved curl-based HTTP/WebDAV UCP for LibreOffice 7.3.

• This is the technology that sits under almost every public network file access LibreOffice can do, like loading and saving from a NextCloud instance, or working on a file sitting on a SharePoint server.

• Please read on for how we implemented that.

Leftovers

=> ↺ What are sparse files and how to tell if a file is stored sparsely

• Sparse files are files stored in a file system where consecutive data blocks consisting of all zero-bytes (null-bytes) are compressed to nothing. There is often no reason to store lots of empty data, so the file system just records how long the sequence of empty data is instead of writing it out on the storage media. This optimization can save significant amounts of storage space for other purposes.

• On most file systems, programs don’t need to do anything special to take advantage of sparse files when it’s supported by the file system. It all depends on how individual programs use the lower-level operating system application programming interfaces (API) to save the data to a storage medium. Some programs might write out consecutive blocks of null-bytes to the disk. These programs are non-sparse-aware.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ School exams and morning TV shows behind the latest raft of internet shutdowns – Coda Story

• Cutting off the internet has become a go-to strategy for governments eager to disrupt expressions of dissent. Entire regions and even countries have gone offline, ripped clean from the internet from one day to another. This happened during a coup a year ago in Myanmar, large-scale opposition protests in India, or elections in Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad.

• [...]

• 1. In January, Kazakhstan made headlines because of its mass anti-government protests and the total internet blackout that followed. The Kazakh government has been in the habit of throttling the internet for a while though. For example, on May 9, 2019, the presidential election day, authorities cut off internet access coinciding with detentions of activists and journalists participating in the demonstrations at the time. In 2012, Kazakhstan’s parliament amended a national security law allowing the government to shut down internet and mobile connections during riots or anti-terrorist operations.

Monopolies

Patents

=> ↺ The boundaries of causing loss by unlawful means: Secretary of State for Health v Servier

• Servier obtained a UK patent for a drug “perindopril”, upheld by the European Patent Office (“EPO”). It defended the validity of the UK patent in English court proceedings, obtaining an interim injunction preventing the sale of generic perindopril. Subsequently, the patent was held invalid on the basis it lacked novelty (with the decision upheld on appeal). In 2009, the EPO revoked the patent.

• The NHS claimed that in obtaining, defending and enforcing its patent, Servier had deliberately deceived (the unlawful means) the EPO and/or the English courts (the third parties) with the intention of profiting at the expense of the NHS. Further, but for this deceit, the NHS claimed other manufacturers of generic perindopril would have entered the market sooner and driven down the price the NHS had to pay.

• Servier applied to strike out the NHS’s claim. For the purposes of the application, the allegations were assumed to be true (notwithstanding that Servier disputed the basis of the claim).

• The claim was struck out at first instance on the basis that following OBG Ltd v Allan, the unlawful means must have interfered with a third party’s ability to deal with the claimant. It was common ground that here, it had not (the NHS had not dealt with the EPO or the courts). The decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal and was referred to the Supreme Court to determine whether…

=> ↺ Montenegro Ratifies EPC, Amends Patent and Copyright Laws

=> ↺ because it is being violated routinely without any consequences to the violators

• On December 29, 2021, Montenegro adopted the Law on Ratification of the Convention on the Grant of European Patents, commonly known as the European Patent Convention (EPC), as well as amendments to the Patent Law and the Law on Copyright and Related Rights.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.