Software
VPN Providers with Custom Clients for Linux
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sunday 17th of January 2021 06:58:17 AM Filed under


Virtual Private Networking providers and company are more than you can shake a stick at these days. While there's always installable client software for Windows, Android and usually MacOS and whatever the mobile version is called not all are offering desktop clients for Linux distributions. Even if they do it's usually non-GUI, you know, with the excuse that Linux nerds love and want the power of the command line, with stripped-down functionality, or even a browser extension only which might work on a Chromebook but not on any other OS if you actually want to channel your entire traffic. And no, a proxy is not a replacement for a proper VPN.
Another constraint is the various packaging formats Linux and GNU/Linux distributions are using. Most providers only offer packages for Debian and Ubuntu-like distributions. RPMs are typically Fedora and/or CentOS but do not work on SUSE. On other distributions like Slackware and Arch you're basically on your own. You can hope that someone has provided a build on sbopkg for Slackware or in the AUR for the Arch base or that it can be transformed with the alien packaging tool but these are not official packages.
Then we have the issue of different init systems in use all over the Linux install base. When exploring Artix Linux I discovered that custom desktop client software is written to work with distributions that are using systemd to handle services and networking. Wanting to use them with OpenRC or Runit presents a bit of a challenge. It can be done but you got to know your init system's run levels or ask a distro developer to package it for you. Thankfully I since discovered that the software of at least two companies I'm perusing supports SysVinit. Their packages worked flawlessly on Devuan 3.0 so all is not lost if you're not running systemd but still want to use your providers client instead of the Networkmanager OpenVPN plugin. Even more so since NM does not seem to work without systemd, haha. They also play nicely with Wicd, no conflicts there. They're not integrated but they don't integrate with NM either.
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Software: DUF, Systemd Applet, and PDF
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 16th of January 2021 10:41:26 PM Filed under
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duf - Disk Usage/Free Utility for Linux, BSD, macOS & Windows - nixCraft
We use the df command to show how much disk space is free on mounted file systems in Linux, macOS, and Unix-like systems. We also have the du command to estimate file space usage. We now have another fancy and fantastic looking tool called duf to display statistics on free disk space in Unix, Linux, macOS, *BSD, Android, and Windows written in Golang.
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Systemd Applet Release - Michael Jansen, Drive By Coding
Given no one seems to be interested in working on the applet (boo) I decided to tackle the bug myself. Apparently the fact it worked previously was the result of happenstance.
The systemd manager processes only send out signals after at least one process told them to do so. It seems that some process did that on my computer before but no more.
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5 Best free PDF editors for Ubuntu Linux in 2021 [Ed: Some of these are proprietary software, which GNU/Linux users do not need for any practical reason]
PDF readers and editors are a popular part of our day-to-day work related to documents, ebooks, presentations, whitePaper, and more because of PDF’s portability and security. However, when it comes to reader application for PDF files, you will generally find a one on Linux desktop systems, easily. However, PDF editors may still need to be installed, which are available only a handful.
Adobe developed the PDF (portable document format) in such a way that it can present the layout in the final document as it is, anywhere, regardless of the OS system or software in which you are going to use it later. Therefore, editing PDF files afterward is not an easy task- apart from the standard note and comment functions. However, Adobe offers a professional PDF editor for Mac and Windows but that also has limited capabilities. This means we can edit all PDF files not thoroughly like we do Word documents.
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Scorewriter MuseScore 3.6 Released with New Fonts, Improvements
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 16th of January 2021 08:54:41 PM Filed under
MuseScore, free open-source sheet music player and editor, released the new major version 3.6 with many new features, improvements and bug-fixes.
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Python PIP Complete guide
Submitted by trendoceangd on Saturday 16th of January 2021 05:03:02 PM Filed under
Python is a trendy programming language that comes with tons of libraries and modules. To install these libraries, you can install them using their wheel file or use any library manager.
PIP is a python library that stands for PHP Install Packages or Preferred Installer Program that helps you install, remove, and upgrade all other libraries without reinventing wheel files every time when you install new packages.
Today, we guide you on using PIP to install, reinstall, remove, and manage all other libraries with this single library.
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KeePassXC 2.6.3 Released with Argon2id, XML2 Support [PPA]
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 15th of January 2021 08:17:55 PM Filed under

KeePassXC, cross-platform community fork of KeePass password manager, release version 2.6.3 a few days ago with new features and improvements.
KeePassXC 2.6.3 features Argon2id KDF and version 2 XML key files support.
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Carbon Player – desktop media player
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 15th of January 2021 01:56:22 PM Filed under
My favorite pastime is to see an eclectic range of bands, solo artists, and orchestras live. It’s such a life-changing and exhilarating experience to be present. It’s one thing to be sitting at home listening to a CD or watching music videos on TV or on YouTube, but being with an audience, packed out in a stadium or music hall, takes it to another level. But it’s an expensive pastime, and still on hold given the current coronavirus pandemic. I’m therefore listening to music from my CD collection which I’ve encoded to FLAC, a lossless audio format, and stored locally.
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.
Carbon Player is a cross-platform media player written in JavaScript and uses Electron, an open-source software framework developed and maintained by GitHub. Let’s see how Carbon Player fares.
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Daniel Stenberg: Food on the table while giving away code
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 15th of January 2021 12:34:28 PM Filed under
I founded the curl project early 1998 but had already then been working on the code since November 1996. The source code was always open, free and available to the world. The term “open source” actually wasn’t even coined until early 1998, just weeks before curl was born.
In the beginning of course, the first few years or so, this project wasn’t seen or discovered by many and just grew slowly and silently in a dusty corner of the Internet.
Already when I shipped the first versions I wanted the code to be open and freely available. For years I had seen the cool free software put out the in the world by others and I wanted to my work to help build this communal treasure trove.
How to Install Privacy-friendly Whatsapp Alternative Signal in Linux
Submitted by trendoceangd on Friday 15th of January 2021 09:31:50 AM Filed under
WhatsApp introduces its new privacy policy recently due to which signal emphasizing and getting much more attention for its privacy and security it offers. If you make your mind to
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Haruna Video Player Is A Cool mpv GUI Frontend
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 15th of January 2021 06:54:05 AM Filed under
Haruna is a free and open source Qt / QML video player for Linux that makes use of mpv (libmpv) for video playback.
libmpv makes it possible to embed mpv into other programs as the video / audio playback backend. New to mpv? This is a free and open source media player based on MPlayer, mplayer2 and FFmpeg, that runs on Linux, *BSD, macOS and Microsoft Windows, and there's also an Android port.
mpv has become quite popular in recent years thanks to features like high quality video output (using OpenGL as well as the new Vulkan API, which supports over 100 options for controlling playback quality, including the use of advanced upscaling filters, color management, etc.) with optional hardware acceleration.
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Help Quit WhatsApp
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 15th of January 2021 06:22:25 AM Filed under
Recently, people got awareness to leave popular proprietary software WhatsApp. We even saw # Delete Whatsapp hashtags on social networks. For Ubuntu users who want to switch away from it here's alternatives, namely Telegram and Element, which are free and easy, and available for Ubuntu too. Fortunately, today both are also available for users who use Debian, Mint GNU/Linux, and other Ubuntu-family computers. For Android users, both are already available at F-Droid. They are Free Libre Open Source Software also known as FLOSS. We hope these will always be friendly and useful for us forever. Please share this with your friends!
Also: WhatsApp New Policy And the Backlash From “Common” People Will Cooldown
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