This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2023/01/02/ultramarine-linux-37-released/.

● 01.02.23

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 02/01/2023: Ultramarine Linux 37 Released, Nitrux 2.6.0 Released, and Archcraft+Arch Linux ISOs for 2023

Posted in News Roundup at 9:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ ‘Toxic’ Linux Community Acts As the Perfect Repellent for New Users

=> ↺ seems like a Microsoft propaganda site and Microsoft is, in fact, a media partner

• Although, these bad apples do not make a majority of the community surrounding Linux, since many forums are actually friendly towards new users, the negative users create enough noise in the community to turn newcomers away from the platform, thus creating a negative perception of the ecosystem.

=> ↺ 20 Years of DistroWatch [LWN.net]

• DistroWatch Weekly celebrates its 1000th issue and 20 years of publication.

=> ↺ Linux Format Magazine Issue 297 is Now On Sale – OMG! Linux

• A new year, and a brand new issue of the FOSS-focused technology magazine Linux Format is available to buy.

• Linux Format 297 includes a comprehensive feature about escaping Microsoft Windows. Aimed at first-time Linux users, the guide looks at using the user-friendly Elementary OS distribution to get started with Linux and related software.

• There’s an in-depth guide to open source RAW photography that could (no promises) help you create better looking snaps, with ample tips, advice, software, and tool recommendations provided.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Kodachi Linux: Is It Worth the Hype? – Invidious

• Today we look at Kodachi Linux from a standpoint of what it is and how it is created rather than looking at the distro directly. I identify a few major issues with the distro and why other platforms are better for security and privacy models.

=> ↺ Here’s something challenging for your new year resolution 🐧 – Invidious

• Comment below which distro you are going to try!

=> ↺ These community-made Steam Deck boot movies are AWFUL. (And there are a few good ones, too) – Invidious

• What’s going on in the world of Steam Deck customization? Bad boot movies. That’s what. From pre-made motion graphic templates with the Deck logo poorly shoehorned in to “Adult Swim” to the OP re-emergence of “Bonzi Buddy”, there’s something for every (poor) taste on SteamDeckRepo.com!

=> ↺ Linux User Space: A Pause for Health

• Hey everyone, and welcome to the Linux User Space! Normally we’d be releasing a new episode today, but we have to pause due to some health issues.

• We’ll pick back up with episode 14 of season 3 featuring Gecko Linux in two weeks. So stay tuned and check out our Youtube and TILVids in the mean time.

=> ↺ 306: 2023 Linux Predictions, Xfce 4.18, Steam Winter Sale – More! – Destination Linux – TuxDigital

• This week’s episode of Destination Linux, we’re going to discuss our predictions for 2023 as well as our hopes and dreams for this coming year. Then we discuss the latest release of Xfce with Xfce 4.18. Plus, we have our tips/tricks and software picks. All this and more coming up right now on Destination Linux to keep those penguins marching!

=> ↺ Ultramarine Linux – Perfect Fedora Spin | Now With A Customized KDE Desktop – Invidious

• Ultramarine Linux – Perfect Fedora Spin | Now With A Customized KDE Desktop

• A video covering the newest release of Ultramarine Linux. The perfect Fedora spin now with the KDE desktop environment. Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments below.

=> ↺ How to install Rosegarden on a Chromebook

• Today we are looking at how to install Rosegarden on a Chromebook.

=> ↺ Keep Your TODO List – Notes Simple With Dooit – Invidious

• There are many todo list/todo manager applications out there and today we’re looking at one of the simpler ones, this is terminal tui based solution called dooit which while very simple does everything you might need. This video has been sitting in my backlog since September.

=> ↺ RPCS3 hits a new compatibility milestone! – Invidious

=> ↺ How to install Visual Studio Code on KDE Neon – Invidious

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.04 | Install – Setup a Minecraft Server – Invidious

=> ↺ deepin 20.8 Quick overview – Invidious

• A Quick Overview of deepin 20.8

=> ↺ How to install Manjaro 22.0 Gnome Edition – Invidious

• In this video, I am going to show how to install Manjaro 22.0 Gnome Edition.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ New Intel Xe Graphics Driver for Linux in Development – OMG! Linux

• The new Intel Xe kernel graphics driver was announced before Christmas. It will support Intel’s 11th gen integrated graphics and newer, as well as discrete Intel Xe graphics cards.

• Though under active development at present, Intel say the new driver will be production-ready this year.

• But why build a new Intel graphics driver at all? Isn’t the existing one good enough?

Applications

=> ↺ Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Google Sheets

• Google has a firm grip on the desktop. Their products and services are ubiquitous. Don’t get us wrong, we’re long-standing admirers of many of Google’s products and services. They are often high quality, easy to use, and ‘free’, but there can be downsides of over-reliance on a specific company. For example, there are concerns about their privacy policies, business practices, and an almost insatiable desire to control all of our data, all of the time.

• What if you are looking to move away from Google and embark on a new world of online freedom, where you are not constantly tracked, monetised and attached to Google’s ecosystem.

• In this series we explore how you can migrate from Google without missing out on anything. We recommend open source solutions.

=> ↺ Tokodon 23.01.0 release

• Happy new year! To get a good start in this new new year, I’m happy to announce that Tokodon 23.01.0 is out! This is a new major release for Tokodon and while it’s been only 2 weeks since the last major release, this release is packed with new features and improvements.

• Tokodon is a Mastodon/Pleroma/Nextcloud Social client built with Kirigami that I started back in spring 2021. Tokodon has a great integration with KDE Plasma and Plasma Mobile, but it also work on other desktop environments and even Windows and macOS.

=> ↺ The 4 Best sudo Alternatives for Linux Worth Considering

• For those who don’t fancy sudo and find it bloated, there are several sudo alternatives you can try instead.

