• Android 11 Beta 3 is here, removing the location requirement for COVID-19 contact tracing apps

• OnePlus announces Android 11 Developer Preview 3 for OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro

• More than a billion Android users at risk from 'Achilles' vulnerability that turns phones into spying devices

• Google turns Androids into earthquake sensors

• TikTok collected MAC addresses for 15 months on its Android app

I consider myself a happy Bash user. However, when I started exploring Unix, it was on a proprietary Unix system that provided tcsh by default, so my earliest shell experiences were on a modern version of the C shell (csh). That turned out to be a fortunate accident because tcsh was also the shell of choice at the film studio where I worked later in my career.

To this day, there are several tasks I associate with tcsh, even though there's no logical correlation there. I still use tcsh on at least one system, if only to stay in practice. I also keep it installed on all my systems to maintain compatibility with my own tcsh scripts and to ensure I can launch it when I need to write a script I prefer to have in tcsh.

Android and iOS devices are notorious for uploading your personal data to their cloud services without your permission. If you are concerned about your mobile data privacy, you have another option to consider for your next smartphone: the /e/ operating system, a free and open source, Android-based operating system. The eFoundation community is led by Gaël Duval, a legacy Linux developer and entrepreneur who founded Mandrake Linux in 1998.

Gaël has been passionate about computers since he was 10 years old. He has a degree in software engineering and started his career by creating Mandrake (which later became Mandriva) as a Linux distribution that catered to end users. Mandrake was a Red Hat Linux-based distribution that featured a graphical user interface by default, was easy to use, and focused on the desktop experience.

In this chapter of bash beginner series, you'll learn about using if-else, nested if else and case statements in bash scripts.

This is the moment for aspiring artists and designers who want to display their work in front of millions of Debian users to submit their best artwork for the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 11 (Bullseye) operating system series, due for release in mid-2021.

Submissions are opened until November 1st, 2020, but your artwork needs to meet the following specifications. For example, you will have to create a wiki page for your artwork proposal at DebianArt/Themes, write down a few words about your idea, use an image format that can be later modified using free and open source software, and add a license that lets the Debian Project distribute your artwork within Debian GNU/Linux.

Coming about a month after the release of the GNOME 3.36.4 update, GNOME 3.36.5 is here as the latest stable bugfix release for the GNOME 3.36 desktop environment series. As expected, the new update is packed with updated core components and apps to keep GNOME 3.36’s stability and reliability at the higher standards.

Highlights of the GNOME 3.36.5 update include Firefox Sync improvements for the Flatpak version of the Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser, along with a fix for the way newly created tabs are ordered when closing new tabs, as well as a fix for a drag-and-drop crash in File Roller that occurred when cancelling the file overwrite process.

• Android is becoming a worldwide earthquake detection network

• California quake alerts to be standard on Android phones

• Google Releases Lookout 2.0 For Android

• Android Auto gets Google Calendar integration

• Google’s dialer app from Pixels can be installed on most Android smartphones w/ latest beta

• Google Home 2.26 lets you add/control the Nest Hub Max from Android 11’s power menu

• Hands-on with the new UI in the OnePlus OxygenOS Android 11 Developer Preview 3

• Xiaomi rolls out Android 10 to the Redmi Note 7 Pro in India as Mi Note 10 and Redmi Note 8 Pro receive new MIUI 12 upgrades

• Fix rolling out for Android battery woes in Ireland caused by Play Services and COVID contact tracing app

• Today’s Android game/app deals + freebies: Railways, Sally’s Law, more

• TikTok collected MAC addresses for 15 months on its Android app

• How to get rid of that irritating Meet tab in Gmail for Android and iOS

• BunsenLabs Linux Lithium overview | Crunchbang Reborn

  In this video, I am going to show an overview of BunsenLabs Linux Lithium and some of the applications pre-installed.

• Why Do You Guys Want Linux Creators To Record Outside

  For some reason people seem to like the outside Linux rants so I thought I'd explain why they went away and how I'm planning to bring them back, they're very easy to make so I feel like I'm generally just being lazy when I put one of these out but if you guys want them I guess I can't say no.

