• How to Install Bodhi Linux 5.1 + VMware Tools on VMware Workstation

• Repairing a corrupt ext4 root partition

• How to Use SQL LIKE Statement in MongoDB

• How to Install Debian GNU/Linux 10.5 with XFCE Desktop + VMware Tools on VMware Workstation

• How to Keep Things Organized With TreeLine

Okular’s editable forms are no longer mis-rendered when inertially scrolling (Kezi Olio, Okular 1.11.2)

When your scanner can almost but not quite fit a particular page size, Skanlite will now display the option to scan to that page size anyway (e.g. 215mm wide scan beds now give you the option to scan using the US Letter page size) (Kåre Särs, libksane 20.12)

The text of Elisa’s keyboard shortcuts are now translated properly (Nikunj Goyal, Elisa 20.12)

Clearing the clipboard history on Wayland no longer crashes Plasma (David Edmundson, Plasma 5.20)

Improved the Plasma SVG cache heuristics such that various things which might sometimes be invisible after upgrading Plasma now show up like they’re supposed to (Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 5.20)

On Wayland, clicking on a Task Manager entry while that entry’s tooltip is visible no longer crashes Plasma (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 5.20)

On Wayland, clicking on a Task Manager thumbnail now activates that window, as you would expect (Marco Martin, Plasma 5.20)

Also: KDE Plasma 5.20 Should Be Crashing A Lot Less Under Wayland

• Discovering Computer Legend Dennis Ritchie's Lost Dissertation

• FTP Fadeout

  Here’s a small piece of news you may have missed while you were trying to rebuild your entire life to fit inside your tiny apartment at the beginning of the COVID crisis: Because of the way that the virus shook up just about everything, Google skipped the release of Chrome version 82. Who cares, you think? Well, users of FTP, or the File Transfer Protocol. During the pandemic, Google delayed its plan to kill FTP, and now that things have settled to some degree, Google recently announced that it is going back for the kill with Chrome version 86, which deprecates the support once again, and will kill it for good in Chrome 88. (Mozilla announced similar plans for Firefox, citing security reasons and the age of the underlying code.) It is one of the oldest protocols the mainstream [Internet] supports—it turns 50 next year—but those mainstream applications are about to leave it behind. Today’s Tedium talks about history of FTP, the networking protocol that has held on longer than pretty much any other.

Yesterday I released virt-manager 3.0.0. Despite the major version number bump, things shouldn't look too different from the previous release. For me the major version number bump reflects certain feature removals (like dropping virt-convert), and the large amount of internal code changes that were done, though there's a few long awaited features sprinkled in like virt-install --cloud-init support which I plan to write more about later.

Also: virt-install --cloud-init support

• 7 Alternatives to Google Earth

  Google Earth has received so much press coverage that many users will appreciate that it is one of the coolest applications to download. In brief, it is a feature-laden 3D virtual globe, map and geography browser which lets users zoom in on their world with fantastic detail. View satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the sky. This application allows the exploration of rich geographical content, save toured places and share with others. The software maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe.

  Google Earth is undoubtedly a very impressive application, and it is extremely hard not to admire the wealth of features that it offers. Its satellite images are unrivaled, it provides useful and accurate statistical information, and the software has many practical benefits, such as helping to find locations and give driving directions. In terms of functionality, this application earns our highest praise. We use the software on a regular basis on both desktop and mobile devices (the latter under Android). However, while Google Earth is available to download without charge, Google do not release the software under an open source license.

  In the past there have been attempts to reverse engineer Google Earth and implement its features in an open and extensible way. However, these actions were understandably frowned upon by Google. Instead we prefer to see the development of open source virtual globe software which uses freely licensed or public domain data. While the development of open source virtual globe applications may not, in itself, encourage Google to release its application or data under a similar license, it does give users the option to be able to have the freedom to do what they want. This route also helps to foster greater user community support to drive development often in the form of add-ons and plug-ins.

