● 11.04.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 04/11/2022: GParted Live 1.4.0-6 and Diffoscope 226 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 7:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Docker container orchestration tools

• The rise of containers has changed the way programmers think about developing, deploying and maintaining software applications. Using the capabilities of native isolation of modern operatingsystems, containers support a separation of concerns similar to virtual machines, but without consuming too many resources and greater deployment flexibility compared with virtual machines.

• Containers are so lightweight and flexible that they have spawned new application architectures. This new approach consists of packaging the different services that make up an application in separate containers and then deploying those containers across a cluster of physical or virtual machines.

=> ↺ Live and let live with Kluctl and Server Side Apply | Kubernetes

• This blog post was inspired by a previous Kubernetes blog post about Advanced Server Side Apply. The author of said blog post listed multiple benefits for applications and controllers when switching to server-side apply (from now on abbreviated with SSA). Especially the chapter about CI/CD systems motivated me to respond and write down my thoughts and experiences.

• These thoughts and experiences are the results of me working on Kluctl for the past 2 years. I describe Kluctl as “The missing glue to put together large Kubernetes deployments, composed of multiple smaller parts (Helm/Kustomize/…) in a manageable and unified way.”

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Welcome to Jérémie Dautheribes – Bootlin’s blog

• Bootlin is really happy to welcome another engineer in its team: Jérémie Dautheribes, who joined us on November 2, 2022.

• Jérémie Dautheribes graduated in 2020 with a master degree in Ambiant, Mobile and Embedded Systems from the Toulouse University. After graduating, he worked at the french research institute INRIA on cache optimization for FreeRTOS multicore programs, and then in a company called EPSI where he was in charge of developing and maintaining Linux-based BSPs for i.MX6 and Tegra platforms, based on Yocto.

Applications

=> ↺ FOSS Weekly #22.41: Zorin OS 16.2, CLI Tools, Discord Bots and More

• As promised a few weeks ago, the newsletter landing page is now ready. It highlights the features of the FOSS Weekly newsletter and testimonials from regular readers among other stuff.

• You can now share it in various Linux communities you are part of and encourage them to subscribe.

• Also, I am collecting more testimonials about It’s FOSS as a complete portal and they will be listed on a dedicated page. You can send yours by replying to this email

=> ↺ 10 Best Open Source Bots for Your Discord Server

• If it is your first time hearing about it, consider it something like Slack, but with countless fun functionalities to create communities (i.e., servers).

• Among all the features, Discord bots allow automating things or spice up your server. But most of them are proprietary. So, in this list, I suggest some of the best open-source Discord bots.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Syslog Tutorial

• “Syslog is a way of consolidating logs from various systems to a remote Syslog server. The Syslog server has three key components. The first is a listener that utilizes UDP over port 514 to gather Syslog data. Next is the database that stores the generated Syslog data, and lastly, the management and filtering software that allows filtering the Syslog data for quick troubleshooting.

• As a system administrator, understanding how Syslog works and how to configure client machines to channel their Syslog data to the remote server comes in handy. This guide discusses Syslog in Linux and offers steps for consolidating logs to a remote machine.”

=> ↺ How to Install KDE Plasma on Ubuntu 22.04

• “KDE Plasma refers to the KDE desktop environment, and it is among the most intuitive and easy-to-use desktop environments. It has plenty of features, and you will love its consistent user experience across various devices. Moreover, its modern look is impressive and if you are yet to install it on your Ubuntu 22,04, today’s your lucky day.

• We will present the steps for installing KDE Plasma on Ubuntu 22.04. Let’s get started.”

=> ↺ Junichi Uekawa: Found the reason podman build was failing as normal user.

• Found the reason podman build was failing as normal user. dbus-user-session was missing and podman wasn’t able to connect to systemd user session. This resulted in trying to use cgroupfs instead of systemd for managing cgroups and other things also broke.

=> ↺ How to Install Wine (WineHQ) on Pop!_OS 22.04 | 20.04

• Wine is a software application that translates Windows system calls into POSIX-compliant functions. This allows users to run Windows applications on POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, BSD, and macOS. Wine is not an emulator and does not require a copy of Windows to be installed. Instead, it uses its own set of libraries to provide the necessary functionality. Wine is open-source software released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The following tutorial will show you how to install the latest version using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ How to Install SeaMonkey on Ubuntu 22.10 | 22.04 | 20.04

• SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape 7. The SeaMonkey project intends to deliver a complete, seamless integration of Internet applications in one easy-to-use package with a browser, email- and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and simple HTML editing included. The following tutorial will demonstrate how to install SeaMonkey Internet Suite on your Ubuntu desktop from Ubuntuzilla.