• There's going to be an online Linux App Summit this November

  Are you interested in helping to make Linux a great end-user platform? Or perhaps you just want to listen to speeches and find out more info from those working on it? Mark November 12-14 on your calendar.

  This is the date of the upcoming 2020 Linux App Summit, an event co-hosted by GNOME and KDE as they work to bring everyone together to push Linux further. LAS will have a range of different talks, panels, and Q&As on a wide range of topics covering everything: creating, packaging, and distributing apps, to monetization within the Linux ecosystem and much more.

• LIMBAS: Build a Database-Powered Enterprise Apps with ease

  LIMBAS is a framework for building enterprise applications for medium and large-scale companies.

  With LIMBAS you don't need to re-invent the wheel or start from scratch as it offers you the tools for building highly performed applications.

  LIMBAS is a good option for prototyping because it's fast, offers powerful tools that ease the production. It can be used to create all sort of databased powered applications.

  The project is already used by several companies in Europe (Germany and Switzerland).

• Slovak procurement office recommends making licence requirements specific

  Public services in the Slovak Republic that wish to avoid IT vendor lock-in have been advised to make their licence requirements clear – for example by requesting open source – when procuring software and related services. This is one of the recommendations in a case study published last April by the country’s public procurement office and Slovensko.Digital, a non-profit organisation promoting open government and government modernisation.

• Adding a fiber link to my home network

  Replacing this particular connection with a fiber connection was a smooth process overall, and I would recommend it in other situations as well.

  I would claim that it is totally feasible for anyone with an hour of patience to learn how to put a field assembly connector onto a fiber cable.

  If labor cost is expensive in your country or you just like doing things yourself, I can definitely recommend this approach. In case you mess the connector up and don’t want to fix it yourself, you can always call an electrician!

• New Training Course Explores Open Source CI/CD Tool Jenkins X

  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the availability of a new training course, LFS268 - CI/CD with Jenkins X.

  LFS268, developed in conjunction with the Continuous Delivery Foundation, is designed for site reliability engineers, software developers and architects, DevOps engineers and others who need to not only master continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), but also gain a deeper understanding of the cloud-native ecosystem.

• Participate in the 2020 Open Source Jobs Report!

  The Linux Foundation has partnered with edX to update the Open Source Jobs Report, which was last produced in 2018. The report examines the latest trends in open source careers, which skills are in demand, what motivates open source job seekers, and how employers can attract and retain top talent. In the age of COVID-19, this data will be especially insightful both for companies looking to hire more open source talent, as well as individuals looking to advance or change careers.

• Jonathan Carter: GameMode in Debian

  About two years ago, I ran into some bugs running a game on Debian, so installed Windows 10 on a spare computer and ran it on there. I learned that when you launch a game in Windows 10, it automatically disables notifications, screensaver, reduces power saving measures and gives the game maximum priority. I thought “Oh, that’s actually quite nice, but we probably won’t see that kind of integration on Linux any time soon”. The very next week, I read the initial announcement of GameMode, a tool from Feral Interactive that does a bunch of tricks to maximise performance for games running on Linux.

• Mike Gabriel: No Debian LTS Work in July 2020

  In July 2020, I was originally assigned 8h of work on Debian LTS as a paid contributor, but holiday season overwhelmed me and I did not do any LTS work, at all.

• Opinion: Robots are proving themselves now more than ever

  By Rhys Davies, product manager for robotics, Snapcraft and Ubuntu Appliances at Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu

• Kubernetes 1.19 release candidate available for testing

  The Kubernetes 1.19 release candidate is now available for download and experimentation ahead of general availability later this month. You can try it now with MicroK8s.

• Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 643

  Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 643 for the week of August 2 – 8, 2020. The full version of this issue is available here.

• Mini-PC and SBC build on Whiskey Lake

  Supermicro’s 3.5-inch “X11SWN-H-WOHS” SBC and “SYS-E100-9W-H” mini-PC based it feature an 8th Gen UE-series CPU, HDMI and DP, 4x USB 3.1 Gen2, 2x GbE, and 3x M.2.

