Today in Techrights

• The World Wide Web Has Become Proprietary and the Last Remaining 'Major' Browser That Was (Pre-EME) Free Software Is Rapidly Becoming Useless and User-Hostile (It's Monopoly- and Surveillance-Sponsored)
• Links 8/3/2021: Waffle 1.7.0 and a Look at the New Pardus (19.5)
• Real Feminism is Grassroots, Not a Corporate Ploy (to Improve Image and Sales)
• Gemini Capsules and Pages Now Accessible in a Web Browser, Qutebrowser, But Qutebrowser Has Issues
• IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 07, 2021
• Moving Away From the World Wide Web is a Wise Move, at Least to the Degree Which is Possible
• The Banality of Bribery
• When I Discovered People Trafficking in Free/Open Source Software
• Links 7/3/2021: AviDemux 2.7.8, Thunar 4.16.4
• Links 7/3/2021: Sparky 2021.03, SystemRescue 8.00, and FreeBSD 13.0 RC1
• IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 06, 2021
• How To Deal With Your Raspberry Spy -- Part V: All The Rest

Kernel: Git, Intel, AMD and Bugs

   

• Applying mailing list patches with 'git b4'

  b4 was created by Konstantin Ryabitsev and has become a very frequently used tool for me. It supports a lot of different ways for interacting with the Linux Kernel mailing lists. Of these the b4 am subcommand is what I primarily use. This subcommand downloads all of the patches belonging to a patch series and drops them into a .mbox file. But! It doesn't apply them to the repository we're currently in, and herein lies the itch that I would like to scratch.

 

• Intel Lunar Lake ‘Next-Gen’ Core CPUs Get First Support In Linux Patches, Expected To Succeed Meteor Lake By 2023

  The support page was spotted by Coelacanth's Dream (via Osuosi / Videocardz). The patch adds support for Intel Lunar Lake CPUs on the Ethernet e1000e network driver (Gigabyte NIC for Linux and Virtual Systems). The Lunar Lake is clearly listed as a next-gen Client Platform which confirms that it will be launching for both desktop and mobility segments. Other than that, there's not much that we can decipher from the support page.  

• AMD Has A Very Exciting Announcement Next Week

  On the desktop side, Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 processors continue impressing on Linux that make us all the more excited for the EPYC 7003 series. 

• Linux Kernel 5.12 rc-1 Not Ready for Use

  In a recent message on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Linus Torvalds warned everyone not to use the 5.12-rc1 kernel, due to an “unusually nasty bug” that was not caught during normal testing. “The reason is fairly straightforward,” Torvalds explains, “this merge window, we had a very innocuous code cleanup and simplification that raised no red flags at all, but had a subtle and very nasty bug in it: swap files stopped working right … the offset of the start of the swap file was lost.”  Swapping still happened, he says, “but it happened to the wrong part of the filesystem, with the obvious catastrophic end results.” 

Games: GamerOS, MakerKing, Island Artist, Receiver 2

• Sofa gaming Linux distro GamerOS version 23 is out continuing to fill the gap of SteamOS | GamingOnLinux

  Filling in the gap left by Valve leaving SteamOS alone, the sofa / couch gaming distribution GamerOS has a brand new release available with the usual great improvements. Booting directly into Steam Big Picture mode, the idea is to have this is the only install on a machine hooked up to a TV. Perhaps in a living room or a dedicated gaming room. It takes things a step or two further though, including plenty of extra enhancements for emulators and non-Steam games with their special tools like Steam Buddy.

• Mario Maker-like platformer MakerKing has a huge update, lets you make mobs | GamingOnLinux

  MakerKing (previously called Jumpaï), is a free to play 2D indie platformer in the spirit of Mario Maker where all players can design their own levels. The whole idea is to design and share, then play the creations from other people. Not only that, you can also play directly online with others to compete on your favourite levels. Along with a name change to MakerKing, a huge 0.8 version upgrade recently went out which gives the game quite a nice overhaul. The big headline feature is that you can now add in your own mobs, created by sticking parts together - it's actually quite amusing.

• Island Artist is a short and sweet game about relaxing and being creative | GamingOnLinux

  Love your small experimental games? I sure do and one I came across recently called Island Artist is absolutely wonderful. It features a hand-crafted world where you walk around and create wonderful paintings. It reminds me quite a lot of Shutter Stroll and gives off that same kind of vibe. There's no depth to the game other than walk around, chill out and perhaps create your next masterpiece, although the tools are simple so don't expect too much from it. Something to help you find that inner peace on a rainy day perhaps?

• First-person gun simulator action game Receiver 2 gets a proper practice area

  Love a good shooter? What about one where there's a lot of simulation going on with the weapons directly? Receiver 2 gives you quite a bit to learn and now you can actually get some practice in. The key point about Receiver 2 is that it simulates every internal part of each firearm based on manufacturer schematics and gunsmithing resources. This means you can actually learn exactly how each sidearm works, including how to load and unload them, clear malfunctions, and operate their safety features. Educational? Perhaps but it's also an action game about taking down drones and collecting tapes.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Might See Micro-Architecture Packages For Better Performance

One of the many great programs at SUSE is the roughly annual program where their developers can focus for one week on any new open-source development they desire. SUSE Hack Week has led to many great innovations and improvements since it began in the mid-2000s and for the Hack Week later this month there is one project attempt we are eager to see tackled. Proposed ahead of this year's SUSE Hack Week 20 event, which runs the last week of March, is supporting glibc-hwcaps and providing micro-architecture package generation support for openSUSE Tumbleweed and down the line for SLE/Leap. [...] SUSE's Antonio Larrosa is planning to experiment with the new capabilities and initially investigate a handful of libraries that would stand to benefit from the HWCAPS functionality. This would be catering to the openSUSE/SUSE buid process and establishing RPM macros and documentation in helping guide packagers around creating micro-architecture packages. The current plan would be to spin the different micro-architecture packages into separate packages that can be installed by the user to supplement the generic package if they are wanting to pursue the optimized packages in the name of greater performance.