• sudo is probably one of the most used Linux commands. It allows you to gain administrative or elevated privileges on a Linux machine.

• You normally need elevated privileges to execute actions such as installing software, managing services, and deleting critical system files. But did you know there are alternatives to the sudo command on Linux?

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Using vnStat on Debian 11 to monitor the network

• In this post, you will learn how to install and use vnStat on Debian 11 to monitor the network in a quick and easy way without too much complexity.

=> ↺ How to Use Fasd in Linux for Quick Access to Files & Directories

• Linux users often rely on the command line, but tedious and time-consuming tasks can make it frustrating. Navigating and moving between directories using cd and ls commands, plus typing long path files to access, copy or list files, can be annoying for even advanced users.

• To solve the problem of directory navigation and accessing files from other locations in the system using command lines, the fasd tool has been created exactly for this purpose. fasd is a command line utility written in Shell that serves as an advanced version of the autojump and z command utilities; we can call also: Autojump plus z with support for files.

• This Linux tool allows the user to quick access a previously visited directories and files from any location in the system.

• Fasd can be described as a faster solution to navigate and access the user’s frequent and recent directories and files. This helpful utility saves the frequently visited directories and files (i.e. History) from the command line into a database in order to render filesystem navigation possible and quite easy just by typing small patterns.

• In this article you will learn how to use fasd to easily access files and directories without specifying their full path or executing numerous cd commands.

=> ↺ 5 Practical Examples to Check If a Port is Open – TecAdmin

• In Linux, a port is a numbered network connection that allows a device to communicate with other devices over the internet or a local network. It is important to ensure that the desired ports are open and accessible to ensure the smooth functioning of network services. There are various ways to check if a port is open in Linux, and in this article, we will discuss five of them.

=> ↺ Sort Command in Linux with Examples

• To organize the data in a precise sequence or sort the file, use the sort command. The file’s data is sorted line by line using the sort command. If a record is in alphabetical order, the file is sorted alphabetically. Otherwise, it is sorted in ascending order if the record contains numeric information. Linux’s sorting feature offers a variety of flags from which we can choose to sort in reverse or by column, etc. We will utilize a few of its flags in this article.

=> ↺ How To Install NoMachine on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install NoMachine on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, NoMachine is a comprehensive remote desktop solution that allows users to access and control a remote computer from a local machine. Interestingly, NoMachine supports an unlimited number of remote servers on a single server. Its support for multiple platforms and features such as audio and video streaming make it a popular choice for many users.

• 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 NoMachine on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

=> ↺ Beginners Guide for Wall Command in Linux

• If you are a sysadmin, then wall command can be your next favorite Linux tool, thinking why? With the help of this tool, you can broadcast messages to all logged-in users on your system, either locally or via SSH.

• This tool comes in handy, especially when you intend to start maintenance work (or something else) on your server and want to notify other users in advance.

• Stick with this article until the end to learn more about the wall command and its different options (with practical examples).

=> ↺ How To Secure Apache with Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu 22.04 – LinuxTuto

• Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority (CA). Let’s Encrypt offer free 90-day SSL certificates.

• Let’s Encrypt provide two types of certificates. The standard single-domain SSL and the Wildcard SSL, which covers not only a single domain, but all of its subdomains too.

• In this tutorial, we will use Certbot a free, open-source software tool for automatically issuing the Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate and verify that your certificate is set up to renew automatically.

=> ↺ First steps with Mermaid, a diagramming and charting tool

• Mermaid is a Javascript-based tool that renders Markdown-inspired text definitions to create diagrams. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to start and render your first diagram.

=> ↺ Linux USB Not Detected or Not Working? 5 Common Issues and Fixes

• USB devices not detected in Linux? Try these troubleshooting tips to get things working again.

• You’ve hooked up a USB flash drive or a keyboard or mouse to your Linux PC. But nothing is happening.

• What’s going on? Why is your pen drive not detected in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or some other distro? Is it a Linux thing, or has your USB device stopped working? Here’s what to do on Linux if your USB drive is not detected or recognized.

=> ↺ What Is PPA and How Does It Install Software on Ubuntu Linux?

• Unlike traditional packages, PPAs aren’t maintained or distributed by Ubuntu or Canonical. So what are they? And should you use them on your PC?

• PPAs or Personal Package Archives are a type of repository used in Linux systems to store and distribute software packages.

• Let’s learn what a PPA is, how they differ from standard repositories, how to add and remove PPAs, whether PPAs are safe to use, and finally, the advantages of using PPAs.

=> ↺ 10 top networking guides for sysadmin success | Enable Sysadmin

• Get plugged into the top 10 networking articles of 2022 to learn how to troubleshoot network problems, automate your network, balance traffic, and more.

=> ↺ Understanding the su Command in Linux – TecAdmin

• If you’ve ever wanted to run commands as a different user without having to log out and log back in again, then the su command is the perfect tool for you! This command not only allows you to switch users seamlessly but also provides a number of other useful features that can supercharge your Linux experience.

• In this article, we’ll take a look at some examples of the su command in action, discuss best practices for using it, explore some alternatives, and cover some important security considerations. So let’s get started!

=> ↺ 5 Easy Steps to Mastering TCPdump for Network Troubleshooting – buildVirtual

• TCPdump is a powerful command-line tool for analyzing and debugging network traffic. It allows you to capture and examine packets transmitted over a network, providing valuable insights into network performance and security.

• If you’re new to TCPdump, don’t worry! In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the basics and provide you with the skills you need to get started.

=> ↺ Getting Started With Manjaro

• As we mentioned in our Manjaro Linux review, it is Arch Linux for Human Beings.

• While Arch Linux can be intimidating, Manjaro is much more comforting and easier to use.

• But that doesn’t mean that there is no learning curve involved.

• If you are new to Manjaro Linux, these tutorials will help you use Manjaro Linux more smoothly and effectively.