  Supermicro has launched a fanless, 8th Gen Whiskey Lake SBC and mini-PC. The SYS-E100-9W-H mini-PC (or SuperServer E100-9W-H), which was reported on by Fanless Tech, is certified only to run Windows 10, but the 3.5-inch X11SWN-H-WOHS SBC supports Ubuntu. Applications include industrial automation, retail, smart medical expert systems, kiosks, interactive info systems, and digital signage.

• Exor nanoSOM nS02 System-on-Module Features the 800MHz version of STM32MP1 Processor

  Exor provides a Linux RT board support package (BSP) or Android BSP for the module which also fully supports the company’s X Platform including Exor Embedded Open HMI software, Corvina Cloud IIoT platform, and IEC61131 CODESYS or Exor xPLC runtime.

• Onyx Boox Poke2 Color eReader Launched for $299

  Manga and comics fans, rejoice! After years of getting black & white eReaders, the first commercial color eReaders are coming to market starting with Onyx Boox Poke2 Color eReader sold for $299 (but sadly sold out at the time of writing).

  The eReader comes with a 6-inch, 1448 x 1072 E-Ink display that supports up to 4096 colors, and runs Android 9.0 on an octa-core processor coupled with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage.

• xDrill Smart Power Drill Supports Intelligent Speed/Torque, Laser Measuring, Digital Leveling (Crowdfunding)

  Many home appliances now have smart functions, and in my cases, I fail to see the added value, and I’m not sure why I’d want/need a connected refrigerator with a touchscreen display. So when I first saw somebody make a “smart” power drill with a small touchscreen display I laughed. But after having a closer look, Robbox xDrill smart power drill could actually be a very useful device saving you time and helping work better.

• Raspberry Pi calls out your custom workout routine

• Odyssey Blue: A powerful x86 and Arduino machine that supports Windows 10 and Linux

  It has been a few months since we reported on the Odyssey, a single-board computer (SBC) designed by Seeedstudio. Unlike many SBCs, the Odyssey, or ODYSSEY-X86J4105800 to give it its full name, supported the x86 instruction set. While the Odyssey can run Windows 10, it is also compatible with the Arduino ecosystem. Now, Seeedstudio has expanded on the design of the Odyssey with the Odyssey Blue.

• Bring two analog meters out of retirement to display temperature and humidity

  Tom of Build Comics created a unique analog weather station that shows temperature and humidity on a pair of recycled gauges. An Arduino Nano reads the levels using a DHT22 sensor and outputs them in the proper format for each display.

  Both units have a new printed paper backing to indicate conditions, along with a trimmer pot for calibration. To set the build off nicely, the Nano and other electronics are housed inside a beautiful custom wooden box, to which the antique meters are also affixed.

• Engineer Your Own Electronics With PCB Design Software

  A lot of self-styled geeks out there tend to like to customize their own programs, devices, and electronics. And for the true purists, that can mean building from the ground up (you know, like Superman actor Henry Cavill building a gaming PC to the delight of the entire internet).

  Building electronics from the ground up can mean a lot of different things: acquiring parts, sometimes from strange sources; a bit of elbow grease on the mechanical side of things; and today, even taking advantage of the 3D printing revolution that’s finally enabling people to manufacture customized objects in their home. Beyond all of these things though, engineering your own devices can also mean designing the underlying electronics — beginning with printed circuit boards, also known as PCBs.

  [...]

  On the other hand, there are also plenty of just-for-fun options to consider. For example, consider our past buyer’s guide to the best Linux laptop, in which we noted that you can always further customize your hardware. With knowledge of PCB design, that ability to customize even a great computer or computer setup is further enhanced. You might, for instance, learn how to craft PCBs and devices amounting to your own mouse, gaming keyboard, or homemade speakers — all of which can make your hardware more uniquely your own.

