January 2021
Audiocasts/Shows: Linux Action News, This Week in Linux, Firenvim
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 11:52:34 PM Filed under

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Linux Action News 174
Google removes Matrix chat-client Element from the Play store, sudo has a major flaw with a long-tail, and Rocky Linux gets a boost.
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This Week in Linux 136: Linux Sudo Bug, KDE Plasma 5.21, Tails OS, Firefox 85, Ubuntu + Wayland | This Week in Linux - TuxDigital
On this episode of This Week in Linux, we’re going to talk about the pretty nasty bug discovered in the Sudo tool which has been named “Baron Samedit”. We’ve got some distro news to discuss for Ubuntu 21.04 and Tails OS. Then we’ll check out some news in the desktop environment space from KDE Plasma and CDE, the Common Desktop Environment of all things. In App news, we’ll check out the latest releases of Mozilla Firefox, Xfce’s Thunar file manager and another browser called qutebrowser. Cute with a “Q” naturally. We’ll take a look at the excite plans UBports has for Ubuntu Touch in 2021. All that and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!
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Firenvim: Embed Neovim Into Every Textbox - YouTube
Vim emulation is tolerable but I'll always take full vim instead and that's where Firenvim comes in, this let's us embed neovim into our Firefox or Chromium and turn every single text box we see into a full instance of neovim with all your configurations included.
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hRPC and why we moved away from gRPC
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 11:43:06 PM Filed under
gRPC has a very, very big flaw for publically facing services: streams play awfully with reverse proxies like nginx, as they're essentially HTTP2 requests that aren't closed. This causes proxies to be like “hmmm this is a slow loris attack, time to yeet this stream.” For our homeserver at https://harmonyapp.io, this means we had to configure nginx to be ok with requests taking an entire hour. Any streams would always terminate at exactly 60 minutes. To be fair to gRPC, there's a dedicated HTTP2 streams thing being worked on that would allow reverse proxies like nginx to play nice with it, but unfortunately that's not the case now.
Besides that, gRPC's client libraries, while widely available, range from mediocre to [ censored ] awful. gRPC is a Google product that isn't Go, which means that “error handling” is not a word in its dictionary. This has really bad implications for the C++/Qt client, Challah. Essentially, if anything goes marginally wrong, the client just straight up aborts. There is no way for us to gracefully recover from any errors that originate from the gRPC library. This is terrible for the user experience, as we can't even show a “something is going wrong” page. This is one of the big reasons we're moving away from gRPC: we cannot have our only desktop client be crashing on anything slightly less than perfect network conditions.
That wouldn't be a problem, if making our own implementation of gRPC was easy. Unfortunately, it's not. Remember the part where I said it used low-level HTTP2 a lot? Yeah, that gets very complicated very fast.
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Linux 5.11-rc6
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 11:34:42 PM Filed under
Things look a little calmer than last week, and over-all very average for rc6. So - like always this late in the release schedule - I'd certainly have liked things to be even calmer, but nothing here really stands out. The diffstat is quite flat, meaning lots of small fixes, with the exception of one new LED driver, and a flurry of PI futex fixes (and one nouveau patch that is just a lot of trivial lines). And all the stats look normal: average number of commits, and they are all in the usual places, with most of the patch being drivers (gpu, networking, sound, etc), but we obviously have all the usual suspects with arch updates, and a smattering of fixes to core code (kernel, mm, networking, filesystems). A few known issues still, hopefully soon fixed, and on the whole things look quite normal apart from some mailing list hiccups.. Go test, Linus
Also: Linux 5.11-rc6 Released With Itanium Support Now Orphaned
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GNU libredwg-0.12.1 released
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 11:27:36 PM Filed under
LibreDWG version 0.12.1 - 2021/01/31 - beta:
Major bugfixes:
* fixed dwg_bmp() and dwgbmp for >= r2004. Wrong dat offset.
* Fixed EED with code 3 for layer handles. (Fixes GH #310, shanzhugit)
* Fixed bit_convert_TU utf8 conversion with ubsan, wrong endian-ness.
