Orchard Audio’s “ApplePi DAC” audio HAT add-on for the Raspberry Pi is available for $175 on Kickstarter, featuring two Burr Brown PCM1794A monoaural DACs, a 128dB SNR, and both balanced and unbalanced outputs.

Orchard Audio quickly surpassed its $5K Kickstarter goal for its ApplePi DAC HAT board, which it is promoting as “the most advanced and highest performance sound card hat for the Raspberry Pi.” It didn’t hurt that Orchard posted a couple of favorable reviews, including one from Volumio co-founder Michelangelo, who wrote: “This DAC is producing the most detailed sound to ever come out of my Raspberry Pi.”

With only three days left before Canonical's highly anticipated Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system hits the streets, today we're taking a first look at one of its newest features.

As the headline implies, the next Ubuntu release will ship with a brand new Welcome screen, for the first time in the history of the Linux-based operating system. After installing Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on your personal computer, you'll be greeted by a welcome screen to help you set up a few things.

Welcome screens have been used before in the Ubuntu world, by the Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie official flavors for example, and are also being used by numerous other GNU/Linux distributions out there to provide a one-stop solution for setting up your freshly installed operating system.

Ubuntu itself never used a welcome screen, but with the forthcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release things change in this regard. The new welcome screen in Bionic Beaver will help new and returning users better understand how the brand-new GNOME user interface works, as well as to set up things like Canonical Livepatch.

• The new GOG profile system is out, looks quite slick

  DRM free store GOG has just released their new profile system and it's surprisingly slick to look at.

• Brutal Hexen-inspired FPS 'Apocryph' is planning to release on April 27th

  Remember Apocryph? The brutal FPS inspired by the likes of Hexen, Heretic, Painkiller and so on. Much like its inspiration, it's set in a brutal dark fantasy world, one that you're going to turn red. Well the developer has announced that they're aiming for an April 27th release!

• Six-degree-of-freedom shooter 'Overload' to release May 31st

  Overload, the fantastic six-degree-of-freedom shooter from the creators of Descent is due to officially release May 31st with full Linux support.

• Paradox has announced Stellaris: Distant Stars, a new story pack

  Space is about to get bigger again, as Paradox has announced Stellaris: Distant Stars, a new story pack for the space grand strategy game.

  I've said many times they needed more overall content and they've gradually delivered bit by bit. This has me quite excited, as the last big expansion was pretty damn fun to play around with.

• Microsoft picks Linux over Windows for IoT cloud connectivity and security product Azure Sphere [Ed: No, that still requires Windows and Microsoft subscription/surveillance among other Microsoft proprietary software. They just (mis)use the brand "Linux" to promote words like "Azure" with "security". A sort of googlebombing of many terms that are hoping to latch onto.]

• gksu Removed From Ubuntu, Here’s What You Can Use Instead

  gksu is deprecated. It is removed from Debian, Ubuntu 18.04 and other newer Linux distribution version. You can achieve the gksu functionality with gvfs admin backend. Here’s how to do that.

  I am exploring Ubuntu 18.04 these days. And when I was trying to suppress the Ubuntu crash report, I tried to use a command with gksu.

 

• [Slackware] MSB and CSB Mass Rebuilt

• Fedora 28 : The OpenShot video editor.

• Fedora Infrastructure Hackfest 2018 Recap

• Open Source Security Podcast: Episode 93 - Security flaws in beep and patch, how did we get here?

• How I accidentally wrote a Wikipedia page on a layover in Dublin

  A most unusual but wonderful experience happened to me recently on a return trip from Europe to the United States.

  A series of heavy Nor'easters hit the U.S. East Coast over the last couple weeks, one of which coincided with my trip back to Rochester, NY. While we didn’t have flooding, we had a lot of snow. A lot of snow means canceled flights.

  As I made my way through border control in Dublin, Ireland on March 7, I discovered my connection to New York City would likely be canceled. A meander from baggage claim to the check-in desk confirmed this. Fortunately, Aer Lingus had no issue putting me up in a hotel overnight, with dinner and breakfast, so that I could catch the next flight to New York the following day.

• When should you open source your software?

  It’s 20 years this this since the term ‘Open Source’ was coined. In that time the movement for free and open software has gone from a niche to a common method of distribution and a normal way of operating for businesses.

  Major technology shifts are now driven by open source technologies: Big Data (Hadoop, Spark), AI (TensorFlow, Caffe), and Containers (Docker, Kubernetes) are all open projects. Massive companies including Google, Facebook, and even Lyft regularly release Open Source tools for the world to use. Microsoft – whose former CEO once described Linux as a cancer – now embraces the concept.