  All in all, PCB design is a very handy skill to have in 2020. It’s not typically necessary, in that there’s usually a device or some light customization that can give you whatever you want or need out of your electronics. But for “geeks” and tech enthusiasts, knowledge of PCB design adds another layer to the potential to customize hardware.

• Programming pioneer Fran Allen dies aged 88 after a career of immense contributions to compilers

  Frances Allen, one of the leading computer scientists of her generation and a pioneer of women in tech, died last Tuesday, her 88th birthday.

  Allen is best known for her work on compiler organisation and optimisation algorithms. Together with renowned computer scientist John Cocke, she published a series of landmark papers in the late '60s and '70s that helped to lay the groundwork for modern programming.

  In recognition of her efforts, in 2006 Allen became the first woman to be awarded the AM Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computing.

• Excellent Free Tutorials to Learn ECMAScript

  ECMAScript is an object‑oriented programming language for performing computations and manipulating computational objects within a host environment. The language was originally designed as a scripting language, but is now often used as a general purpose programming language.

  ECMAScript is best known as the language embedded in web browsers but has also been widely adopted for server and embedded applications.

• Alexander Larsson: Compatibility in a sandboxed world

  Compatibility has always been a complex problems in the Linux world. With the advent of containers/sandboxing it has become even more complicated. Containers help solve compatibility problems, but there are still remaining issues. Especially on the Linux desktop where things are highly interconnected. In fact, containers even create some problems that we didn’t use to have.

  Today I’ll take a look at the issues in more details and give some ideas on how to best think of compatibility in this post-container world, focusing on desktop use with technologies like flatpak and snap.

  [...]

  Another type of compatibility is that of communication protocols. Two programs that talk to each other using a networking API (which could be on two different machines, or locally on the same machine) need to use a protocol to understand each other. Changes to this protocol need to be carefully considered to ensure they are compatible.

  In the remote case this is pretty obvious, as it is very hard to control what software two different machines use. However, even for local communication between processes care has to be taken. For example, a local service could be using a protocol that has several implementations and they all need to stay compatible.

  Sometimes local services are split into a service and a library and the compatibility guarantees are defined by the library rather than the service. Then we can achieve some level of compatibility by ensuring the library and the service are updated in lock-step. For example a distribution could ship them in the same package.

• GXml-0.20 Released

  GXml is an Object Oriented implementation of DOM version 4, using GObject classes and written in Vala. Has a fast and robust serialization implementation from GObject to XML and back, with a high degree of control. After serialization, provides a set of collections where you can get access to child nodes, using lists or hash tables.

  New 0.20 release is the first step toward 1.0. It provides cleaner API and removes old unmaintained implementations.

  GXml is the base of other projects depending on DOM4, like GSVG an engine to read SVG documents based on its specificacion 1.0.

  GXml uses a method to set properties and fill declared containers for child nodes, accessing GObject internals directly, making it fast. A libxml-2.0 engine is used to read sequentially each node, but is prepared to implement new ones in the future.

• Let Mom Help You With Object-Oriented Programming

  Mom is a shortcut for creating Moo classes (and roles). It allows you to define a Moo class with the brevity of Class::Tiny. (In fact, Mom is even briefer.)

  A simple example:

  Mom allows you to use Moo features beyond simply declaring Class::Tiny-like attributes though. You can choose whether attributes are read-only, read-write, or read-write-private, whether they're required or optional, specify type constraints, defaults, etc.

• Perl Weekly Challenge 73: Min Sliding Window and Smallest Neighbor

  These are some answers to the Week 73 of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

  Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on Aug. 16, 2020). This blog post offers some solutions to this challenge, please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

• [rakulang] 2020.32 Survey, Please

  The TPF Marketing Committee wants to learn more about how you perceive “The Perl Foundation” itself, and asks you to fill in this survey (/r/rakulang, /r/perl comments). Thank you!

• Performance Delivered a New Way

  The server CPU has evolved at an incredible pace over the last two decades. Gone are the days of discrete CPUs, northbridges, southbridges, memory controllers, other external I/O and security chips. In today’s modern data center, the SoC (System On A Chip) does it all. It is the central point of coordination for virtually all workloads and the main hub where all the fixed-function accelerators connect, such as AI accelerators, GPUs, network interface controllers, storage devices, etc.

