The FSF Is Looking To Update Its High Priority Free Software Projects List

As we roll into 2021 the Free Software Foundation is looking to update its high priority free software projects list. These are the software projects that should be incorporating "the most important threats, and most critical opportunities, that free software faces in the modern computing landscape." For now the FSF is looking for help deciding what to include. The FSF high priority projects list is what once included PowerVR reverse engineering as being very important albeit never happened prior to PowerVR graphics becoming less common. In fact, many FSF high priority projects never panned out as they weren't contributing much in the way of resources to the causes but just calling attention to them. PDF support was among their high priority projects as well as another example as well as the likes of an open-source Skype replacement and reverse-engineering other popular technologies.

Proprietary Software and Microsoft Security Problems

• Windows REvil ransomware group member says annual take is US$100m

  A man who claims to be a member of the group behind the Windows REvil ransomware says the group takes in more than US$100 million (A$1.4 million) annually through ransom payments.

• Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

• Nitro again insists data breach 'isolated' as incident gets more coverage

  ASX-listed Nitro Software, a firm that had its origins in Melbourne and offers a service to create, edit and sign PDFs and digital documents, has issued an update on Wednesday to its earlier statement regarding a data breach, in what appears to be an attempt to negate the details published about the incident by the American website Bleeping Computer and a number of other websites.

• Git shared hosting quirk | Daniel Lange's blog

  The hack was discussed on Github in Dec 2018 when it was discovered. I forgot about it again but Konstantin's mail brought the memory back and I think it deserves more attention. I'm sure putting some illegal content into a fork and sending a made up "blob" URL to law enforcement would go quite far. Good luck explaining the issue. "Yes this is my repo" but "no, no that's not my data" ... "yes, it is my repo but not my data" ... "no we don't want that data either, really" ... "but, but there is nothing we can do, we host on github...1".

EndeavourOS is a Wholesome Arch-Based Distribution

Most readers may probably remember the Antergos Linux distribution which was discontinued in 2019. It was an Arch-based Linux distribution that aimed to be beginner-friendly, easy to install and easy to use. Making the average life quite possible with Arch Linux as a base. It featured a graphical installer with multiple options to install various desktop environments in a few clicks. After it was discontinued, a group of the older community merged efforts to create a new continuation of that distribution, named EndeavourOS. The latest version was released around one and half months ago, and it uses Xfce as a default desktop environment, with many other options available for users. We’ll go today in a review of EndeavourOS 2020.09.20 and what to expect of it. TL;DR: It is a good distribution for anyone who wants an easy, minimal Arch installation.

today's howtos

• Kinto – Easily Get Mac OS Like Keybinds in Ubuntu Linux | UbuntuHandbook

  For Mac users want to change keybinds in Ubuntu Linux or Windows, Kinto is an easy system-wide solution with setup wizard and system tray indicator. [...] Just click on ‘Agree’ button, follow the wizard, hit Enter, and you’re done! The system tray indicator is not enabled by default, you can enable it from the File menu.

• Kinto – Easily Get Mac OS Like Keybinds in Ubuntu Linux | UbuntuHandbook

  In this article, we will show you how to create your own abstract graphics using the GNU Image Manipulation Program for abstract graphic design. This program was initially created for Unix-like systems such as Linux. It has also been made available for Windows and OSX users. The following steps are very simple but can yield some awesome results.

• Vdx - An Intuitive Commandline Wrapper To FFmpeg - OSTechNix

  Vdx is an intuitive commandline wrapper to FFmpeg. Using Vdx, we can do most common audio and video encoding and transcoding operations.

• Linux Bash Shell Special Characters

  There are a set of characters the Bash shell treats in two different ways. When you type them at the shell, they act as instructions or commands and tell the shell to perform a certain function. Think of them as single-character commands. If you want to master the Bash shell on Linux, macOS, or another UNIX-like system, special characters (like ~, *, |, and >) are critical. We’ll help you unravel these cryptic Linux command sequences and become a hero of hieroglyphics.

• Find Ubuntu Images on Microsoft Azure [Ed: Microsoft would love to pretend that it now owns and controls its competition (and that it means "love")]

• Deleting many files from an S3 bucket | There and back again

  So we found ourselves in the need to delete a considerable amount of files (around 500000, amounting to 1.6T) from an S3 bucket.

• Use Docker and Alpine Linux to build lightweight containers

  When it comes to Docker, sometimes less is more -- a maxim that applies especially to the base OS images installed in each Docker image. The use of a lightweight image -- one with less than 200 MB -- can result in significant resource and cost savings when used alongside optimized applications. A lightweight image also takes less time to deploy compared to a larger one, as it boots up faster. Most OS images are lightweight, with minimal compute resource requirements. But others, such as Windows containers, are huge. Alpine Linux is a super lightweight Linux distribution that's useful for Docker containers. In this Docker and Alpine Linux tutorial, we'll build an Nginx web server that demonstrates how small a Docker container image can be.

• Managing resources with cgroups in systemd | Opensource.com

  Cgroups manage resources per application rather than by the individual processes that make up an application.

• Improve your database knowledge with this MariaDB and MySQL cheat sheet | Opensource.com

  When you're writing an application or configuring one for a server, eventually, you will need to store persistent information. Sometimes, a configuration file, such as an INI or YAML file will do. Other times, a custom file format designed in XML or JSON or similar is better. But sometimes you need something that can validate input, search through information quickly, make connections between related data, and generally handle your users' work adeptly. That's what a database is designed to do, and MariaDB (a fork of MySQL by some of its original developers) is a great option. I use MariaDB in this article, but the information applies equally to MySQL.

• Creating a Linux-Windows hybrid system with Cygwin | Enable Sysadmin

  When you need a consistent scripting platform in a heterogeneous data center, Cygwin delivers.

• Eight ways to protect SSH access on your system | Enable Sysadmin

  The Secure Shell is a critical tool in the administrator's arsenal. Here are eight ways you can better secure SSH, and some suggestions for basic SSH centralization.