Various fuzzing errors detected and fuzzed by Chew Kin Zhong (See GH #304):
* Fix possible null-deref with broken DWG's in dwg_get_first_object.
* Fix possible null-deref with broken DWG's in dwg_find_class with empty
CLASS.dxfname. (GH #309)
* Fix possible null-deref with broken DWG's in dwglayers with empty
LAYER.name. (GH #308)
* Fix short integer overflow in EED checks when decoding malcrafted DWG's,
which also led to encode buffer overflows. (GH #307)
* Fix possible null-derefs with broken DWG's in json export. (GH #306)
* Fix possible null-deref with broken DWG's in dwg_next_entity iterator. (GH #305)
* Fix wrong TFF overflow check for static strings, where we cannot set
the string nor the size. (GH #304)
* Fix heap-overflows and invalid free's when decoding broken 3DSOLID's
in malcrafted DWG's. Only accept version 1 and 2. (GH #304)
Minor features:
* Added string converters with known TU sizes: bit_TU_to_utf8_len, bit_read_TU_len.
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Snaps Are Quite Fantastic, For Some Use Cases
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:53:41 PM Filed under
75% of users are still depending on traditional package mangers (APT, DNF… etc) instead of using Snaps or Flatpaks, but this is gradually starting to change, as larger organizations and development communities start to use the latter instead of the former.
Some people like Snaps, some people hate them, which is fine, just like most things in life. However, it is important to balance this love-hate relationship in order to not be biased toward a certain direction, ignoring the other.
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Explore the Best Linux Tools for Web Developer
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:49:37 PM Filed under


Web development is reaching a new high with each passing year with various tools at disposal for web developers. These tools have helped developers develop powerful and popular modern-day web applications like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and AirBnB. End products like these have increased expectations from web developers.
Web development tools can be divided into different categories such as code/text editors, web application frameworks, front-end frameworks, API and testing clouds tools, and web design tools.
Hence, every web developer must have the right web development tools in his toolbox. In this article, we’re going to look at the best Linux tools for web developers.
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Conky system monitor- Widget to view Linux Process, CPU and Memory
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:47:29 PM Filed under
Conky system monitor is a simple but advanced application to install on a Linux system for getting a Desktop widget with details of the system process, Memory consumption, CPU load, and more…
Users who have shifted from Windows to Linux platforms will always have some Task Manager in the form of a system monitor, however, as we know Linux platforms are full of possibilities, thus you will love Conky. It is a small lightweight and highly configurable Linux system monitor that can show all information in one place in a beautiful widget.
Although running the Conky system monitor is not difficult, the configuration would be easy especially for beginners, but with a little training you can create very nice “system monitors”.
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Taiwins 0.2.9 is out
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:42:11 PM Filed under
Hi folks, I would like to announce an 0.2.9 release of Taiwins project. Back in September 2020, I released the 0.2 version of Taiwins, which was utilising wlroots for backend handling. I have gone on implementing backend logics and Laid out most of the ground work. Now Taiwins has a new release and libtaiwins is releasing with it. Libtaiwins is another alternative to libweston and wlroots, but GPL licensed. It handles the output and input devices and offers rendering context for compositing. I implemented some interesting features like gpu hotplug, and in the future, we will have vulkan renderer as well. Apparently I am shamelessly advertising Taiwins here for potential interested users and developers. But I guess I didn't do a very good job last time since I am the only developer now. As one man, I think it is as much as I can push the project right now. I sort have to thank the pandemic otherwise I would never be able to have this much developing time. This time, I drafted a feature list [1] of Taiwins for those who are interested. We also have a Gitter channel if you have any questions. I am sure you will find tawins is an interesting an unique project. Cheers to the new year. Regards, Xichen
Also: Taiwins Wayland Compositor Switches From WLROOTS To Its Own Library - Phoronix
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today's howtos
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:39:23 PM Filed under
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Elasticsearch Create Alias – Linux Hint
Since you are reading a tutorial about Elasticsearch index, the chances are high that I don’t need to dive deep into what Elastisearch is, but a brief reminder will do you no harm.
