The login shell is the first process that is executed with your user ID when you log into an interactive session.

This may seem simple at the surface but if you dig deep, it could get confusing a bit. To understand, let's see revisit the login process in Linux systems.

Linux is a multi-user system where multiple users can log in and use the system at the same time.

The first process in a Linux system, be it init or systemd, starts a getty program. This getty, short for 'get tty' (tty denotes physical or virtual terminals), is responsible for protecting the system from unauthorized access.

Text editors can be used for writing code, editing text files such as configuration files, creating user instruction files, and many more. In Linux, text editors are of two kinds that is the graphical user interface (GUI) and command-line text editors (console or terminal).

In this article, I am taking a look at some of the best 21 open-source commonly used text editors in Linux on both servers and desktops.

This is for Trisquel users who have Android or Apple phones. This tutorial explains how to share files between your desktop and your phone via wireless or cable without using KDE Connect. This 'magic' is called Syncthing -- a cross platform app. It is an easy and quick app to transfer your photos and everything between devices just like the proprietary software SHAREit but with privacy and security for you. I have made similar guide before (see here) but for Trisquel 9 it is a little different so this is for you. Now let's start sharing!

Ventoy is a top-rated free and open-source utility to create a multiboot USB stick from ISO files. I use it regularly, and highly recommend you to use.

Recently I covered on how you can create a bootable USB stick using Baleno Etcher. This time I will guide you how easily you can create a multiboot USB stick by just doing copy-paste ISO file to your USB device.

• Google is pushing Android TV hardware-makers to adopt the AV1 codec in 2021

• Google may require AV1 codec support on all new Android TV devices

• Samsung SmartThings is now available on Android Auto [Update]

• 15 Samsung smartphones will soon get OneUI 3.1 based on Android 11

• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 is now receiving Android 11 in the US

• TCL 10L starts receiving the promised Android 11 update

• Sony Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 Owners Get Android 11 Upgrade Early

• Ongoing Android 11 issue seems to ignore game controller input

• Android's upcoming Hibernation feature will reduce the size of apps you are not using

• How to Flip an Image on Android

• WordPress for Android Previews New Story Posts Feature, Now in Public Beta

• Links 18/1/2021: GNU Radio 3.9, Wikipedia at 20
• InteLeaks – Part XIX: Intel's Web 'Experts' Seen as Microsoft Champions Dealing With the Platform Microsoft is Looking to Destroy
• Adding Images as Characters to the Daily Bulletins of Techrights
• Links 18/1/2021: Weekly Summaries and Linux 5.11 RC4
• IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 17, 2021
• The Oligarchs' Parties Will Never Choose the Side of Software Freedom Because Free Software Cannot Bribe Officials

• Meetup Will Discuss Survey Results, Project Improvements

  The openSUSE Project welcomes our followers to participate in two planned meetups to discuss results from the End of the Year Community Survey on Jan. 23 and Jan. 30.

  Both sessions will start at 13:00 UTC on openSUSE’s Jitsi instance and go for 1:30 hours.

  Members of the “let’s improve the openSUSE learning experience” initiative will share results and analysis from the survey.

• LF‌ ‌Edge‌ ‌Adds‌ ‌New‌ ‌Members‌

  LF Edge has announced the addition of four new general members (FII, HCL, OpenNebula, and Robin.io) and one new Associate member (Shanghai Open Source Information Technology Association).

  Additionally, Home Edge has released its third platform update with new Data Storage and Mult-NAT Edge Device Communications (MNDEC) features.

• Text Encoding Menu in 2021

  In mid-January 2021, the Text Encoding menu in Firefox looks like this:
  Automatic
  Unicode
  Western
  Arabic (Windows)
  Arabic (ISO)
  Baltic (Windows)
  Baltic (ISO)
  Central European (Windows)
  Central European (ISO)
  Chinese, Simplified
  Chinese, Traditional
  Cyrillic (Windows)
  Cyrillic (KOI8-U)
  Cyrillic (KOI8-R)
  Cyrillic (ISO)
  Cyrillic (DOS)
  Greek (Windows)
  Greek (ISO)
  Hebrew, Visual
  Hebrew
  Japanese
  Korean
  Thai
  Turkish
  Vietnamese

  [...]

