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● 06.01.21


● Links 1/6/2021: Cinnamon 5.0 Desktop Environment, OBS Studio 27.0, and GCC 9.4 Released


Posted in News Roundup at 5:22 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux


↺ Hailo-8 NPU ships on Linux-powered Lanner edge systems


Lanner is deploying Hailo’s up to 26-TOPS, 3-TOPS per Watt Hailo-8 NPU on two fanless edge computers running Linux: the Coffee Lake and PCIe equipped LEC-2290 and the compact, Apollo Lake based LEC-7242.


Hailo and Lanner Electronics announced a partnership to deploy the Hailo-8 neural processing unit (NPU) on selected Lanner edge computers running Linux, starting with the Intel Coffee Lake based LEC-2290 and Intel Apollo Lake powered LEC-7242. Hailo also announced that the Hailo-8 was named Best Edge AI Processor in the 2021 Edge AI and Vision Product of the Year Awards hosted by the Edge AI and Vision Alliance.


Desktop/Laptop


↺ Why you should try self-hosting and de-Google your life


Big American tech companies know way too much about us and are too intertwined with our personal lives, but they don’t have to be.


Nearly everyone reading this article likely has Google, Facebook, or Apple accounts. Almost as many likely have Netflix or Spotify accounts. In many ways, it’s remarkable that anyone can use these billion-dollar services for free or cheap, that with a login, we can access all of the knowledge of humanity, thousands of movies and millions of songs.


However, the adage is true, “if it’s free, you’re the product.” These companies sell your personal information to advertisers. But for very little money and a weekend of tinkering, you can rid yourself of these things and have nearly the same experience.


Thankfully in 2021, there are so many “free as in freedom” services available that are of equal quality to these “free as in beer” services. Already I’ve observed plenty of my friends dumping Facebook-owned WhatsApp for Signal.


Perhaps you’re like me, someone who’s very critical and wary of all of this data we’re just giving up to faceless, transnational corporations. Maybe you love the idea of using tools made by the open-source community. Maybe you hate surveillance capitalism.


Maybe you fancy yourself to be a libertarian, and you want as few governmental and corporate organizations involved in your life as possible. Here’s an opportunity to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.


↺ Chrome OS expands its operating system reach


It’s been over 10 years now since Chrome OS redefined the desktop operating system. While virtual desktops have been around since the days we used VT-102 terminals to run Unix shells from distant mainframes and minicomputers, Google’s Chrome OS showed us that we could run modern GUI-style desktops from the cloud.


That part is still vital. I’ve been watching the desktop move from PCs to the cloud for a decade now. But, Chrome OS also has the unique feature of incorporating other operating systems into its offerings. That was underlined recently at Google I/O’s Chrome OS keynote.


Audiocasts/Shows


↺ The end of GLIMPSE, a Linux powered Steam handheld, and TONS of new hardware – Linux News May 2021


This time, we have tons of new hardware running Linux out of the box, Valve rumored to launch a linux powered Nintendo Switch like device, the end of the GLIMPSE project, and plenty of other updates.


↺ Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 21.04 overview | Ubuntu, traditionally modern.


In this video, I am going to show an overview of Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix 21.04 and some of the applications pre-installed.


↺ MX Linux 19.4 Full Review


I decided to catch up with MX Linux and check out the latest release of the project, 19.4. In this video, I go over some of the things that makes MX Linux so popular, as well as some thoughts on the installation process, performance, customization options, and more!


↺ Audacity: MuseGroup Doesn’t Understand FOSS


Recently MuseGroup acquired Audacity and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see what they actually do with the project, turns out they’re completely incompetent and have now introduced a contributor license agreement


↺ Linux Road Warrior | LINUX Unplugged 408


We’re joined by a special guest who’s built his very own Linux battle bus. We get the technical details on how Linux is at the core of this open road machine.


Kernel Space


↺ Unikraft at Usenix Lisa 21 Conference: It’s Time to Debloat the Cloud with Unikraft – Xen Project


In his presentation, Felipe will outline the real challenges of cloud computing today and how, despite the hype of “spinning up” new cloud servers, the reality is that the cloud, whether public or private, is severely bloated. Instances can run up to GBs in size, “fast” boot times can take in the order of minutes, and memory consumption for running a single simple service (e.g., a static content web server) can be exorbitant.


The audience will hear about Unikraft’s ability to seamlessly generate extremely efficient yet high-performing, cloud-ready images that are each tailored to the needs of specific applications. Felipe will outline major performance gains seen by using Unikraft. For example, how running off-the-shelf applications such as nginx, SQLite, and Redis on Unikraft results in a 1.7x-2.7x performance improvement compared to Linux guests.


↺ It’s Happening. Arm Server CPUs are Coming to the Data Center


↺ Exploring ARM64 runtime patching alternatives


Some of today’s modern CPUs come with dedicated instructions to optimize specific operations. For example, ARMv8 has CRC32 instructions to accelerate CRC calculations. The problem is that those instructions can only be executed by a processor that supports them. Although the CPU has a feature register to identify its capabilities, checking the register before executing an instruction is time-consuming. Fortunately, the Linux kernel has a set of macros and functions known as the Linux Alternatives Framework to help solve this problem. This blog gives an overview of the framework.


Graphics Stack


↺ Mike Blumenkrantz: Sidejacked


Clearly I needed to reeducate myself in the ways of managing a cache, something that, in my former life as a GUI expert, I did routinely, but that I could no longer comprehend now that I only speak bitfields and command buffers.


I sought out the reclusive Timothy Arceri, a well-known sage in many esoteric, arcane arts, and, as I recall it, purveyor of great wisdom such as (paraphrased because the original text has been lost to the ages): We Both Know The GLSL Compiler Code For Uniform Blocks Is Unfathomable, Why Do You Insist On Attempting To Modify It?


The answers I received from my sojourn were swift and concise:


Stop that. Fossilize caching wasn’t meant to work that way.


Applications


↺ GStreamer 1.19.1 unstable development release


The GStreamer team is pleased to announce the first development release in the unstable 1.19 release series.


The unstable 1.19 release series adds new features on top of the current stable 1.18 series and is part of the API and ABI-stable 1.x release series of the GStreamer multimedia framework.


The unstable 1.19 release series is for testing and development purposes in the lead-up to the stable 1.20 series which is scheduled for release in a few weeks time. Any newly-added API can still change until that point, although it is rare for that to happen.


↺ AMD Ryzen Ubuntu User? Check Out This New App from Slimbook


Rocking an AMD Ryzen mobile CPU? If so, check out a new AMD Controller app from Spanish Linux computer company Slimbook.


“The Slimbook AMD Controller app is capable of setting several TDP power levels for your AMD Ryzen mobile processor,” they say of the tool. “Switching between the different performance presets will give you the ability to control both performance and battery life with a single click.”


The app comes with a basic desktop app and an accompanying indicator menu (the latter letting you switch power profile on the fly). Although you may be tempted to use the higher performance level all the time remember that increasing the power draw will make your processor run hotter (cue fan noises) and drain your battery faster.


↺ OBS Studio 27.0 Released With Undo/Redo, Wayland Support


OBS Studio 27.0 is out as the latest major feature release to this cross-platform, open-source software for desktop screen recording and livestreaming.


For Linux users, arguably most exciting is the merged Wayland support that includes native Wayland capture abilities.


↺ OBS Studio Open Source Live Streaming and Screen Recording Software Gets Wayland Support


OBS Studio 27.0 is a major update because it’s the first version to introduce support for the Wayland display server on Linux systems. This means that you can finally use OBS Studio on Wayland, and the support comes with a new PipeWire capture source. The devs warn that Ubuntu users would need to use Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) or higher for PipeWire capture.


Also for Linux users, the new OBS Studio release adds service integration and browser dock support. In addition, it improves support for VST (Virtual Studio Technology) paths and fixes a crash that could occur when audio backends have been disabled.