=> ↺ Add listening ports to firewalld with Ansible | Enable Sysadmin

• Ansible’s community.general.listen_ports_facts module finds all listening TCP and UDP ports on your system.

=> ↺ How to format data with Column in Linux

• Column is a free and open source utility usually installed as part of the util-linux package in all the most common Linux distribution, and therefore included in even the most minimal installations. With this utility we can organize the content of files or the output of other commands in columns, creating pretty tables or even producing JSON formatted documents.

• In this tutorial we see how to use the “column” utility to format the content of a file as a table or JSON on Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install and Use VirtualBox in RHEL 9/8

• In this tutorial, we look at how to install VirtualBox 7.0 in RHEL 9 and RHEL 8 distributions to create guest virtual machines using an ISO image file.

• Oracle VM VirtualBox is a popular free and open-source virtualization software that is widely used by desktop lovers and even system administrators and programmers to create virtual machines for various purposes such as testing operating systems.

• As a type 2 hypervisor, VirtualBox is installed on top of an operating system such as Windows and Linux. It supports a wide range of guest systems including Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris, and OpenSolaris.

=> ↺ How to Control DC Motors With the Raspberry Pi – Make Tech Easier

• Whether it’s for a micromouse robot or a tiny IoT electric fan, knowing how to make things run using DC motors with the Raspberry Pi can unlock a broad range of creative DIY projects to keep you busy. For this guide, we are using an L298N motor controller in Raspberry Pi to send electricity to a pair of DC motors and make them spin!

=> ↺ How to Install Latest LibreOffice in Ubuntu and other Linux

• Here’s a quick guide on how to install the latest LibreOffice version in Ubuntu and other Linux.

• The free and open-source office suite LibreOffice comes in two versions. The Community and Enterprise versions. The “community” version is for early adopters who want the latest bleeding-edge software tech. And the “enterprise” version is more stable and may not include all the latest features, but it is ideal for the production environment and professional work.

=> ↺ How to Enable ’Dark Mode’ in LibreOffice

• Tutorial for you on how to enable dark mode in LibreOffice in Ubuntu, Linux and Windows systems.

• LibreOffice, the free and open-source office productivity software, is used by millions worldwide. This cross-platform software runs on Windows, Linux, and other distributions.

• Millions of users around the world use LibreOffice. Probably that includes you. And everyone seems to prefer dark mode these days. And there are some advantages as well.

• Research suggests that dark mode protects eyes for extended use of mobiles and computers and saves a bit of battery as well, especially for AMOLED displays. That’s not all, dark mode makes the text looks crisp and clear and improves productivity.

=> ↺ 2 Ways to Install Audacious on Ubuntu 22.10 | 22.04 | 20.04

• Audacious is one of the best music players around. Not only is it open-source, but it’s also straightforward to use. With drag ‘n’ drop functionality, you can easily add your favorite songs to your playlist and start listening immediately. Another great feature of Audacious is if you’re worried about the app stealing resources from other tasks on your computer, don’t be! It’s specifically designed to use minimal resources so that you can listen to your music without problems. Plus, with different skins available, you can customize Audacious to look however you want. The following tutorial will cover the installation using the command line terminal on Ubuntu.

=> ↺ Upgrade to Latest LibreOffice in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Windows

• This beginner’s guide explains the steps required to upgrade to the latest LibreOffice in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Windows.

=> ↺ 2 Ways to Install Code::Blocks on Ubuntu 22.10 | 22.04 | 20.04

• Code::Blocks is a free and open-source software highly extensible Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C, C++, and Fortran programming languages. It features support for a wide range of compilers, parallel builds, and multi-target projects and also provides an interface with GNU GDB. The code editor in Code::Blocks features syntax highlighting, code folding, a tabbed interface, code completion, a class browser, and smart indenting. Code::Blocks is one of the most popular IDEs for C++ development and is used by many companies and organizations worldwide. The following tutorial will teach you how to install Code::Blocks on an Ubuntu desktop using the command line terminal.