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How to Create an ELK Docker Image and Create a Docker Container – Linux Hint
Docker is one of the best technologies for virtualization and isolated environments for building applications.
This tutorial will show you how to create a Docker image that integrates Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Logstash. You can then use the image to deploy the ELK stack on any Docker container.
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How to install Atom text editor on Linux Mint 20.1 - YouTube [Ed: Microsoft owned now, so better to avoid]
In this video, we are looking at how to install Atom text editor on Linux Mint 20.1.
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How to Create Elasticsearch Indices – Linux Hint
Elasticsearch is one part of the popular ELK stack used for log analytics and search. Applications and systems are constantly logging data that can be very useful for troubleshooting and tracking problems. Using the ELK stack, you have the best tools to perform these tasks quickly and very easily.
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How run Android apps on linux without emulation
There is a Linux tool that makes it easier for Android applications to run on the open source operating system. Anbox utility is a tool that acts like a bridge between Linux and Android. In this article you will learn how to install and use Android apps on Linux using Anbox.
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How to play Human: Fall Flat on Linux
Human: Fall Flat is a platformer puzzle game developed by No Brakes Games and published by Curve Digital. In the game, the player must solve physics-based puzzle games with their character. In this guide, we’ll show you how to play the game on Linux.
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Monitor Linux Servers with Grafana and Prometheus (node_exporter)
We are going to install node_exporter and configure Prometheus to monitor Linux servers.
The node_exporter service is a Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by Linux kernels.
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Backup and Restore Elasticsearch Clusters with Snapshots – Linux Hint
Elasticsearch is all about data, and as you probably already know, data is important—to you and Elasticsearch. However, in as much as both you and Elasticsearch love data, data failures may occur, leading to data loss.
To help safeguard against data loss, Elasticsearch has various features that allow you to ensure data availability, even in data failure instances.
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How to Configure An Elasticsearch Index Templates – Linux Hint
Indices are an essential Elasticsearch feature without which it would probably not function as it does. Although Elasticsearch indices may vary depending on intended use, they tend to share common properties. Given this, it can be tiresome to create similar properties for all indices. Instead, it is much more efficient to create a template we can refer to when creating an index.
This tutorial will walk you through the ins and outs of Elasticsearch index templates that allow you to define templates or blueprints for common indices. For example, if you are constantly logging data from external sources, you can define a blueprint for all logging indices.
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How to Install GitScrum in Debian 10 – Linux Hint
GitScrum is a free, open-source task management tool that you can use to manage projects with ease. GitScrum uses the famous Git platform and Scrum software methodology to allow for more effective team management. This software helps users to track time consumed to perform various tasks and keep a record of projects that users are working on. Users can create multiple projects, keep a record of projects assigned to different users, and even chat in real-time. This article shows you how to install GitScrum in Debian 10.
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How to indent a source code block in VIM? | LibreByte
VIM is a powerful editor with a rich ecosystem and many many features it's used by many users around the world in their daily administrations and development tasks.
This tip is very useful if you want to use VIM (mainly) as your source code editor.
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Useful Mount Options of the Btrfs Filesystem – Linux Hint
Like any other filesystems, the Btrfs filesystem also has a lot of mount options that you can use to configure the Btrfs filesystem’s behavior while mounting the filesystem.
This article will show you how to mount a Btrfs filesystem with your desired mount options. I will explain some of the useful Btrfs mount options as well. So, let’s get started.
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How to Install JetBrains IntelliJ in Debian – Linux Hint
JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA is a popular environment for application development. IntelliJ IDEA was developed by JetBrains. JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA contains several built-in tools, including auto code completion, database integration, terminal, inline debugger, and more. The core packages of IntelliJ IDEA support the Groovy, Java, XML, and Kotlin languages. You can also install various plugins to support other programming languages, such as Perl, Python, and Go.
This article provides a guide for installing JetBrains IntelliJ IDE on your Debian 10 system.
