Linux and the Logo/Mascot

• AMD Continues Working To Mainline Their PTDMA Driver For Linux - Phoronix

  Published all the way back in September 2019 was a Linux driver for supporting the Pass-Through DMA controller for EPYC processors. The PTDMA hardware allows for high bandwidth memory-to-memory and I/O copy operations. Now mid-way through 2021 that AMD PTDMA Linux driver remains in the works and is up to its tenth driver revision while waiting to see if it's now ready for mainline or further changes are still deemed necessary. This AMD PTDMA controller and driver is optimized for use with AMD Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) devices and not general purpose DMA. NTB is used for in connecting multiple separate memory systems to the same PCI Express fabric. The PTDMA driver supports the 0x1498 (PCI device ID) controller found within EPYC processors since 7002 "Rome".

• Linux At 30 - A Penguin For Your Thoughts [Ed: GNU/Linux is turning 38]

  Linux turns 30 this summer and, as part of the celebrations, the Linux Foundation asked the open source community "How has Linux Impacted your Life?" Authors of 30 personal stories have each been able to name a penguin. This led us to ask, Why is the Linux mascot a penguin? Back in April the Linux Foundation asked for submissions to what is now a slide show of stories about how Linux changed their lives. The responses came from all over the globe and 30 of them were selected to create a slideshow that you can view on the Linux Foundation blog. To thank the 30 respondents for their contributions, each of them was invited to name a penguin adopted from SANCCOB, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, a charity which rescues and rehabilitates seabirds that are injured or abandoned and then releases them back into the wild. This is why each of the slides features a penguin! [...] But why was Torvalds so keen on penguins. He himself joked that he had contracted "penguinitis", a disease that "makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them" after being bitten by a "ferocious" Fairy Penguin on his first trip to Austrailia in the early 1990s to talk to the Australian Unix Users Group.

Software: Backup, QOwnNotes, and IRC

• Linux's Built-In Tools for Data Recovery and Backup - Influencive

  Although Linux distros aren’t exactly considered the most user-friendly operating systems available, many of the different distributions do include some very helpful utilities – as long as you know where to look. Not only can some of these utilities be used for managing and maintaining your Linux data, but some of them are specifically meant for data recovery or backup. It’s important to note that all Linux distros are not equal. As such, some of these tools might not be included with your Linux installation by default. Many of them are featured in some of the most popular distros, however, including ALT Linux, Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, and more.

• QOwnNotes 21.6.4

  QOwnNotes is a open source (GPL) plain-text file notepad with markdown support and todo list manager for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, that (optionally) works together with the notes application of ownCloud (or Nextcloud). So you are able to write down your thoughts with QOwnNotes and edit or search for them later from your mobile device (like with CloudNotes) or the ownCloud web-service. The notes are stored as plain text files and you can sync them with your ownCloud sync client. Of course other software, like Dropbox, Syncthing, Seafile or BitTorrent Sync can be used too.

• Introducing IRC.com by freenode

  1 score and a little over 2 years ago, IRC was created by the great and honorable Jarkko Oikarinen. It's had its ups and downs, from the era of net splits to the era of cancel culture. However, we're proud to announce that we've completely obliterated the swamp removing the shackles on progress, and now we're sailing blue seas. YaRR! [...] The app is in beta, but everything works. If you find any bugs, please let us know in #freenode-bnc! [...] Now that IRC is up to speed with modern messaging clients, we're now aiming to take things further yet. IRC is a much more robust and useable messaging platform than anything else out there. We're just getting started. Special thanks goes out to tjr and his team, as well as the entire freenode staff as we worked through the transition from legacy to present. An additional special thanks goes out to prawnsalad, who's previous contributions to the FOSS and IRC community, including the Kiwi IRC suite of FOSS, made all of this possible. The power of the people cannot be stopped. freenode is here to stay, no matter what gets thrown at it. It's now, as well, a recognized digital autonomous zone which gives it the unique ability to provide what freenode does best: freedom. freenode is IRC. freenode is FOSS. freenode is freedom. Ask not what you can do for freenode, but what freenode will do for you. IRC is back!

Review: CloudReady and TrueNAS Core

TrueNAS Core, formerly called FreeNAS, is a FreeBSD-based operating system which provides Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services. TrueNAS Core is the community branch of the TrueNAS project, sponsored by iXsystems. It also has a commercial branch called TrueNAS Enterprise. TrueNAS provides a minimal operating system base with a friendly, web-based front end for administration. Using TrueNAS we can set up ZFS storage pools, filesystem snapshots, network shares, user accounts, and background services through the web-based administration portal. [...] On the whole, I like TrueNAS Core. It's easy to set up, the web-based interface is easy to navigate. The system does a good job of displaying an overview of information and options in a friendly interface. There are a lot of options which might be overwhelming at first, but they're generally organized in a way that allows us to find specific tools fairly quickly. I was frustrated with the networking issues which prevented me from using plugins, but the tools which were available, such as those for setting up pools, automating filesystem snapshots, and working with services were all top notch. I'd definitely look at using TrueNAS in an organization that had a lot of data to manage and wanted to organize and share it quickly and with minimal fuss.