=> ↺ 10 Simple Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website – TecAdmin

• Did you know that the average user will abandon your website if it takes longer than 5 seconds to load? That’s right, if your website loads too slowly, users will get frustrated and leave. In fact, Statistica reports that 47% of online shoppers will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. If you’ve ever spent time browsing the Internet, you’ll know how crucial speed is to keep users engaged. It doesn’t matter how great your content is or how good your site looks – if it doesn’t load fast enough, people won’t stick around long enough to find out. Luckily, there are lots of ways you can optimize your website so that it loads faster than ever before.

• Your website is the first impression your potential customers will have of your business. Whether it’s a personal blog or an eCommerce store, you want your site to look great and load quickly. If you find yourself often frustrated by slow page loads and lagging performance, it’s time to consider speeding up your WordPress site. A fast website not only makes users happy but also helps search engines index your pages faster. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some easy ways to make your site faster than ever before.

• In this blog post, we will discuss a few ways to speed up your WordPress website.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Masalla Icon Theme: Inspired by the Latest Flat Design Trend

• The Masalla icon theme is a perfect choice for anyone looking to spruce up their Linux desktop. The theme comes with more than 15,000 different icons, including a wide variety of options for applications, devices, categories, places/folders, and much more. It’s also compatible with the most popular Linux desktops like Gnome, Cinnamon, Xfce, Unity, KDE, Mate, LXDE, and others.

• If you have any interest in design, you’ve probably noticed that the current trend is ‘flat’ looks. And I absolutely love it! Hayder Majid, an Iraqi engineer, created this flat Masalla icon theme. The name of his project was “Obelisk” in Arabic and Uruk city (like the Obelisk of Hammurabi in the History of Iraq).

• I had wanted to write about the Masalla icon theme for a long time because I really liked it. Unfortunately, there have been no updates from the developer in over 4 years. Recently, though, an updated version of Masalla was released 3 months ago.

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ GParted Live 1.4.0-6 Stable Release

• The GParted team is happy to announce a new stable release of GParted Live.

• This release includes GParted 1.4.0, updated packages, and other improvements.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Intros, deep dives, and announcements: Our best of October 2022 | Red Hat Developer

• We’ve gathered up the most popular content from Red Hat Developer for October 2022, and we hope you find it informative and helpful. We’ve divided them into product announcements, topic roundups, learning guides, and advanced deep dives.

=> ↺ AI ethics: 5 key pillars | The Enterprisers Project

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), often imagined as self-driving cars or human-like robots, are flourishing at the enterprise level as practical business use cases increase. Many companies rely on AI/ML to expedite internal processes, automate mundane tasks, and reduce human error.

• But some businesses fail to consider that AI ethics are essential to ensure that the technology is used appropriately and securely and that it does not pose risks to businesses.

• The growing importance of AI in nearly all enterprises brings into question how CIOs can ensure that the processes align with ethical and responsible AI. Because AI will likely continue to pave the way for additional technological advancements and is crucial to ensuring efficient and effective internal processes, CIOs and business leaders must pay attention to the following key pillars of ethical AI.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Learn about MLOps: Kubeflow at OSXP 2022 | Ubuntu

• Open Source Experience is the meeting place for the entire open-source software industry. It gathers more than 4,500 professionals, allowing them to deep dive into open-source technologies, solutions and challenges in France and Europe. The event delves into topics like AI/ML, digital twins and Blockchain. Canonical is going to be present at OSXP Paris 2022, talking about Charmed Kubeflow, the end-to-end MLOps platform.

=> ↺ Accelerate IT / OT convergence in Industry 4.0 [Part III]

• In Part I, we introduced and assessed the current status in the IT and OT domains. In Part II, we discussed the automation pyramid of modern factories and the need to adopt a more holistic approach toward closing the divide. In the final chapter of this three-part blog series, we will make a case for how adopting an enabling, open-source platform can help bridge the IT/OT divide and accelerate industrial transformation.

