• Netflix's Gift to Linux | LINUX Unplugged 293

  Developers at Netflix are creating the next set of super powers for Linux, we'll get the details straight from the source.

  Plus some good Debian news, our tips for better battery life, and we play a little Hot SUSE Potato.

• GeekRant #353 - Don't Make Me Laugh

• How Install Redis on CentOS 7

• How to Install Wiki.js on CentOS 7

• How to Watch Your Favorite Streaming Services on Linux

• How to enable EPEL on CentOS/RHEL

• KeePassXC 2.4 Released with High-DPI Scaling for 4K Screens

  After two beta releases, KeePassXC password manager 2.4.0 finally goes stable. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and higher.

• Women win all open board director seats in Open Source Initiative 2019 board elections

  A person discussed six female candidates in misogynistic language on Slashdot, which is a tech-focussed social news website. The post also then labeled each woman with how much of a “threat” they were. Slashdot immediately took down this post “shortly afterward the OSI started seeing inappropriate comments posted on its website”.

• About Musix's removal from our list of endorsed distributions

  The maintainer of Musix requested that it be removed from our list of endorsed distributions, as the distribution is no longer maintained.

  In 2018 we updated our list of free GNU/Linux distributions to add a "Historical" section. We retired BLAG Linux and GNU at that time, as it was no longer maintained. We are sad to announce today that Musix will also being moving to the Historical section, as it is likewise no longer maintained. Founded in 2004, Musix was on the list of free GNU/Linux distributions for over a decade. The list helps users to find operating systems that come with only free software and documentation, and that do not promote any nonfree software. Being added to the list means that a distribution has gone through a rigorous screening process, and is dedicated to diligently fixing any freedom issues that may arise.

• F29-20190319 updated Live isos released

  The Fedora Respins SIG is pleased to announce the latest release of Updated F29-20190319 Live ISOs, carrying the 4.20.16-200 kernel.

  This set of updated isos will save considerable amounts of updates after install. ((for new installs.)(New installs of Workstation have 1.2GB of updates)).

  This set also includes a updated iso of the Security Lab.

  A huge thank you goes out to irc nicks dowdle, Southern-Gentlem for testing these iso.

• And the next version of Zorin OS is…

  After a long development cycle, we’re excited to introduce the Beta of the next major version of our operating system: Zorin OS 15. Creating a Linux desktop operating system that’s designed for everyone – not only the engineers & power users – has always been the mission of Zorin OS, ever since the first release nearly 10 years ago. Zorin OS 15 takes this decade-long effort and amplifies it to the next level. Every aspect of the user experience has been re-considered and refined in this new release, from how apps are installed, to how you get work done, to how it interacts with the devices around you. The result is a desktop experience that combines the most powerful desktop technology with the most user-friendly design.

  This is a pre-release Beta version which we have created to get your feedback & bug reports on what we’ve built so far.

• Septor 2019.2 - changes

  Tor Browser is fully installed (8.0.7)
  System upgrade from Debian testing repos as of March 19, 2019

• KDAB at QtDay 2019

  On the 1st and 2nd of April, KDAB will once again be sponsors at this fast-growing Qt event in Italy: QtDay 2019.

  The biggest Qt event in the region, now in its 8th year, contrary to what its name suggests, QtDay 2019 boasts a full two days of technical talks and workshops, each day with two to three tracks.

• LibreOffice Conference 2020: Call for Locations

  Once a year, the LibreOffice Community gathers for a global community event: the LibreOffice Conference, or LibOCon. After a series of successful events – Paris, October 2011; Berlin, October 2012; Milan, September 2013; Bern, September 2014; Aarhus, September 2015; Brno, September 2016; Rome, October 2017; and Tirana, September 2018 – the venue for 2019 is Almeria, Spain.

  To ease the organization, TDF Board of Directors has decided to open the call for location for 2020, to give the 2020 event organizers the opportunity of attending the conference in Almeria in September 2019. The LibreOffice Conference takes place between September and November, with a preference for September.

• Making the Most of your Memory with mmap

  Sometimes it seems that we have nearly infinite memory resources, especially compared to the tiny 48K RAM of yesteryear’s 8-bit computers. But today’s complex applications can soak up megabytes before you know it. While it would be great if developers planned their memory management for all applications, thinking through a memory management strategy is crucial for applications with especially RAM intensive features like image/video processing, massive databases, and machine learning.