↺ Bryan Quigley: Why hasn’t snap or flatpak won yet?


Where win means becomes the universal way to get apps on Linux.


In short, I don’t think either current iteration will. But why?


I started writing this a while ago, but Disabling snap Autorefresh reminded me to finish it. I also do not mean this as a “hit piece” against my former employer.


Instructionals/Technical


↺ Baby steps towards schroot and slurm cooperation.


Unfortunately schroot does not maintain CPU affinity 1. This means in particular that parallel builds have the tendency to take over an entire slurm managed server, which is kindof rude. I haven’t had time to automate this yet, but following demonstrates a simple workaround for interactive building.


↺ How to Manage Processes on Ubuntu Using System Monitor


Linux, like most modern operating systems, is very good at multitasking, meaning your system can run several processes at once. In Linux, a process is an instance of a running program that utilizes computer resources.


This guide will show you how to manage processes from the GUI using System Monitor. The System Monitor application is primarily geared towards Linux systems using the GNOME desktop environment.


↺ How to Install TeamViewer 15 on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu – Unixcop


Teamviewer is a cross-platform, powerful, and secure remote access and control software that can connect to multiple devices simultaneously.It is an all-in-one solution for remote support which can be used for desktop sharing, online meetings, and file transfer between devices connected over the Internet.


It works on notable operating systems such as Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS, and mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows Universal Platform, and BlackBerry.


Recently, the latest stable version of TeamViewer 15 was released with new features and many improvements.


↺ How to Preserve File Permissions While Copying Files in Linux


File permissions are an integral part of the Unix specification. However, there are certain things starting users are often unaware of, such as how to retain file permissions in Linux while copying them.


Since copied files are essentially new files, their permission depends on the umask of the current user. This can lead to situations where copied files or folders have entirely different permissions than the source.


Luckily for you, it’s easy to retain file permissions in Linux using standard command-line tools like cp and rsync. Check out the below examples to see how to copy and preserve permissions in Linux.


↺ Check exit status of commands in Linux – Linux Concept


Automation using shell scripts involves checking whether an earlier command executed successfully, whether a file is present, and so on. You will learn various constructs such as if, case, and so on, where we will need to check whether certain conditions are true or false. Accordingly, our script should conditionally execute various commands.


↺ Use the test command in Linux


Let’s now understand the test command.


↺ How to Schedule Tasks on Ubuntu 20.04 Using Crontab


Sometimes you don’t want a process to run at a default time set by the operating system, but you want to set the time for a process to run yourself. To do this, we use the cron daemon in Ubuntu, which works in the same way as the task scheduler in Windows. With the cron daemon, you can specify the time at which a process, such as a maintenance or a backup job, should be executed. This way, you can automate these tasks to run later without manual intervention. This article explains how you can do this with Crontab in Ubuntu.


↺ How to Set Up Two-Factor Authentication for SSH in Linux


Secure Shell, or SSH, is a cryptographic network protocol that enables secure access to devices over an unsecured network. It finds its applications in various use-cases, such as remote login, remote command-line access, and remote command execution.


If you’ve used SSH, you’d already know that it uses a single-factor authentication mechanism that requires either an SSH key or a password for authentication. Although this may not seem alarming at the outset, it does leave the system exposed to several open-ended vulnerabilities.


↺ Josef Strzibny: I am selling the pre-release of my book


I started my book Deployment from Scratch around October 2018 with a validation and 5 months of full time work before going part-time so I have something to eat ;). Many months later, I am now again working more on the book than for clients and doubling down on finishing it.


↺ How To Install Lumina Desktop on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot


In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Lumina Desktop on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, The Lumina Desktop Environment is a lightweight system interface designed for use on any Unix-like operating system. Lumina is based on using plugins, which allows the entire interface to be arranged by each individual user as desired. A system-wide default layout is also included and is configurable by the system administrator. This allows every system (or user session) to be designed to maximize the individual user’s productivity.


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 Lumina lightweight desktop environment on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.


↺ Start monitoring your Kubernetes cluster with Prometheus and Grafana | Opensource.com


In my introductory article about chaos engineering, one of the main things I covered was the importance of getting the steady state of your working Kubernetes cluster. Before you can start causing chaos, you need to know what the cluster looks like in a steady state.


This article will cover how to get those metrics using Prometheus and Grafana. This walkthrough also uses Pop!_OS 20.04, Helm 3, Minikube 1.14.2, and Kubernetes 1.19.


↺ Benchmarking programs with /usr/bin/time


If you ever used the time to measure the program’s execution, you might want to know how to improve your results by running with a higher process priority.


↺ How to install a private Nextcloud server on Fedora 34 | FOSS Linux


Nextcloud is a software suite of applications to store and sync files and data across multiple devices. It is a fully on-premises solution to share and collaborate on documents, manage your calendar and send and receive email.


Nextcloud gives you control and protection of your data while facilitating communication. It can enable productivity as you can access, sync, and share your existing data on an FTP drive across several connected devices at a home or office setup. Moreover, data privacy is critical, and running a private Nextcloud server is an excellent way to get started.


↺ How to enhance Linux user security with Pluggable Authentication Module settings | Enable Sysadmin


Security for any operating system is always a crucial pain point. Although Linux systems have various security measures built-in and optionally available, no operating system (OS) is truly secure. There are several methods required to keep your OS safe, but I don’t discuss core security in this article. In this article, I discuss Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) and how PAM helps provide enhanced security.


PAM provides a centralized authentication mechanism and provides a generic way for applications to implement support for authentication. It enables an application to call the PAM library, libpam, to perform all authentication tasks on its behalf and return a pass or fail response to the application.


↺ How to create atomic counter in AWS DynamoDB with AWS CLI – Kernel Talks


A step by step procedure to create and update atomic counter in AWS DynamoDB table.


↺ How to capture screenshots instantly with Firefox


Sometimes you need to take a screenshot of something online to save it or share it with someone. Firefox has a built-in feature that makes grabbing a screenshot quick and easy. Here’s how to use the Firefox screenshot feature in your desktop browser:


↺ Get started with Flask 2.0 | InfoWorld


One reason Python is a prime choice for web development is the breadth of web frameworks available in the language. Among the most popular and useful is Flask, which lets you start simple (“one drop at a time”) but grows with your application to add just about all of the functionality you need.


In this article we’ll walk through setting up and using Flask 2.0 for basic web apps. We’ll also touch on using Jinja2 for templating, and dealing with common issues like changing response types and handling redirects.


↺ How to Install Zoom (Video Conferencing Tool) on Ubuntu 20.04


Founded in 2011, Zoom has now become one of the most used services for video conferencing and online meetings. People from different professions like educational institutes, businesses, individuals are using Zoom for their day-to-day work. It has become a prominent tool for working from home, delivering online lectures, conducting online exams, helding business meetings, and much more.


The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis has transformed the working culture of the world into a new normal. Businesses have started to adopt this culture with their workforces being trained to use necessary online tools. Among these online tools, Zoom has emerged as one of the most dominating platforms for video conferencing and other related purposes.


↺ How to Install Asterisk 18 VoIP Server on CentOS 8


Asterisk is a powerful digital PBX and VoIP server released under an open-source license, so you can use it free of charge. VoIP is a technology used to establish and control telephone calls between multiple endpoints. It is used in VoIP gateways, conference servers, call centers, carriers, and government institutions around the world. It runs on Linux, BSD, and OS X and allows you to turn your local system or server into a communication server.


In this post, we will explain how to install Asterisk on CentOS 8 server.


↺ Share And Control Terminals In Real Time From Web Browser – OSTechNix


This guide explains what is TermPair, how it works and how to share and control terminals in real time from web browser with end-to-end encryption using TermPair in Linux.