  For users who have telemetry enabled, we collect data about whether the item “Automatic” was used at least once in given Firefox subsession, whether an item other than “Automatic” was used at least once in a given Firefox subsession, and a characterization of how the encoding that is being overridden was determined (from HTTP, from meta, from chardetng running without the user triggering it, from chardetng as triggered by the user by having chosen “Automatic” previously, etc.). If things go well, the telemetry can be analyzed when Firefox 87 is released (i.e. when 86 has spent its time on the release channel). The current expectation for this is 2021-03-23.

• Wikipedia is twenty. It’s time to start covering it better. - Columbia Journalism Review

• Jimmy Wales: “Wikipedia is from a different era”

  As the online encyclopedia turns 20-years-old, its founder reflects on the internet’s halcyon days.

• Fact check: As Wikipedia turns 20, how credible is it?

  Wikipedia, which has been referred to as a world treasure, turns 20 on Friday. According to research conducted over the years — including a scientific study published by the journal Nature in 2005 and a report commissioned by the site's Wikimedia Foundation in 2012 — Wikipedia's entries are comparable in quality to those in prestigious encyclopedias such as Britannica. However, it is difficult to measure the consistency of information that can be altered at any time.

• Odin is finally pleased so the open-world survival game Valheim releases on February 2 | GamingOnLinux

  Odin has finally had enough sacrifices and shall be releasing Valheim from Iron Gate AB will enter Early Access with Linux and Windows support on February 2.

  What is it? A brutal multiplayer exploration and survival game set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage! With low-poly artwork and a very flexible building system it looks absolutely brilliant. The early builds they had available were seriously promising back in 2018 so I'm personally excited to see how far they've progress with it in that time.

• Ravgeet Dhillon: Offline Toast notification in Nuxt/Vue app

  We have often seen apps telling us that “You are offline. Check your network status.”. It is not only convenient to do so but adds to a great UX. In this blog, we will look at how can we display a toast notification in a Nuxt/Vue app whenever the user goes offline or online. This will also help us to understand how to use computed and watch properties together.

  [...]

  Hurray! Our toast notifications are working perfectly fine. So using the combined magic of computed and watch properties, we can create outstanding workflows and take our Nuxt/Vue app to next level. If you any doubts or appreciation for our team, let us know in the comments below. We would be happy to assist you.

• Stephen Michael Kellat: Leveraging LaTeX In This Time

  From time to time I like to bring up fun adventures in LaTeX. In these stranges times in the United States it is important to look at somewhat practical applications beyond the normal reports and formal papers most people think of. With a Minimum Working Example we can mostly look at an idea.

  The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network has a package known as newspaper which is effectively subject to nominative determinism. You can make things with it that look like newspapers out of the 1940s-1960s in terms of layout. The page on CTAN shows nice examples of its use and provides a nice story as to why the package was created.

  The example source file on CTAN has a bug in it, though. We're going to make a new one based on it. I am also going to add but not yet utilize the markdown package to the example.

• 2021.03 Course Topped – Rakudo Weekly News

  The course of the Raku Programming Language by Andrew Shitov made it to the top 20 of Hacker News and spurred quite a few comments. The first associated Grant Report was also published.

• GCC 11 Is On The Final Stage Of Development With 60+ High Priority Regressions - Phoronix

  GCC 11 entered its final stage of development today as it works towards releasing around the end of Q1 / early Q2 if their past cadence holds up. Before GCC 11.1 can debut as the first stable version, there are some 60+ "P1" high priority regressions that need to be resolved or otherwise demoted to lesser priority regressions.

  GCC 11 release manager Richard Biener this morning announced GCC 11 is now in stage four development meaning only regression fixes and documentation fixes are allowed. As of this morning the code-base is at 62 P1 regressions, another 334 P2 regressions, 35 P3 regressions, and more than 200 regressions of the lower P4/P5 status.