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How to mount an exFAT drive on Linux
exFAT is a proprietary filesystem developed by Microsoft, which has been primarily used in Windows and many existing SD cards or USB drives. Compared to FAT32, exFAT offers many improvements in terms of file size limit (significant higher than FAT32's 4GB limit), maximum disk size, maximum number of files, disk allocation performance, timestamp granularity, file name length, etc. Because of these enhancements and good compatibility with Windows and MacOS, exFAT has been used as a default filesystem for many existing high-capacity SD cards (e.g., SDXC) or USB flash drives.
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How to Install YOURLS on Ubuntu with Nginx and Let’s Encrypt
In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how to install YOURLS on an Ubuntu 20.04 server with Nginx, MariaDB, PHP, and Let’s Encrypt.
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How to install Eclipse IDE for Java Developers on a Chromebook
Today we are looking at how to install Eclipse IDE for Java Developers on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.
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Gentoo Linux Installation Tutorial – Linux Hint
The installation procedure for Gentoo involves more steps than other distributions. This is intentional so you can control the steps in a more clear way. Using this strategy, you can get started with less than 4GiB of disk and memory of down to 256MiB, 512MiB if you want to use the liveDVD. You also have the opportunity to tweak your system to be as efficient as you can make it. Your first try will be slower if you are not well versed in Linux and all the intricate details, but you can end up with a very lean system.
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How to Encrypt a Btrfs Filesystem? – Linux Hint
The Btrfs filesystem-level encryption feature is still not available. But you can use a 3rd party encryption tool like dm-crypt to encrypt the entire storage devices of your Btrfs filesystem.
In this article, I am going to show you how to encrypt the storage devices added to a Btrfs filesystem with dm-crypt. So, let’s get started.
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How to Use GameConqueror Cheat Engine in Linux – Linux Hint
The article covers a guide about using the GameConqueror cheat engine in Linux. Many users who play games on Windows often use the “Cheat Engine” application to modify game parameters and player attributes to enhance the gameplay experience, get over unnecessary grinding, complete speedruns and so on. The Cheat Engine application is not available for Linux, however, another application called “GameConqueror” based on the same concept and features is available for Linux distributions. While GameConqueror is not as advanced as Cheat Engine, it gets the job done and it is the only Cheat Engine for Linux with an easy to use interface.
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The simplest way to edit PDF files in Linux
PDF stands for Portable Document Format which is widely used among general users for documentation purpose and its usage is primarily for printing, sharing and for large documents.
By default, all Linux distributions comes with a PDF viewer, but not ideally with PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat.
To edit PDF’s, LibreOffice Draw can be used as basic PDF editor which is readily available with most of the Linux distributions, as part of the LibreOffice suite.
LibreOffice Draw may not be a full-fledged PDF editor but definitely an editor to fulfill our basic requirements with some limitations.
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How to become a ‘root user’ in Linux?
root user is a privileged user in Linux, which is similar to an administrator in Windows.
All kind of administrative operations can be performed using root user privilege hence it is not advisable to provide root access to anyone who does not have much familiarity with Linux environment, which might cause adverse impact on the system.
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Running PhantomJS in Vagrant
Some time ago I came across a weird error when trying to run RSpec test suite involving PhantomJS in Vagrant. Here’s the solution.
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Solving vagrant up's name of domain about to create is already taken
Creating and destroying virtual machines in Vagrant left and right might get us in trouble. If we reuse the domain name, Vagrant will fail to create it again. Here is how to use virsh if Vagrant won’t help anymore.
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Kid3 Audio Tag Editor 3.8.5 Released, How to Install via Ubuntu PPA
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 31st of January 2021 10:27:16 PM Filed under

The Kid3 audio tagger 3.8.5 was released today as a new bug-fix release which however includes also some minor new features.
Kid3 3.8.5 adds ability to change the language via Settings -> Appearance, though app needs a restart to apply change.
It also brings “Invert Selection” option under Edit menu, command option “config” to query and set configuration options, and script to rewrite all tags of the selected files.
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