Games


↺ itch.io hosting a huge Queer Games Bundle 2021 with hundreds included


Want to support small teams and queer creators? Well here’s a good chance for you with the itch.io Queer Games Bundle 2021 and there’s quite a lot inside. It’s a big cooperation between tons of different creators, with the aim to generate revenue for smaller teams and solo developers.


↺ How To Play Among Us On Computer?


Unfortunately, Among Us does not have a native port to work on the Linux platform. There is a workaround, though, using the “Steam Play” feature from Steam.


↺ DLSS support on the way to Linux through Steam Proton


Linux gamers just received a big boost, thanks to the latest announcement from NVIDIA. At Computex 2021, NVIDIA announced that it partnered with Valve to bring Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) support to Linux through Steam Proton (via Tom’s Hardware). As a result, people with the best NVIDIA GPUs will be able to use DLSS on their Linux systems.


↺ First-person grid-based dungeon crawler Inferno – Beyond the 7th Circle out now


Inferno – Beyond the 7th Circle is a brand new dungeon crawler like they used to make. Grid-based movement, a moody theme and now there’s a Linux native version available. Created by 68k Studios, this is second first-person dungeon crawler following The 7th Circle – Endless Nightmare from 2018 which also supported Linux.


It’s very much an old-school dungeon crawler with survival elements. It’s made for hardcore fans of 80s and 90s cRPG like “Dungeon Master”, “Eye of the Beholder” and “The Bard’s Tale” or anyone who wants to try out a modern game inspired by those.


↺ Dungeon-crawling tower defense ‘Dwerve’ delays the release until early 2022


Dwerve, a crowdfunded and very promising upcoming dungeon crawler that blends in tower defense has a long delay.


Funded via Kickstarter back in September 2020, it was going to be releasing sometime this “Summer”. However, that’s now been pushed back until some time in early 2022. That’s a pretty long delay which the developer explained multiple reasons. For starters, it’s just not going to be ready, which is fair enough – a rushed game is not what people want. They also don’t want to release in the holiday season due to AAA games marketing around then being aggressive so they don’t want to get buried. So with that in mind “early 2022″ is the best we’re being told right now.


↺ Check out Nainai’s Recipe, a sweet game about cooking and staying connected


2020 and lots of 2021 were weird for a lot of reasons, especially with the quarantines due to COVID-19. Nainai’s Recipe is a game about learning to cook, with a little distanced help from your grandma.


“Open your fridge, choose the ingredients, examine, chop, seasoning, heat, and taste them. During the lockdown, you start to learn how to cook from your dear grandma. Nainai’s Recipe is a game that captures the cooking feeling in stylized visuals. And a family story about how we lived together in a special way during 2020.”


You get a fair amount of freedom in what you cook too, with the tips from dear old nan only being a guide. I’ve ended up creating some dishes that we shall never speak of, because they might actually kill you but they sure did look good.


[...]


The developer put up a Linux build recently after being asked about it. In my own testing, it works great. Looks like a wonderful casual game to keep an eye on for the full release yet to come.


↺ Can SteamPal REALLY Succeed? | Linux + Coffee #5


Linux + Coffee is back! Jason and Schykle have a serious chat about Valve’s alleged SteamPal console.


↺ 20 Best Android Tablet Games To Enjoy The Big Screen


As soon as a tablet comes as a substitute for the smartphone, people accept it eagerly for its wider screen and smart specifications. But no other people like the idea as much as the gamers do.


Desktop Environments/WMs


↺ Cinnamon 5.0 Desktop Environment Released with Support for Updating Spices, More


Cinnamon 5.0 comes with many improvements to make Linux Mint’s default desktop environment more stable and reliable, including a memory limit mechanism so that it won’t eat up all the RAM on your personal computer.


One of the biggest change in Cinnamon 5.0 is the inclusion of new GUI and CLI tools for checking, listing, and performing updates of Cinnamon Spices, which includes applets, desklets, extensions, and themes. This means that you no longer have to rely on a third-party tool or go into Settings to update your Spices.


K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt


↺ NeoChat 1.2: Bubbles, better text editing and more


The NeoChat team is happy to announce the third major version of NeoChat. This release is the product of more than 3 months worth of work and includes many features, visual improvements and a lot of bug fixes.


Niccolò Venerandi made a great video with a nice summary of all the changes included in this release.


GNOME Desktop/GTK


↺ Robert McQueen: Next steps for the GNOME Foundation


As the President of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, I’m really pleased to see the number and breadth of candidates we have for this year’s election. Thank you to everyone who has submitted their candidacy and volunteered their time to support the Foundation. Allan has recently blogged about how the board has been evolving, and I wanted to follow that post by talking about where the GNOME Foundation is in terms of its strategy. This may be helpful as people consider which candidates might bring the best skills to shape the Foundation’s next steps.


Around three years ago, the Foundation received a number of generous donations, and Rosanna (Director of Operations) gave a presentation at GUADEC about her and Neil’s (Executive Director, essentially the CEO of the Foundation) plans to use these funds to transform the Foundation. We would grow our activities, increasing the pace of events, outreach, development and infrastructure that supported the GNOME project and the wider desktop ecosystem – and, crucially, would grow our funding to match this increased level of activity.


Distributions


New Releases


↺ Kali Linux 2021.2 Release (Kaboxer, Kali-Tweaks, Bleeding-Edge & Privileged Ports)


Say hello to Kali Linux 2021.2! This release welcomes a mixture of new items as well as enhancements of existing features, and is ready to be downloaded (from our updated page) or upgraded if you have an existing Kali Linux installation.


↺ Kali Linux 2021.2 Released for Ethical Hackers with New Tools, Raspberry Pi Improvements


Kali Linux 2021.2 comes about three months after the previous release (Kali Linux 2021.1) and introduces numerous changes, starting with Kali Tweaks, an in-house built text-mode utility to make it easier for newcomers to configure their brand new Kali Linux installation.


With Kali Tweaks, you can install or remove groups of tools (a.k.a. metapackages), enable or disable repositories (e.g. bleeding-edge or experimental), set up Bash or ZSH as the default shell, switch between two or one line prompts and enable or disable the extra line before the prompt, or improve your virtualization experience.


BSD


↺ Syslog-ng updated in OpenBSD ports


Recently I have found that the number of syslog-ng users on OpenBSD is growing, even with an ancient syslog-ng version in OpenBSD ports that is unable to collect local log messages. Then I remembered that Todd Miller – maintainer of sudo, and my colleague at One Identity – is also an OpenBSD user and developer. I asked him for a little help, which turned out to be quite a lot in the end, but syslog-ng is now updated to the latest version in OpenBSD ports!


[...]


Note: the OpenBSD project recommends the use of ready to use packages built from ports instead of using ports directly. Version 6.9 of OpenBSD comes with syslog-ng version 3.12. Version 3.32 of syslog-ng is now in the -CURRENT branch of OpenBSD ports. The next OpenBSD release will already feature an up-to-date syslog-ng package.


SUSE/OpenSUSE


↺ SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as ECS Anywhere Host


With the release of version 3.0.1209 of the amazon-ssm-agent and version 1.52.1 of the amazon-ecs-init packages in the SUSE Public Cloud Module repository it is now possible to use the SUSE built and supported packages to enable your SLES 15 SP2 and later and SLES 12 SP5 systems to integrate with an AWS ECS cluster. The packages are also in openSUSE and in the openSUSE Build Service . Prior to the release of these package versions support of ECS Anywhere was provided by AWS for the AWS build packages that get installed when executing the ecs-anywhere-install.sh script that is part of the amazon-ecs-init source tree.


↺ Digest of YaST Development Sprint 124


As you know from previous sprint reports, we are rewriting big parts of the users management in YaST. During this sprint we integrated support for authorized keys and improved several aspects of the interactive installation and password management. We also took big steps forward in the rewrite of users handling in AutoYaST. The new implementation is steadily approaching to its debut in openSUSE Tumbleweed, but we still need one or two sprints more to ensure it’s solid enough and ready to provide a seamless transition.