• Xtra-PC Reviews – Best Linux USB-Stick? - Product Review by Rick Finn

  The Xtra-PC Linux USB-Stick might be your solution if you have problems with your old and slow PC. It's a small flash drive stick and it's using Linux OS to boost you PC's operations. Check out now.

• Arduino Blog » Old keyboard turned into a new children’s learning toy

  Peter Turczak’s toddler son loves “technical stuff,” especially things like keyboards and computers that adults use. After discussing this with other likeminded technical parents, the idea of giving new life to an old (PS/2 or AT) keyboard as a teaching tool was hatched.

• SiFive Helping To Teach Kids Programming With RISC-V HiFive Inventor Coding Kit

  SiFive in cooperation with Tynker and BBC Learning have launched a Doctor Who themed HiFive Inventor Coding Kit. This Initial HiFive Inventor Coding Kit is intended to help kids as young as seven years of age get involved with computer programming through a variety of fun exercises and challenges involving the RISC-V powered mini computer and related peripherals like LED lighting and speaker control.

  [...]

  So for those looking to get their kids involved with computer programming and looking for an IoT-type device with some fun sensors and various themed exercises to get them experimenting, the HiFive Inventor Coding Kit is worth looking into further. More details on the programming platform can be found via Tynker.com and on the hardware at HiFiveInventor.com. The HiFive Inventor Kit is available from Amazon.com and other Internet retailers for $75 USD.

• Security updates for Monday

  Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (atftp, coturn, gitlab, mdbook, mediawiki, nodejs, nodejs-lts-dubnium, nodejs-lts-erbium, nodejs-lts-fermium, nvidia-utils, opensmtpd, php, python-cairosvg, python-pillow, thunderbird, vivaldi, and wavpack), CentOS (firefox and thunderbird), Debian (chromium and snapd), Fedora (chromium, flatpak, glibc, kernel, kernel-headers, nodejs, php, and python-cairosvg), Mageia (bind, caribou, chromium-browser-stable, dom4j, edk2, opensc, p11-kit, policycoreutils, python-lxml, resteasy, sudo, synergy, and unzip), openSUSE (ceph, crmsh, dovecot23, hawk2, kernel, nodejs10, open-iscsi, openldap2, php7, python-jupyter_notebook, slurm_18_08, tcmu-runner, thunderbird, tomcat, viewvc, and vlc), Oracle (dotnet3.1 and thunderbird), Red Hat (postgresql:10, postgresql:12, postgresql:9.6, and xstream), SUSE (ImageMagick, openldap2, slurm, and tcmu-runner), and Ubuntu (icoutils).

• About CVE-2020-27348

  Well this is a doozey. Made public a while back was a security vulnerability in many Snap Packages and the Snapcraft tool used to create them. Specifically, this is the vulnerability identified as CVE-2020-27348. It unfortunately affects many many snap packages…

  [...]

  The problem arises when the LD_LIBRARY_PATH includes an empty element in its list. When the Dynamic Linker sees an empty element it will look in the current working directory of the process. So if we construct our search paths with an accidental empty element the application inside our Snap Package could be caused to load a shared library from outside the Snap Package’s shipped files. This can lead to an arbitrary code execution.

  It has been common to put a definition of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable into a Snap Package’s snapcraft.yaml that references a predefined $LD_LIBRARY_PATH as if to extend it. Unfortunately, despite this being common, it was poorly understood that SnapD ensures that the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH is unset when starting a Snap Package’s applications. What that means is that where the author tried to extend the variable they have inadvertantly inserted the bad empty element. The empty element appears because $LD_LIBRARY_PATH is unset so the shell will expand it to an empty string.

• Wait, What? Kids Found A Security Flaw in Linux Mint By Mashing Keys!

  Security flaws can be incredibly stupid and dangerous. Of course, I’m not judging anyone, we are humans after all. But this little incident is quite funny.

• Ubuntu Unity Remix 20.10 overview | UNITY7 MODERNIZED.

  In this video, I am going to show an overview of Ubuntu Unity Remix 20.10 and some of the applications pre-installed.

