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● 11.17.22

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● Links 17/11/2022: Rocky Linux 8.7 and AlmaLinux 9.1

Posted in News Roundup at 12:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ StarFighter Linux Linux laptop goes up for pre-order with Intel or AMD and QHD or 4K display options – Liliputing

• Linux PC maker Star Labs is taking pre-orders for a new thin, light, and powerful laptop called the StarFighter. Not only does it ship with your choice of Linux distributions pre-installed, but it’s also extraordinarily customizable. You can opt for Intel or AMD processor options. The webcam is detachable. You get a choice of display panels. And you can even design your own custom keyboard layout.

• [...]

• Those processor and storage specs are pretty wimpy for a laptop in this price range. But you can pay extra for up to an Intel Core i9-12900H or AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor, up to a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and up to 64GB of DDR5-6400 memory.

• Star Labs also offers a 2560 x 1600 pixel display option that has a 165 Hz refresh rate.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Fedora 37 overview | Welcome to Freedom. – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Fedora 37 and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ 2023 Is The Year Of Linux Wayland Gaming! – Invidious

• Vsync has been this giant thorn in the side of Wayland for years, literally more than a decade and finally that’s coming to a close, we’re getting very close to seeing togglable Vsync in Linux Wayland to make gaming finally viable

=> ↺ Tech Company Fined Because of Remote Worker’s Location – Invidious

• In this video, I cover an article about an issue caused by remote workers moving around the country.

=> ↺ 400 – Elon Musk vs Trolls – mintCast

• First up in the news: New Mint Stuff, Nitrux gets 6.0, Linux Steams forward, exFAT repair is now possible, LXQt gets Wayland, a pioneer passes, Mastodon blossoms, Nouveau and Nvidia updates, Clonezilla gets a new kernel, and Fedora refreshes Live Creation;

=> ↺ FLOSS Weekly 707: Ardour and Linux Pro Audio – Robin Gareus and Ardour, the Open Source DAW

• Robin Gareus joins Doc Searls and Jonathan Bennett to discuss Ardour Digital Audio Workstation and how open source audio editing is changing across fields ranging from movie-making to podcasting. It’s a great look at this open source program on FLOSS Weekly.

=> ↺ How to install FlightGear on Linux Mint 21 – Invidious

• In this video, we are looking at how to install FlightGear on Linux Mint 21.

=> ↺ The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 980

• OLF 2022 coming soon, too convenient for joel.

=> ↺ Trying my best to explain why note application are better than file systems, badly. – Invidious

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Two performance-oriented patches: epoll and NUMA balancing [LWN.net]

• The search for better performance from the kernel never ends. Recently there has been a stream of smaller patches that promise incremental performance gains, at least for some types of applications. Read on for an overview of two of those patches, which make changes to the epoll system calls and to NUMA balancing. This work shows where developers are looking for performance improvements — and that not everybody measures performance the same way.

=> ↺ Better CPU selection for timer expiration [LWN.net]

• On the surface, the kernel’s internal timer mechanism would not appear to have changed much in a long time; the core API looks quite similar to the one present in the 1.0 release. Underneath the API, naturally, quite a bit of complexity has been added over the years. The implementation of this API looks to become even more complex — but faster — if and when this patch set from Anna-Maria Behnsen finds its way into the mainline.

=> ↺ A report from the 2022 Image-Based Linux Summit [LWN.net]

• The first Image-Based Linux Summit was held in Berlin on October 5 and 6, 2022. The main goal of this summit was to agree on common concepts and tooling for how to build, deploy, and run modern, secure, image-based Linux distributions — a project that the organizers, Christian Brauner, Luca Boccassi, and Lennart Poettering, have been working on for some time. The result was a more refined vision of how Linux systems can be built and deployed securely.

• One of the motivations for the summit was the simple fact that much of the wider ecosystem has been thinking about the same set of problems. For example, our employer, Microsoft, has made use of a lot of the concepts covered by the summit in the recently announced ARM64-based Azure offload SoC, which is running a custom, security-hardened Linux distribution. While we were thinking, tinkering, and writing about new ways to improve the current state of the art, it became obvious to us that many vendors are working, more or less, in the same space, doing similar work with varying degrees of overlap. However, little to no collaboration was happening. The summit was meant to identify and agree on common concepts and come up with a set of initial specifications. Some of them already have reference implementations.