• Ubuntu is the preferred operating system and an ideal enablement platform to bring the latest technological advances to the OT world. As the most widely used Linux distribution globally, the most deployed Linux web server on the internet and the most used Linux gaming distro, Ubuntu is the de-facto Linux standard in IT. After recognising and acknowledging the new wave of compute in Industrial, we created a flavour of Ubuntu to address the limitations of the OT world highlighted in Part I and Part II of this series.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ T-Head XuanTie C908 RISC-V core targets AIoT applications – CNX Software

• We’ve seen two announcements of high-end RISC-V cores this week with the SiFive P670 and Andes AX65 processors each with a 4-way out-of-order people, but Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor Xuantie C908 is a little different with a dual-issued, 9-stage in-order pipeline and support for the RISC-V Vector extension acceleration targeting mid-range AIoT applications.

• The C908 64-bit RISC-V core adopts the RV64GCB[V] instruction and complies with the RVA22 profile for better compatibility with Android and other “rich” operating systems. The company says its performance is between the C906 and C910 cores introduced in 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Do these three things on your Android phone and you won’t lose your data

=> ↺ Malicious Android apps list 2022: If you installed these, you’re in danger

=> ↺ Android 13 on Pixel: 5 Things You Can Do

=> ↺ US Carriers Android 12 update roll out tracker [Cont. updated]

=> ↺ Forest to Pomodoro Timer: The top free Android apps to help manage your time better | Technology News,The Indian Express

=> ↺ The Google Duo icon is now gone on Android

=> ↺ Google Pixel 7 Pro Review: The Android Smartphone to Beat

=> ↺ Google’s new photo picker is now available on virtually all Android phones

=> ↺ Niagara Launcher Pro decouples from Google Play, now on all Android phones

=> ↺ How to recover deleted photos from the Android gallery without backup

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Apple Disk Utility

• Disk Utility is a system utility for performing disk and disk volume-related tasks on macOS. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ How to iterate over tables in Lua | Opensource.com

• In the Lua programming language, an array is called a table. A table is used in Lua to store data. If you’re storing a lot of data in a structured way, it’s useful to know your options for retrieving that data when you need it.

=> ↺ RProtoBuf 0.4.20 on CRAN: Maintenance

• A new release 0.4.20 of RProtoBuf arrived on CRAN earlier today. RProtoBuf provides R with bindings for the Google Protocol Buffers (“ProtoBuf”) data encoding and serialization library used and released by Google, and deployed very widely in numerous projects as a language and operating-system agnostic protocol.

• This release is somewhat mechanical and in the spirit of many other recent releases. clang-15 is, as more recent compilers do, more stringent on definitions and wants to see some void in argument-less signatures. Happy to oblige. At the same time, GitHub Actions started to nag us about minimum versions of node code so an upgrade to a newer action is warranted, again as with many other affected packages. We also found another http:// URL hiding somewhere so that was cleaned. Lastly, it appears Protocol Buffers themselves moved on and now need / prefer C++17 so were happy to oblige.

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ b-parasite Bluetooth LE plant sensor gets Zigbee support – CNX Software

• rbaron’s b-parasite is an open-source hardware Bluetooth LE plant watering sensor that can measure soil moisture and ambient temperature/humidity/light and works with ESPHome, Home Assistant, or any macOS or Linux platforms including the Raspberry Pi boards.

Security

=> ↺ iTWire – Helping Optus spin breach fallout: the AFR shows the way

• One reason why a company like Singtel Optus can leak customer data in a breach that is, by all accounts, its own fault and then avoid being held to account is because of the media’s fawning coverage.

• A typical example can be seen in Friday’s Australian Financial Review, which carried an interview about what the Optus chairman Paul O’Sullivan has learnt from the breach. Of course, it’s good to know that the man has learnt something.

• For context, Optus has been dragged kicking and screaming to pledge that it would pay for replacing the passports that were leaked. Only this morning, the ABC reported that the company had been made to extend this to holders of foreign passports as well – after the matter had been ventilated on the 7.30 program.

• The telco is still refusing to pay for the replacement of driving licences, only expressing a willingness to pay for the administration expenses associated with issuing these forms of ID.

=> ↺ diffoscope 226 released

• The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 226. This version includes the following changes:

• [ Christopher Baines ]

• • Add an lzip comparator with tests.

• [ Chris Lamb ]

• • Add support for comparing the “text” content of HTML files using html2text.

• (Closes: #1022209, reproducible-builds/diffoscope#318)

• • Misc/test improvements:

• • Drop the ALLOWED_TEST_FILES test; it’s mostly just annoying.