  There are a number of applications which are credible open source alternatives to Google Earth. While none of the software applications featured in this article have all of the features offered by Google Earth (although some offer some different features), and they are not exactly comparable, they are all worthy of investigating.

• Warzone 2100 Lands Vulkan Renderer, Adaptive V-Sync For 20+ Year Old Game

  Warzone 2100 as the real-time strategy/tactics game that first premiered in 1999 before becoming open-source in 2004 and then fully open-source with game data in 2008 is now evolving in 2020 with Vulkan graphics support.

  The open-source Warzone 2100 game not only has a Vulkan back-end that was merged today but also OpenGL ES 2.0/3.0 support for those wanting to relive this late 90's computer game on mobile/embedded devices having only GLES drivers.

• [NetBSD] Curses Library Automated Testing

  My GSoC project under NetBSD involves the development of the test framework of curses. This is the final blog report in a series of blog reports; you can look at the first report and second report of the series.
  The first report gives a brief introduction of the project and some insights into the curses testframe through its architecture and language. To someone who wants to contribute to the test suite, this blog can act as the quick guide of how things work internally. Meanwhile, the second report discusses some of the concepts that were quite challenging for me to understand. I wanted to share them with those who may face such a challenge. Both of these reports also cover the progress made in various phases of the Summer of Code.

  This being the final report in the series, I would love to share my experience throughout the project. I would be sharing some of the learning as well as caveats that I faced in the project.

• [NetBSD] RumpKernel Syscall Fuzzing

  The first and second coding period was entirely dedicated to fuzzing rumpkernel syscalls using hongfuzz. Initially a dumb fuzzer was developed to start fuzzing but it soon reached its limits.

  For the duration of second coding peroid we concentrated on crash reproduction and adding grammar to the fuzzer which yielded in better results as we tested on a bug in ioctl with grammar. Although this works for now crash reproduction needs to be improved to generate a working c reproducer.

  For the last coding period I have looked into the internals of syzkaller to understand how it pregenerates input and how it mutates data. I have continued to work on integrating buildrump.sh with build.sh. buildrump eases the task fo building the rumpkernel on any host for any target.

  buildrump.sh is like a wrapper around build.sh to build the tools and rumpkernel from the source relevant to rumpkernel. So I worked to get buildrump.sh working with netbsd-src. Building the toolchain was successfull from netbsd-src. So binaries like rumpmake work just fine to continue building the rumpkernel.

• Full Circle Magazine #161

• Bandwidth for Video Conferencing

  For the Linux Users of Victoria (LUV) I’ve run video conferences on Jitsi and BBB (see my previous post about BBB vs Jitsi [1]). One issue with video conferences is the bandwidth requirements.

  The place I’m hosting my video conference server has a NBN link with allegedly 40Mb/s transmission speed and 100Mb/s reception speed. My tests show that it can transmit at about 37Mb/s and receive at speeds significantly higher than that but also quite a bit lower than 100Mb/s (around 60 or 70Mb/s). For a video conference server you have a small number of sources of video and audio and a larger number of targets as usually most people will have their microphones muted and video cameras turned off. This means that the transmission speed is the bottleneck. In every test the reception speed was well below half the transmission speed, so the tests confirmed my expectation that transmission was the only bottleneck, but the reception speed was higher than I had expected.

  When we tested bandwidth use the maximum upload speed we saw was about 4MB/s (32Mb/s) with 8+ video cameras and maybe 20 people seeing some of the video (with a bit of lag). We used 3.5MB/s (28Mb/s) when we only had 6 cameras which seemed to be the maximum for good performance.

• Get involved – Meet the TDF team

  Joining a free and open source software project, such as LibreOffice, is a great way to build your skills, gain experience for future career options, meet new people – and have fun!

  But sometimes, joining a large and well-established project can be a bit daunting at the start. So here we’ll introduce you to the small team at The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. Most team members oversee certain sub-projects in the LibreOffice community – click on their names to learn more in interviews…

• Emacs Builders (Together with Richard Stallman) Focus on Learn how to Construct a Extra 'Fashionable' Emacs

• Lack of Qualified Linux Talent Impedes Enterprise Move to the Clouds

  The Linux Foundation has been working to address the shortage of Linux talent for many years with a combination of training and certification exams.