=> ↺ Apply Updates Automatically With dnf-automatic – OSTechNix

• Applying updates regularly should be the top priority in the day-to-day tasks of a System administrator. Running unpatched systems for a long time is quite risky. There are many ways to patch your Linux systems. Today, we will learn how to apply updates automatically with dnf-automatic in RHEL and its clones like AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux.

=> ↺ How To Save Your Desktop Notifications – Invidious

• One of the interesting things with Linux desktop notifications is that they are not permanently saved anywhere on your system. Well, with some Google-fu and some minor configuration file edits, we can have our desktop notifications automatically save to a log file that we can read anytime we want.

=> ↺ Beginners Guide for Pstree Command in Linux

• The ps and top commands are the most popular and commonly used command-line programs to view the currently running processes on your Linux system.

• The pstree is also similar to them, except that it outputs the running process in the form of a tree; if no arguments are passed, then it will list the complete process.

• This way of inspecting the running processes in the form of a hierarchy is more convenient and visually appealing, especially for beginners (even if they don’t understand the output).

• In this article, you will learn how to use the pstree command and how to use the different available options with it (with practical examples).

=> ↺ How to manage power profiles over D-Bus with power-profiles-daemon on Linux

• Power-profiles-daemons is a free and open source project designed to handle system power profiles over D-Bus. The two major Linux desktop environment, GNOME and KDE Plasma, are nicely integrated with it, allowing the user to easily manage power profiles from their dedicated power manager interfaces, but it is also possible to switch profiles and retrieve information about them from the command line, using a dedicated utility.

• In this tutorial we learn how to install power-profiles-daemon, and how to use it to manage power profiles on Linux.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Xfce’s Apps Update for December 2022: New Releases of Ristretto, Thunar, Screenshooter, and More – 9to5Linux

• The December and last issue of my exclusive “Xfce’s Apps Update” monthly roundup for 2022 is here with news about the latest releases of your favorite Xfce applications, plugins, tools, and more.

• As you all know, the biggest news for fans of the Xfce desktop environment in December 2022 was the release of Xfce 4.18, which is already available for installation on some of the most popular GNU/Linux distributions out there, as well as on some less known distros.

• After the release of Xfce 4.18, the rest of December brought us a new release of the Thunar file manager to version 4.18.1, which fixes several thumbnailing issues, addresses a crash with the location bar, fixes an issue to prevent building on the NixOS distro, no longer resets zoom-level for directory specific settings, fixes the ‘replace’ option when copying ‘*.partial~’ files, and preserves the trusted state when copying launchers.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Easily Monitor Stock Prices with these GNOME Extensions – OMG! Ubuntu!

• Here are two GNOME extensions you can use to keep an eye on stock prices from your Linux desktop without needing to open a web browser or a dedicated app.

• In a fast-paced world folks want quick and easy access to real-time stock market data. While there are websites that let you view stock prices online, it’s often more convenient to get the information through the OS itself.

• So the GNOME extensions in this article will satisfy those who spend a lot of time at their computer and want to see the latest stock prices for specific companies/stocks. There’s no need to keep a browser tab open, or fish a smartphone out of your pocket as you can view the latest stock prices hassle-free.

• Why not invest in one of these time-savers?

Distributions and Operating Systems

=> ↺ Best Linux Distribution of 2022 Goes to Pop!_OS 22.04

• Pop!_OS 22.04 is a fantastic Linux distribution which has been heavily modified to provide the best experience for power users. It ships with a lot of custom software and tweaks, making it one of the best Ubuntu derivatives out there.

• Although mainly developed by System76 for their own hardware that they sell, it can be used like any other normal distribution on any suitable hardware. Additionally, many users report that it was able to revive their older hardware thanks to the CPU tweaks done on it.

• It has a fantastic future as one of the best Linux distributions out there for professionals and creators.

=> ↺ The Top 8 Weird and Funny Meme Linux Distributions

• If you’re looking to have a little bit of fun while distro-hopping, consider taking these funny, meme Linux distros for a spin.

• Linux distributions are the most versatile and valuable OSes in the market. Given their customizations and flexibility, they inspire developers to create new, improved versions of the operating system, usually to meet specific goals.

• Even though most Linux OSes are tailor-made to cater to a specific purpose, a few are bound to make you laugh or wonder about their true meaning.

• If you are a fan of Linux and want to review a few unconventional, funny, and weird distros, check out this list of meme Linux distributions.

New Releases

=> ↺ January 2023 Release Available (Distribution Release of Archcraft 2023.01.01)

• You need to re-install Archcraft for this update. After that, you can update to next release with pacman

=> ↺ Release Announcement: Nitrux 2.6.0 “ff”

• We are pleased to announce the launch of Nitrux 2.6.0. This new version combines the latest software updates, bug fixes, performance improvements, and ready-to-use hardware support.

=> ↺ Vanilla OS 22.10 released – OSnews

• Vanilla OS has released its first version. Vanilla OS is an immutable desktop Linux distribution that brings some interesting new technologies to the table, such as the Apx package manager.

Arch Family

=> ↺ Arch Linux’s First ISO Release in 2023 Is Out and It’s Powered by Linux Kernel 6.1 – 9to5Linux

• Arch Linux is the first GNU/Linux distribution to kick off 2023 with a new ISO release targeting those who want to deploy Arch Linux on new computers, chroot into an existing one to repair it, or just reinstall their systems.

• Arch Linux 2023.01.01 is not only Arch Linux’s first ISO release in 2023, but it’s also Arch Linux’s first ISO release powered by the latest and greatest Linux 6.1 kernel series. This means that you’re getting better hardware support out of the box when booting the new Arch Linux ISO on some computers.