But users management is not the only area that has been problematic lately. As more software gets added to the openSUSE distributions and more products and variants get added to SUSE Linux Enterprise, we see the memory consumption of the installation process grow… too much for our taste. Finding areas were we can cut down the memory usage is not trivial, so we just added optional in-process memory profiling to the installer. Hopefully this new tool will be the first step to a slimmer installer for the future.


We do not only want to have a more efficient installer, we also want it to be prettier. But for that the YaST Team has to rely on the skills of more talented designers, who create and tweak the Qt style sheets used to define the final look of YaST. To ease their work, we created a new special YaST module called YaST Widget Demo. Apart from the new module itself, that new repository includes all the information needed to start playing with YaST theming, and even a collection of screenshots of the current state in both openSUSE and SLE.


Arch Family


↺ Arch Linux’s First ISO Release Powered by Linux Kernel 5.12 Is Out Now


Arch Linux 2021.06.01 is now available for download and it’s the first monthly ISO snapshot of the popular and powerful GNU/Linux distribution to ship with Linux kernel 5.12 by default. Linux 5.12.8 is included as default kernel, which is the latest point release in the Linux 5.12 series at the moment of writing.


Of course, Linux kernel 5.12 introduces better hardware support, making Arch Linux compatible with more systems. Highlights include support for the Lenovo IdeaPad platform profile, support for Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 2, supports the Raspberry Pi camera module, as well as support for PS5 DualSense controllers.


IBM/Red Hat/Fedora


↺ Join the Red Hat team at OpenJS World 2021


Red Hat is excited to be back at the OpenJS World conference again this year. We look forward to connecting with you to explore the impact Node.js and JavaScript are having on technologies of all kinds, especially in the area of cloud-native development.


[...]


If you want to learn more about Red Hat and IBM’s involvement in the Node.js community and what we are working on, check out our topic pages at Red Hat Developer and IBM Developer.


↺ Steps for converting from CentOS Linux with Convert2RHEL and Red Hat Satellite


Now that Convert2RHEL is an officially supported utility, customers with other Linux systems can more easily convert them to fully supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) – without having to manually redeploy your workloads. This can significantly reduce administrative burden by helping to identify compatibility issues and maintain customizations, configurations, and preferences as part of the migration process. You can leverage the utility as self-service or reach out to Red Hat Consulting to help accelerate your project and minimize any risks associated with migrating critical workloads.


If selecting to go the self-service route, it is always best to start by referring to the documentation, and doing a proof of concept conversion on a test system in your environment prior to kicking off a migration project. This blog post will provide you an idea of the steps you would take when leveraging Red Hat Satellite for Convert2RHEL migrations. Satellite is available with Red Hat Smart Management subscriptions.


↺ Building a more secure, composable AI-powered infrastructure with Red Hat and NVIDIA


Modern data centers and IT environments need enhanced threat detection and policy management across bare metal and Kubernetes deployments. This is why Red Hat announced our plans to support NVIDIA BlueField DPUs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat OpenShift. In fact, Red Hat and NVIDIA have been working together to protect networks from breaches using security analytics capabilities of the NVIDIA Morpheus AI application framework.


↺ F34-20210601 updated lives isos released


The Fedora Respins SIG is pleased to announce the latest release of Updated F34-20210601-Live ISOs, carrying the 5.12-8-300 kernel.


This set of updated isos will save considerable amounts of updates after install. ((for new installs.)(New installs of Workstation have about 1GB of updates savings )).


Debian Family


↺ Tails 4.19 is out


We worked very hard last week to get ready to release the work on the connection to Tor that we have been showing you in 4.19~beta1 and 4.19~rc1. We made a lot of progress but didn’t feel confident enough to release it today.


So, we are releasing 4.19 as a regular upgrade and will release this work in 4.20. We will publish an updated rc2 in the coming days with even more improvements on the connection to Tor.


[...]


We broke automatic upgrades twice recently; once in December in 4.14 and again during a few days on May 15. These 2 times, it was the consequence of a security feature: the pinning of the TLS certificate of our website when doing automatic upgrades.


We removed this feature because the recent problems proved us that this feature was not worth it if it makes us break automatic upgrades that often. (#18324)


Our upgrades are still as strongly authenticated as they are signed using OpenPGP by our team.


↺ Russell Coker: Internode NBN with Arris CM8200 on Debian


I’ve recently signed up for Internode NBN while using the Arris CM8200 device supplied by Optus (previously used for a regular phone service).


[...]


For providing addresses to other systems on your LAN they recommend radvd version 1.1 or greater, Debian/Bullseye will ship with version 2.18. Here is an example /etc/radvd.conf that will work with it. It seems that you have to manually (or with a script) set the value to use in place of “xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx” from the value that is assigned to eth0 (or whichever interface you are using) by the wide-dhcpv6-client.


↺ Sparky news 2021/05


The 5th monthly Sparky project and donate report of 2021: – Linux kernel updated up to version 5.12.8 & 5.11.22 (EOL) & 5.13-rc3 – Sparky 5.15 “Nibiru” of the stable line released – Yad updated up to 10.1 & APTus AppCenter up to 20210524 – added new mirror in USA; thanks to fosshost.org – added to repos: TagSpaces, Librewolf, Riseup-VPN, Hamsket – added an option of ProtonVPN installation via APTus AppCenter, the package is not in Sparky repos, but can be automatically downloaded and installed from ProtonVPN server


Canonical/Ubuntu Family


↺ Lubuntu vs. Xubuntu


Over the years, two famous Linux distributions (Xubuntu, configured with Xfce, and Lubuntu, which has a preconfigured LxDE Linux distro) have provided options to users who want to try something different other than the apparent vanilla Ubuntu. Despite being different Operating systems, they are popular among Linux distribution users.


Suppose you asked yourself what operating system can fit or run on your old computer without dragging, then here are the two lightweight Linux options for you.


Lubuntu OS selects light apps to incorporate into the system between the two distros, boosting its fastness. This, therefore, makes it an easy-to-use OS compared to Xubuntu. However, Xubuntu also has some great features worth trying.


↺ Top 10 webcam software for Ubuntu Linux


The Linux platform has many open-source webcam tools and software at your disposal. Ubuntu requires an effective tool like Cheese to take images and record video or Motion for video surveillance. Modern laptops and notebooks have in-built webcam hardware to capture images or record videos. You can also connect a USB camera or cameras over a network.


Webcams are typically used to take pictures, online communication, as part of a security surveillance system, enable real-time video chat, videoconference, or broadcast TV channels over the internet.


Devices/Embedded


↺ LGA module and dev kit run Linux on i.MX8M Plus


TQ’s LGA form-factor “TQMa8MPxL” module runs Linux on a 2.3-TOPS NPU enabled i.MX8M Plus with up to 4GB LPDDR4 and 256GB eMMC. It also powers a “STKa8MPxL” dev kit with 2x GbE, 3x USB 3.0, 2x CAN, M.2, and multiple A/V links.


TQ Embedded has launched a solderable, 38 x 38mm land grid array (LGA) module and starter kit featuring NXP’s i.MX8M Plus. The extended temperature TQMa8MPxL module and STKa8MPxL kit support embedded applications that require AI/ML smarts and a “very flat and robust design,” says TQ. These include camera applications, medical technology, building and industrial automation, machine control, access control, and HMI control.


↺ Cobot controller board runs Linux on safety-enabled Intel Elkhart Lake


NexCobot’s “SCB 100” Mini-ITX controller board for collaborative robots runs Linux on an Intel Elkhart Lake CPU with SIL2 compliant functional safety support and supplies 4x GbE and 2x EtherCAT ports with FSoE.