  Despite this, the breathtaking growth in Linux adoption, especially as the de facto OS of the cloud, means that there is still a shortage of qualified talent, according to Clyde Seepersad, senior vice president and general manager for training and certification at The Linux Foundation (LF).

  “We are always supportive of developments in the training ecosystem which help address this gap. In particular, we are finding that demand for our performance-based certification exams continues to be gated by individuals not feeling adequately prepared,” he told LinuxInsider.

  LF’s certification exams include Certified Kubernetes Administrator, Certified Kubernetes Application Developer, Linux Foundation Certified SysAdmin, and Linux Foundation Certified Engineer.

  “ACG and LA both have excellent reputations for the quality of their open-source training content so we are pleased to see them come together to better serve the talent development needs of the open-source software ecosystem,” he added.

• Last phase of the desktop wars?

  Economic pressure will be on Microsoft to deprecate the emulation layer. Partly because it’s entirely a cost center. Partly because they want to reduce the complexity cost of running Azure. Every increment of Windows/Linux convergence helps with that – reduces administration and the expected volume of support traffic.

  Eventually, Microsoft announces upcoming end-of-life on the Windows emulation. The OS itself , and its userland tools, has for some time already been Linux underneath a carefully preserved old-Windows UI. Third-party software providers stop shipping Windows binaries in favor of ELF binaries with a pure Linux API…

  …and Linux finally wins the desktop wars, not by displacing Windows but by co-opting it. Perhaps this is always how it had to be.

• Compute module features new embedded Tiger Lake variants

  Adlink’s Linux-ready “cExpress-TL” COM Express Compact Type 6 module features the embedded-focused Tiger Lake ULP3 “E” CPUs unveiled by Intel this week. Highlights include 2.5GbE, PCIe 4.0, 4x 4K displays, and AI acceleration.

  In conjunction with Intel’s ”Elkhart Lake” Atom x6000E announcement this week, the chipmaker launched three embedded focused 11th gen, 10nm SuperFin fabricated Tiger Lake ULP3 “E” processors to join the previous nine Tiger Lake U-series ULP3 and lower-power Y-series ULP4 chips it unveiled earlier this month. Adlink has now stepped in with a COM Express Compact Type 6 module called the cExpress-TL that supports all three of the “E” models plus a fourth, yet to be announced Celeron 6305E.

• COM quartet showcases Intel’s Elkhart Lake Atoms

  TQ announced four “TQMxE40” compute modules with Intel’s 10nm “Elkhart lake” Atom x6000E SoCs in SMARC, COM Express Mini Type 10, and Compact Type-6 form factors.

  TQ-Embedded announced a quartet of TQMxE40 modules with Intel’s new Elkhart Lake Atom x6000E, Pentium, and Celeron SoCs. No OS support was listed, but Linux and Windows should work fine. The TQMxE40 series joins earlier TQ modules such as its 8th Gen Whiskey Lake TQMx80UC COM Express Compact Type 6 and i.MX8X-based TQMa8Xx and TQMa8XxS SMARC modules.

• 13 Raspberry Pis slosh-test space shuttle tanks in zero gravity

• Setting Decimal Precision in C Language

  This article will show you how to set decimal precision in C programming language. First, we will define precision, and then, we will look into multiple examples to show how to set decimal precision in C programming.

• Easy, Reliable, Fast and Portable Linux and macOS Continuous Integration

  Welcome to the 30th post in the rarified R recommendation resources series or R4 for short. The last post introduced BSPM. In the four weeks since, we have worked some more on BSPM to bring it to the point where it is ready for use with continuous integration. Building on this, it is now used inside the run.sh script that driven our CI use for many years (via the r-travis repo).

  [...]

