today's leftovers

• Phillips 66 reduces costs and increases agility with SUSE

  How does one of the largest oil producers in the world mitigate a global pandemic that completely wipes out global demand? That was precisely the situation American oil giant Phillips 66 was faced with when Coronavirus first emerged in late 2019. For the first time in history, crude oil prices fell below zero, throwing this often volatile market into a new level of uncertainty. Oil production facilities, unable to cease operations, were filling up storage tanks faster than expected demand, forcing them pay buyers to take oil off their hands.

• Cintiq or Intuos? ...or both? The tablets I use. - David Revoy

  I'm showing my usage of two different tablets to answer the classic "What tablet are you using?". I also do that because I'm tired about the numbered videos "Intuos VS Cintiq" as if you had to choose one clan over the other... Both have pros and cons and with a sane operating system (like my Kubuntu Linux 20.04) you can unplug one on the fly and use the other without too much magnetic noises and a get plug'n'play experience. It really helps, I don't even need to restart Krita. For more information about my tablets, read this blog post where I detail all the one I owned over the last 20 years: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article332/tablet-history-log

 

• The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache® Daffodil™ as a Top-Level Project

  The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 350 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today Apache® Daffodil™ as a Top-Level Project (TLP). Apache Daffodil is an Open Source implementation of the Data Format Description Language 1.0 specification (DFDL; the Open Grid Forum open standard framework for describing the attributes of any data format [1]) to enable universal data interchange. The project was first created at the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 2009, and entered the Apache Incubator in August 2017. "We're extremely excited that Apache Daffodil has achieved this important milestone in its development. The Daffodil DFDL implementation is a game changer in complex text and binary data interfaces and creates massive opportunities for organizations to easily implement highly sophisticated processes like data decomposition, inspection, and reassembly," said Michael Beckerle, Vice President of Apache Daffodil. "Instead of spending a lot of time worrying about how to deal with so many kinds of data that you need to take in, from day one you can convert all sorts of data into XML, or JSON, or your preferred data structure, and convert back if you need to write data out in its original format."

• Privacy-Focused Brave Browser Plans to Challenge Google With A Private Search Engine

  Brave Browser has been quite impressive with its constant developments for privacy-focused users as a Google Chrome alternative. No wonder why Google could be locking down Chrome to resist the rise of Chromium-based browsers. Recently, they announced their acquisition of an open-source search engine ‘Tailcat’ by the ex-Devs of Cliqz and shared plans to utilize it to introduce a private Google search alternative. Yes, we may have several privacy-focused Google search alternatives already. However, with Brave Search, it could be a proper alternative to the offering of Google Chrome + Google Search. Let me highlight a few details that you might want to know about Brave Search.

• Screenshots suck. But they’re about to get a lot smarter

  Screenshots are ubiquitous. From shopping references to memes and from saving cat photos to serious research, they’re a routine and important quality-of-life feature on computers and mobile devices everywhere. Android 12 should finally get full-page website screenshots, if Google can iron the bugs out before release. Samsung and Apple have had that feature for a while, but their recent patents show an interest in capturing metadata, from live links to site-specific information like street addresses and song titles. Tap Scroll Capture when you screenshot a Samsung Galaxy, and the phone’s screenshot tool will stitch together a long screenshot to capture an entire website. Browse your screenshots in the Gallery, and you’ll see a Go To Website shortcut, a feature introduced in 2017.

• Security updates for Thursday [LWN.net]

  Security updates have been issued by Fedora (389-ds-base, dogtag-pki, freeipa, isync, pki-core, and screen), Mageia (firefox, kernel, kernel-linus, libtiff, nonfree-firmware, and thunderbird), Red Hat (bind and java-1.8.0-ibm), Scientific Linux (grub2), and SUSE (kernel-firmware, openldap2, postgresql12, and python-cryptography).

• Positive Technologies Researcher Discovers And Fixes Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities

  Positive Technologies security researcher Alexander Popov has discovered and fixed five similar issues in the virtual socket implementation of the Linux kernel. These vulnerabilities could be exploited for local privilege escalation, as confirmed by Popov in experiments on Fedora 33 Server. The vulnerabilities, known together as CVE-2021-26708, have received a CVSS v3 base score of 7.0 (high severity). [...] Popov said: “I successfully developed a prototype exploit for local privilege escalation on Fedora 33 Server, bypassing x86_64 platform protections such as SMEP and SMAP. This research will lead to new ideas on how to improve Linux kernel security.”

• Most Reliable Hosting Company Sites in February 2021 [Ed: 9 out of 10 are GNU/Linux-powered]

  Choopa.com took the top spot as the most reliable hosting company site in February. The top five hosting company sites all had no failed requests during the month, with the ranking decided by fastest average connection time. Choopa.com had the fastest connection time out of all of the top 10 hosting company websites, at just 5ms. In the past 12 months Choopa.com appeared in the top 10 nine times. Choopa.com offers a range of services including cloud hosting, dedicated hosting and colocation in its own primary facility in Piscataway, New Jersey as well as other facilities in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. Spots two and three in February go to Rackspace and Webair. Rackspace provide a wide variety of cloud services from its global network of over 50 locations in five continents, and Webair offer managed and private cloud services, storage and backup solutions from its eight facilities in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Singapore. The other two hosting companies to respond to every request during February were Hyve and CWCS.