• So we invited technical representatives from the engineering groups of various vendors and distributions that have been known to work on related topics. The summit was intentionally kept small, as it was meant to be a series of conversations and brainstorming sessions, with no fixed agenda or presentations — a BoF-style event. The 30 participants met in the Microsoft office in Berlin and discussed a range of topics from a list that the authors and participants had put together in advance. The topics covered were focused around the idea of shipping Linux via images and with enhanced security features.

Applications

=> ↺ Use ’Upscaler’ to Enhance Low-Res Images with AI on Linux – OMG! Ubuntu!

• Looking for a free, open source app that leverages the power of artificial intelligence to upscale image quality on your grainy 0.3MP netbook selfies and 128px anime avatars?

• Chances are you aren’t, but I’m here to tell you about one anyway!

• See, I very occasionally use the ML Super Resolution feature in the Pixelmator Photo app on my iPad. While it works okay, the end result is never as pin-sharp perfect as per the marketing (much less the sci-fi movie ‘auto-enhance’ effect we all dream of).

• Well, a new app recently added to Flathub can help.

=> ↺ Kodi 20 ’Nexus’ hits a huge stability milestone and is available to download now

• Kodi 20 — codename ‘Nexus’ — is the next version of the popular home theater software. There have been a number of Alpha releases to date, but for obvious reasons those aren’t ideal for use on a daily basis.

• Now, though, Kodi 20 today hits a huge stability milestone, making it a more viable option for users.

• Kodi ‘Nexus’ Beta 1 is the first beta release, and the most stable to date. The Kodi Foundation says of it: “This is the first Beta release of Nexus, and we are quite confident in its stability, however always backup your configs before testing, and please let us know of any regressions or issues you find.”

=> ↺ EasyShare needs some TLC

• Goes to show, if something works, you cannot just assume that it will keep working. I last worked on EasyShare a couple of years ago …no, sooner, as I implemented Android screen sharing, but didn’t check the rest of EasyShare.

=> ↺ Perl module libnet-ident-perl added to OE

• Continuing to fix EasyShare. It calls /usr/sbin/ident-user-enum.pl; however, I found that it is missing the Net::Ident module.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ A ZFS migration – anarcat

• In my tubman setup, I started using ZFS on an old server I had lying around. The machine is really old though (2011!) and it “feels” pretty slow. I want to see how much of that is ZFS and how much is the machine. Synthetic benchmarks show that ZFS may be slower than mdadm in RAID-10 or RAID-6 configuration, so I want to confirm that on a live workload: my workstation. Plus, I want easy, regular, high performance backups (with send/receive snapshots) and there’s no way I’m going to use BTRFS because I find it too confusing and unreliable.

=> ↺ How To Install TensorFlow on Rocky Linux 9 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install TensorFlow on Rocky Linux 9. For those of you who didn’t know, TensorFlow is Google’s open-source platform for machine learning designed to simplify the process of implementing machine-learning models. It has a comprehensive, flexible ecosystem of tools, libraries, and community resources that lets researchers push the state-of-the-art in ML, and developers easily build and deploy ML-powered applications.TensorFlow is used by a number of organizations including Twitter, PayPal, Intel, Lenovo, and Airbus.

• 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 TensorFlow machine learning on Rocky Linux. 9.

=> ↺ How To Install Pinta on Fedora 37 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Pinta on Fedora 37. For those of you who didn’t know, Pinta is a free, open-source program for drawing and image editing. It is more straightforward and has less functionality than the open-source image editor GIMP. Pinta supports cross-platform and works on Windows, macOS, BSD, and Linux.

• 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 Pinta image editor on a Fedora 37.

=> ↺ How to Install HandBrake on Fedora 37/36/35

• HandBrake is an open-source tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs and can be installed and work quite well on Fedora Linux. HandBrake can open files in almost any format, convert them to MP4 or MKV files, and be used to create H.264 or H.265/HEVC video files.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the HandBrake on Fedora 37/36/35 Linux using the command line terminal with two installation methods, RPM Fusion or the natively installed Flatpak packager using the Flathub as the source for the second installation option for users that prefer using Flatpaks.