• Linux kernel 6.1.1 is being used by default on the new Arch Linux ISO release since the latest Linux 6.1.2 kernel release that arrived on New Year’s Eve is still in the Testing repos (you’ll get it as an update after the installation). Linux kernel 6.1 arrived in Arch Linux’s repositories on December 22nd, 2022, for existing users.

=> ↺ The Numbers Don’t Lie: Arch Linux Reigns Supreme on Reddit

• As of January 1, 2023, Arch is the most popular Linux distribution based on the number of members in individual Linux communities on Reddit.

• The popularity of individual Linux distributions has always piqued the interest of the Linux community. Every year, new ones emerge, with some gaining popularity at the expense of others losing it for various reasons. In other words, the popularity of different Linux distributions is dynamic and challenging to track metrics.

• For many years, Distrowatch has been used as an example in measuring this factor. However, the metric used there, unique page views of a specific Linux distribution, is hard to accept without reservation, even though it provides a good indication of popularity.

Fedora Family / IBM

=> ↺ Ultramarine Linux 37 Release Adds Pop OS-Style KDE Plasma, Drops Cutefish

• A new release of Ultramarine Linux is here: Ultramarine Linux 37 with new custom repo, KDE Plasma flavour and goodies.

• If you are unaware, Ultramarine Linux is a Fedora-based distribution which offers Budgie, Pantheon, GNOME and other desktops. This distro gives you the best Fedora experience with this awesome desktop environment.

• Recently, this small project is acquired by FyraLabs, the company behind PhotonBrowser and tauOS. And this enables the Ultramarine project with the necessary manpower and funding for infrastructure to continue building the distro.

=> ↺ Digital transformation: 4 security tips for 2023 | The Enterprisers Project

• Digital advances offer countless competitive advantages and can be a great equalizer for those they serve. However, organizations must consider the risks involved when generating a tidal wave of data and connections.

• As businesses spend millions of dollars on developing strategic, long-term plans to digitize their processes, enhancing IT and cyber risk management functions should be at the forefront. In fact, 14 percent of C-suite executives indicate their organizations have no cyber threat defense plans.

=> ↺ 10 DevOps lessons IT leaders learned in 2022 | The Enterprisers Project

• Upskilling, burnout, containers—oh my! These are the topics swirling within the minds of developers and IT professionals. This year, IT leaders shared both their success stories and failures when it comes to DevOps. Although embracing cloud-native technology like Kubernetes is exciting, honing in on the emotional side of DevOps is just as important and even more challenging. As you enter into the new year, read these articles to reflect on how to strengthen your organization’s culture of DevOps.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Gunnar Wolf: Refueling the blog

• So… yes, there is a clear downwards trend towards the last few years. And it does make sense, all in all: Not only have I managed to keep myself busier than before, but… Blogging is a social endeavor. And as people have moved over to the different flavors of social networks, there is somewhat less fueling us to share our thoughts and experiences in this fashion.

• So this connects me to my first point: Staring at Noodles’ Emptiness, I got to a campaign to Bring Back Blogging. I stand by all of what they suggest: Blogs are a great invention, they allow the sharing of a great insight into a person’s mind, ideas and worldview (and even more so if, like mine, it shows already a window of almost two decades of life! This year my blog will be old enough to vote!), they are completely decentralized, and can be easily grouped according to each readers’ preferences via the RSS format.

• Anyway – I do want to write a post summing up 2022, as well as sharing some hopes and projects I have for 2023. But I don’t want to make it too long to read. So… That shall be the blog post for today!

=> ↺ Sparky news 2022/12 – SparkyLinux

• The 12th monthly Sparky project and donate report of 2022: – Linux kernel updated up to 6.1.2 & 5.15.86-LTS & 4.9.336-LTS49, and the new one 6.2-RC1 as well – Added to repos: Harmonoid – the US1 mirror server is back online – Sparky 2022.12 & 2022.12 Special Editions of the rolling line released

• Good news!

• In December, You sent a little more than 100% of donations, it’s something we have not been able to do for the past few years. We also got 100% of the amount for the VPN server for the next year, just a few days before the deadline.

=> ↺ Ben Hutchings: Debian LTS work, December 2022

• In December I was assigned 15 hours by Freexian’s Debian LTS initiative and carried over 9 hours from November. I worked all of those hours.

• I merged the latest bullseye point release into the linux-5.10 package, uploaded that, and issued DLA-3244-1.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 768

=> ↺ Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 768

• Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 768 for the week of December 25 – 31, 2022.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ CES 2023: MediaTek Genio 700 Chipset for Smart Home IoT Devices launched

• The Genio 700 SDK allows designers to customize products using Yocto Linux, Ubuntu, and Android. With this support, customers can easily develop their own products with a minimal amount of effort, regardless of application type.

=> ↺ MediaTek Expands IoT Platform with Genio 700 for Industrial and Smart Home Products

• The Genio 700 SDK allows designers to customize products using Yocto Linux, Ubuntu, and Android. With this support, customers can easily develop their own products with a minimal amount of effort, regardless of application type.

=> ↺ MediaTek Genio 700, IoT SoC for Industrial and Smart Home Products | Ubergizmo

• The Genio 700 SDK will allows developers to create and customize industrial and smart home products running on Yocto Linux, Ubuntu, and Android.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Purism Librem 5 receives major camera update, video recording capabilities

• As we tend to mention often, cameras are one of the areas where Linux phones are often seen as lacking behind their Android alternatives. This is partly due to extreme fragmentation of sensor drivers, with most mainlined devices not having any kind of Linux camera support, and just partly due to the lack of a software infrastructure for acquisition and post-processing.

• The first camera app for Linux phones was Megapixels, developed by Martijn Braam as a Python GTK3 app for the PinePhone, and now the standard choice for Linux mobiles. Megapixels can be easily extended to new phones with a working kernel camera driver through configuration files, which specify sensor drivers to use, colour processing matrices, how previews are to be displayed, and much more.