• GNU Parallel 20180422 ('Tiangong-1') released

  Quote of the month:

  Today I discovered GNU Parallel, and I don’t know what to do with all this spare time.
  --Ryan Booker

• Devhelp news

  For more context, I started to contribute to Devhelp in 2015 to fix some annoying bugs (it’s an application that I use almost every day). Then I got hooked, I contributed more, became a co-maintainer last year, etc. Devhelp is a nice little project, I would like it to be better known and used more outside of GNOME development, for example for the Linux kernel now that they have a good API documentation infrastructure (it’s just a matter of generating *.devhelp2 index files alongside the HTML pages).

• Best practices for Java and IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) on IBM POWER9

• Verifying local definitions in Coq

• SSH client configuration tricks

• Angle Grinder - Tool to Format and Parse Log Files in Linux

• 3 Command Line Tools to Install Local Debian (.DEB) Packages

• How To Update/Install Oracle Kernel Critical Security Updates Without Rebooting

• PUBG Mobile UPDATE: Delayed iOS patch live as fans report Android account issue

• Google launching Android chat service to replace SMS

• Android Auto users can now access full contact list

• SwiftKey for Android gets support for new languages, some bug fixes

In my short time working for Clarkson University, I've realized what a huge impact this small university is making on the open source world. Our 4,300 student-strong science and technology-focused institution, located just south of the Canadian border in Potsdam, New York, hosts the Clarkson Open Source Institute (COSI), dedicated to promoting open source software and providing equipment and support for student projects.

While many universities offer opportunities for students to get involved in open source projects, it's rare to have an entire institute dedicated to promoting open source development. COSI is part of Clarkson's Applied Computer Science Labs within the computer science department. It, along with the Internet Teaching Lab and the Virtual Reality Lab, is run by students (supported by faculty advisers), allowing them to gain experience in managing both facilities and projects while still undergraduates.

So rc2 is out, and things look fairly normal.

The diff looks a bit unusual, with the tools subdirectory dominating,
with 30%+ of the whole diff. Mostly perf and test scripts.

But if you ignore that, the rest looks fairly usual. Arch updates
(s390 and x86 dominate) and drivers (networking, gpu, HID, mmc, misc)
are the bulk of it, with misc other changes all over (filesystems,
core kernel, networking, docs).

We've still got some known fallout from the merge window, but it
shouldn't affect most normal configurations, so go out and test.

Linus

Also: Upstream Linux support for new NXP i.MX8

• The Good Work of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the Latest Attempts to Undermine It
• District Courts’ Patent Cases, Including the Eastern District of Texas (EDTX/TXED), in a Nutshell
• The Federal Circuit’s (CAFC) Decisions Are Being Twisted by Patent Propaganda Sites Which Merely Cherry-Pick Cases With Outcomes That Suit Them
• Patents Roundup: Metaswitch, GENBAND, Susman, Cisco, Konami, High 5 Games, HTC, and Nintendo
• In Maxon v Funai the High ‘Patent Court’ (CAFC) Reaffirms Disdain for Software Patents, Which Are Nowadays Harder to Get and Then Defend
• Today’s European Patent Office Works for Patent Extremists and for Team UPC Rather Than for Europe or for Innovation
• The EPO is Dying and Those Who Have Killed It Are Becoming Very Rich in the Process
• Short: Just Keep Repeating the Lie (“Quality”) Until People Might Believe It
• Shelston IP Keeps Pressuring IP Australia to Allow Software Patents and Harm Software Development

Chakra is an unusual distribution for a few reasons. It is a rare semi-rolling project, which tries to maintain a fairly stable base system while providing up to date applications. This is an interesting compromise between full rolling and static operating systems. The semi-rolling concept is an idea I like and I was curious to see how well the approach would work dealing with around six months of updates. I was pleased to find Chakra handled the massive upgrade well.

Chakra was once also considered unusual for being very KDE-focused. There are more KDE distribution these days (KaOS, Kubuntu and KDE neon come readily to mind) and I think Chakra may have lost some of its appeal as more competition has established itself in the KDE-centric arena.

I found the distribution to be easy to set up and pretty straight forward to use, but there were a few characteristics which bothered me during my trial with Chakra. One was that while updates installed cleanly, once Plasma 5.12 was installed, I experienced slow login times and reduced performance on the desktop. It could be argued that this is a Plasma problem, not a Chakra problem, but the distribution's rolling release nature means any regressions in new versions of software end up in the user's lap.