  We find this setup compelling. The scheme is simple: there really is just one shell script behind it which can also be downloaded and altered. The scheme is also portable as we can (as shown) rotate between CI provides. The scheme is also more flexible: in case of debugging needs one can simply run the script on a local Docker or VM instance. Lastly, the scheme moves away from single points of failure or breakage.

• GraalPHP Is A PHP JIT Implementation Built On GraalVM

  Oracle's GraalVM has seen language support well outside of Java/OpenJDK from Ruby to WebAssembly to R and Python. The newest language seeing an experimental implementation built atop GraalVM is PHP.

  Andrin Bertschi for his university thesis has been implementing PHP atop the GraalVM. A sizable subset of the PHP 7.4 programming language is implemented by this GraalPHP compiler and runtime.

• 14 open source tools to make the most of machine learning

  Spam filtering, face recognition, recommendation engines — when you have a large data set on which you’d like to perform predictive analysis or pattern recognition, machine learning is the way to go. The proliferation of free open source software has made machine learning easier to implement both on single machines and at scale, and in most popular programming languages. These open source tools include libraries for the likes of Python, R, C++, Java, Scala, Clojure, JavaScript, and Go.

• How to Perform Mann-Whitney U Test in Python with Scipy and Pingouin

  In this data analysis tutorial, you will learn how to carry out a Mann-Whitney U test in Python with the package SciPy. This test is also known as Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon (MWW), Wilcoxon rank-sum test, or Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test and is a non-parametric hypothesis test.

• Python Bytes: #200 No dog-piling please (it's episode 200!)

• Python Remove Element List

  In this post, we will look at different ways of removing elements from the list.

• AMD Ryzen 5000 leak shows a powerful APU to strike back at Intel’s Tiger Lake

  This popping up in Linux now suggests that we could see these Ryzen 5000 chips sooner rather than later. Currently, their anticipated debut is early 2021, but maybe it’ll be very early 2021; perhaps at CES? Or could we see a reveal possibly even this year? Who knows, and of course all this is pure guesswork, although the latter still seems rather unlikely.

  Whatever the case, Ryzen 5000 APUs for notebooks aren’t far away now, and will of course go up against Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs which have already been revealed, and will start pitching up in laptops before the end of 2020 (we already know that some notebooks will be arriving in November).

  These 11th-gen mobile chips from Intel look to be shaping up very impressively from what we’ve seen thus far, and of course come with Xe integrated graphics, which represents a big step forward for gaming on a laptop – and that’s why RDNA 2 graphics will be key for AMD with its incoming Van Gogh APUs.

• AMD Linux Kernel Patch Confirms Next-Gen Van Gogh APUs With DDR5 And RDNA2

  After a Linux kernel patch with 275K lines of code came out on Friday, the people over at Phoronix began to snoop around for any hidden information. Among the lines of code, they discovered that the upcoming Van Gogh APUs from AMD will have Navi 2 GPUs and will use DDR5 system memory.

• Mesa 20.3 Can Now Consume SPIR-V Binaries Generated By LLVM's libclc

  Libclc is the LLVM library around OpenCL C programming language support and goes along with Clang's OpenCL front-end. Jesse Natalie of Microsoft has seen his two month old merge request land on Friday for being able to make use of libclc SPIR-V binaries that can be used by Mesa OpenCL code. Ultimately this code in part allows converting a libclc SPIR-V library into a set of NIR functions. Earlier this year the effort was started by Red Hat's David Airlie for being able to support a SPIR-V library generated from libclc to implement OpenCL runtime functions. Microsoft though pursued the work over the finish as part of their effort for getting OpenCL over Direct3D 12 (and OpenGL).

Etalab, the French governmental open data lab, has begun a study on the importance of open source software in higher education and research. The study will identify open source use in education, and compare institutional strategies on open data and open access and the sovereignty of education.

• Apple Open-Sources Swift System, Adds Linux Support

  Earlier this year Apple engineers announced Swift System as their new library for low-level system interfaces. They have now open-sourced Swift System while also introducing Linux support.