=> ↺ Private streaming server with Raspberry Pi and Emby on Docker

• Install and configure your private Streaming Server on Raspberry PI and Emby.

=> ↺ Vlad Tomoiagă’s FakePGA Turns a Raspberry Pi Pico or Other RP2040 Board Into a Slow, Cheap “FPGA” – Hackster.io

• Electronics engineering student Vlad Tomoiagă has come up with a neat way to experiment with field-programmable gate array (FPGA) concepts without having to splash out on an actual FPGA — by simulating one on a Raspberry Pi Pico or other RP2040-based microcontroller board.

• “This project aims to simulate Verilog HDL [Hardware Description Language] designs on a Raspberry Pi Pico (or any other RP2040-based board),” Tomoiagă explains of FakePGA. “It achieves this by using Verilator to compile the RTL [Register Transfer Level code] into a cycle-accurate C++ model of your design which can then be executed on the microcontroller. This allows you to access the signals of the simulated design through the GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output] pins of the board, which gives a more hands-on experience than simulating on a computer.”

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Support the development of /e/OS & Murena

• Since 2017, when I announced that I wanted to “Leave Apple & Google”, the /e/OS project has done tremendous progresses: we have succeeded to design and release a modern and realistically usable operating system and cloud services that protect their users from permanent personal data collection and from surveillance capitalism…

• /e/OS can be installed on more than 250 different smartphones, and we have succeeded to bring it to long awaited devices such as the Fairphone 3 and Fairphone 4, among others.

• We have introduced unique features, such as the “Advanced Privacy” module, that informs /e/OS’ users about trackers and ads triggered by mobile applications and websites, and cut them in real time. Advanced Privacy can even fake one’s geolocation or… IP address, to stay under the radar.

=> ↺ MECOOL KM7 Plus runs Google TV OS on Amlogic S905Y4 SoC – CNX Software

=> ↺ How to put a call on hold on Android devices | Technology News,The Indian Express

=> ↺ LineageOS 20 based upon Android 13 officially launches

=> ↺ Galaxy A03 bags Android 13 with its latest software update – SamMobile – SamMobile

=> ↺ Galaxy F12 starts receiving Android 13 (One UI 5.0) update in India – SamMobile

=> ↺ Best Android App Development Companies in India – Top 10 List – Hindustan Times

=> ↺ Are the rewards of rooting an Android phone worth the risks in 2023?

=> ↺ LineageOS 20 Brings Android 13 to Older Phones

=> ↺ Supercharged Android upgrade is coming to millions of phones this year | Express.co.uk

=> ↺ Can you guess which Android phones were the first to be updated in 2023? – PhoneArena

=> ↺ LINMOB.net – Weekly GNU-like Mobile Linux Update (52/2022): Year In Review and other topics

=> ↺ Sailfish Community News, 29th December, Happy New Year! – Community News – Sailfish OS Forum

• As we reach the end of 2022 it’s time to take our usual look back at the year, while also glancing forward to what 2023 has to offer. It’s been an unusual year for Sailfish OS, but still with plenty to celebrate. And the newsletter has something to celebrate too, with this being the 50th issue. With all of the crazy non-Sailfish related news that’s been happening around the world this year, we’re pleased that you’re still taking time to read about your favourite mobile operating system in the newsletter as well.

=> ↺ 10 Wallpaper Changer Apps to Make Your Android Phone Pop

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Second try at self-hosting Mastodon – Major Hayden

• Mastodon caught my attention at the end of 2022 in the wake of all the Twitter shenanigans. At a high level, Mastodon is an implementation of ActivityPub and you can use it for “micro-blogging” much like you would use Twitter. (This is a really quick, high-level explanation and I skipped over plenty of detail.)

• This post covers my journey on Mastodon that led me to self-host my own Mastodon instance in a fairly reliable way.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Niepce December 2022 updates – Hubert Figuière

• Here is some udpdate on Niepce work done in December 2022. Mostly changes under the hood, but important ones to move forward with improving the features. The short version: it feels great to remove C++ code.

=> ↺ Commercial LTS Qt 6.2.7 Released

• We have released Qt 6.2.7 LTS for commercial license holders today. As a patch release, Qt 6.2.7 does not add any new functionality but provides bug fixes and other improvements.

=> ↺ Std List C++

• In C++, std::list is like a container that stores the elements on the non-contagious memory location. The “std::list” is implemented as a doubly linked list. We can insert or remove any element of the list that is stored in any location, which makes the lists bidirectional and sequential. Bidirectional because we can access the list elements from the front and back of the list (from any location). Sequential because we can access the elements anywhere in the sequence. Lists behave as doubly linked lists. Doubly linked lists can store their elements anywhere in the memory and they can be accessed from any location on the runtime. The list belongs to a standard template library like arrays and vectors but lists do not allow a fast access comparable to other data structures. Let’s discuss “std::list” in this article with the practical implementation of lists with different operations.

=> ↺ 2023 Predictions

• The loss function in optimization is a function that serves as a proxy for the underlying performance measurement. In many cases, it’s one of the most important components of any form of machine learning.

• It’s also sometimes referred to as the cost function, objective function, error function, or reward function, depending on what you’re doing. Those terms capture the essence of what I’d like to get out of my 2023 predictions – a measured error and a way to derive a path to improvement (i.e., a metaphorical gradient).

Perl / Raku

=> ↺ Keeping Your Valuables Under Lock and Key

=> ↺ 2023.01 Humming Away – Rakudo Weekly News

• Rawley Fowler has created a simple web-framework called Humming-Bird, inspired mainly by Opium, Sinatra and Express. And introduced it in a post on /r/rakulang, with quite a few reactions.

• [...]

• Anton Antonov released a new module called DSL::Bulgarian allowing one to specify computational workflows using natural language commands in Bulgarian, and introduced it in a dedicated blog post.