• • Drop other copyright notices from lzip.py and test_lzip.py.

• • Use assert_diff helper in test_lzip.py.

• • Pylint tests/test_source.py.

• [ Mattia Rizzolo ]

• • Add lzip to debian dependencies.

=> ↺ CISA Warns of Critical Vulnerabilities in 3 Industrial Control System Software

• The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published three Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories about multiple vulnerabilities in software from ETIC Telecom, Nokia, and Delta Industrial Automation.

• Prominent among them is a set of three flaws affecting ETIC Telecom’s Remote Access Server (RAS), which “could allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information and compromise the vulnerable device and other connected machines,” CISA said.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Two years of internet shutdowns: people in Tigray, Ethiopia, deserve better – Access Now

• Today, November 4, 2022, marks two years since authorities implemented internet shutdowns in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. After 730 days, this must come to an end.

• As peace talks between the government of Ethiopia and Tigray regional forces show positive signs of a ceasefire, this is the moment to reconnect all — everybody, from civil society to the African Union, has a responsibility to stand up and demand action.

• “For two years — 730 days — millions of people in Tigray have been forced to survive through a horrific war, their circumstances exacerbated by a deliberate internet shutdown that prevents them from communicating with family and friends, accessing potentially life-saving information, and letting the world know what’s happening in their region,” said Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn Campaign Manager at Access Now. “Authorities must reconnect Tigray now.”

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Azhdahak II

=> ↺ The Efficacy Of Live Music

• Tonight I paid for my first-ever official live music event. Not a free one, mind you. Fifteen dollars for entry, fifteen dollars well-spent for an entire night wherein the air became electric with sound, where the potential of humanity to channel emotion and effort into invisible audio waves became tangible.

• I am considering the legitimacy of music journalism, its relationship with music, how well I can straddle both fields- production, mastering, composition, layering- a veritable balancing act. Journalism is, regardless of the others, a channel worthy of respect, of serious pursuit. It has gone from being a minor fascination of mine, a mere passing interest, into an obsession over which I would shell out $15 if I believed the band was worthy enough.

=> ↺ Season’s First Snow

• Life is scary right now – I’m not too sure about the future at all, and the past has a seductive iridescence to it – but it still feels correct to mark the small beautiful things like this. It probably snowed back at home weeks ago, but here, it’s the first.

=> ↺ Let’s talk about how we talk about sex and entitlement

• For those of us who are women with strong sex drives, comments that make universal declarations about the extent to which sexual interaction is a ‘real’ need is yet another instance of women being invalidated and told what our needs ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ be – and also, effectively, another form of slut-shaming.

=> ↺ Shoe-wax day

• A few days ago I noticed that my hiking shoes are really in need of some TLC. So, today I had a shoe-wax day, waxing all our hiking boots.

• My wife and I each have two pairs of hiking boots, and one pair of hiking shoes. So, that means six pairs of shoes to wax, or twelve shoes.

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Mirroring sources used in nixpkgs (software preservation)

• This may appear like a very niche use case, in my quest of software conservancy for nixpkgs I didn’t encounter many people understanding why I was doing this.

• I would like to present you a project I made to easily download all the sources files required to build packages from nixpkgs, allowing to keep offline copies.

• Why would you like to keep a local copy? If upstream disappear, you can’t get access to the sources anymore, except maybe in Hydra, but you rely on a third party to access the sources, so it’s still valuable to have local copies of software you care about, just to make copies. It’s not that absolutely useful for everyone, but it’s always important to have such tools available.

=> ↺ Barriers to Gemini

• A frequent criticism of Gemini, and a topic that arises on Gemini itself from time to time, is that the protocol gatekeeps. Specifically, it has a barrier to entry for viewing content, and an even higher one for posting content. Szczeżuja mentioned^ a recent discussion about the matter on Mastodon, and JeanG3nie gave a reply^^ yesterday that resonated with me.

• In a way, talking about these issues on Gemini is a little self-defeating, and it’s fresh meat for Gemini’s detractors. “Gemini doesn’t have a high barrier to entry”, we say in our gemlogs, which the critics probably won’t read because they don’t want to install a client or use a proxy. The fact that they don’t see the responses proves their point, right? That’s all the convincing they need.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. 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

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