Something that tends to bother me about distributions which focus on one desktop toolkit or another is that this approach to selecting software means we are sometimes using less capable tools in the name of toolkit purity. This is not a trade-off I like as I'd rather be using more polished applications over ones which a particular affiliation.

Finally, Chakra includes a number of command line aliases which got in my way. This seems to be a problem I have been running into more often recently. Developers are trying to be helpful by aliasing common commands, but it means that for some tasks I need to change my habits or undefine the provided aliases and the feature ends up being a nuisance instead of a convenience.

Chakra seems to be a capable and useful distribution and I am sure there are people who will appreciate the rolling release nature. Many people will likely also like having lots of KDE applications, and I can see the appeal of this combination. However, one thing which makes me hesitate to recommend Chakra is that the distribution does not appear to bring any special features to the ecosystem. It's a useful operating system and, to be completely fair, users can install non-KDE alternatives if they want to use LibreOffice instead of Calligra or GIMP instead of KolourPaint. But I'm not sure Chakra brings anything unique which makes it stand apart from openSUSE's Tumbleweed or KaOS's polished Plasma offering. Chakra used to be special in its semi-rolling, KDE-focused niche, but these days the distribution has a more competition and I'm not sure the project has any special sauce to set it apart from the crowd.

Back in February, some commits to the Chromium codebase revealed that Chrome OS would soon run Linux applications using a container. While it has been possible for years to run Linux applications on top of Chrome OS using crouton, it's a hacky solution that only works in Developer Mode. Google's solution would presumably work better, and perhaps not require Dev Mode to be enabled.

Let's cut to the chase. Android is the most popular of all Linux distributions. Period. End of statement. But that's not the entire story.

Still it must be said, according to StatCounter, Android is the most popular of all operating systems. By a score of 39.49 percent to 36.63 percent, Android beats out Windows for global personal device supremacy. Sorry Windows, you had a nice run, but between your smartphone failures and the PC decline, your day is done.

But, setting Android aside, what's the most popular Linux? It's impossible to work that out. The website-based analysis tools, such as those used by StatCounter, NetMarketShare, and the Federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP), can't tell the difference between Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu.

DAP does give one insightful measurement the others sites don't give us. While not nearly as popular as Android, Chrome OS is more popular than all the other Linux-based desktops combined by a score, in April 2018, of 1.3 percent to 0.6 percent of end users.

• China's ZTE seeks resolution of U.S. export ban

  China’s ZTE (0763.HK) (000063.SZ) is seeking a resolution to a U.S. ban on selling it parts and software that it has said threatens its survival.

• Google Chat and RCS, Linux apps on a Chromebook, end of ZTE, and new Moto phones (MobileTechRoundup show #430)

  Did you also know that Kevin started up a new website, About Chromebooks, where he writes about his passion for Chromebooks, Chrome OS, and Chrome tablets? Make sure to check it out if you are interested at all in news, how-tos, views, and reviews. He knows his stuff and has been a Chrome user from day one.

• 8 Best Android Wallpaper App List To Improve Looks Of Your Phone In 2018

  Wallpapers give a unique look to our smartphone’s home screen. We use our phone for a hundred times every day, and the wallpaper is the first thing we lay our eyes on. Instead of searching images through the web and downloading them one by one, you can use the apps that are tailored for this purpose.

• Android Easter Eggs from Gingerbread to Oreo: A History Lesson

• SC-Controller 0.4.2 Brings Better On-Screen Keyboard

  For those using the independent, open-source SC-Controller user-mode driver and GTK3 GUI for the Steam Controller, a new release is available in time for any weekend gaming.

  SC-Controller 0.4.2 is now available for this popular user-space driver/program for using the Steam Controller and similar devices outside of Steam as well as managing the buttons/profiles and other tunables.

• Valve Acquires Campo Santo Game Studio

  While still hoping to see their new Artifact game this year, it seems Valve is serious after all about getting back into the gaming spirit. News coming out this weekend is that Valve has acquired the Campo Santo game studio and its developers will be joining Valve.

• Campo Santo News

  The twelve of us at Campo Santo have agreed to join Valve, where we will maintain our jobs as video game developers and continue production on our current project, In the Valley of Gods.

• Campo Santo, developer of Firewatch has joined Valve

  It seems Valve are quite serious about getting back into making games, as Campo Santo the developer of Firewatch has joined them.

• Loot-based action RPG with time travel 'Last Epoch' will be on Linux

  Not enough RPGs on Linux for you? Last Epoch [Official Site], a loot-based action RPG that involves time travel is coming to Linux.