Python

=> ↺ The Python on Hardware Newsletter: Happy New Year, please subscribe now

• The Python on Microcontrollers newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).

=> ↺ John Park’s CircuitPython Parsec: Using Super Nintendo Controllers

• How to use Super Nintendo (SNES) controllers in CircuitPython with the keypad library.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ How to Use $IFS in Bash?

• The IFS is an abbreviation for Internal Field Separator which is an environment variable in the shell to determine the separator. The $IFS specifies how the words on the command prompt are delimited. By default, field separators (IFS) are the space, tab, and newline but we can alter this in our script to match the requirements. It is mostly used for loops to manipulate the elements in the specified list. We use the $IFS variable in our Bash script to split the string because Bash does not include a built-in mechanism for string splitting.

=> ↺ Delete a Folder in Bash

• There are two alternative ways to delete a directory, file, or folder in Bash. We can delete the folders or directories using two different commands. The “rmdir” command is used to delete the empty folders or directories. The “rm” command is used to delete the folders or directories that are not empty. However, we will use the “rm” command to delete the folders in this article. Additionally, we delete some files from the Linux desktop.

=> ↺ What is AWK NF?

• The “AWK” function is a Linux utility that is used for text analysis that offers strong data control. To use the Linux computer program and “AWK” function, users can evaluate, modify, and generate the prepared results. The “AWK NF” variable is used to show how many files, elements, or other items are contained in a line of any file.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Emmanuel Kasper: Ensuring someone is listening before telling a joke

Leftovers

=> ↺ We need to talk about Dropout

• Let’s talk about big TV and movie studios. About the life and death of CollegeHumor, about what makes Dropout interesting, and how their video platform could be improved!

Science

=> ↺ A new supercomputer simulation animates the evolution of the universe

• The infant universe transforms from a featureless landscape to an intricate web in a new supercomputer simulation of the cosmos’s formative years.

• An animation from the simulation shows our universe changing from a smooth, cold gas cloud to the lumpy scattering of galaxies and stars that we see today. It’s the most complete, detailed and accurate reproduction of the universe’s evolution yet produced, researchers report in the November Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

=> ↺ DeepMind – Google’s ML-Based GraphCast Outperforms the World’s Best Medium-Range Weather Forecasting System | by Synced | SyncedReview | Dec, 2022 | Medium

• Medium-range weather forecasts play a crucial role in agriculture, construction, travel and other industries. They also bring practical value to people’s daily lives, enabling us to plan outings and keeping us safe from extreme weather events.

Hardware

=> ↺ $150 Axelera M.2 AI accelerator module claims to deliver up to 214 TOPS – CNX Software

• Axelera M.2 AI accelerator module is said to deliver up to 214 TOPS of AI inference and up to 3200 FPS with ResNet -50 in a compact M.2 2280 form factor.

• Few details are available at this time, but the module is based on the company’s Metis AIPU (AI Processing Unit) using in-memory computing based on arrays of SRAM memory devices used to “store a matrix and perform matrix-vector multiplications “in-place” without intermediate movement of data”. This technology is said to “radically” increase the number of operations per computer cycle with without suffering from issues such as noise or lower accuracy.

=> ↺ German Bionic debuts its lightest powered exosuit to date at CES 2023

• German Bionic, the robotic exoskeleton startup behind the Cray X, will be showing off two new posture-protecting products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. The Apogee is the company’s latest and lightest powered exosuit built for commercial and industrial use while the Smart SafetyVest will “bring ergonomic monitoring and protection to every worker,” per a Monday release.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Cambridge University Researchers Develop VR Tool for Cancer Treatment | PCMag

• Virtual reality software has become an unlikely tool in the fight against cancer.

• In a bid to help doctors better understand how to treat cancer, video game designers and cancer researchers have teamed up at the University of Cambridge, England, to turn spreadsheet data into highly detailed VR imagery of cancer cells, ITV reports.

• [...]

• Speaking to ITV News, Own Harris, IMAXT Laboratory’s lead video game designer said: “It’s so much easier to notice differences, to notice features, to notice peculiarities when you’re actually in a thing than when you’re looking at a spreadsheet or a photograph.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Guardian newspaper hit by suspected ransomware attack – BBC News

=> ↺ Microsoft Teams Progressive Web App Available for Linux

=> ↺ 7 Best GitHub Repositories for Linux Developers

Security

=> ↺ WordPress Security Alert: New Linux Malware Exploiting Over Two Dozen CMS Flaws

• WordPress sites are being targeted by a previously unknown strain of Linux malware that exploits flaws in over two dozen plugins and themes to compromise vulnerable systems.

=> ↺ Reproducible Builds Summit Venice 2022

• The sixth Reproducible Builds Summit took place exactly two months ago in Venice, Italy. These three days of workshops were filled with a succession of interactive sessions, where everyone attending had the opportunity to present or learn about anything related to Build Reproducibility. This included the status of specific Open Source projects, techniques to locate, analyse, and understand issues, or also how to explain and communicate better around this topic.

=> ↺ Can we encrypt data using Elliptic Curves? – Andrea Corbellini

• From time to time, I hear people saying that Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) cannot be used to directly encrypt data, and you can only do key agreement and digital signatures with it. This is a common misconception, but it’s not actually true: you can indeed use elliptic curve keys to encrypt arbitrary data. And I’m not talking about hybrid-encryption schemes (like ECIES or HPKE): I’m talking about pure elliptic curve encryption, and I’m going to show an example of it in this article. It’s true however that pure elliptic curve encryption is not widely used or standardized because, as I will explain at the end of the article, key agreement is more convenient for most applications.

• [...]