• Swift System is Now Open Supply and Helps Linux

• Swift System Is Now Open Source With Linux Support

  Back in June this year, Apple engineers introduced Swift System — a new library to interface with low-level currency types and system calls. Today, Apple open-sourced Swift System and also added Linux support.

The third BETA build of the 12.2-RELEASE release cycle is now available.

Installation images are available for:

o 12.2-BETA3 amd64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 i386 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpc GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpc64 GENERIC64
o 12.2-BETA3 powerpcspe MPC85XXSPE
o 12.2-BETA3 armv6 RPI-B
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 BANANAPI
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 BEAGLEBONE
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBIEBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBIEBOARD2
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 CUBOX-HUMMINGBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 RPI2
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 WANDBOARD
o 12.2-BETA3 armv7 GENERICSD
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 GENERIC
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 RPI3
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 PINE64
o 12.2-BETA3 aarch64 PINE64-LTS

Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without
console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of
freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access.  Additionally,
the root user password is set to root.  It is strongly recommended
to change the password for both users after gaining access to the
system.

Installer images and memory stick images are available here:

    https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/ISO-IMAGES/12.2/

The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.

If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR
system or on the -stable mailing list.

If you would like to use SVN to do a source based update of an existing
system, use the "releng/12.2" branch.

A summary of changes since 12.2-BETA2 includes:

o An installation issue with certctl(8) had been fixed.

o Read/write kstats for ZFS datasets had been added from OpenZFS.

o The default vm.max_user_wired value had been increased.

o The kern.geom.part.check_integrity sysctl(8) had been extended to work
  on GPT partitions.

o The cxgbe(4) firmware had been updated to version 1.25.0.0.

o Fixes for em(4) and igb(4) have been addressed.

o A fix for a potential NFS server crash had been addressed.

o A lock order reversal between NFS server and server-side krpc had been
  addressed.

A list of changes since 12.1-RELEASE is available in the releng/12.2
release notes:

    https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.2R/relnotes.html

Please note, the release notes page is not yet complete, and will be
updated on an ongoing basis as the 12.2-RELEASE cycle progresses.

=== Virtual Machine Disk Images ===

VM disk images are available for the amd64, i386, and aarch64
architectures.  Disk images may be downloaded from the following URL
(or any of the FreeBSD download mirrors):

    https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/VM-IMAGES/12.2-BETA3/

The partition layout is:

    ~ 16 kB - freebsd-boot GPT partition type (bootfs GPT label)
    ~ 1 GB  - freebsd-swap GPT partition type (swapfs GPT label)
    ~ 20 GB - freebsd-ufs GPT partition type (rootfs GPT label)

The disk images are available in QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and raw disk image
formats.  The image download size is approximately 135 MB and 165 MB
respectively (amd64/i386), decompressing to a 21 GB sparse image.

Note regarding arm64/aarch64 virtual machine images: a modified QEMU EFI
loader file is needed for qemu-system-aarch64 to be able to boot the
virtual machine images.  See this page for more information:

    https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64/QEMU

To boot the VM image, run:

    % qemu-system-aarch64 -m 4096M -cpu cortex-a57 -M virt  \
	-bios QEMU_EFI.fd -serial telnet::4444,server -nographic \
	-drive if=none,file=VMDISK,id=hd0 \
	-device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
	-device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
	-netdev user,id=net0

Be sure to replace "VMDISK" with the path to the virtual machine image.