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

• Opera is a free, cross-platform web browser developed by Opera Software based on the Chromium open-source project, which is becoming a more popular option for users seeking an alternative to the default installed browser that is bundled with Ubuntu. Opera is a fast, secure web browser with a sleek design with some of the highlight features, including tabbed browsing, popup blocking, integrated search, and support for extensions and themes.

• In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install Opera Browser on Ubuntu 22.10, 22.04, and 20.04 using cli commands with the command line terminal by importing the Opera APT repository and installing one or all of the stable, beta, or development (nightly) versions on your desktop.

=> ↺ How to Change File Ownership in Ubuntu

• From its core, Linux is built to have multiple users. Be it a root user and a normal user or a bunch of human users.

=> ↺ How to Turn off UFW Firewall in Ubuntu

• Firewalls are double edged swards. They protect your server from unwanted traffic (attacks) but a misconfigured firewall can also cause trouble running your usual web services.

=> ↺ How to Install Unity Desktop Environment on Arch Linux

• This article will show you how to install the latest stable 7.6 version of the Unity desktop environment on your Arch Linux system.

• Unity is a graphical shell for the GNOME desktop environment designed and maintained by Canonical for Ubuntu. It was beautiful and innovative, but unfortunately, Canonical discontinued its support in 2017.

• However, six years later, Rudra Saraswat, a Linux Foundation Certified Developer, has resumed its development and support in the Ubuntu Unity flavor, which is now an official member of the Ubuntu family.

=> ↺ How to Create Your Own Fonts With Glyphtracer on Linux

• If you don’t fancy the preinstalled fonts on your Linux desktop, don’t worry. You can easily create your own custom fonts using Glyphtracer.

• Typography is an art that helps a writer express their individuality, as well as makes windows, terminals, and even text files look beautiful. Font designers typically have years of training and an arts background before the fruits of their labor make it onto your screen.

• With Glyphtracer, it’s easy to create your own font on Linux, and see how well your skills stand up against those of professionals.

=> ↺ Zip a Folder in Ubuntu Command Line

• When you try to zip a folder in Ubuntu, you’ll notice that it creates an empty zip file.

=> ↺ Extract Zip File to a Folder in Ubuntu

• By default when you unzip a zip file in Ubuntu command line, it extracts everything in the current directory.

• This is not pretty. Imagine a zip file with 30 files. All of them will flood your current directory.

• This is why, it is a wise idea to extract the zip files to dedicated folder.

Games

=> ↺ GNU Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) retro gaming – Super Nintendo – Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) – MSDOS via RetroArch

=> ↺ Godot Engine – Dev snapshot: Godot 4.0 beta 5

• We released Godot 4.0 beta 1 in September, and that was a big milestone on our journey to finalize our next major release – be sure to check out that blog post if you haven’t yet, for an overview of some of the main highlight of Godot 4.0.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Wayland: i3 to Sway migration – anarcat

• I started migrating my graphical workstations to Wayland, specifically migrating from i3 to Sway. This is mostly to address serious graphics bugs in the latest Framwork laptop, but also something I felt was inevitable.

• The current status is that I’ve been able to convert my i3 configuration to Sway, and adapt my systemd startup sequence to the new environment. Screen sharing only works with Pipewire, so I also did that migration, which basically requires an upgrade to Debian bookworm to get a nice enough Pipewire release. My biggest irritant right now is that the tray icons (e.g. Network Manager) are not clickable (!?).

• I’m testing Wayland on my laptop, but I’m not using it as a daily driver because I first need to upgrade to Debian bookworm there.

• The rest of this page documents why I made the switch, how it happened, and what’s left to do.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Best Linux Distros for KDE Plasma – Linux Stans

• KDE has been available as a FOSS for 26 years, it is still one of the most powerful and flexible desktop environments that are designed specifically for Linux systems. Initially, KDE meant “Kool Desktop Environment” but it was later changed to “K Desktop Environment”. KDE is 100% free to use and anyone can contribute to their open-source code.

• Along with providing users with a free desktop environment, KDE is also committed to ensuring that the privacy of its users is protected at all times. KDE is used by millions of Linux users and is supported by an active community that contributes open-source code.