• LinuxLinks – The Home of Linux

  Over the years, we’ve written an enormous range of articles showcasing the finest free and open source Linux software. There’s other computer related areas that we also regularly dive into such as programming, hardware, Android, and more. Many of these articles are published in a series. It therefore makes sense to collate all of these series into a central location.

Software: Sweet Home 3D 6.5, Video Editors, and Tor Browser 10.0.13 (GNU/Linux Only)

• Sweet Home 3D 6.5

  Sweet Home 3D 6.5 was released on March 2, 2021 to fix many bugs and bring a few improvements described in version history. [...] The main change is the Java runtime now bundled with Sweet Home 3D installer under Windows 64 bit and Mac OS X ≥ 10.9. Under Windows, Sweet Home 3D 6.5 is bundled with Azul OpenJDK 11.0.10 when installed with a 64 bit architecture, bringing a better user interface under HiDPI screens. Under Mac OS X ≥ 10.9, Sweet Home 3D is bundled with Azul OpenJDK 15.0.2 which supports notarization and the Apple new M1 processor for applications launched from an .app bundle. The Windows 32 bit version of Sweet Home 3D is still bundled with Oracle Java 8u202, mainly to keep the support of old Windows versions like Windows XP. Under Mac OS X ≤ 10.9, you'll have to use SweetHome3D-6.5-macosx-10.4-10.9.dmg installer which runs with Apple Java 6 and Java 3D 1.5.2 (notice that Mac OS X 10.9 is the only Mac OS X version able to run Sweet Home 3D coming from either installers). Under Linux, the Java runtime bundled with installers were not updated yet. Finally, the JOGL library running with Java 3D 1.6.1 was upgraded to version 2.4 RC 20210111 to ensure the compatibility of Sweet Home 3D and Furniture Library Editor with Java 9 and above under Mac OS X.

• Sweet Home 3D 6.5 Released, How to Install in Ubuntu 20.04

  Free interior design software SweetHome3D 6.5 was released a few day ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 19.x, and 20.x.

• 20 Free Video Editing Apps for Beginners [Ed: Several of the programs in this article are also free as in freedom]

  6. Shotcut Shotcut is an open source, cross platform video editing software. The tool supports a wide range of video formats. So it’s perfect for those who need to create content for multiple platforms. The video editor offers native timeline editing. So you don’t need to import specialized content to use it. You can also easily capture content from cameras, webcams, online, or audio files. Shotcut is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. Since it’s an open source tool, there are no fees. And it’s possible to create customized solutions. But there may be a bit of a learning curve for those who want to use the tool for specific purposes. There are plenty of tutorials available on the website to help you learn the features and abilities. 7. OpenShot OpenShot is an open source video editor that’s 100 percent free. You simply download the video editing software to your computer. Then you can quickly upload content and edit it in a variety of ways. Features include trimming, background editing, titles, unlimited tracks and layers, slow motion, and animation options. It’s also known for its easy to use features and intuitive interface, making it an ideal video editing software for beginners. OpenShot is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is distributed under a GNU General Public License. So you can modify and distribute it as well.

• New Release: Tor Browser 10.0.13 (Linux Only)

  Tor Browser 10.0.13 for Linux is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

  This version fixes instability on some Linux distributions.

today's howtos

• 6 Ways to check user information in Linux

  Most of us use the id command, and some users filter the user information from the /etc/passwd file. If you are a beginner for Linux operating systems and want to know more about the /etc/passwd file, please refer the following article. In general, we use the above two commands to obtain user information. You may ask why to discuss this basic topic. People think there are no alternatives other other than these two commands, but we found that there are other ways to gather user information. Hence, we have created this article to guide you. In this tutorial, we will discuss all these methods in detail. This is one of the basic commands that help the administrator to find information about a user in Linux.

• How to create your WordPress developer stack on OpenShift 4 | Enable Sysadmin

  Learn how to deploy your WordPress developer stack on OpenShift 4 by using tools such as Nginx, Php-fpm, Phpmyadmin, Mariadb, Red Hat CodeReady, and Tekton.

• The Ultimate Docker Cheat Sheet - Quick Reference - LinuxBuz

  A Docker cheat sheet is a set of nodes used for quick reference while using Docker in the real world. I have prepared a Docker cheat sheet that includes an extensive list of Docker commands. Here, I am presenting my Docker Cheat Sheet (a one-page guide) with all common terms and useful one-liners commands. You can use it as a quick reference guide when working with Docker. If you want to learn more about Docker with detail information and examples, you can read the rest of the article.