What is my Linux Distro of Choice?

GNU World Order 13x8

Here’s what Linux backup and restore for Chromebooks looks like, expected in Chrome OS 74

A few weeks ago I pointed out a new feature targeted for Chrome OS 74: A native way to backup and restore Linux apps and data on Chromebooks that support Project Crostini. Since then, the Chromium team has made a big push to nail down the functionality in advance of the Chrome OS 74 feature freeze date, which is February 22: Aside from the code to support backups and restores, there was a slew of interface work done this week.

Sparky Online

There is a new, small tool available for Sparkers: Sparky Online.

Chromium is eroding the Open Web and it’s our responsibility to stop it

 

Edge’s move to Chromium means that the balance of power has tipped further towards a single party who can increasingly become the arbiter of which ideas should be developed, which standards should be accepted and which usability concerns matter the most. The seats at a W3C meeting should not be 70% filled by Chromium-based platforms, nor should Google have veto powers on open source projects.  

Such a monopoly hamstrings innovation, and the resultant complacency has consequences. Whilst it may be great for developers to have one less rendering engine to worry about, we and our users are still paying the price for Internet Explorer’s market domination circa 15 years ago.

Use an 8-char Windows NTLM password? Don't. Every single one can be cracked in under 2.5hrs [Ed: Sounds like a 'feature' for NSA access]

Freedreno Picks Up OpenGL Compute Support For Adreno A6xx Hardware

The newest addition to the Freedreno Gallium3D driver for open-source 3D on Qualcomm graphics hardware is enabling OpenGL compute support for A6xx series hardware.  Freedreno already ships compute support for Adreno A5xx hardware while now for Mesa 19.1 the support has landed for the latest-generation A6xx hardware.

14 Excellent Free Plotting Tools

A plotting tool is computer software which helps to analyze and visualize data, often of a scientific nature. Using this type of software, users can generate plots of functions, data and data fits. Software of this nature typically includes additional functionality, such as data analysis functions including curve fitting. A good plotting tool is very important for generating professional looking graphics for inclusion in academic papers. However, plotting tools are not just useful for academics, engineers, and scientists. Many users will need to plot graphs for other purposes such as presentations. Fortunately, Linux is well endowed with plotting software. There are some heavyweight commercial Linux applications which include plotting functionality. These include MATLAB, Maple, and Mathematica. Without access to their source code, you have limited understanding of how the software functions, and how to change it. The license costs are also very expensive. And we are fervent advocates of open source software. The purpose of this article is to help promote open source plotting tools that are available. To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 14 excellent plotting tools. Many of the applications are very mature. For example, gnuplot has been in development since the mid-1980s. The choice of plotting software may depend on which programming language you prefer. For example, if your leaning towards Python, matplotlib is an ideal candidate as it’s written in, and designed specifically for Python. Whereas, if you’re keen on the R programming language, you’ll probably prefer ggplot2, which is one of the most popular R packages. With good reason, it offers a powerful model of graphics that removes a lot of the difficulty in making complex multi-players graphics. R does come with “base graphics” which are the traditional plotting functions distributed with R. But gpplot2 takes graphics to the next level.

[GNU] Texinfo 6.6 released

We have released version 6.6 of Texinfo, the GNU documentation format.

The Rise of Bare-Metal Kubernetes Servers

While most instances of Kubernetes today are deployed on virtual machines running in the cloud or on-premises, there is a growing number of instances of Kubernetes being deployed on bare-metal servers. The two primary reasons for opting to deploy Kubernetes on a bare- metal server over a virtual machine usually are performance and reliance on hardware accelerators. In the first instance, an application deployed at the network edge might be too latency-sensitive to tolerate the overhead created by a virtual machine. AT&T, for example, is working with Mirantis to deploy Kubernetes on bare-metal servers to drive 5G wireless networking services.

If companies can run SAP on Linux, they can run any application on it: Ronald de Jong

"We have had multiple situations with respect to security breaches in the last couple of years, albeit all the open source companies worked together to address the instances. As the source code is freely available even if something goes wrong, SUSE work closely with open source software vendors to mitigate the risk", Ronald de Jong, President of -Sales, SUSE said in an interview with ET CIO.

SUSE Public Cloud Image Life-cycle

It has been a while since we published the original image life-cycle guidelines SUSE Image Life Cycle for Public Cloud Deployments. Much has been learned since, technology has progressed, and the life-cycle of products has changed. Therefore, it is time to refresh things, update our guidance, and clarify items that have led to questions over the years. This new document serves as the guideline going forward starting February 15th, 2019 and supersedes the original guideline. Any images with a date stamp later than v20190215 fall under the new guideline. The same basic principal as in the original guideline applies, the image life-cycle is aligned with the product life-cycle of the product in the image. Meaning a SLES image generally aligns with the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server life-cycle and a SUSE Manager image generally aligns with the SUSE Manager life-cycle.

Steam's iron grip on PC gaming is probably over even if the Epic Games Store fails

 

It doesn’t matter though. Whether Epic succeeds or not, Steam has already lost. The days of Valve’s de facto monopoly are over, and all that matters is what comes next.

Wine-Staging 4.2 Released - Now Less Than 800 Patches Atop Upstream Wine

Wine 4.2 debuted on Friday and now the latest Wine-Staging release is available that continues carrying hundreds of extra patches re-based atop upstream Wine to provide various experimental/testing fixes and other feature additions not yet ready for mainline Wine.  Wine-Staging for a while has been carrying above 800 patches and at times even above 900, but with Wine-Staging 4.2 they have now managed to strike below the 800 patch level. It's not that they are dropping patches, but a lot of the Wine-Staging work has now been deemed ready for mainline and thus merged to the upstream code-base. A number of patches around the Windows Codecs, NTDLL, BCrypt, WineD3D, and other patches have been mainlined thus now coming in at a 798 patch delta.