=== Amazon EC2 AMI Images ===

FreeBSD/amd64 EC2 AMIs are available in the following regions:

  af-south-1 region: ami-085b7b5b76d8f88e1
  eu-north-1 region: ami-0d2aaf811cd455b5d
  ap-south-1 region: ami-0c85211fa78c701f5
  eu-west-3 region: ami-08c4c388a19042fb3
  eu-west-2 region: ami-030841f586c12d392
  eu-south-1 region: ami-035fcb9515104859e
  eu-west-1 region: ami-0d5e826250c10cd3a
  ap-northeast-2 region: ami-01adc51da511ea8fc
  me-south-1 region: ami-04b2ddbedee42d57a
  ap-northeast-1 region: ami-0e5b3fc6777cd037d
  sa-east-1 region: ami-08be6405809912e60
  ca-central-1 region: ami-0c954a7d72d7b483c
  ap-east-1 region: ami-04377808aeca208a7
  ap-southeast-1 region: ami-02e1e04501c308c0b
  ap-southeast-2 region: ami-0e9ae229b9ca55677
  eu-central-1 region: ami-002e88141d3b00ee2
  us-east-1 region: ami-0c678fade90df8f04
  us-east-2 region: ami-0967c088cbf208659
  us-west-1 region: ami-0dafae7edc2b2f376
  us-west-2 region: ami-07e4d062d094f5364

FreeBSD/aarch64 EC2 AMIs are available in the following regions:

  af-south-1 region: ami-07c05f6349125a1c7
  eu-north-1 region: ami-041e507b80cb59335
  ap-south-1 region: ami-064907659b94c4823
  eu-west-3 region: ami-000c4a31405be8e94
  eu-west-2 region: ami-0debbacd03a24e562
  eu-south-1 region: ami-0c358e05477cd8b6b
  eu-west-1 region: ami-0fc48c1fef0e255f0
  ap-northeast-2 region: ami-06bd715c00c4237b7
  me-south-1 region: ami-04a671aa9611f8a74
  ap-northeast-1 region: ami-008e0fa8be5e5c44c
  sa-east-1 region: ami-03c2f687354f086b4
  ca-central-1 region: ami-0647aa16bc62701a3
  ap-east-1 region: ami-08f54406159203762
  ap-southeast-1 region: ami-007e5e33e3e4d9152
  ap-southeast-2 region: ami-0a028a4f5beeed373
  eu-central-1 region: ami-072e09d78436cf375
  us-east-1 region: ami-0218fa187d85dc688
  us-east-2 region: ami-06e8312e95743ce1a
  us-west-1 region: ami-0211983509f75ee9b
  us-west-2 region: ami-038188157f971a711

=== Vagrant Images ===

FreeBSD/amd64 images are available on the Hashicorp Atlas site, and can
be installed by running:

    % vagrant init freebsd/FreeBSD-12.2-BETA3
    % vagrant up

=== Upgrading ===

The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of amd64 and i386
systems running earlier FreeBSD releases.  Systems running earlier
FreeBSD releases can upgrade as follows:

	# freebsd-update upgrade -r 12.2-BETA3

During this process, freebsd-update(8) may ask the user to help by
merging some configuration files or by confirming that the automatically
performed merging was done correctly.

	# freebsd-update install

The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before
continuing.

	# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to install the new
userland components:

	# freebsd-update install

It is recommended to rebuild and install all applications if possible,
especially if upgrading from an earlier FreeBSD release, for example,
FreeBSD 11.x.  Alternatively, the user can install misc/compat11x and
other compatibility libraries, afterwards the system must be rebooted
into the new userland:

	# shutdown -r now

Finally, after rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to remove
stale files:

	# freebsd-update install

• TAYGA: Bridge an IPv6 Network Back to IPv4 using NAT64

• [Old] Manjaro Linux Installation

• Manage your Finance with Firefly III and Raspberry PI

• Manage Remote And Virtual Machines With Gnome Boxes

• Synced plaintext TODO and notes

• gnu linux – nice visual side-by-side diff – with eclipse gui and terminal – how to quickly spot changes in new and old config files (diff -u)

• How To Install WPScan on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• How to play Fallout 76 on Linux

• How to play Control Ultimate Edition on Linux

• Setup Mailo Email Account with Thunderbird via IMAP

• The Polestar Precept, an electric sedan powered by Android, is going into production

• Fixes Worth Trying If Phone Calls Are Broken on Android Auto

• Dedicated Android Auto Music Player App Receives Welcome Update

• Google Delays Highly Anticipated Waze Update for Android Auto

• Chromecast with Google TV: Everything we know about Google's upcoming Android TV dongle