  How do you plan a memory management strategy? It’s very dependent on your application and its requirements, but a good start is to work with your operating system instead of against it. That’s where memory mapping comes in. mmap can make your application’s performance better while also improving its memory profile by letting you leverage the same virtual memory paging machinery that the OS itself relies on. Smart use of the memory mapping API (Qt, UNIX, Windows) allows you to transparently handle massive data sets, automatically paging them out of memory as needed – and it’s much better than you’re likely to manage with a roll-your-own memory management scheme.

  Here’s a real-life use case of how we used mmap to optimize RAM use in QiTissue, a medical image application. This application loads, merges, manipulates, and displays highly detailed microscope images that are up to gigabytes in size. It needs to be efficient or risks running out of memory even on desktops loaded with RAM.

• Moving Kolla images to Python 3

  Python… To use 2.7 or to go for 3.x? To “be compatible” or to “use fancy new features”. Next year Python 2 gets finally unsupported upstream.

• PyCharm 2019.1 RC 2

  New in PyCharm 2019.1: completely redesigned Jupyter Notebooks, improved HTML & CSS quick documentation, custom themes, and more. Get the release candidate from our website

• 13 Project Ideas for Intermediate Python Developers

  Learning the basics of Python is a wonderful experience. But the euphoria of just learning can be replaced by the hunger for hands-on projects. It’s normal to want to build projects, hence the need for project ideas.

  The problem though is that some projects are either too simple for an intermediate Python developer or too hard. This article will suggest projects you can work on as an intermediate Python developer. These project ideas will provide the appropriate level of challenge for you.

• Speed: Default value vs checking for None

• Announcing SLE 15 SP1 RC 1 and SES 6 Beta 11!

• Coding in Python 19 - More fun with the OS Module

• Coding in Python 20 - Subprocess

• Coding in Python 21 - Handling Exceptions

• Starting A Django Project

• Microsoft buffs up its open-source halo to fine sheen with PostgreSQL GUI in Azure Data Studio [Ed: These are all proprietary software falsely marketed using "free bait" a.k.a. "open core" or 'open' plugins. It's also surveillance.]

A port city built in tiers, Haifa is found in the northern area of Israel, extending from the Mediterranean sea till the north slope of the Carmel Mountain National Park. Haifa it's the third-largest city in Israel after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and it is close to the biblical city Nazareth where Jesus studied and prayed.

In 2020, the Debian Project will celebrate 12 years since the first DebConf Debian developer conference, so they decided to choose Israel instead of Lisbon, Portugal, for next year's DebConf20 event despite the extensive discussions between the DebConf team and committee due to Israel's political system.

• Debug ACPI DSDT and SSDT with ACPICA Utilities

  Using acpidbg on Ubuntu 18.04 x64 can be quite handy; however, the Linux kernel with ACPI_DEBUGGER is not always available, such as on Ubuntu for ARM. In such cases, acpica also provides a set of utilities, named acpica-tools, for ACPI debugging.

• NVIDIA Jetson Nano is a $99 Computer Built for AI, Powered by Ubuntu

  Sold as a complete compute solution, the Jetson Nano Developer Kit wants to let embedded designers, researchers, and DIY makers harness the power of AI, all at an affordable price.

  A NVIDIA’s JetPack SDK provides a ‘complete desktop Linux environment based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS’, replete with accelerated graphics, NVIDIA CUDA toolkit support, and more.

  NVIDIA say developers will find it “easy” to install leading open-source Machine Learning (ML) frameworks like TensorFlow, Caffe and Keras. Frameworks for computer vision and robotics development like OpenCV and ROS are also available via the SDK.

  The JetPack 4.2 SDK [shipped on the microSD card] provides a complete desktop Linux environment for Jetson Nano based on Ubuntu 18.04 with accelerated graphics, support for NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 10.0, and libraries such as cuDNN 7.3 and TensorRT 5,” Nvidia says of the nimble Nano dev kit.

  But how powerful is it?

• Vertical rhythm and spacing in Vanilla Framework 2.0

  Vanilla, the CSS framework behind Canonical’s suite of products and services, has undergone significant changes over the last 12 months. We’ve introduced vertical rhythm, a new type scale, consistent white space in and between elements, and adjustable information density. 

• Ubuntu 19 04 Desktop Tour of New Features

• Security updates for Wednesday

• Microsoft Office Is The Most Exploited Software By Cybercriminals[Ed: Microsoft software is designed for back doors, not for security, and that still shows.]

  list of the top 10 most exploited vulnerabilities in 2018 has revealed that Microsoft Office was the favorite victim of cybercriminals. Microsoft Office vulnerabilities appear 8 times in the list with one Adobe Flash Player vulnerability and an AndroidRAT cyber vulnerability being the only mobile device flaw in the list.