• You can install KDE Plasma (the KDE desktop environment) on any distro, but some distros come with KDE pre-installed. There are dozens of Linux distributions that use KDE Plasma. But the question is which one is best for you, what are the pros and cons? As such, I will present you with the best KDE Plasma Linx distros in this article and help you decide which one to use. This is a compiled list of the best Linux distros for KDE, however, not all Linux distros are made equal. All of the distros in this article always use the latest version (KDE Plasma 5 as of writing).

Distributions and Operating Systems

New Releases

=> ↺ [altlinux-announce-en] Distribution Release: ALT KWorkstation 10.1

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Madeline Peck: 11/16/22 Status Update [on Fedora Design/Artwork]

• Created a call for art visuals and got in contact with the Marketing team to share on either Twitter or Instagram – originally I had the wrong mascot in the design but Beefy Miracle makes a great edition and hopefully is just as excited as others to get involved in Fedora 38 wallpaper.

• My next step is to play around with Blender and see what I can do with the old ideas I had for a rough wallpaper.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 is now available

• The next generation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is here

• As organizations spread their IT infrastructure from the datacenter to the cloud and the network edge, they increasingly need more scalable hybrid cloud solutions paired with enhanced operational stability. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), they can drive consistency, flexibility and reliability as they innovate.

• RHEL 9 became generally available in May 2022, and the new 9.1 update brings customers a number of new features and capabilities, including enhancements to SQL, Red Hat Smart Management with Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Insights and Workstations.

=> ↺ Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF) Approves New Bylaws and Charter Designed to Ensure Open Community Control of Rocky Linux and Future RESF Projects | Rocky Linux

• The Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF) today published its charter and bylaws, documenting the organization’s governing structure and rules for hosting open source projects, including its namesake project, Rocky Linux. The charter and bylaws also describe the RESF vision to create and nurture a community of individuals and organizations that are committed to ensuring the longevity, stewardship and innovation of enterprise-grade open source software that is always freely available.

=> ↺ Rocky Linux 8.7 Available Now | Rocky Linux

• We are pleased to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 8.7. This release is currently available for the x86-64 and AArch64 architectures. Please review the release notes in the Rocky Linux Documentation – These notes contain important information including known bugs and more comprehensive details about changes in this version.

• Highlights

• Testing

• Rocky Linux releases are put through thorough testing to ensure correctness and stability. Testing consists of hundreds of manual and automated checks covering all manner of environments and configurations.

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 9.1 – Now Available – AlmaLinux OS Blog

• Hello Community! The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is proud to announce general availability of AlmaLinux OS 9.1 codenomaded “Lime Lynx”.

=> ↺ AlmaLinux 9.1 Release Notes

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 Released, AlmaLinux 9.1 Out Too – Phoronix

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 was officially released today as the latest update to this leading enterprise Linux distribution. This afternoon also marked the release already of RHEL-derived AlmaLinux 9.1.

=> ↺ F37 election nominations now open – Fedora Community Blog

• Candidates may self-nominate. If you nominate someone else, please check with them to ensure that they are willing to be nominated before submitting their name.

• The steering bodies are currently selecting interview questions for the candidates.

• Nominees submit their questionnaire answers via a private Pagure issue. The Election Wrangler or their backup will publish the interviews to the Community Blog before the start of the voting period.

=> ↺ 21 Best Things To Do After Installing Fedora Linux 37

• Hello, Linux enthusiasts. Today, I’ll be discussing some of the basic post-installation processes for Fedora Linux distributions. Note that these may vary depending on your chosen usage for the Fedora system. However, there are always a few key steps that most users should follow after a fresh installation, such as updating their repositories, enabling power-saving mode to improve battery life, and installing essential software applications.

=> ↺ Red Hat Introduces Latest Versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1, the latest version of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform. Along with the recently announced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.7, these minor versions add and refine capabilities for a wide range of enterprise IT needs, from helping to streamline complex infrastructure environments to improving the security stance of containerized applications.

=> ↺ Red Hat EX374 exam

• Yesterday I did the Red Hat EX374 exam, which allows becoming Red Hat Certified Specialist in Developing Automation with Ansible Automation Platform.