• Android 11 comes to Android TV today, but the rollout starts with just one device

• OnePlus Brings Android 11 Experience of Zen Mode to Its Phones Running on Android 10

• Android 11 got rid of the 4GB limit on videos, but the Google Camera app is still capped

• Nokia 7 Plus receiving a new Android 10 build with September Security update

• How to scan QR codes on iPhone, Samsung and Android phones in seconds

• How to Perform Actions by Tapping the Back of Your Android Phone

• Here’s How To Get iOS 14 ‘Orange Dot’ Privacy For Android Phones

• The evolution of OnePlus software: From Cyanogen to Oxygen, and beyond

• Tricks to Fix No SIM Card Detected Error on Android

• Reliance Jio Android phone could be priced as low as Rs 4000: Report

• 9 Android Prank Apps to Mess With Your Friends

• Virtual droidcon EMEA 2020 lines up Android heavyweights for keynote address (Sponsored)

The Debian project is pleased to announce the sixth update of its stable distribution Debian 10 (codename "buster"). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available.

Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 10 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old "buster" media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror.

Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages, and most such updates are included in the point release.

New installation images will be available soon at the regular locations.

Also: Debian 10.6 Released With Many Security & Bug Fixes

Deepin released its latest version Deepin V20. It’s beautiful and more stable than before. It has been a whopping five months since we wrote about the Deepin 20 beta and the new features it brought along. After a long wait, Deepin V20 has ditched the beta status and is now out for the masses.

Deepin V20 developers seem to have focused more on the overall look and feel of this impressive open-source GNU/Linux distribution. There has even been a conversation that Deepin V20 looks like the New macOS Big Sur. Or is it the other way round?

• FinSpy Spyware for Mac and Linux OS Targets Egyptian Organisations

  FinSpy, also known as FinFisher, can target both desktop and mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, to gain spying capabilities, including secretly turning on their webcams and microphones, recording everything the victim types on the keyboard, intercepting calls, and exfiltration of data.

• Multiple vulnerabilities in Pandora FMS could trigger remote execution attack

  Critical vulnerabilities lurking in Pandora FMS could have led to the full compromise of enterprise infrastructure and networks.

  Developed by Ártica ST, Pandora FMS is an open source solution that provides an interface for monitoring network connections, app management, event alerts, and both agent and agentless monitoring for Windows, Linux, Unix, and Android systems.

  On September 22, SonarSource cybersecurity researcher Dennis Brinkrolf explained the potential impact of four vulnerabilities recently discovered in Pandora FMS version 742. All flaws have since been patched.

• Introducing “YAYA”, a New Threat Hunting Tool From EFF Threat Lab

  At the EFF Threat Lab we spend a lot of time hunting for malware that targets vulnerable populations, but we also spend time trying to classify malware samples that we have come across. One of the tools we use for this is YARA. YARA is described as “The Pattern Matching Swiss Knife for Malware Researchers.” Put simply, YARA is a program that lets you create descriptions of malware (YARA rules) and scan files or processes with them to see if they match. 

  The community of malware researchers has amassed a great deal of useful YARA rules over the years, and we use many of them in our own malware research efforts. One such repository of YARA rules is the Awesome YARA guide, which contains links to dozens of high-quality YARA repositories. 

• EU Still Asking For The Impossible (And The Unnecessary): 'Lawful Access' To Encrypted Material That Doesn't Break Encryption

  A few months ago, Techdirt wrote about a terrible bill in the US that would effectively destroy privacy and security on the Internet by undermining encryption. Sadly, that's nothing new: the authorities have been whining about things "going dark" for years now. Moreover, this latest proposal is not just some US development. In an official document obtained by Statewatch (pdf), the current German Presidency of the Council of the European Union (one of the key organizations in the EU) has announced that it wants to move in the same direction (found via Netzpolitik). It aims to prepare:

• 'BootHole' implications for 'isorespin.sh'

  When it was discovered that GRUB2 contained various vulnerabilities that would allow UEFI Secure Boot to be bypassed and which became known as the “BootHole” vulnerability (CVE-2020-10713), the recommendation was that all operating systems using GRUB2 with Secure Boot must release new installers and bootloaders.