• Mirai botnet returns with sights set on enterprise IoT devices

   

  Researchers from Unit 42, the threat intelligence group of Palo Alto Networks, found the new variant targeting LG Supersign TVs and WePresent WiPG-1000 Wireless Presentation system, both of which are used by businesses with networks offering larger amounts of bandwidth.

• Reproducible builds folks: Reproducible Builds: Weekly report #203

• PuTTY in your hands: SSH client gets patched after RSA key exchange memory vuln spotted

  Venerable SSH client PuTTY has received a pile of security patches, with its lead maintainer admitting to the The Register that one fixed a "'game over' level vulnerability".

  The fixes implemented in PuTTY over the weekend include new features plugging a plethora of vulns in the Telnet and SSH client, most of which were uncovered as part of an EU-sponsored HackerOne bug bounty.

KDE neon 5.15 is a decent distro. But it's not quite as pain-free as some of its predecessors, and I've hit a bunch of highly disappointing errors and bugs that simply shouldn't be there. The network and phone experience needs to be better, smoother. There ought to be no crashes. Regressions are bad.

Then, the upgrade process is robust and tight, the system is beautiful, and it purrs like a tiger - do tigers purr actually? You get the idea. Very sleek, very slick. Fast. You have a wealth of great software and a well-designed desktop environment that blends the bleeding-edge with pro-thought and good speed, and without being utterly beta. I'm quite happy overall, but I don't like the lack of consistency between the live media and the installed system. Some of this feels rushed. A good release, but ultimately not calm enough for everyday use. Well, I guess that's what LTS is for. 7/10. That would be all for today.

Over the course of the GNOME 3.32 that is nearly complete as well as GNOME 3.30 there was a lot of measurable performance fixes and enhancements to improve the fluidity of the GNOME desktop as well as addressing various latency issues. While in some areas these performance improvements make a night and day difference, work isn't done on enhancing GNOME's performance.

One of the developers leading the charge on enhancing/fixing the performance of GNOME Shell and Mutter in particular has been Canonical's Daniel Van Vugt. While he's already made great strides in fixing issues himself, reviewing and collaborating on other patches, etc, the job isn't done. Van Vugt shared there's still some big ticket work pending.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced DataPractices.org, the first-ever template for data best practices, will now be a hosted project under the Linux Foundation and offer open courseware for data teamwork.

Datapractices.org was initially pioneered by data.world as a “Manifesto for Data Practices,” comprised of values and principles to illustrate the most effective, modern, and ethical approach to data teamwork. As an open project under the Linux Foundation, Datapractices.org intends to maintain and further develop a collaborative approach to defining and refining data best practices. The project will also facilitate collaboration and development of open courseware to guide organizations interested in aligning their data practices with the values (inclusion, experimentation, accountability, and impact) and principles of DataPractices.org.

As a part of the Linux Foundation, DataPractices.org intends to enable a vendor-neutral community to further establish best practices and increase the level of data knowledge across the data ecosystem. The project’s new open courseware is available to anyone interested in data best practices—including novice practitioners, data managers, corporate evangelists, seasoned data scientists, and more. The project also welcomes expert practitioners to help refine and advance the courseware.

• How to Block Notifications on Android

• 3 areas worth watching in Android Q

• Do Not Disturb schedules can be customized on Android Q

• Redmi Go vs Nokia 1: Here’s How Xiaomi and Nokia Android Go Smartphones Fare Against Each Other

• Study analyzes pre-installed software on Android devices and its privacy risks for users

• Eurobites: Google to Promote Android Search Rivals to Head Off Potential EU Action

• Security firms detail Android and Google Photos vulnerabilities that exposed user data

• Galaxy A8 (2018) starts receiving the Android Pie update in Europe

Pop!_OS is, in my opinion, a seriously underappreciated Ubuntu-based operating that distinguishes itself in a couple major areas -- in addition to its utter simplicity and slick installer. It was created primarily to be the accompanying OS for the variety of custom Linux desktops and laptops produced by System76, and they've added some features I prefer not to live without regardless of what hardware I'm using.

First, Pop!_OS is one of the only distros I've tried that elegantly handles Hybrid graphics (that's Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU as seen in laptops like the ThinkPad X1 Extreme) out of the box. Moreover, System76 ships two versions of Pop!_OS: one designed for Intel/AMD, and one designed for Nvidia GPUs. The Nvidia ISO installs the proprietary driver so that users don't need to add a repository by hand and install it later.