• This exam is my sixth Ansible exam/certification, so the question is always, how is this similar or different from the others? This exam is one of the furthest ones from the others since it focuses on Ansible Automation Platform 2 instead of Ansible Core or Ansible Tower. This change was welcomed since AAP has many more moving parts and features compared to previous products.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Representing KDE @ Ubuntu Summit in Prague – Scarlett Gately Moore

• First, I would like to send a big Thank you! to Canonical for sponsoring my trip to Prague for the Ubuntu Summit! It was a great success. I saw some great talks and valuable workshops. I now know how to snap our applications the have daemons and services thanks to the Snapping Daemons and Services workshop. Prague itself is an amazing city. Wow. Just wow. I got to see old friends and meet many new ones. I will take away some wonderful memories. Did I mention a river cruise? Yes! It was great fun.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Arduino Opta is a micro PLC for industrial IoT applications – CNX Software

• Arduino has recently announced the Opta micro PLC with industrial IoT capabilities adding yet another solution to the Arduino Pro family.

• Arduino used to focus on the hobbyist crowd, but with the launch of the Arduino Pro family in 2020 starting with the Portenta H7 board, the company switched its main focus to the more profitable enterprise market. Since then they’ve launched several other boards designed in-house, and last year started collaborating with the introduction of the Arduino WisGate Edge LoRaWAN gateways based on RAKwireless hardware. The Arduino Opta is another one of those collaborations as it was designed together with Finder, who calls their devices PLR (Programmable Logic Relays).

=> ↺ Digitize your old slides with a modern DSLR camera | Arduino Blog

• Until the proliferation of digital photography, film slides were a common way to share photos. After a nice vacation in the ‘70s, you might take your film rolls for development and would have the option to receive a set of slides. You could then gather all of your friends in your living room, pop those slides into a projector carousel, and force everyone to look at unfocused pictures of palm trees projected onto the wall. If you still have a collection of slides (or inherited your parents’ collection), this video from Scott Lawrence demonstrates one method for converting them to digital photos.

• This approach might seem rudimentary, but it is quite effective. If you look at it from a high level, it is essentially just snapping photos of the slides with a modern DSLR camera. But those cameras are capable of capturing very high-quality pictures and this process is easy to automate. The key to that automation is the use of a vintage slide carousel. They are affordable and easy to control with a microcontroller, which makes them perfect for this application.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ I’m astounded that my two-year-old Galaxy phone already runs Android 13 – SamMobile

=> ↺ Lenovo Tab Extreme will ship with Android 13 and a Dimensity 9000 processor (leaks) – Liliputing

=> ↺ SMART Technologies Rolls Out Its First-to-Market Android 11 Update

=> ↺ Twitter rebranding Super Follows, adds Android themed icon

=> ↺ Millions of Android owners warned over dangerous ‘Samsung’ app – delete it now | The US Sun

=> ↺ Wallpaper Wednesday: Android wallpapers 2022-11-16 – Android Authority

=> ↺ Android Auto beta program opens up to more users

=> ↺ PUBG Mobile latest 2.3 update download link for all Android devices�(2022)

=> ↺ Secret codes for Android phones revealed – typing them unlocks hidden tricks | The US Sun

=> ↺ New Android Games: Best New Android Games This Week

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Events

=> ↺ Seizing knowledge at Capitole du Libre

• Clear your schedules, this weekend’s Capitole du Libre is calling your name for all things open source! Gathering in the “Pink City” of Toulouse, participants are welcome to attend with free admission from November 19 to 20 at the INP-ENSEEIHT.

• As sponsors, we are proud to support an event that truly desires to engage all levels of open source knowledge; there are even workshops for children to dabble in! There will be workshops, talks, food trucks, and a LAN Party for open source video game fans. The activities offered will be in French, including all of the talks.

SaaS/Back End/Databases

=> ↺ SQLite Release 3.40.0 On 2022-11-16

• Add support for compiling SQLite to WASM and running it in web browsers. NB: The WASM build and its interfaces are considered “beta” and are subject to minor changes if the need arises. We anticipate finalizing the interface for the next release.

=> ↺ How to Install PostgreSQL on AlmaLinux 9

• PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system written in C and C++, also known as Postgres. It can store structured and unstructured data in a single product.

• This tutorial will guide you through the simple steps of installing PostgreSQL on AlmaLinux 9 OS.

=> ↺ 10 Useful mysqladmin Commands for Database Administration – RoseHosting

• In this blog post, we will show you ten useful mysqladmin commands for database administration

Content Management Systems (CMS)

=> ↺ What is Drupal? – RoseHosting

• Looking back, Drupal was initially launched only as a small message board software for students.

• Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, and his friends gathered together back in 2001 and decided to start with small steps, but they ended up creating something much more significant: A content management system that powers influential sites such as Tesla, The White House, the Government of France, Warner Music, and Nokia!

FSF

=> ↺ Sourceware support proposal divides open source community • The Register

• The free and open source software (FOSS) community is caught in a love triangle of sorts, and it’s all down to money.

• Sourceware, a volunteer group that has been supporting various critical FOSS developer tools for more than two decades, is being courted by The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF). The OpenSSF aims to improve open source software security by providing Sourceware projects with more modern IT infrastructure.

• But some members of the Sourceware community fear that accepting the help of the OpenSSF would give the corporate Linux world more leverage over FOSS developer tools. They would prefer to seek support from the Software Freedom Conservancy, a charitable non-profit that they believe is better aligned with software freedom.

• The Linux Foundation, also a non-profit entity, is sponsored by, among others, Microsoft, Google, and Verizon; the conservancy is supported by Google, Mozilla, and others.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Moving past TCP in the data center, part 2 [LWN.net]

• At the end of our earlier article on John Ousterhout’s talk at Netdev 0×16, he had concluded that TCP was unsuitable for data-center environments for a variety of reasons. He also argued that there was no way to repair TCP so that it could serve the needs of data-center networking. In order for software to be able to use the full potential of today’s networking hardware, TCP needs to be replaced with a protocol that is different in almost every way, he said. The second half of the talk covered the Homa transport protocol that he and others at Stanford have been working on as a possible replacement for TCP in the data center.

• The Homa project set out to design a protocol from scratch that would be ideal for the needs of data-center networking today. It turned out to be different from TCP in each of the five aspects that he had covered in the first half of the talk; the choices made by Homa for those work well together to “produce a really really high-performance data-center protocol”. But, he stressed, Homa is not suitable for wide-area networks (WANs); it is only for data centers.

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Live streaming the release of Perl 5.37.6 | Max Maischein [blogs.perl.org]

• Just like last year, I’m doing a dev release of Perl, this time version 5.37.6.

Rust

=> ↺ This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 469

Leftovers

Hardware

=> ↺ Cerebras Wants Its Piece Of An Increasingly Heterogenous HPC World

• Changing the compute paradigm in the datacenter, or even extending it or augmenting it in some fashion, is no easy task. A company, even one that has raised $720 million in seven rounds of funding in the past six years, has to be careful to not try to do too much too fast and lose focus while at the same time adapting to the conditions in the field to get its machines doing real work and proving their worth on tough tasks.

• This is where machine learning upstart and wafer-scale computing pioneer Cerebras Systems finds itself today, and it does not have the benefit of ubiquity that the Intel X86 architecture or the relative ubiquity that the Nvidia GPU architecture have had as they challenged the incumbents in datacenter compute in the 1990s and the 2010s, respectively.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Walmart COVID Leave Policy doesn’t pay employees if they get COVID. | BaronHK’s Rants

• Walmart COVID Leave Policy doesn’t pay employees if they get COVID.

• I noticed that they stopped doing it in March, stating that the leave of absence policy had cost them $400 million in paid time off, so if it happens to you now, you’re just entirely on your own.

• My spouse works at Walmart, so it looks like he just won’t get paid until he’s well enough to return to work. Lucky for us, we have some money in the bank and even if that wasn’t enough, I could keep things moving along until we get our tax check and cash out some savings bonds. This is very unusual for a household that has one person working at Walmart though. And so I can shrug and say “At least our income taxes won’t be so bad next year.”.

• The CDC and the doctor (who prescribed Paxlovid) said take 5 days off and go back on Sunday.

• The CDC bases the “5 days” advice on the 5 days where you’re “the most contagious”.

• However, most Walmart workers can’t afford to take an unpaid week off work, so the two that came in and knew they had it were probably just trying to make money and hope that none of their coworkers, who now have it, would notice.

Microsoft Front Groups and Proponents of Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)

=> ↺ How OSI got to Mastodon

=> ↺ deplatforms critics in Twitter

=> ↺ OSI speaks for Microsoft

• We have a new official social media channel for the Open Source Initiative: OSI is on Mastodon.

