Fedora Community Blog monthly summary: February 2021

This is the latest in our monthly series summarizing the past month on the Community Blog. Please leave a comment below to let me know what you think.

Germanium transistors: logic circuits in the IBM 1401 computer

How did computers implement logic gates in the 1950s? Computers were moving into the transistor age, but transistors were expensive so circuits were optimized to minimize the transistor count. At the time, they didn't even use silicon transistors; germanium transistors were used instead. In this blog post, I'll describe one way that logic gates were implemented back then: diode-transistor logic.

The Linux Foundation Continues to Expand Japanese Language Training & Certification

Japan is one of the world’s biggest markets for open source software, which means there is a constant need for upskilling of existing talent and to bring new individuals into the community to meet hiring demand. The Linux Foundation is committed to expanding access to quality open source training and certification opportunities, which is why we have developed a number of Japanese language offerings. [...] While Hyperledger Fabric Administration is the newest Japanese course offered by Linux Foundation Training & Certification, it is far from alone. Our catalog of Japanese-language offerings includes:

ESET says more threat groups using Microsoft zero-days in attacks

Slovakian security firm ESET says it has detected at least three additional threat groups using a zero-day in Microsoft Exchange Server in attacks, even as the US Government issued an emergency directive telling all US federal bodies to patch Exchange and report on exploitation by noon on Friday.

Radeon R600 Gallium3D Flips On OpenGL 4.5 For NIR Backend - Phoronix

The experimental NIR back-end for the R600 Gallium3D driver as an alternative to the default TGSI code-path has now enabled OpenGL 4.5 support for capable GPUs. With a number of OpenGL 4.5 conformance test suite fixes that were merged on Tuesday, OpenGL 4.5 is now ultimately enabled for the NIR code path. This OpenGL 4.5 support is enabled for all Radeon HD 5000 "Cedar" GPUs through the Radeon HD 6000 series where the R600g driver support ends. Previously and for the non-NIR code-path this is at OpenGL 4.3 support.

Microsoft Sends Out Patches For Hyper-V "Isolation VMs" With Linux [Ed: Microsoft is interjecting shims for proprietary software with NSA back doors... into the Linux kernel]

With the forthcoming Linux 5.12 kernel there is a big Redmond victory with Linux being able to boot as the root partition on Microsoft's hypervisor while moving forward the company still has more in store for the ongoing years long effort of Linux on Hyper-V. [...] At the moment there are 12 patches from Microsoft engineers under a "request for comments" banner on implementing this Hyper-V support for Isolation VMs -- both with VBS and AMD SEV-SNP. It's obviously too late for seeing in the 5.12 kernel but we'll see when this latest Hyper-V driver initiative is buttoned up and ready for mainline.

Thank You for Participating in Open Sharing Is Caring!

In our Open Sharing is Caring challenge, we asked you to openly share an image, song, artwork, research paper, poem, GIF…whatever it may be with the world by gifting it to the public domain. By using #OpenSharingIsCaring on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, we watched as you generously gave to the public domain.

More collaboration and clarity in Open Science, the study says

The latest report on the state of Open Source Software in higher education and research was published at the end of January. The report is a part of the support that DINUM, the French interministerial agency, has given to the mission Bothorel that recently put forward several recommendations on Open Data and Open Source.

The research conducted by the consultancy Inno³ focuses on Open Source in higher education and research and bases on a survey of over twenty institutions and other studies on the subject. It aims to draw a first overview of Open Source practices in higher education and research institutions and analyse related challenges and opportunities. The report also took a look at internal Open Source policies in analysed organisations in relation to other perspectives on digital development, such as digital sovereignty, open data, open access.

Christian Hergert: Rust and GNOME Builder

In this tutorial, we will learn how to setup docker private registry on Ubuntu 20.04 and learn how to push and pull images to and from private registry. [...] Just create a new project using the “GNOME Application” template, select “Rust” as the language, and Run.

This Week In Rust: This Week in Rust 380

3 Excellent Free Books to Learn about VHDL - LinuxLinks

VHDL (VHSIC-HDL, Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) is a hardware description language used in electronic design automation to describe digital and mixed-signal systems such as field-programmable gate arrays and integrated circuits. VHDL can also be used as a general-purpose parallel programming language. VHDL is an extremely powerful tool. The more you understand as you work and study with VHDL, the more it will enhance your learning experience independently of your particular area of interest. The concept of using software to design hardware that is controlled by software will definitely provide you with endless hours of contemplation. VHDL is designed to fill a number of needs in the design process. Firstly, it allows description of the structure of a design, that is how it is decomposed into sub-designs, and how those sub-designs are interconnected. Secondly, it allows the specification of the function of designs using familiar programming language forms. Thirdly, as a result, it allows a design to be simulated before being manufactured, so that designers can quickly compare alternatives and test for correctness without the delay and expense of hardware prototyping.

Building rootless containers for JavaScript front ends

By default, most containers are run as the root user. It is much easier to install dependencies, edit files, and run processes on restricted ports when they run as root. As is usually the case in computer science, though, simplicity comes at a cost. In this case, containers run as root are more vulnerable to malicious code and attacks. To avoid those potential security gaps, Red Hat OpenShift won’t let you run containers as a root user. This restriction adds a layer of security and isolates the containers. This article shows you how to run a JavaScript front-end application in a rootless container. The example builds on the code from my previous article, Making environment variables accessible in front-end containers.

Learn to debug code with the GNU Debugger

The GNU Debugger, more commonly known by its command, gdb, is an interactive console to help you step through source code, analyze what gets executed, and essentially reverse-engineer what's going wrong in a buggy application. [...] Whether you're just learning GDB or you're a pro at it, it never hurts to have a reminder of what commands are available to you and what the syntax for those commands are.

Runaway JavaScript Spec

XML is tree based. Logical and good, feels like all extensions have their perfect places, and it degrades gracefully if you are a little behind. Things can, in theory, also get deprecated (i.e. things that are too old could also degrade gracefully, if people would’ve been mature enough to remove old stale things from their specs—an example of this that did happen is <blink>; in many browsers blink text now is rendered as just plain text).

CSS is based around selectors and properties. Another setup that’s a very robust and future-proof spine.

JavaScript is a language that is grown in a wild way. Compared to languages ​​like Lisp and Forth that can be expanded with the same consistent, logical methods that XML and CSS can.

Lotus 1-2-3

I tend to use a lot of retro software, partly because I’m a big nerd but also because I just prefer to work in a terminal. There were a ton of major commercial software products for MS-DOS that were highly polished, and can still be used effectively in an xterm today.

I do like using Lotus 1-2-3, I even have a boxed copy of the last DOS version released, version 4!