Videos/Audiocasts: Command Line Heroes and Linus

• Command Line Heroes: Season 5 trailer

  After four seasons of epic tales about how command line heroes have shaped the tech landscape, we're tackling a new topic: The job itself. Season 5 covers the job of being a coder. How coding careers begin. How the job is done. How it’s changed. And how coders are shaping its continued evolution. Clive Thompson, previous guest and friend of the podcast, joins us for this 3-episode mini-season. The tech journalist shares his insights from the over 200 interviews he’s conducted with coders: programmers, developers, software engineers, sysadmins, and more. The first episode drops July 14, 2020. Subscribe today and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates.

• Linus Torvalds Ponders The Future Of The Linux Kernel

• Video: Two guys name Linus build a new PC

  I wonder what the final price of this is?

Jussi Pakkanen: What is best in open source projects?

Open source project maintainers have a reputation of being grumpy and somewhat rude at times. This is a not unexpected as managing an open source project can be a tiring experience. This can lead to exhaustion and thus to sometimes being a bit too blunt. But let's not talk about that now. Instead, let's talk about the best of times, the positive outcomes, the things that really make you happy to be running an open source project. Patches, both bug fixes and new features are like this. So is learning about all the places people are using your project. Even better if they are using it ways you could not even imagine when you started. All of these things are great, but they are not the best. The greatest thing is when people you have never met or even heard of before come to your project and then on their own initiative take on leadership in some subsection in the project. Also: How an open project's governance model evolves

Devices: Coral mPCIe, Zynq, and ESPHome

• Using Google Coral mPCIe Card into a Compact Marvell Octeon TX Linux SBC

  Google launched Coral mPCIe and M.2 cards at the very beginning of the year. The cards integrate the company’s 4 TOPS Edge TPU used for low power edge AI applications to bring the solutions to boards with mPCIe or M.2 sockets. Those are just hardware sockets that are optionally connected to USB, PCIe, I2C, etc… so you have to make sure the socket on your board exposes PCIe Gen2 x1. If you worry about compatibility, it’s good to get a board that’s known to work, and one of those is Gateworks Newport GW6903 SBC that offers two mPCIe sockets and features Marvell Octeon TX dual or quad-core Armv8 processor coupled with up to 4GB RAM.

• Zynq UltraScale+ Arm FPGA FZ3 Deep Learning Accelerator Card Supports Baidu Brain AI Tools

  FZ3 card runs PetaLinux, and supports Baidu PaddlePaddle deep learning AI framework, as well as Baidu Brain AI tools such as EasyDL, AI Studio, and EasyEdge. Those enable the development of deep learning applications such as smart cameras, AI Edge embedded PCs, AI robots, smart cars, intelligent electronic scale, autonomous UAV, and more.

• Simple IoT Devices using ESPHome

  ESPHome is a build and deployment system that takes all of the manual coding work out of integrating custom Internet of Things (IoT) devices with Home Assistant. It advertises support for not only the ESP8266, but also its big-brother the ESP32 and even various ESP8266-based off-the-shelf consumer devices from Sonoff. ESPHome achieves a code-free integration by implementing the auto-discovery protocols necessary for Home Assistant to pull the features of the device into the hub with just a few clicks. Wiring up an ESP8266 to the desired hardware, and defining that hardware properly in the configuration, is all that is needed to enable it in the hub. For hardware wired to an ESP8266 to be used with ESPHome, it must first be supported by an ESPHome component. The ESPHome project's website lists the various hardware it understands how to work with, from sensors to displays. While the collection of IoT device components is not as comprehensive as one could imagine, ESPHome does offer many of the common ones used in smart homes. The project's last release, v1.14.0 in November 2019, included 24 new components. [...] The ESPHome project has a healthy community supporting it with 132 contributors and 67 releases to date, including the latest v1.14.0 release. The project itself operates under a dual licensing model where the C++ code is released under GPLv3 and the Python code is released under an MIT license. Those interested in contributing (both documentation or code) can review the contributor guidelines for how best to get involved. There doesn't appear to be a mailing list for the project, but there is a Discord channel available.

Games: Top Titles, MergeGames, Best Racing Games for Android

• Our quick-picks of the best Linux games of 2020 so far

  We're halfway through the year already? Madness. Even with all the craziness of 2020 going on, lots of games still managed to get out of the door. I know, I can't believe 2020 isn't over yet either. Thankfully there's plenty of games to take our minds off everything from murder hornets to COVID19 and more. Now we're at the halfway point, let's think about some of the top Linux releases of 2020 so far. This list is extremely subjective of course, this is just my personal pick on the top 15. Think of it as a starting point for good games to look at if you're stuck for something. In no particular order, going up to June 30 and I'm cheating just a little bit by including some Early Access titles too.

• Action-adventure 'Sparklite' adds Linux support in a big update

  MergeGames, together with developers Red Blue Games have now released their action-adventure Sparklite on Linux along with a fresh content update. Originally released towards the end of 2019, Sparklite is an action-adventure set in the whimsical and ever-changing land of Geodia. With gorgeous pixel art and a top-down perspective, you battle foes using an arsenal of gadgets, guns, and gear. If you played and enjoyed Moonlighter, you would probably feel right at home with Sparklite too.

• Best Racing Games for Android

  When it comes to video gaming, racing is the most popular genre, whether it is mobile gaming, pc gaming, or on any other gaming console. Racing games on Android have so much competition between them and the genre is crowded with tons of racing games. Every racing game has its own unique features and every gamer has his or her own preferences. In this genre, there is a large number of excellent free-to-play and paid games available for mobile users. This article covers the best racing games, in a variety of settings and with many different features for each unique user’s needs.