• How to install Blender 2.91 on Linux Mint 20.1

  In this video, we are looking at how to install Blender 2.91 on Linux Mint 20.1.

• Basic Security For Every Linux Server

  Different use cases will have different security requirements but there's a certain base line that every Linux server should be at before you even think of deploying anything further like disabling certain ways to connect to the server and adding some ssh keys.

• Linux in the Ham Shack/LHS Episode #387: Compiling Software Deep Dive

  Hello and welcome to the 387th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss concepts related to building software from source code. Topics include proper build environments, packages to install for easy building of software, how to get source, commands for building software and much more. We hope you find this talk interesting and informative and we hope you come back for Episode 388.

• How to steal free software (and do it badly)

• Davie Street Enterprises: A case study in digital transformation

  We would like to introduce you to Davie Street Enterprises (DSE). DSE is a fictitious 100-year-old multinational corporation that is beginning its digital transformation journey. In this post we will lay the groundwork for a series following DSE as an illustration of how some Red Hat customers are preparing for and succeeding at digital transformation to save money, become more efficient, and compete more effectively.

  The company isn't real, but its struggle is very real for many organizations. Throughout this series, we will explore the business problems any number of organizations are challenged with and how DSE, with the help of Red Hat and its partners, plan to solve those problems. To start, let’s learn more about DSE, its business, and some of the associates involved in its digital transformation journey.

• Farewell 2020: A year of togetherness with our EMEA partners

  When reflecting on 2020, I do what many people do and think about what things were like prior to this year. For me, I immediately go back to a spring day three years ago. Red Hat was hosting our EMEA Partner Conference; a mix of distributors, independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators and solution providers from across the region. Alongside the usual product updates and market insight sessions you might expect, we decided to do a little drumming. A lot of drumming, in fact — 900 people banging bongos and clashing cymbals. Other than the noise, what I remember was the genuine sense of togetherness; embarrassment and egos put to the side in the pursuit of the perfect tempo.

  It seems drumming is a good signal of solidarity. Even in a large group, it’s easy to notice someone beating to a different rhythm. Trainers and coaches use this drumming technique frequently to promote unity and coordination. Our coach that day later congratulated me on "having such a tight knit group of employees." When I told him they weren’t our employees but partners from 550 different companies, he couldn’t believe it.

• Visualizing system performance with RHEL 8 using Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) and Grafana (Part 1)

  When it comes to performance metrics data collection and visualization on Linux, PCP metrics collection and visualization are key. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 provides an excellent framework for collecting performance metrics and visualizing them! The days of poring over command line output to try and figure out what is happening on a system are gone. In this series, I’d like to introduce the power of using Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) and Grafana to visualize system performance data in RHEL.

  By default, Performance Co-Pilot is not installed on RHEL 8. We believe in giving users choices and as such, you have to opt-in to using Performance Co-Pilot.

Newer wireless Logitech keyboard/mice supporting "unified battery" reporting will be supported beginning with Linux 5.12 as a newer interface compared to the existing battery reporting support.

While Logitech doesn't engage much with seeing good Linux support by their consumer devices (there has been only a handful of commits from Logitech developers over the past decade - in most cases providing just some basic bits), the open-source community through reverse engineering and widespread testing have filled in the voids. Wireless Logitech devices on Linux have generally enjoyed working battery reporting under Linux while now support for an interface found with newer devices is forthcoming.

Also: Itanium IA-64 Was Busted In The Upstream, Default Linux Kernel Build The Past Month

• How to install Signal Private Messenger on Linux | FOSS Linux

  Are you looking for an open-source messenger that respects your privacy? Here's how to install Signal Messenger on your Linux PC. We show the installation on popular Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Manjaro.

• UBlock Origin and custom filters - Mini tutorial

  Several months ago, I wrote a review of UBlock Origin. It's a powerful, nerdy browser extension, available across the wider range of browsers out there, with the sacred purpose of making the Internet palatable for intelligent use. It does so by being a sophisticated adblocker and content blocker.