• NUVIA Published New Details On Their Phoenix CPU, Talks Up Big Performance/Perf-Per-Watt

  Since leaving stealth last year and hiring some prominent Linux/open-source veterans to complement their ARM processor design experts, we have been quite eager to hear more about this latest start-up aiming to deliver compelling ARM server products. Today they shared some early details on their initial "Phoenix" processor that is coming within their "Orion" SoC.

  The first-generation Phoenix CPU is said to have a "complete overhaul" of the CPU pipeline and is a custom core based on the ARM architecture. They believe that Phoenix+Orion will be able to take on Intel/AMD x86_64 CPUs not only in raw performance but also in performance-per-Watt.

• Take control of your AMD Wraith Prism RGB on Linux with Wraith Master

  Where the official vendor doesn't bother with supporting Linux properly, once again the community steps in to provide. If you want to tweak your AMD Wraith Prism lighting on Linux, check out Wraith Master.

  It's a similar project to CM-RGB that we previously highlighted. With the Wraith Master project, they provide a "feature-complete" UI and command-line app for controlling the fancy LED system on AMD's Wraith Prism cooler with eventual plans to support more.

It’s back to school time and with so many school districts participating in distance learning, many if not most are relying on computers and technology more than ever before. Wealthier school districts are providing their students with laptops or tablets, but not all schools can afford to provide each student with a computer which means that this summer parents are scrambling to find a device for their child to use for school.

Geoffery Fowler wrote a guide in the Washington Post recently to aid parents in sourcing a computer or tablet for school. Given how rough kids can be with their things, many people are unlikely to give their child an expensive, premium laptop. The guide mostly focuses on incredibly low-cost, almost-disposable computers, so you won’t find a computer in the list that has what I consider a critical feature for privacy in the age of video conferencing: hardware kill switches. Often a guide like this would center on Chromebooks as Google has invested a lot of resources to get low-cost Chromebooks into schools yet I found Mr. Fowler’s guide particularly interesting because of his opinion on Chromebooks in education...

Also: Enabling Dark Mode on a Chromebook (Do not try this at home)

Working at Mozilla has been a very educational experience over the past eight years. I have had the chance to work side-by-side with many engineers at a large non-profit whose business and ethics are guided by a broad vision to protect the health of the web ecosystem. How did I go from being on the front of a computer screen in 1995 to being behind the workings of the web now? Below is my story of how my path wended from being a Netscape user to working at Mozilla, the heir to the Netscape legacy. It's amazing to think that a product I used 25 years ago ended up altering the course of my life so dramatically thereafter. But the world and the web was much different back then. And it was the course of thousands of people with similar stories, coming together for a cause they believed in.

The Winding Way West

Like many people my age, I followed the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990’s with great fascination. My father was an engineer at International Business Machines when the Personal Computer movement was just getting started. His advice to me during college was to focus on the things you don't know or understand rather than the wagon-wheel ruts of the well trodden path. He suggested I study many things, not just the things I felt most comfortable pursuing. He said, "You go to college so that you have interesting things to think about when you're waiting at the bus stop." He never made an effort to steer me in the direction of engineering. In 1989 he bought me a Macintosh personal computer and said, "Pay attention to this hypertext trend. Networked documents is becoming an important new innovation." This was long before the World Wide Web became popular in the societal zeitgeist. His advice was prophetic for me.

[...]

The Mozilla Project grew inside AOL for a long while beside the AOL browser and Netscape browsers. But at some point the executive team believed that this needed to be streamlined. Mitchell Baker, an AOL attorney, Brendan Eich, the inventor of JavaScript, and an influential venture capitalist named Mitch Kapoor came up with a suggestion that the Mozilla Project should be spun out of AOL. Doing this would allow all of the enterprises who had interest in working in open source versions of the project to foster the effort while Netscape/AOL product team could continue to rely on any code innovations for their own software within the corporation.