• I wrote an in-depth article about elliptic curve cryptography in the past on this blog, and here is a quick recap: points on an elliptic curve from an interesting algebraic structure: a cyclic group. This group lets us do some algebra with the points of the elliptic curve: if we have two points $A$ and $B$, we can add them ($A + B$) or subtract them ($A – B$). We can also multiply a point by an integer, which is the same as doing repeated addition ($n A$ = $A + A + \cdots + A$, $n$ times).

• We know some efficient algorithms for doing multiplication, but the reverse of multiplication is believed to be a “hard” problem for certain elliptic curves, in the sense that we know efficient methods for computing $B = n A$ given $n$ and $A$, but we do not know very efficient methods to figure out $n$ given $A$ and $B$. This problem of reversing a multiplication is known as Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP).

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

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (cacti, emacs, exuberant-ctags, libjettison-java, mplayer, node-loader-utils, node-xmldom, openvswitch, ruby-image-processing, webkit2gtk, wpewebkit, and xorg-server), Fedora (OpenImageIO, systemd, w3m, and webkit2gtk3), Mageia (curl, freeradius, libksba, libtar, python-ujson, sogo, thunderbird, and webkit2), Red Hat (bcel), and SUSE (ffmpeg, ffmpeg-4, mbedtls, opera, saphanabootstrap-formula, sbd, vlc, and webkit2gtk3).

=> ↺ Compromised PyTorch-nightly dependency chain between December 25th and December 30th, 2022. | PyTorch

• If you installed PyTorch-nightly on Linux via pip between December 25, 2022 and December 30, 2022, please uninstall it and torchtriton immediately, and use the latest nightly binaries (newer than Dec 30th 2022).

=> ↺ PyTorch: Machine Learning toolkit pwned from Christmas to New Year – Naked Security

• Unfortunately, the project was compromised by means of a supply-chain attack during the holiday season at the end of 2022, between Christmas Day [2022-12-25] and the day before New Year’s Eve [2022-12-30].

• The attackers malevolently created a Python package called torchtriton on PyPI, the popular Python Package Index repository.

=> ↺ Nightly PyTorch builds compromised [LWN.net]

• Anybody who installed a nightly release from the PyTorch machine-learning library between December 25 and 30 will want to uninstall it immediately…

Environment

=> ↺ State, local governments increasingly turn to zoning reforms » Yale Climate Connections

• Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States, and passenger vehicles — the cars most Americans rely on to meet their daily needs — account for more than half of transportation emissions.

• Conversations about reducing these emissions typically focus on electric vehicles. But increasingly, government officials across the country are aiming not just to get Americans into different kinds of cars, but to radically reduce the need to drive in the first place.

Finance

=> ↺ Rejected cards and waking an IT team up

• One of my payment cards has been flaky the last few days, to the point where multiple cafes and shops have timed out or rejected accepting it. The card has plenty of balance and isn’t physically damaged; I suspect it’s an issue at the payment processor.

• [...]

• The cloud isn’t “just someone else’s computer”, just like commercial aviation isn’t just someone else’s Cessna. It’s also someone else’s rosters, architecture, monitoring, maintenance, upgrades, and fixes, often times with significant complexity and (hopefully) redundancy. But despite the best efforts of certain marketing teams claiming otherwise, there’s no magic behind any of it. It’s people all the way down.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Public search engines may fragment the internet | Stop at Zona-M

• There is no question that the current internet is plagued, among other things by surveillance, profiling and polarization at all levels. Two years ago, two UK researchers proposed, as one part of a larger solution, “a public sector challenge to the private interests that have colonised the search functions on which we all depend.”

=> ↺ as days pass by – What to do about hotlinking

• Hotlinking, in the context I want to discuss here, is the act of using a resource on your website by linking to it on someone else’s website. This might be any resource: a script, an image, anything that is referenced by URL.

• It’s a bit of an anti-social practice, to be honest. Essentially, you’re offloading the responsibility for the bandwidth of serving that resource to someone else, but it’s your site and your users who get the benefit of that. That’s not all that nice.

• Now, if the “other person’s website” is a CDN — that is, a site deliberately set up in order to serve resources to someone else — then that’s different. There are many CDNs, and using resources served from them is not a bad thing. That’s not what I’m talking about. But if you’re including something direct from someone else’s not-a-CDN site, then… what, if anything, should the owner of that site do about it?

=> ↺ South Korea’s online security dead end | Almost Secure

• Last September I started investigating a South Korean application with unusually high user numbers. It took me a while to even figure out what it really did, there being close to zero documentation. I eventually realized that the application is riddled with security issues and, despite being advertised as a security application, makes the issue it is supposed to address far, far worse.

• That’s how my journey to the South Korea’s very special security application landscape started. Since then I investigated several other applications and realized that the first one wasn’t an outlier. All of them caused severe security and privacy issues. Yet they were also installed on almost every computer in South Korea, being a prerequisite for using online banking or government websites in the country.

• [...]

• Originally, these applications used Microsoft’s proprietary ActiveX technology. This only worked in Internet Explorer and severely hindered adoption of other browsers in South Korea.

=> ↺ Finding and Fixing DOM-based XSS with Static Analysis

• Despite all the efforts of fixing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) on the web, it continuously ranks as one of the most dangerous security issues in software.

• In particular, DOM-based XSS is gaining increasing relevance: DOM-based XSS is a form of XSS where the vulnerability resides completely in the client-side code (e.g., in JavaScript). Indeed, more and more web applications implement all of their UI code using frontend web technologies: Single Page Applications (SPAs) are more prone to this vulnerability, mainly because they are more JavaScript-heavy than other web applications. An XSS in Electron applications, however, has the potential to cause even more danger due to the system-level APIs available in the Electron framework (e.g., reading local files and executing programs).