  Since, I've received requests for additional tutorials - and also found myself tackling a few real-world issues with somewhat overzealous content blocking. For example, on Bing images, if I clicked on an image, they would show up for a second, flicker and then disappear. Not consistently - but always with UBlock Origin active. So I used this opportunity to write a little guide on how to create custom filters. Let's have a look.

• Scribus 1.5.6.1 Available to Install via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10 | UbuntuHandbook

  For those prefer installing applications via apt method, the desktop publishing software Scribus 1.5.6 is finally made into PPA available for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Linux Mint 20.

  Scribus 1.5.6 was released a few months ago as the latest development release for the next major version 1.6.0. It feature

• apt-key Is Deprecated. How To Add OpenPGP Repository Signing Keys Without It On Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Etc.

  This article explains how to securely add OpenPGP keys and third-party APT repositories on Debian, Ubuntu, and Linux distributions based on these, like Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Elementary OS and so on, to replace the deprecated apt-key.

  When you try to add an APT repository key using apt-key on Debian, Ubuntu and Linux distributions based on these, you'll see the following message: "Warning: apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d instead (see apt-key(8))".

  The apt-key man page mentions that the "use of apt-key is deprecated, except for the use of apt-key del in maintainer scripts to remove existing keys from the main keyring". What's more, "apt-key will last be available in Debian 11 and Ubuntu 22.04."

• How to count lines of source code in Linux

  For various reasons you may want to know in how many lines of code given open-source software is implemented. For example, you want to estimate the effort devoted to developing a particular open-source program. Or you want to gauge the size and complexity of a program before trying it. There is some controversy as to using source lines of code (SLOC) as a metric to determine the size of a software program, since existing programming languages differ greatly in terms of clarify and brevity.

  In any rate, if you would like to count the number of source code lines quickly and accurately, you can use a command-line tool called cloc (short for "Count Lines Of Code"). cloc is a Perl program that is dedicated to counting the number of lines of code. To estimate the size of codebase accurately, cloc automatically detects different types of programming/scripting languages, and discounts comment lines and blank lines based on the type appropriately.

• How to List Directory Contents on Linux - buildVirtual

  When working with the Linux file system, its important to know some of the different ways you can list directory contents on Linux.

  This article will look at some of the commands you can use to list directory contents, which will work on whichever version of Linux you are using. These commands will also work to list directory contents on VMware ESXi.

  It will cover how to do a basic directory listing, how to list specific information such as file size and permissions, and how to sort and filter the directory list output.

  Let’s start by looking at the basic usage of the ls command, before moving onto some more advanced examples of how you can use ls to list directories and their contents.

In spite of being a beloved companion to computer hobbyists the world over, the Raspberry Pi doesn’t get enough credit. In fact, single-board computers of all stripes haven’t gotten their due — I just happen to have a Raspberry Pi. It was upon casting a stray glance into the corner of my room where my Pi is, churning away on the previous task I assigned it, that I pondered all the loftier projects I have in mind for it.

It will probably be a while before I tackle those grand designs. But the next best thing to following my dreams is to share them. The ideas here are charcoal sketches, not full illustrations, but they yield a rough picture.

I should also note that these projects all contain Linux in their blueprints (shocking, I know). As this is the preliminary stage, we can leave the exact distribution blank for now. You can safely trust, though, that any services we might need our Pi to run will fasten flush onto a Linux base.

Dear SDR community most likely to travel in time to save the present,

The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. In this
very spirit, GNU Radio 3.9 packs a whole bunch of power when it comes to
transforming the way GNU Radio and its ecosytem can be developed in the future.

You'll find the release tags and signed tarballs now on github, and later on
https://www.gnuradio.org/releases/gnuradio/ .

Not only did we have great progressions from old dependencies that proved to be
all too problematic (SWIG, Python2), but also did we see an incredibly influx of
people actively working on how maintainable this code base is. This will nurture
the project for years to come.