Nexcom’s NexCobot unit has announced a Mini-ITX controller board for cobots (collaborative robots) that runs a Yocto derived Linux stack on Intel’s functional safety enabled Atom x6427FE from its 10nm fabricated Elkhart Lake family. The SIL2 and IEC-61508 compliant SCB 100 features 4x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x EtherCAT ports certified with FSoE (FailSafe over EtherCAT) technology, and safety-enabled 12-in/4-out DIO.


Open Hardware/Modding


↺ This 3D-printed tourbillon was modeled after Jacob & Co’s Twin Turbo Furious watch


It seems like everyone who has a substantial net worth carries around a few luxury watches, but none are perhaps as mechanically enthralling as the Twin Turbo Furious watch from Jacob & Co., which houses a pair of spinning orbs called tourbillons that increase the watch’s accuracy. However, they’re quite small and intricate, so seeing exactly how they work is difficult. This is why mcmaven on Instructables wanted to create a huge 3D-printed version that shows every detailed component.


At the heart is the balance wheel and spring which tick along and keep the time. Further up, the escape wheel works in a ratchet mechanism to slowly load and release the spring as the tourbillon spins. These core components are then placed into the two halves of the body that spins around on the base.


[...]


A single Arduino Nano is responsible for controlling the entire system, and as seen in the video, it looks incredible.


Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications


↺ Android 12 will spell the end of third-party share sheet replacements


↺ Vivo Android 12 (Funtouch OS 12/OriginOS/iQOO UI 3.0) update tracker


↺ Redmi Note 9 Pro (joyeuse) finally gets the Android 11 update


↺ Nokia Mobile releases new Android 10 build for Nokia 3.4. Nokia 7.1 receives May Security update now. Size, markets, changelog | Nokiapoweruser


↺ How To Root Android Phone With PC (The Easy Way…)


↺ How To Stop Pop Up Ads On Android Phone


↺ Xiaomi launches Mi TV 4A Horizon Edition w/ Android TV – 9to5Google


↺ Walmart starts stocking its Android TV streamers in stores – 9to5Google


↺ Polestar releases updated Android emulator for Polestar 2 | Automotive World


↺ Hackers mimic popular Android antivirus to infect devices with malware | TechRadar


↺ The best app for viewing RSS on Android – TechRepublic


Free, Libre, and Open Source Software


↺ Apache Month in Review: May 2021


Welcome to the latest monthly overview of events from the Apache community.


Web Browsers


Mozilla


↺ Firefox 89.0 Released with New Elegant UI Design


Mozilla Firefox 89.0 was officially released today with the focus on redesigned and modernized user interface.


Firefox 89 has a simplified browser chrome and toolbar. It uses floating tab design with rounded corners for active tab. Less toolbar buttons present, and bookmarks, history and downloads are merged into single menu button.


↺ Firefox 89 Released with Brand New Look


A brand new version Mozilla Firefox is out, and it boasts a brand new look.


Firefox 89 refreshes its user interface with new colours, new tabs, new icons, new menus, new dialogs, new new tab page, new… Well, you get the idea.


Mozilla says the new look makes Firefox easier to use as “redundant or less frequently used features” have been pruned from the UI, to leave only the most important navigation and configuration options in view.


↺ Firefox 89


Firefox 89 has been released. The changes in this version focus on the look and feel. “We’ve redesigned and modernized the core experience to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use. ” This release also includes enhancements to the privacy offerings. “We’ve enhanced the privacy of the Firefox Browser’s Private Browsing mode with Total Cookie Protection, which confines cookies to the site where they were created, preventing companies from using cookies to track your browsing across sites. This feature was originally launched in Firefox’s ETP Strict mode.”


↺ Modern, clean new Firefox clears the way to all you need online


We set out in 2021 to reimagine Firefox’s design to be fast, modern and inviting the first time you run it and every day after. We’ve always had your back on privacy, and still do. Now with today’s new Firefox release we’re also bringing you a modern new look designed to streamline and calm things down so you have a fresh new web experience every time you use Firefox.


We’re living in a frenetic time, where people are dealing with tough changes in our daily lives and hard to solve problems are popping up everywhere. We think the browser should be a piece of software you can rely on to have your back, pleasant to look at and working seamlessly with the web.


↺ A fresh new Firefox is here


Even though we’re in the web browser business, we know you don’t go online to look at Firefox, it’s more that you look through Firefox to get to everything on the open web. In today’s major release, Firefox sports a fresh new design that gets you where you’re going online, fast and distraction-free. And since we’re all about privacy, we’re also expanding integrated privacy protections in Firefox, so you feel safe and free to be yourself online thanks to fewer eyes following you across the web.


↺ Firefox 89 Released With UI/UX Changes


Mozilla is kicking off June by shipping Firefox 89.0 with their latest revisions to their user interface.


With Firefox 89, Mozilla has been trying to modernize the core experience with a modern and more inviting UI. Among the changes are a simplified toolbar, cleaned up menus, updated prompts, tab enhancements, more cohesive colors, a non-native implementation of web form controls for faster page load performance, and a variety of other changes.


↺ Firefox 89 is Here with a Revamped Design and Improved Features


Firefox has long been the default web browser for many popular distributions such as Ubuntu and Manjaro. It is well known for its privacy features, as well as being completely open source.


It has had many notable UI redesigns over the years, of which the latest was the Photon design. Although this design did improve the UI, Google Chrome has remained the browser king.


In this release, Mozilla seems to be targeting Chrome with their new UI and new privacy features.


↺ The Mozilla Blog: Modern, clean new Firefox clears the way to all you need online


We set out in 2021 to reimagine Firefox’s design to be fast, modern and inviting the first time you run it and every day after. We’ve always had your back on privacy, and still do. Now with today’s new Firefox release we’re also bringing you a modern new look designed to streamline and calm things down so you have a fresh new web experience every time you use Firefox.


We’re living in a frenetic time, where people are dealing with tough changes in our daily lives and hard to solve problems are popping up everywhere. We think the browser should be a piece of software you can rely on to have your back, pleasant to look at and working seamlessly with the web.


We’re also on a mission to save you time, whether that’s by making pages load faster, using less memory, or by streamlining everyday use of the browser. Good design is invisible. So if things just work, you don’t really think about it. But a ton of thought has been put into the flow. Our users who have tried the new Firefox have said, “the fact that I was using a new web browser slipped into the background of my consciousness.” And that’s just what we were going for.


Today’s desktop and mobile releases represent the intentional and thoughtful touches we made to give you a safe, calm, and useful experience online. We made these changes with you and your online habits in mind. Check it out for yourself:


↺ Firefox 89 Shines with the New Proton UI, Here’s What’s New


The first thing that people will notice is the new Proton UI which simplifies the browser’s menus and alters the tabs bar beyond anything we’ve seen from previous Firefox releases. The browser tabs are larger than before, and they now have rounded rather than sharp corners. The result is a much more modern-looking browsing experience.


Firefox 89 Proton UI Firefox 89 also features floating tabs that contain information and other cues when you need them, like visual indicators for audio controls.


The browser chrome and toolbar has been simplified, removing less frequently used items to make the most important navigation items easier to focus on. Menus in the browser are also re-organized according to usage, labels are updated and iconography is now removed.


Private Browser mode is now more private in Firefox 89 with the enablement of Total Cookie Protection which confines cookies to the site where they were created. This stops companies from tracking you across sites.


↺ Mozilla Security Blog: Firefox 89 upgrades Private Browsing Windows with Total Cookie Protection


At Mozilla, we believe that your right to privacy is fundamental. Unfortunately, for too long cookies have been used by tracking companies to gather data about you as you browse the web. Today, with the launch of Firefox 89, we are happy to announce that Firefox Private Browsing windows now include our innovative Total Cookie Protection by default. That means: when you open a Private Browsing window, each website you visit is given a separate cookie jar that keeps cookies confined to that site. Cookies can no longer be used to follow you from site to site and gather your browsing history.


[...]