A Mozilla in the wild would need resources if it were to survive. First, it would need to have all the patents that were in the Netscape portfolio to avoid hostile legal challenges from outside. Second, there would need to be a cash injection to keep the lights on as Mozilla tried to come up with the basis for its business operations. Third, it would need protection from take-over bids that might come from AOL competitors. To achieve this, they decided Mozilla should be a non-profit foundation with the patent grants and trademark grants from AOL. Engineers who wanted to continue to foster AOL/Netscape vision of an open web browser specifically for the developer ecosystem could transfer to working for Mozilla.

Mozilla left Netscape's crowdsourced web index (called DMOZ or open directory) with AOL. DMOZ went on to be the seed for the PageRank index of Google when Google decided to split out from powering the Yahoo search engine and seek its own independent course. It's interesting to note that AOL played a major role in helping Google become an independent success as well, which is well documented in the book The Search by John Battelle.

Once the Mozilla Foundation was established (along with a $2 Million grant from AOL) they sought donations from other corporations who were to become dependent on the project. The team split out Netscape Communicator's email component as the Thunderbird email application as a stand-alone open source product and the Phoenix browser was released to the public as "Firefox" because of a trademark issue with another US company on usage of the term "Phoenix" in association with software.

Google had by this time broken off from its dependence on Yahoo as a source of web traffic for its nascent advertising business. They offered to pay Mozilla Foundation for search traffic that they could route to their search engine traffic to Google preferentially over Yahoo or the other search engines of the day. Taking "revenue share" from advertising was not something that the non-profit Mozilla Foundation was particularly well set up to do. So they needed to structure a corporation that could ingest these revenues and re-invest them into a conventional software business that could operate under the contractual structures of partnerships with other public companies. The Mozilla Corporation could function much like any typical California company with business partnerships without requiring its partners to structure their payments as grants to a non-profit.

[...]

Working in the open was part of the original strategy AOL had when they open sourced Netscape. If they could get other companies to build together with them, the collaborative work of contributors outside the AOL payroll could contribute to the direct benefit of the browser team inside AOL. Bugzilla was structured as a hierarchy of nodes, where a node owner could prioritize external contributions to the code base and commit them to be included in the derivative build which would be scheduled to be released as a new update package ever few months.

Module Owners, as they were called, would evaluate candidate fixes or new features against their own list of items to triage in terms of product feature requests or complaints from their own team. The main team that shipped each version was called Release Engineering. They cared less about the individual features being worked on than the overall function of the broader software package. So they would bundle up a version of the then-current software that they would call a Nightly build, as there were builds being assembled each day as new bugs were upleveled and committed to the software tree. Release engineering would watch for conflicts between software patches and annotate them in Bugzilla so that the various module owners could look for conflicts that their code commits were causing in other portions of the code base.

        
       

• MailSpring • An amazing email client for Linux

  In this article, we will review MailSpring – an amazing email client for Linux. We will also go through the guide on how to install MailSpring on any Linux distribution.

  A few years back an open-source email client called Nylas became sensational in the Linux community. People were just loving it. You may ask why? Because it was just amazing, the design was cool and the features were even cooler.

  Unfortunately, the company behind the client decided to drop-out the project probably due to the financial constraints. However, few brave souls raised the project and forked it into what is known as now – MailSpring.

       

• 
  NewFlash – Modern New GTK Feed Reader for Gnome Desktop

          NewFlash, spiritual successor to FeedReader, is a modern feed reader designed for the GNOME desktop.

  NewsFlash is a program designed to complement an already existing web-based RSS reader account. It combines all the advantages of web based services like syncing across all your devices with everything you expect from a modern desktop program: Desktop notifications, fast search and filtering, tagging, handy keyboard shortcuts and having access to all your articles as long as you like.

• How to download Gnome Maps as a PDF on Linux

• How to check the file size in Linux/Unix bash shell scripting

• How to install htop on Arch Linux

• TCP window scaling, timestamps and SACK

• Linux Fu: Remote Execution Made Easy

• How to install Shotcut Video Editor on Ubuntu 20.04

• How to restart or reload NGINX on Ubuntu 20.04 server

Here it is! Named “Eckstine” in honor of Billy Eckstine, this latest and greatest version of WordPress is available for download or update in your dashboard.