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ 2023

• the new year is a celebration of the recent past and the near future, but i have something a little bit different in mind this year. i am very close to achieving some very big goals – i’m about to become a professional software engineer, i’ll finally be able to move away from my hometown and forget about my less-than-optimal job and i’ll finally have the opportunity to start my life, “for real this time.” this is all on the horizon. after years and years of dreaming of it, i can see it in the distance. i’ve got an article coming soon about this very topic, in fact; i am obsessed with the future and so is the rest of humanity.

=> ↺ ulises and the NY walkers

• when I was 6 years old I met my best friend for a while (at least until 5th grade). I don’t like complaining much but I think I did not socialize much with other kids because of my parents’ rules on going out. ulises lived in front of the elementary school (the second one I attended) and lived with his mother and two younger siblings. his dad was in an unspecified place in america (I don’t know what kind of job he had). this is very common in guanajuato, but of course at the time I had no idea.

=> ↺ Moving onward to 2023

• As I try to get myself back into something that resembles a routine after the holiday break I started to poke around at some things that have been needing attention. It seems that my microblog to gemini renderer has been broken for about a month. A quick fix and it seems to be functioning but that gave me an excuse to tweak the overall layout. Previously I rendered gemtext headings for the years and the months, leaving the individual entries as just simple paragraphs, however it seems more logical to expose individual entries so you can navigate the in-reply-to chain using your user-agent, assuming it has the ability to navigate headings (Lagrange does).

=> ↺ Day 002: The warning

• You enter a small room, with four visible doors and an altar.

• Enshrined in the upper part of the altar, you see a jewelled dagger, the symbol of Abbathor, the dwarf god of greed, pointing to the ceiling. Engraved on the vertical part of the altar, an inscription in Dwarvish: “Abbathor rewards those who know the price of things and never pay more than they can gain. What is the price of blood?”.

=> ↺ I used to take photos

• I looked at some old prints of photos taken on film the other day. I found it a bit overwelming: things that happened so long ago, many of which I could only barely remember. “Did we really go on holiday there?”

• “I remember that social event, but I have no idea who half the people are.”

• I had to stop looking. The weight of the past was too much.

Technical

=> ↺ PocketBook Basic 4 review

• I read lots of books, so I bought an e-reader for myself, the PocketBook Basic 4, also known as the PocketBook 606 in some regions. It was one of the cheapest options available, while not selling your data to Amazon or Kobo. This is a review after 2 months of usage.

• It has no touch screen, being navigable using a 4-way touch pad. That was one of the selling points for me, as I didn’t want this to be a glorified phone, and besides, less screen wiping. It’s made out of plastic, which makes it really light at around 140g, perfect for carrying around. The e-ink display is HD, perfect for reading any sorts of books. It supports all popular e-book formats and PDFs. Best of all, it runs Linux! More specifically, the kernel version is 3.0, I don’t think the interface is FOSS though. It doesn’t connect to the Internet whatsoever, which is a huge plus for me, it helps you stay disconnected. The battery is rated at around one month, although personally at my reading-rate, I see it lasts around 2 weeks. If you put an SD card in, then plug it into a computer, it’ll act as an SD card reader which is really awesome! For example, on Linux it adds two new devices, the internal memory which is 8GB, and the SD card. This way you don’t need a converter in order to load your favorite books.

=> ↺ Booting Gentoo on a BTRFS from multiple LUKS devices

• This is mostly a reminder for myself. I installed Gentoo on a machine, but I reused the same BTRFS filesystem where NixOS is already installed, the trick is the BTRFS filesystem is composed of two partitions (a bit like raid 0) but they are from two different LUKS partitions.

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ internet nostalgia – an incoherent rambling about how new internet culture sucks

• ay mates, lelkins here. this might be a pretty short post. i keep remembering memes that used to be the biggest things on the internet. like current ones that just fizzled out fast like ronaldinho soccer 64, megalovania (this one is still kind of popular), so many examples that i can’t put them in (and cause i actually forgot most of them. reason why later). and more common in my head are ones that i used to see as a kid from the era of “fads”, like hotel mario edits where every noun is replaced with a random clip, “the king has a new computer”, one youtube poop where mario and luigi fight eachother in a pokemon battle and mario charges a pinesol bottle and luigi just uses za warudo from jojo. the internet was wild and quality always differed.

=> ↺ emerging from darkness

• With the release of version 4 of Mastodon [1] there has been a problem of links to profile pages or conversation threads “going dark” within shell based browsers, such as Lynx [2]. In version 3.x you would get a text rendering of each page, but now you only get a terse ”To use the Mastodon web application, please enable JavaScript” message.

• I had been following the philosophy of ”do the minimum thing that works” with Epicyon [3], but after Mastodon 4, just linking directly to Mastodon web content was no longer sufficient to be universally legible. So I have now replaced those direct links with a conversation view and a different way of viewing Mastodon profiles in which the html is all rendered by Epicyon itself. This brings back the otherwise Javascript-shrouded fediverse content, and also has the added advantage that it fully supports authorized fetch, which in Mastodon is known as “secure mode”. It also makes the user interface more consistent looking in shell browsers.

=> ↺ Gemlog responses – bacardi55′s concept without CGI

• Gemlog discussions are frequently happening, which is a good sign for an active community. Due to the simplistic nature of the gemini protocol these discussions happen with much less automation and more handwork than in the world wide web. The usual way is to publish a reply with the link to the original gemlog and inform the original author via email about the reply.

=> ↺ re: “I kind of resent blogs” by adiabatic

• is it? there isn’t really a built-in mechanism through which you would be made aware whether your work is being noticed or not, and that’s by design. I don’t know how common this is, but I don’t find it to require much effort to keep up with everything that shows up on the main CAPCOM/spacewalk instances so I keep up with it regularly.

• there wasn’t any contact information anywhere in your gemini capsule, so I can’t reach out and tell you that I’ve responded to your post, so I guess we’ll see if you notice this. this gemlog doesn’t have a feed of any kind, so if you see it, I guess content can be noticed without an atom feed.

• 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

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