Or, if you like keyboard shortcuts, just press Ctrl + Shift + P (Cmd + Shift + P on Mac). When you are done with that private browsing session, you can simply close all your Private Browsing windows. All the cookies and other stored data from the websites you visited will be immediately deleted!


As we continue to strengthen Firefox’s privacy protections, Mozilla is committed to maintaining state-of-the-art performance and a first-class browsing experience. Stay tuned for more privacy advances in the coming months!


↺ Hacks.Mozilla.Org: Looking fine with Firefox 89


While we’re sitting here feeling a bit frumpy after a year with reduced activity, Firefox 89 has smartened up and brings with it a slimmed down, slightly more minimalist interface.


Along with this new look, we get some great styling features including a force-colors feature for media queries and better control over how fonts are displayed. The long awaited top-level await keyword for JavaScript modules is now enabled, as well as the PerformanceEventTiming interface, which is another addition to the performance suite of APIs: 89 really has been working out!


↺ Sharing your deepest emotions online: Did 2020 change the future of therapy?


“Going through something like the pandemic and not having family around, feeling out of control—I was on edge all year,” says the 30-year-old Colorado resident. And she wasn’t alone.


Amid the COVID-19 lockdowns of early 2020, millions of Americans found themselves trapped at home with a backlog of unaddressed mental-health issues. As with so many other things, computer screens and video calls became the only portals out of lockdown—for work, entertainment and, ultimately, real psychological help.


By spring 2020, nearly all therapy was forced online, a shift that initially worried therapists and patients alike.


“You do all these years of school to become a psychologist and all the training is in-person,” says Dr. Justin Puder, a therapist and licensed psychologist based in Boca Raton, Florida. “So when you transition to online, you have these doubts—will the connection be as genuine? Will it be as effective?”


↺ Henri Sivonen: Bogo-XML Declaration Returns to Gecko


Firefox 89 was released today. This release (again!) honors a character encoding declaration made via syntax that looks like an XML declaration used in text/html (if there are no other character encoding declarations).


Before HTML parsing was specified, Internet Explorer did not support declaring the encoding of a text/html document using the XML declaration syntax. However, Gecko, WebKit, and Presto did. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that they did.


When Hixie specified HTML parsing, consistent with IE, he didn’t make the spec sensitive to the XML declaration syntax in a particular way. I am unable to locate any discussion in the WHATWG mailing list archives about whether an encoding declaration made using the XML declaration syntax in text/html should be honored when processing text/html.


When I implemented the specified HTML parsing algorithm in Gecko, I also implemented the internal encoding declaration handling per specification. As a side effect, in Firefox 4, I removed Gecko’s support for the XML declaration syntax for declaring the character encoding in text/html. I don’t recall this having been a knowingly-made decision: The rewrite just did strictly what the spec said.


[...]


When Blink forked, it inherited WebKit’s behavior. When Microsoft switched from EdgeHTML to Blink, Gecko became the only actively-developed major engine not to support the XML declaration syntax for declaring the character encoding text/html. Since unlabeled UTF-8 is not automatically detected, this became a Web compatibility issue with pages that declare UTF-8 but only using the XML declaration syntax (i.e. without a BOM, a meta, or HTTP-layer declaration as well).


FSF


GNU Projects


↺ GCC drops its copyright-assignment requirement


The GCC compiler, like other GNU projects, has long required contributors to complete paperwork assigning the copyrights on their work to the Free Software Foundation. That requirement has just been dropped, and contributors can now attach a Signed-off-by tag indicating use of the Developers Certificate of Origin instead. “This change is consistent with the practices of many other major Free Software projects, such as the Linux kernel.” Initial discussion suggests that some developers were surprised by this change and are yet to be convinced that it is a good idea.


↺ Update to GCC copyright assignment policy


↺ GCC 9.4 Released


↺ GCC 9.4 Compiler Released With 190+ Bug Fixes – Phoronix


While GCC 11 is the latest stable compiler series for the GNU Compiler Collection, for those still making use of GCC 9 that initially debuted in 2019 there is a new point release this week.


GCC 9.4 is the latest point release for this series, coming just a few weeks after GCC 8.5 that ended out the GCC 8 series. Since the release of GCC 9.3 back in March 2020 there have been more than 190 bug fixes to accumulate for this compiler series.


↺ Update to GCC copyright assignment policy


The GCC Steering Committee has decided to relax the requirement to assign copyright to the Free Software Foundation. “Contributors who have an FSF Copyright Assignment don’t need to change anything. Contributors who wish to utilize the Developer Certificate of Origin should add a Signed-off-by message to their commit messages. Developers with commit access may add their name to the DCO list in the MAINTAINERS file to certify the DCO for all future commits in lieu of individual Signed-off-by messages for each commit.”


↺ GCC To No Longer Require Copyright Assignment To The Free Software Foundation


In addition to the GCC 9.4 release today, the GCC Steering Committee announced today that they are dropping their long-running policy of requiring copyright assignment to the Free Software Foundation for all code contributions.


GCC has long required copyright assignment to the FSF for any patches and that’s bee an issue for some. Especially these days with the FSF coming under fire and even some talking of possible forks to the GNU Compiler Collection or being able to move this open-source compiler further away from the FSF, the steering committee decided to no longer require the controversial copyright assignment.


Programming/Development


↺ Best Python Libraries For data science In 2021


↺ Erik Faye-Lund: OpenGL on DirectX: Conformance & upstreaming of the D3D12 driver


↺ bribe givers of Microsoft


Over the last year and then so, we at Collabora have been working with Microsoft on their D3D12 mapping layer, which I announced in my previous blog post. In July, Louis-Francis Ratté-Boulianne wrote an update on the status on the Collabora blog, but a lot has happened since then, so it’s time for another update.


There’s two major things that has happened since then; we have passed the OpenGL 3.3 conformance tests, and we have upstreamed the code in Mesa 3D.


↺ OpenXava an open-source cross-platform low-code web framework for enterprise


OpenXava is an open-source Low-Code Platform and a web framework for developing business applications. It is a great, powerful, Simple, Easy implementation tool for Rapid Development.


OpenXava is a wonderful tool for someone who needs to program in Java without Java knowledge. It offers a build and design tools that ease development and design of database application.


↺ Monthly subscriptions are back!


↺ Tymly: an open-source low-code platform with re-usable components


Tymly is a free open-source low-code software tool to build flexible and scalable applications.


Tymly was created by West Midlands Fire Service. The current build version is coded to JavaScript Standard Style which gives the code clear clarity that is used by hundreds of companies and thousands of people. By adding a common culture and style of coding to the open project that will make collaboration across different sectors and teams easy.


Tymly is packed with dozens of tools and features. It let you to quickly and easily build custom blueprints; a way to describe some related components to produce useful software, and to fill a business need. It offers businesses with swift and iterative delivery of new applications for your business functions. It delivers a software service which meets the unique challenges facing today’s Public Sector.


[...]


Tymly allows users to access all digital services from any device, anywhere. It works seamlessly on Windows, macOS and Linux. I tested it on the new Apple Silicon M1, and it works without issue.


Leftovers


Science


↺ Australia’s oldest colonial boat unearthed for display by 3D scanning and 3D printing


A 19th-century boat discovered in Sydney, Australia, has been brought back to life for display at the Australian National Maritime Museum by 3D scanning and 3D printing.


Called the Barangaroo Boat, the vessel was unearthed in the vicinity of a shipyard during excavations by Sydney Metro for a new Barangaroo Station, and is expected to date back to around 1820. The site was taken over by Silentworld Foundation, an Australian non-profit focused on marine archaeology, history, culture, and heritage.


↺ How to Get More Women Into Technology


During her decadeslong career in technology, Judith Spitz watched as the “dismal number” of women in the industry failed to budge. In 2016, she decided to do something about it.