All in all, the main breaking change for pure GRC users will consist in a few
changed blocks – an incredible feat, considering the amount of shift under the
hood. Mentioning large shifts, the work that went into the PyBind binding, the
CMake modernization, the C++ cleanup, the bug-fixing and the CI infrastructure
is worthy of explicit call out; I especially thank

* Josh Morman
* Thomas Habets
* Jacob Gilbert
* Andrej Rode
* Ryan Volz

here.

For developers of OOTs, I'm sure PyBind11 will pose a surprise. If you're used
to SWIG, yes, that's more code to write yourself. But in effect, it's less code
that breaks, and when it breaks, it breaks in much more understandable ways.
Josh has put a lot of effort into automating as much of that as possible.
There's certainly no shortage of demand for that! The ecosystem (remember GNU
Radio's tagline?) is in a steady upwind. We've seen more, and more stable,
contributions from OOT maintainers. That's great!

For in-tree development, newer dependencies and removal of anachronisms will
make sure things move much smoother. Our CI is getting – lately literally every
day – better, which means we not only catch bugs earlier, but also allow for
much quicker review cycles.

One central change:

If you're contributing code upstream, we no longer need you to submit a CLA;
instead, we ask you to just certify, yourself, that you're allowed to contribute
that code (and not, e.g. misappropriating someone else's code).

That's what the DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin) is: Just a quick, "hey,
this code is actually for me to contribute under the project's license"; nothing
more.

• Google bans 164 Android apps from its Play Store, now you must remove them from your phone

• Google may require AV1 codec support on all new Android TV devices: Report

• Google app experimenting with new in-app browser on Android

• Nokia C3 gets a new Android 10 Build with December Security update 2020

• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite is now receiving Android 11

• Many Android 11 users are having trouble getting games to recognize their controllers

• TCL 10L mid-ranger starts receiving promised upgrade to Android 11

• Android 11 begins rolling out for Sony Xperia 1 and Xperia 5

• 5 Best Ways to Make Memes on Your Phone for Free (Android and iOS)

• Best new mobile games on iOS and Android - January 2021 round-up

• Android not sending pictures to iPhone? Know how to fix the issue

• How to Make Signal Your Default SMS Messaging App on Android

• You're using your Android and Mac's fingerprint reader all wrong

• First details emerge of Android's upcoming app hibernation feature

• Android's upcoming Hibernation feature will reduce the size of apps you are not using

Linux offers a huge array of open source music players. And many of them are high quality. I’ve reviewed the vast majority for LinuxLinks, but I’m endeavoring to explore every free music player in case there’s an undiscovered gem.

MPD is a powerful server-side application for playing music. In a home environment, you can connect an MPD server to a Hi-Fi system, and control the server using a notebook or smartphone. You can, of course, play audio files on remote clients. MPD can be started system-wide or on a per-user basis.

I’ve covered a fair few MPD clients over the past year or so including Cantata, Ymuse, mpdevil, ympd, myMPD, ampd, ncmpy, and ncmpc. My favorite of them is Cantata although Ymuse is a simple alternative. There’s lots of differences between these front-ends. For example, Cantata uses the Qt widget set, whereas Ymuse and mpdevil offer a GTK front-end. ympd, myMPD and ampd are web-based clients. And ncmpy and ncmpc are terminal-based clients. So there’s something for everyone.

ncmpcpp is a terminal-based MPD client with a user interface that seeks inspiration from ncmpc and shares a lot of similarities. But it adds some useful features. Let’s check it out. Before doing so, here’s the obligatory installation section.

I'm announcing the release of the 5.10.8 kernel.

All users of the 5.10 kernel series must upgrade.

The updated 5.10.y git tree can be found at:
	git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.10.y
and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:
	https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...

thanks,

greg k-h

Also: Linux 5.4.90

Linux 4.19.168

Linux 4.14.216

Linux 4.9.252

Linux 4.4.252

In case you’re not aware of mpv, it is a free and open-source command-line based media player. Okay, there is a minimalist GUI for MPV but at the core, it is command line.

You might also find several open-source video players that are basically the GUI front-end to mpv.

Haruna video player is one of them along with the ability to use youtube-dl. You can easily play local media files as well as YouTube content.

Let me give you an overview of the features offered with this player.