Calculate Linux is an impressively different Linux operating system.

This is a distribution designed with home and SMB users in mind. It has expanded its user interface into an appealing selection of desktop choices over the years.

Calculate is particularly appealing to small businesses that want a rock-solid system with the flexibility to meet a variety of needs. It is optimized for rapid deployment in corporate environments.

It can also be an inviting computing option for consumers with a bit of Linux know-how under their belts. Calculate is not difficult to use. But it is a bit different under the hood, especially in how its package management system works.

Calculate comes in a smart collection of some of the best desktop environments. That adds to its appeal because it is not a distro with one size having to fit all users.

It comes in KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce editions. A community edition gives you an added choice for a nicely-tweaked GNOME 3 desktop.

All are rolling-release distribution sets. That means you install it once and just apply the updated packages as they are released. You never have to reinstall a major release.

The latest update, version 20.6, released on June 21, is a hallmark edition of sorts. It marks Calculate Linux’s 20th year.

• Secure authentication with Red Hat AMQ 7.7 and ApacheDS LDAP server

  In this article, we will integrate Red Hat AMQ 7.7 with the ApacheDS LDAP server. However, any version of the AMQ 7.x series can be integrated with the steps mentioned in this article.

  For this example integration, we’ll use Apache Directory Studio, which is an LDAP browser and directory client for ApacheDS. You will learn how to set up the ApacheDS LDAP server from scratch, and how to integrate the new LDAP configuration changes that are required in AMQ 7.7. Finally, we’ll test the integration with an AMQ 7.7 shell-based client, using Hawtio as a graphical user interface (GUI). This will be helpful to system administrators and developers as they can quickly create a proof of concept for LDAP and AMQ integration. This will help in enabling role-based access control(RBAC) for accessing AMQ 7.7.

• Red Hat Insights delivers easier RHEL management with Red Hat knowledge base integration and enhanced customer portal applications

  As a system administrator, working quickly and efficiently is important. There is a good chance that you manage a large estate of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems and that it continues to grow in complexity. In this post, we'll look at some ways Red Hat Insights can help you deal with that complexity.

  Red Hat Insights, an operational efficiency and vulnerability risk management service that provides continuous, in-depth analysis of registered RHEL systems, is included in your Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription. Some users have referred to Insights as "like having an extra pair of eyes" to help you identify and manage risks to security, compliance, and operations across your evolving environments.

  Now, we’ve added three new integrations between Insights and the Red Hat Customer Portal to help you become even more productive.

• IBM-backed Grillo open sources earthquake early-warning system through The Linux Foundation

  Earlier today, The Linux Foundation announced it will host a new initiative to accelerate the standardization and deployment of earthquake early-warning (EEW) systems for earthquake preparedness around the world. Created by Grillo with support from IBM, USAID, the Clinton Foundation, and Arrow Electronics, the OpenEEW project includes the core components of the Grillo EEW system composed of integrated capabilities to sense, detect, and analyze earthquakes and to alert communities.

  IBM was originally connected to Grillo through the Clinton Foundation at a convening of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Action Network. Now, IBM is assisting Grillo by adding the OpenEEW earthquake technology into the Call for Code deployment pipeline supported by The Linux Foundation.

  We sat down with Call for Code Chief Technology Officer Daniel Krook and IBM Developer Advocate Pedro Cruz to learn more about OpenEEW.

• IBM, Grillo, and the Linux Foundation partner on early earthquake detection systems

  The Linux Foundation — in partnership with IBM and startup Grillo — today announced an initiative called OpenEEW to accelerate the deployment of open source earthquake early warning (EEW) detection systems around the world. The organizations say OpenEEW will incorporate sensing, detection, and analysis components from Grillo’s EEW platform, along with a Docker software version of the detection component that can be deployed to Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud.