That year, Dr. Spitz founded Break Through Tech at Cornell Tech in New York City, an initiative aimed at increasing the number of women in computer science and tech careers. By using a mix of methods—including setting up internship arrangements that better suited the students’ strengths—the program saw strong results: Today, about 50% of its participants win summer internships, up from 5% at the start.


Break Through Tech is one of several recent efforts that are making headway against a longstanding problem: boosting the small number of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. These programs attack the problem in a number of different ways. They are giving students enrichment programs, setting them up with female mentors as role models, grounding their course work in real-world problems to keep it relevant—and sometimes, like Break Through Tech, mediating with potential employers.


Hardware


↺ LG converting smartphone production lines to make home appliances


LG Electronics is fast converting its overseas smartphone manufacturing lines into facilities that produce home appliances, industry insiders said on Tuesday, following its decision to withdraw from the mobile business.


LG said the Brazilian government last month approved its plan to expand its Manaus plant in Amazonas, northwestern Brazil, in a move to shift its production lines from the Taubate site on the east coast.


When the $62 million project is completed, LG Electronics will have new production lines for laptops and monitors at the Manaus plant.


Health/Nutrition


↺ Indiana county notorious for HIV is shutting down needle exchange. Republican commissioners say, “There are treatments for HIV.”


Scott County, Indiana made the news under former governor, one-term Vice President, and full time assclown Mike Pence, who is now despised by the Democrats and the Republicans.


(After failing to play into their imaginary and crazy right-wing narrative of Trump being cheated out of the election when the fact is that they’re just sore losers whose failed ideas and orange McDonalds clown didn’t win at the ballot box.)


Why? It was the site of the worst HIV/AIDS outbreak since knowledge that HIV/AIDS was killing people emerged in the 1980s. Mike Pence, instead of starting a needle exchange and testing services right away, infamously (and tritely, as conservative Christians are known for) said he’d go off and pray about it.


Well, after praying in one hand and shitting in the other and seeing which one filled up first, the state started a needle exchange after the disaster continued to expand. (Which is what anyone should have seen coming.)


Now, NPR reports that the state is considering shutting it down after it has successfully stopped the HIV explosion in its tracks. Health experts realize that shutting it down again fundamentally does nothing to solve the fact that people will find and use drugs, and worry about the HIV/AIDS crisis returning.


Integrity/Availability


Proprietary


Pseudo-Open Source


Privatisation/Privateering


Linux Foundation


↺ Learn About Magma, the Open Source Project Bringing High Speed Internet to Remote Areas, in This Free Course


Magma is an open source project supporting diverse radio technologies, including LTE, 5G and WiFi, which can help extend network access into remote, sparsely populated areas. It helps connect the world to a faster network by providing operators an open, flexible, and extendable mobile core network solution. Its operational simplicity and lower cost structure also empower innovators to build fixed and mobile wireless networks never previously imagined.


Magma has already been deployed in production environments. Muralnet, for example, is using Magma to extend network access to Native American communities, while Brisanet has similarly deployed it into remote areas of Brazil. With high speed internet access having huge impacts on regions’ economic fortunes, Magma has the potential to be a game changer around the world.


↺ Super Blueprints Integrate the 5G Open Source Stack from Core to Door


There is an exciting convergence in the networking industry around open source, and the energy is palpable. At LF Networking, we have a unique perspective as the largest open source initiative in the networking space with the broadest set of projects that make up the diverse and evolving open source networking stack. LF Networking provides platforms and building blocks across the networking industry that enable rapid interoperability, deployment, and adoption and is the nexus for 5G innovation and integration.


Entrapment (Microsoft GitHub)


↺ Data Expedition, Inc.® Achieves Amazon Linux 2 Ready Designation


Achieving the Amazon Linux 2 Ready designation differentiates DEI as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member with a generally available product that runs on Amazon Linux 2 and is fully supported for AWS customers. AWS Service Ready Partners have demonstrated success building products integrated with AWS services, helping AWS customers evaluate and use their technology productively, at scale and varying levels of complexity.


Security


↺ Security updates for Tuesday


Security updates have been issued by Fedora (cflow, chromium, eterm, gnutls, and kernel), Mageia (kernel and kernel-linus), Oracle (glib2), Red Hat (glib2, kernel, kernel-rt, and kpatch-patch), SUSE (curl, djvulibre, gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-base, gstreamer-plugins-good, gstreamer-plugins-ugly, nginx, python-httplib2, and slurm), and Ubuntu (gupnp, libwebp, postgresql-10, postgresql-12, postgresql-13, and python3.8).


↺ LastPass vs. 1Password: Which password manager wins?


LastPass and 1Password are two of the best password managers out there, and both are ranked highly on our list of the best password managers. The two are comparable in price, features and compatibility, especially with 1Password’s recent launch of a full-fledged Linux version.


LastPass does have a leg up with its free tier, which has all the basic functionality you could want, although it recently limited syncing across all device types (computers, smartphones and tablets) to its premium plan. However, 1Password’s user experience on Apple devices and its plans to improve the design across platforms put it in close proximity to other competitors.


Defence/Aggression


↺ US Tech Giants Reportedly Pressured to Sever Ties With Israel Over ‘Human Rights Violations’


Israel’s booming technological sector has long been a luring field for American start-ups and established giants, including Google, Amazon, and Apple. In 2019, US firms accounted for 80 percent of all purchases by Israeli tech companies.


American Big Tech firms are being pressured to re-asses their strong connections with Israel by pro-Palestinian activists – and by their own employees – amid the recent round of hostilities between the Israeli military and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to Politico.


Finance


↺ From Tesla to GE, See How Much CEOs Made in 2020


↺ Human Rights Foundation Gives Out $210K in Bitcoin Development Grants


The Human Rights Foundation’s newest grants are funding everything from the Lightning Network activism tech to Arabic translations of Bitcoin content.


The HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund latest round will allot $210,000 to Bitcoin developers, two Lightning Network wallet teams, and an Arabic translator. In this round, Bitcoin Core contributors Calvin Kim, Dhruv Mehta and Abubakar Nur Kahlil will each receive $50,000; the Breez and Sphinx wallet teams will pick up $25,000 each; and English-Arabic translator Arabic_HODL will receive $10,000.


Internet Policy/Net Neutrality


↺ Kamil Páral: Connecting to Libera.Chat through Matrix


After the last IRC changes, some of the Matrix->IRC bridges got disconnected, some rerouted (to Libera.Chat), and everything is work in progress. I’ve been a Matrix user for the past few months, and I definitely don’t want to go back to IRC. But in order to stay connected to the Fedora community, some steps were needed. Here’s a blog post to help me remember the necessary steps, in case I need it again in the future.


Monopolies


↺ Fixing the News Media and Digital Platform Bargaining Code


The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code (NMDPMBC) of Australia made headlines earlier this year. The Australian government’s new legislation hopes to “[address] bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and [news businesses.]” It does this by imposing that all digital platforms must pay news organizations for any use of its news products. Including but not limited to merely linking to news.


The Australian legislation has been widely criticized for being “a link tax.” The legislation requires digital platform services to pay for “making available” any portion of news produced by a news organization. It vaguely defines “making content available” as either reproducing something it in full, part, or even just linking to it in any form. The legislation explicitly doesn’t limit itself to any particular use or presentation of the news. A link on a contextual search result page is treated no differently from a link on a news aggregation service.


Patents


↺ Daimler to pay Nokia patent fees, ending German legal spat


Daimler has agreed to pay Nokia for using its patents, ending a row that highlighted a battle between tech and car companies over royalties for key technologies.


Nokia, which makes 1.4 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in licensing revenues every year, and carmaker Daimler had sued each other in German courts in recent years, with mixed results.


Tech firms want automakers to pay royalties for technologies used in navigation systems, vehicle communications and self-driving cars, but the latter say their suppliers should pay instead, which could reduce the fees for patent holders.