=> ↺ Outreachy employee Omotola wins award

• We could not be more proud of Omotola Omotayo, Outreachy’s Community Manager, for winning the She Code Africa Amazon 2022 award at the She Code Africa Summit in Nigeria this past weekend! The award was given to her for her excellent work in “growth, leadership and contribution within the African Tech ecosystem.” During the presentation of the award, Omotola’s critical role in growing the SCA community was acknowledged and applauded.

=> ↺ The State of Open Source Is Strong, Says GitHub Report

Security

=> ↺ Mozilla Releases Security Updates for Multiple Products | CISA

• Mozilla has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in Thunderbird, Firefox ESR, and Firefox. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause user confusion or conduct spoofing attacks.

=> ↺ Critical Escalation Vulnerability Found in the Linux Kernel

• A new local privilege escalation vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux kernel and users are encouraged to upgrade/patch immediately.

• RedHat added a new CVE code, listed as 2022-3977, which is described as a use-after-free flaw. A use-after flaw can occur when a program attempts to use memory that has been released.

• CVE 2022-3977 resides in the Linux kernel MCTP (Management Component Transport Protocol). How this vulnerability works is after a user simultaneously calls DROPTAG ioctl at the same time a socket close occurs. When this happens, the vulnerability can then be used to elevate privileges all the way up to root.

=> ↺ Samba Releases Security Updates

• The Samba Team has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in multiple versions of Samba. An attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

=> ↺ iTWire – Medibank bosses keep bonuses despite devastating network attack

• Ransomware generally attacks only systems running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

• [...]

• The Medibank attack is one of about 10 that have been reported recently and was announced on 14 October. When it first announced its systems had been breached, Medibank said there was no indication of any sensitive data having leaked. Later, it said the data stolen was limited to ahm and international students. Even later, it said data of all its 3.9 million customers could have been taken.

=> ↺ Cisco Releases Security Updates for Identity Services Engine

• Cisco has released security updates for vulnerabilities affecting Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE). A remote attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to bypass authorization and access system files. For updates addressing vulnerabilities, see the Cisco Security Advisories page.

=> ↺ Using certificates for SSH authentication [LWN.net]

• SSH is a well-known mechanism for accessing remote computers in a secure way; thanks to its use of cryptography, nobody can alter or eavesdrop on the communication. Unfortunately, SSH is somewhat cumbersome when connecting to a host for the first time; it’s also tricky for a server administrator to provide time-limited access to the server. SSH certificates can solve these problems.

=> ↺ Why Decentralised ID Won’t Work — Firstyear’s blog-a-log

• Thanks to a number of high profile and damaging security incidents in Australia people have once again been discussing Decentralised ID (DID). As someone who has spent most of the career working on identity management, I’m here to tell you why it will not work.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Stop normalizing Musk (and why ‘work harder’ isn’t going to do it for Twitter): Dissociated Press

• One of the most disheartening things about the Musk takeover of Twitter is how his malignant narcissism is being treated as normal. Even sadder, celebrated, by a small but vocal contingent of people who are still inexplicably fans of a person who’d happily have them thrown into a wood chipper if it meant an extra profit – or just for fun.

• In a better world, Twitter’s employees would’ve locked arms and simply refused to take his orders. If Musk wanted someone fired, let him figure out how to get access to the systems to do so. Let him take personal responsibility for the consequences. See how long he can keep the site up solo.

• Advertisers shouldn’t be pulling out here and there, they should’ve canceled all spend with Twitter until Musk goes away or at least gets out of Godzilla on cocaine mode. It’s disappointing to see any company still willing to help prop Twitter up. [1]

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Copy-Protection Schemes: Weird Formats, Wacky Encryption Tactics

• Sometime in the early part of 1992, a film crew shot a commercial at Washington, D.C.’s, Cardozo High School at the behest of the software industry. With the help and funding of the Software Publishers Association, and filmed with the assistance of an actor and rapper named M.E. Hart, the ensuing film made a small ripple at the time of its release as the center of an anti-piracy campaign, but decades later, became a popular internet meme when the resulting video, a clip entitled “Don’t Copy That Floppy,” understandably went viral. (I mean, what else was it going to do, not be copied?) Nearly two decades later, the association, now called the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), shot a direct sequel with Hart again rapping his way through it. I think these videos highlight something that often gets taken for granted: copy protection, despite end users’ hatred of it, is worthy of nostalgia. And with that in mind, today’s Tedium pulls out ten copy protection schemes that didn’t make it—or maybe they did, but are so non-noticeable as to be invisible. Maybe you got around them in your day.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Hike: Brienzer Rothorn

• I intended to do this last Sunday, but ended up only sleeping three hours and figured it wasn’t worth trying on so little sleep, so I did it yesteray instead. It really was unfortunate, since on Sunday the grass was green on the south side and the sun was out, but by yesterday, a bunch of snow had been dumped on the mountain.