  I reviewed 'isorespin.sh' at that time as one of it's key features is the option to add a GRUB2 bootloader to allow ISOs to boot on the many Intel devices limited by their BIOS requiring a 32-bit bootloader to boot a 64-bit OS.

  My initial 'fix' was based around Ubuntu's response by recompiling and adding the latest fixed GRUB2 bootloader from 'groovy' (Ubuntu 20.10) and let the Ubuntu package manager 'apt' install the appropriate GRUB2 binaries to the ISO whilst being respun.

• Bug Bounty FAQ: Top Questions, Expert Answers

  Four leading voices in the bug bounty community answer frequently asked questions from bounty hunters, companies and curious cybersecurity professionals.

• Update Infrastructure Access – Adios http

  Earlier this year we enabled access to the update infrastructure through the data center. This was made possible by a refresh of the update infrastructure last year. Also earlier this year SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4 reached EOL w.r.t on-demand image maintenance and this allowed us to switch all our traffic to run over https. The redirection of traffic from http to https happened shortly after SLES 11 SP4 images reached EOL but until now we didn’t come around with making this change stick on the client side.

Debian GNU/Linux 10.6 is here two months after the Debian GNU/Linux 10.5 update to provide those who want to install the latest stable Debian GNU/Linux release an up-to-date installation media that includes all the important corrections and security updates.

Debian GNU/Linux 10.6 packs a total of 53 updated packages with miscellaneous bug fixes, as well as 32 security updates that address some of the latest vulnerabilities. All of these updates have already been made available to exiting Debian Buster users through the official software repositories.

• 'Appeal to Novelty' as a Lever for Proprietary Software Monopolies, Bloat (Planned Obsolescence) and More Surveillance
• IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 25, 2020
• Microsoft Windows is Obsolete
• [Meme] Conflating Critics of Corporate/Class Abuse With Womanisers and Chauvinists (and Now Doing the Same to Influential Women)
• Losing the Battle for Rights/Justice, Freedom/Liberty, and Emancipation Potential
• Response to Eric Raymond (ESR) on “Last Phase of the Desktop Wars”
• Links 25/9/2020: Calibre 5.0, Fedora 33 Beta Days Away, Snap Setback

• Android 11 for Android TV comes with auto low latency mode, enhanced gamepad support, and more

• OnePlus brings the Android 11 version of Zen Mode to its phones still on Android 10

• Try These Workarounds for Android 11's 'Recent Apps' Bug

• AT&T's Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 gets Android 10 update

• How to change your wallpaper on Android 10 in a few easy steps

• How to Enable Zoom’s Virtual Backgrounds on Android

• How to preload Genshin Impact on PC, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS

• Top 9 Best Note Taking Android Apps – 2020

• Today’s Android app deals + freebies: Lucid Dream Adventure, Ai. Gallery, more

• Android Circuit: Galaxy S20 FE Review, Three New Nokias, OnePlus Goes Ultra

• Android Users, Your Operating System Can Actually Help You Earn Money Online

• This Android App Will Show You if Your Smartphone Camera is Spying on You

• Android warning: 'Alien' malware discovered that can steal passwords from 226 apps

I love books about technology. My idea of a relaxing weekend is—legitimately—settling in with my copy of DocBook: The Definitive Guide (TDG to those of us who us who've read the whole series). I love learning to understand and integrate technology, and so those are the books I read.

But when I heard that Jono Bacon, former community manager of Ubuntu Linux, had written a book about understanding and integrating people, I was intrigued enough to purchase the book for myself. This past weekend, I sat down with the book and read it from cover to cover. I'll admit I still don't understand people, but for the cover price of the book, I do have a few years' worth of new insight.