↺ European Inventor Award 2021: Meet some of today’s most inspiring innovators at digital event on June 17 and vote online for your favorite inventor


↺ More mindless puff pieces and press releases from corrupt EPO


↺ Big Pharma’s EU Lobbying Could Spell Disaster for Global South Vaccine Waivers


The Biden administration’s newfound support for waiving intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines could prove to be a turning point in the fight against the pandemic and a major step forward for health care access in the Global South. But before that, the effort needs to overcome a hefty roadblock: hostility from the European Union.


Any legally binding suspension of global patents on vaccines requires unanimous support from the World Trade Organization’s commission on IP rights, better known as the TRIPS Council, slated to meet June 8–9 in Geneva. While the United States said in May that it was finally interested in negotiating a proposal to do just that, signs suggest the European Commission — the executive branch of the EU, which has forged close ties with the pharmaceutical industry — will likely continue to oppose a proposed waiver on vaccines.


Pharmaceutical interests have become one of the biggest lobbying forces in Europe, according to spending disclosures reviewed by the Daily Poster.


“Internationally, there’s a real risk that the European Union could make this drag out, that their actions in Geneva and at the World Trade Organization could lead to a serious delay,” says Kenneth Haar, a researcher at the Corporate Europe Observatory, a watchdog tracking corporate influence in the EU. “That’s a huge problem because time is of the essence.”


[...]


The vote from legislators was nonbinding — the Commission, not Parliament, determines EU trade policy — but it nevertheless reflects the shifting political waters. Not only did it win backing from centrists, but it also earned support from some right-wing MEPs, part of the largest bloc in Parliament.


“We’re for lifting patents on vaccines because it should be a global public good,” Anne-Sophie Pelletier, an MEP from La France Insoumise and member of the Left Group, tells the Daily Poster. “This pandemic has been a catastrophe for the whole world, we all want to leave it behind, and it’s unacceptable that Big Pharma is getting rich off our lives. . . . We should be in solidarity to get out of this crisis, and if the vaccine is a solution, then everybody who wants to get vaccinated should be able to do it freely.”


The European Parliament is slated to take up a separate stand-alone resolution on supporting a COVID-19 vaccine patent waiver when it meets on June 7 — just a day before the pivotal WTO meeting kicks off in Geneva. A vote from legislators in favor of suspending IP rights would carry hefty political weight: no matter how uncomfortable it makes Big Pharma, it could make it all the more difficult for the EU to hold up talks at the table.


↺ Judge upholds $4M damages in the patent case against Valve for the Steam Controller


Back in February 2021 we wrote an article about how Ironburg Inventions (a subsidiary of Corsair Gaming) were suing Valve for the Steam Controller and Valve has now firmly lost the case.


In the new ruling that can be seen here, Judge Thomas S. Zilly has denied Valve’s attempt to have a new trial and overturn the initial jury decision of $4,029,533.93 in damages. Overall it didn’t go too well with Valve’s defence stating how it was “about as straightforward a patent case as you could ever hope to get” and that the jury would have “no trouble making the right decision at the end of this case” based on the Steam Controller and the Patent. Zilly mentioned “The Court agrees that this case is straightforward and can be decided on the ’525 Patent and the accused device. The jury appears to have done exactly that, but defendant does not like the result the jury reached. Defendant’s dissatisfaction does not constitute grounds for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial.” — ouch.


↺ Healthcare Series: 08: An Overview of Patent Protection for Pharmaceuticals


A patent is an intellectual property right that provides the owner of an invention with the exclusive right to benefit from the commercial use of the product, such as producing, selling and exporting for a set period time. Patents encourage pharmaceutical companies to invent and develop new drugs, therefore patent protection also serves the improvement of research and development, and thus human health.


↺ Hyatt v. Hirshfeld: A perfect storm that overwhelmed the PTO


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Patent terms generally last for 20-years from filing. Since the prosecution process typically takes about three years, the result is roughly 17 years of effective patent term. That amount can shift somewhat depending upon various factors, including patent-term-adjustment, terminal disclaimers, patent family size, prosecution timing, and payment of maintenance fees.


The 20-year-from-filing rule started on June 8, 1995 (the GATT deadline). Applications filed prior to that date were treated under the old rule that patent terms last for 17-years from the issue date.


Like many other patent applicants, Gil Hyatt filed a large number of continuation patent applications in the days leading up to the GATT deadline. One difference from most applicants is that Hyatt’s applications were already quite old — claimed priority back to filings from the 1970s and 1980s. The big difference today is that Hyatt’s 300+ cases are STILL PENDING. Under the rules, if these issue as patents then they will be given 17-year patent terms from the issue date — even on applications claiming priority back to the 1970s. To be clear, Hyatt’s applications focus on fundamental aspects of microchip and integrated circuit technology and so could be extremely valuable as enforceable patents.


↺ New Chinese IP laws would enhance efficacy of judicial protection


The amends to the patent law and the copyright law came into effect on Tuesday. Patent and copyright are deemed as the most essential intellectual property (IP) rights, with the former concerning technological innovation and the latter cultural prosperity. Correspondingly, patent law and copyright law are at the center position of a nation’s IP law system. The revision of these two laws therefore has garnered much public attention and become a hot topic in the IP field.


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Innovative designer’s demand for protection of a portion of a product’s design has been increasing. In order to answer this call, Article 2.4 of the new patent law grants protection to a portion of design. The change in the definition of works in the copyright law make it possible to recognize those not included in the listed types of works under the old copyright law as works, such as musical fountains and light shows. Therefore, it is wise for the new copyright law to adopt an open approach toward the judicial identification of works. It will promote the protection of some new forms of cultural expression.


↺ Know Thyself


In April 2021, the Federal Circuit decided a separate ITC appeal between these parties, affirming that Bio-Rad infringed the micro-fluidic chip patents owned by 10X (a company started by Bio-Rad former employees). U.S. Patent Nos. 9,689,024, 9,695,468, and 9,856,530.


Cross-allegation: In this separate ITC action, Bio-Rad accused 10X of infringing its U.S. Patent Nos. 9,500,664, 9,636,682, and 9,649,635 (mechanisms for generating droplets suitable for droplet-based assays). In this counter lawsuit, the ITC split its decision, finding two of the patents infringed but one not infringed. On appeal here, the Federal Circuit has affirmed.


The most losing argument on appeal centered on the ITC’s judgment that 10X was liable for inducement and contributory infringement. On appeal, 10X argued that it could not be held liable because it did not have knowledge of the patents-in-suit.


Software Patents


↺ Blockchain: Best Law Firms and Patent Owners


There does not seem to be a day where the words “crypto,” “blockchain,” or “digital ledger” are used in the news or daily conversations. While some are caught up in the unstable climbs and drops of the various digital currencies, a patent war has been brewing. Some of the major financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have patented the fundamental technology that allows blockchain to reach new frontiers. In 2019 for instance, the AnnA Villa in Paris made history by becoming the first ever European property to be sold entirely via blockchain transaction for 6.5 million Euros.


As cryptocurrencies move to the forefront of the everyday financial system, major exchanges such as Coinbase, Cash App, Binance, and Bisq, that allow individuals to exchange various currencies, have seen an uptick in mergers and acquisitions. Notable, Coinbase debut on the Nasdaq in April 2021 with a 86 billion USD market value.


This comes shortly after a flurry of M&A activity in 2020. In a report published by PwC, the total market value of crypto-related deals during the first half of 2020 ($600 million) exceeded all of 2019. This is significant even when accounting for Binance’s estimated 400 million USD acquisition of CoinMarketCap in April of 2020.


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With the increased focus on blockchain and the technology surrounding it, Unified wanted to provide a way that companies can use real-time data to increase not only the quality of their portfolio but also their own efficiencies when it comes to selecting a law firm for patent prosecution. LPIX is able to cut through that noise using relevant criteria— companies can now select the right law firm when it comes to patent prosecution. This in turn can bolster a company’s position in the quickly growing blockchain industry.


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