=> ↺ Artemis I

• I loved space as a kid. I grew up during the space shuttle program, which looking back on it I don’t think I appreciated how cool it was.

• Over time I sort of became less and less interested, maybe partly due to not a lot of exciting space things breaking into the mainstream. That’s started to change in recent years with things like the Mars Perseverance rover and James Webb Space Telescope. But both of those, in my opinion, pale in comparison to the prospect of putting people back on the moon which is what the Artemis missions are planning to achieve.

• Getting to watch the launch of Artemis I last night was pretty special and oddly nostalgic. It brought back some of that fascination of space and engineering I felt as a kid.

=> ↺ The Magic Word

• “Unkle Mike, Unkle Mike!” My nephew proudly told me, “Unkle Mike, I know the Magic Word! It’s Please”.

• I said: “Actually, it is not — that’s just what grownups want you to think. The real magic words is ‘NOW!’, and to make it do its magic you have to point your index finger down.” I demonstrated.

• He didn’t look convinced, so I continued. “When your mom really wants you to make the bed, does she say ‘please make the bed’ or does she say ‘I want this bed made up, NOW!’”. I could see he was on the fence, so I went on. “When my boss needs something, do you think he says ‘Mike, please bring me the Johnson file’? No, he says “I need that file, NOW!”

=> ↺ Grief

• As an aside, they wonder why the tourist industry collapsed here, but for the cost of a one-way flight to the island from the UK, I could’ve got a return flight to the other end of Europe.

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ Gemini Fix

• I haven’t been able to update the gemini version of this blog for the past few months because of some bug causing new posts to not be added to the index.gmi file.

=> ↺ Mastodo or Mastodon’t

• With all the recent drama around Twitter and with Facebook circling closer and closer to the drain, my head has been swirling with thoughts about social networking and its effects on my life. It feels like the era of the original giants is coming to an end. The network effect will surely keep Twitter and Facebook around for years to come in one form or another, but in November 2022, the old monolithic platforms are fracturing.

• My relationship with social media reflects my behavior in the real world. I’m definitely an introvert, and do not often share personal details or thoughts unprompted. It comes down to the nature of opinions: everyone has their personal view of the world, and sharing it with others seems a little pointless. I suppose people can bond over having similar views and interests, as a form of entertainment and camaraderie. Personally, I seek very little social interaction in the real world; the everyday family life is quite enough.

Announcements

=> ↺ Announcing the Collaborative Directory of Geminispace

• It can be tricky to find the good stuff in Geminispace. For glog posts we’re well served by Antenna et al, but Gemini isn’t just about feeds. There are many capsules with interesting static content not dribbled out in regular updates, as well as a variety of interactive services, mirrors, databases, and so forth. Search engines help, but you have to know what you’re looking for. The medusae.space hand-written directory of capsules is nice but incomplete, and catalogues capsules rather than individual resources.

• [...]

• I have seeded it with my own link collection. Please add your own. As with Antenna, you should feel free to “self-advertise” by adding links to resources on your own capsule. If the “correct” category for a link is currently missing, just put the link in the most suitable currently existing place — I will create new categories and move the links around as appropriate.

Programming

=> ↺ Ultima Ratio Coquorum

• The Perl Food::Ratio module calculates ratios of ingredients and groups of ingredients, and allows the measurement to be recalculated based on a given weight for a given ingredient. This is probably maxiumum overkill for making cornmeal muffins, but there is a kitchen scale and a computer, so…

=> ↺ Converting text files with french character encoding to utf8

• I have some text files from MSDOS written in the 90s before UTF-8 was common and I don’t remember which character encoding was used.

• 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

=> Techrights

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