Quark 20.04 review

Quark is a fairly new project and this is its first stable release. We don’t usually review such young projects, but we were lured in by its polished Windows 10 desktop replica. In a nutshell, think of Quark as Q4OS working on top of Ubuntu LTS, or more accurately Kubuntu. The developers tell us that their objective with Quark is to bring Q4OS goodness to Ubuntu users. Because Q4OS is based on Debian, it didn’t take the developers much effort to compile the Q4OS tools for Ubuntu.

Framework Laptop Brings Hardware Upgrade to a New Level

Think about this. What if, you buy a laptop today and can simply swap and upgrade hardware components when needed and use that device for decades. Sounds interesting, isn't it? Introducing Framework Laptop.

Top 10 Best Arch-based Linux Distros Available To Check Out

Finally, I’ve decided to make a list of the best Arch-based Linux distros I’ve used and tried so far. I was a full-time Debian user. And, because I am a distro hopper, you will find me moving to and from various Debian-based distros. In fact, most of the beginners in Linux tend to go for Debian. Because it’s easy to use and there are tons of prebuilt packages. But when I came to know about Arch Linux for the first time, I fall in love with it. However, I will not suggest the vanilla Arch Linux to the newbie users. It’s because Arch follows a rolling release model, and you can build your own OS image based on your favorite packages. This leads to some complications, which might be annoying for beginners. But apart from that, if you want complete flexibility and customizations with the latest packages, there’s no alternative to Arch Linux. In fact, if you are a power user like me, you will even get a performance boost in Arch.

today's leftovers

• Custom when | Playing Perl 6 b6xA Raku

  I didn’t quite like the syntax of using match in the last post. The commas in the list of its arguments looked strangely out of place. Maybe because my eyes are used to a given block. Sleeping over it helped.

• Delete The Code

  For a long time, I’ve tried very, very, very, very hard to work around problems with NIR variables when it comes to UBOs and SSBOs. Really, I have. But the bottom line is that, at least for gallium-based drivers, they’re unusable. They’re so unreliable that it’s only by sheer luck (and a considerable amount of it) that zink has worked at all until this point.

• Mariuz's Blog: Firebird 3.0 Language Reference (English) Released

  The Firebird Documentation Team is proud to announce the first release of the English Firebird 3.0 Language Reference (HTML, PDF). You can also find it on the Documentation page. This new Language Reference covers all SQL syntax of Firebird 3.0. The new English Firebird 3.0 Language Reference is based in part on the Russian Firebird 3.0 Language Reference, but is not a direct translation (though we thankfully copied parts of it). Work has also been started on the Firebird 4.0 Language Reference.

• Brave web browser 1.17.3 review

  Nobody likes ads, but they’re unfortunately central to today’s revenue models, so we’d rather see ones that directly fund creators and projects rather than horrible advertising networks. Brave uses its own Privacy-Preserving Product Analytics (P3A) to target ads and avoid the tracking associated with other services. Brave’s ad network returns 70 per cent of its revenue to users, so this is anything but a money grab. It seems a little cheeky to block a webpage’s own ads only to run your own, but we like cheeky. We found casual browsing to be snappy with Brave and struggled to find any site (that’s worth your time) that required the adblocker to be disabled. Even our sister site and ad haven TechRadar didn’t bat (no pun intended) an eyelid. The ad-blocking engine is written in Rust and hardware acceleration is enabled by default. If you browse to brave://gpu you can see what features are enabled. We were pleased to see that installing Brave on our Pop-powered Dell XPS 13 gave us WebGL2 rendering out of the box. To get accelerated video decoding to work we had to enable an experimental flag, but then it worked just fine.

• Snapcraft Clinic

  At work we have a forum where developers can discuss packaging Linux applications, specifically as snaps. Sometimes developers just want to pair through a problem to get it either resolved for themselves, or for whatever is blocking to be handed off to the right people. One strategy for supporting developers we found effective was via regular live video conference. So last year we started the Snapcraft Clinic. On a semi-regular basis we dedicate time to join with anyone who has technical issues with snapping, to help them.

• Public Cloud Image Change Information

  With the last push of our Public Cloud images we also enabled the publishing of image change information. We’ve had numerous requests to make change data available when images get published and we are happy to share that this data is now available.

• ut2004 – players vs (more) bots (than players)

  of course a bit more game physics as with the source2 (half life 2) engine would have been nice… but still… overall one of the best games ever X-D (the internet connection of course needs to be fast and it is best to run dedicated (GNU Linux) server for best performance.

• Stadia Fallout: Nobody Can Address Stadia Games' Bugs Because Google Fired All The Developers

  More bad news for Stadia. We were just discussing Google's decision to axe its own game development studios. In and of itself, such a move to cut staff like this would be a worrying sign for the platform, especially given just how much growing interest there has been in video games and game-streaming surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. But when it's instead one more indication that Google isn't fully committed to its own platform, alongside the poor reception from the public and concerns about whether it can deliver the gaming experience it promised, these things tend to pile up on one another. I have attempted to drive home the point of just how important the development of trust with customers is for Stadia, given that those buying into the platform are gaming entirely at the pleasure of Google's desire to keep Stadia going.

• Technically Speaking (S1E02): Edge IT: A space odyssey

• OBS Tutorial: Break Down My Video Workflow

  I am constantly using OBS for this channel and over time I've worked out ways to simplify my video production workflow and automate a lot of annoying tasks that I have to do in every video, so today I thought I'd share some of those tips and tricks.

• The Top Free Tools for Sysadmins in 2021

  It's no secret that sysadmins have plenty on their plates. Managing, troubleshooting, and updating software or hardware is a tedious task. Additionally, admins must grapple with complex webs of permissions and security. This can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools. If you're a sysadmin seeking to simplify your workflows, you're in luck. We've gathered some excellent software picks to help tackle different duties more efficiently. Thankfully, these free tools are also respectful of tight budgets—without sacrificing core functionality.

• Configuration Security for Remote Endpoints with CIS-CAT Pro | CSO Online

  Configuration management can be challenging. IT teams can become overwhelmed between various standards, compliance requirements, and security options. As the popularity of remote work grows, so does the complexity of implementing secure configurations. Thankfully, there are consensus-developed security recommendations and tools available to help automate the process.