  An estimated 3 billion people live with the threat of earthquakes globally. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, in California, there’s a 94% chance that an earthquake will not be just a foreshock. Yet only a few countries — like Mexico, Japan, Turkey, Romania, China, Italy, portions of the U.S., and Taiwan — have EEWs, in part because they can cost upwards of $1 billion.

• The Linux Foundation, Grillo and IBM Announce New Earthquake Early-Warning Open Source Project

  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced it will host Grillo’s OpenEEW project in collaboration with IBM to accelerate the standardization and deployment of earthquake early-warning systems (EEWs) for earthquake preparedness around the world. The project includes the core components of the Grillo EEW system comprised of integrated capabilities to sense, detect and analyze earthquakes as well as alert communities. OpenEEW was created by Grillo with support from IBM, USAID, the Clinton Foundation and Arrow Electronics.

  Earthquakes often have the most severe consequences in developing countries, due in part to construction and infrastructure issues. Timely alerts have the potential to help save lives in the communities where earthquakes pose the greatest threat. EEW systems provide public alerts in countries including Mexico, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but nearly three billion people globally live with the threat of an earthquake and don’t have access to nation-wide systems, which can cost upwards of one billion U.S. dollars. OpenEEW wants to help reduce the costs of EEW systems, accelerate their deployments around the world and has the potential to save many lives.

  “The OpenEEW Project represents the very best in technology and in open source,” said Mike Dolan, Senior Vice President and GM of Projects at the Linux Foundation. “We’re pleased to be able to host and support such an important project and community at the Linux Foundation. The open source community can enable rapid development and deployment of these critical systems across the world.”

• [S5:E3] Command Line Heroes: What Kind Of Coder Will You Become?

• Intel Adds Capability To Linux 5.9 For NVDIMM Firmware Updates Without Reboots

  For Intel NVDIMMs like DC Persistent Memory there is support on the way with Linux 5.9 to support firmware updates to the non-volatile memory device without the need for a system reboot. 

  The LIBNVDIMM changes for Linux 5.9 include "Runtime Firmware Activation" as the Intel-devised feature for accommodating device firmware updates to supported NVDIMM modules without needing a reboot. The intent is on being less disruptive than a reboot and allow loading the firmware still via the ndctl user-space utility and then the new ability to "activate" the new firmware. 

• F2FS With Linux 5.9 Adds Secure TRIM, New Garbage Collection Option

  The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) changes have been sent in for the in-development Linux 5.9 kernel. 

  The prominent changes this cycle include a new garbage collection mode (GC_URGENT_LOW) and a "secure" TRIM option (F2FS_IOC_SEC_TRIM_FILE) in the name of security. 

  The F2FS_IOC_SEC_TRIM_FILE functionality is intended as secure erase functionality. For drives not supporting TRIM/DISCARD, zeroing out the given data range for the regular file is performed to ensure the data is wiped on disk. 

• Linux 5.9 Bringing Mellanox VDPA Driver For Newer ConnectX Devices

  There are a few changes worth mentioning out of the VirtIO updates submitted today for the Linux 5.9 kernel. 

  The latest Mellanox driver going mainline in the Linux kernel is a VDPA (Virtual Data Path Acceleration) for their ConnectX6 DX and newer devices. 

  The VDPA standard is an abstraction layer on top of SR-IOV and allows for a single VirtIO driver in the guest that isn't hardware specific while still allowing wire-speed performance on the data plane. VDPA is more versatile than the likes of VirtIO full hardware offloading. More details for those interested via this Red Hat post. 

       

• Linux Plumbers Releasing More Passes

  After a careful review we have decided to release more passes. We are thrilled with the interest for this first ever online Linux Plumbers. The highlight of Linux Plumbers is the microconferences which are heavily focused on discussion and problem solving. To give the best experience for discussion, we have chosen to use an open source virtual platform that offers video for all participants. The platform recommends not having more than a certain number of people in each room at a time, hence putting a cap on registration to avoid hitting that limit. We do have solutions that will hopefully allow as many people as possible to experience Plumbers. We appreciate your patience and enthusiasm.