  It's currently on Kickstarter, where the developer is hoping to get at least $210K in funding with $53K already pledged. They have around 24 days to go so they have plenty of time to gather funding.

• Linux versions of classic title The Dame Was Loaded and Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight now on GOG

• War for the Overworld has a huge patch and DLC release

• Android Easter Eggs from Gingerbread to Oreo: A History Lesson

• Android Auto adds ability to view full contacts list

• Installing apps from other sources under Android 8

• Huawei P20 Pro vs. Galaxy S9+: What's the Better Android?

• US-China Trade War Is Bad News for Google's Expansion

• What do you think Android P will be called?

With this week's Ryzen 5 2600X + Ryzen 7 2700X benchmarks some thought the CPUFreq scaling driver or rather its governors may have been limiting the performance of these Zen+ CPUs, so I ran some additional benchmarks this weekend.

Those launch-day Ryzen 5 2600X / Ryzen 7 2700X Ubuntu Linux benchmarks were using the "performance" governor, but some have alleged that the performance governor may now actually hurt AMD systems... Ondemand, of course, is the default CPUFreq governor on Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions. Some also have said the "schedutil" governor that makes use of the kernel's scheduler utilization data may do better on AMD. So I ran some extra benchmarks while changing between CPUFreq's ondemand (default), performance (normally the best for performance, and what was used in our CPU tests), schedutil (the newest option), and powersave (if you really just care about conserving power).

• Libjpeg-Turbo 2.0 Beta Brings More AVX2 SIMD, Improved CMake Build System

  A Phoronix reader recently pointed out that LibJPEG 2.0 Beta quietly shipped last month as working towards the next big update for this speed-focused JPEG library.

  Libjpeg-Turbo 2.0 beta is available for testing and it brings AVX2 SIMD support for colorspace conversion, chroma downsampling/upsampling, integer quantization and sample conversion, and integer DCT/IDCT algorithms. These AVX2 SIMD accelerated paths are generally bringing gains anywhere from 9% to 36% faster depending upon the operation. This version is also bringing SIMD acceleration for Huffman encoding on SSE2 CPUs and Loongson MMI SIMD implementations for more functions.

• A look at Rancher 2.0

  Last December, we announced a Kubernetes Cloud Native Platform in partnership with Rancher Labs. Built on Canonical’s Distribution of Kubernetes and Rancher 2.0, the Cloud Native Platform will simplify enterprise usage of Kubernetes with seamless user management, access control, and cluster administration. Join our webinar to get a tour of the platform!

• Mozilla's Common Voice Project, Red Hat Announces Vault Operator, VirtualBox 5.2.10 Released and More

  Participate in Mozilla's open-source Common Voice Project, an initiative to help teach machines how real people speak: "Now you can donate your voice to help us build an open-source voice database that anyone can use to make innovative apps for devices and the web."

• Collabora Online 3.2 Supports Chart Creation, Other Features

  A new version of Collabora Online is now available, the web-based open-source office suite derived from the cloud version of LibreOffice.

• DragonFlyBSD Kernel Gets Some SMP Improvements

  It looks like the DragonFlyBSD 5.4 release will be delivering at least a few kernel-level performance improvements.

  It turns out just hours after wrapping up the latest BSD vs. Linux benchmarks, Matthew Dillon pushed a few performance tweaks to the Git tree for DragonFly.

• Best Open Source 3D Printers

  In simplest terms, an open source 3D printer refers to a 3D printer whose hardware and software information are available to the public, typically under a license. The information can be used by anyone to build, modify, or improve the 3D printer.

  If you’re looking for real open source 3D printers, then you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we introduce you to completely open source 3D printers. The hardware and software information of all the products listed here can be easily found on the internet.

• Microsoft Calls On Linux for Its New IoT Security Platform [Ed: When Microsoft exploits Linux it's for lockin which requires that you buy a licence for Windows, Visual Studio etc. while paying Microsoft rents.]

• Microsoft Improves Linux Subsystem Security; Adds Windows Defender Firewall Support [Ed: No, FOSSBytes, Microsoft just puts GNU/Linux with limited functionality inside a keylogger (Vista 10) with back doors, then markets that as "security" for dumb writers to repeat]

• Researchers Deliver Open-Source Simulator For Cyber Physical Systems

  Cyber physical systems (CPS) are attracting more attention than ever thanks to the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its combination with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and the cloud. These interacting networks of physical and computational components will provide the foundation of critical infrastructure, form the basis of 'smart' services, and improve the quality of life in areas ranging from energy and environment to transportation and healthcare.