Powered by the Linux 4.19.28 kernel, the Tails 3.13 operating system is now available with latest TOR technologies to help you stay hidden while surfing the Internet, including the Tor Browser 8.0.7 anonymous web browser and Tor 0.3.5.8 client and server for the anonymous Tor network.

However, probably the most important addition in the Tails 3.13 release is the updated Intel microcode to version 3.20180807a.2, which adds an extra security measure against more variants of the well-known Spectre, Meltdown, and L1TF (Level 1 Terminal Fault) security vulnerabilities.

NetworkManager 1.16 has been released two days after the launch of the GNOME 3.32 desktop environment and promises lots of exciting new features and improvements, starting with support for the new WireGuard protocol implemented in the Linux kernel for creating secure IPv4 and IPv6 VPNs (Virtual Private Networks).

"Unlike other VPN solutions NetworkManager supports, WireGuard tunneling will be entirely handled by the Linux kernel. This has an advantages in terms of performance, and also removes the needs of a VPN plugin," explained developer Lubomir Rintel in a recent blog article.

• What’s New in ArcoLinux 19.2

• What’s New in MakuluLinux Core

Last week NVIDIA announced the GeForce GTX 1660 as the newest RTX-less Turing GPU but costing only $219+ USD. The GTX 1660 is a further trimmed down version of the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti that launched several weeks prior. After picking up an ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 Phoenix Edition, here are Linux OpenGL/Vulkan gaming benchmarks compared to a wide assortment of AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards under Ubuntu.

The GeForce GTX 1660 features 1408 CUDA cores (compared to 1536 with the GTX 1660 Ti) while having a 1785MHz boost clock frequency and 1530MHz base clock frequency. The GeForce GTX 1660 opts for 6GB of GDDR5 unlike the 6GB GDDR6 used by the GTX 1660 Ti, which means only around 192GB/s of video memory bandwidth compared to 288GB/s with the Ti model. The other specifications are largely in common with the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the other Turing GPUs aside from lacking the RT/tensor cores.

Jérôme Glisse felt that the time had come for the Linux kernel to address seriously the issue of having many different types of memory installed on a single running system. There was main system memory and device-specific memory, and associated hierarchies regarding which memory to use at which time and under which circumstances. This complicated new situation, Jérôme said, was actually now the norm, and it should be treated as such.

The physical connections between the various CPUs and devices and RAM chips—that is, the bus topology—also was relevant, because it could influence the various speeds of each of those components.

Jérôme wanted to be clear that his proposal went beyond existing efforts to handle heterogeneous RAM. He wanted to take account of the wide range of hardware and its topological relationships to eek out the absolute highest performance from a given system.

From/on the Linux Foundation:

• Sysdig Joins the Linux Foundation's New Foundation to Support Continuous Delivery Collaboration

• Linux Foundation Launches Red Team Project

  The Linux Foundation has launched a new project aimed at incubating open source cybersecurity tools. The Red Team Project's main goal is to make open source software safer to use.

  The aim is to create cybersecurity tools for areas including cyber range automation, containerized pentesting utilities, binary risk quantification, and standards validation and advancement.

  [...]

  Current tooling from the project start with a Linux Exploit Mapper (LEM) that scans a Linux system for local exploits and maps them to known exploit code. When exploits are discovered using the mapper, they are curated, tested for efficacy and ease-of-use using a variant of the STRIDE scoring mechanism. An Ansible role called cyber-range-target is used to deliberately downgrade OS packages to a version vulnerable to a given CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure) for assessment purposes. The project also provides a Red Container. This offers containerized pentesting tooling, which can be launched from whole OSes or containerized environments like Kubernetes.

For about one week already Intel's rolling-release Clear Linux distribution has been shipping with GNOME 3.32. Here are some quick graphics and gaming benchmarks comparing GNOME 3.30.2 to 3.32.0.

Using a Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card, I tested Clear Linux between its releases having GNOME Shell 3.30 and the move to GNOME Shell 3.30.2. On both builds of Clear Linux, Linux 5.0.1 was in use along with X.Org Server 1.20.4 (they aren't yet defaulting to a Wayland session), and Mesa 19.1-devel.

• LLVM 8.0.0 released

  I'm pleased to announce that LLVM 8 is now available.

  Get it here: https://llvm.org/releases/download.html#8.0.0

  This release contains the work on trunk up to Subversion revision
  r351319, plus work on the release branch. It's the result of the LLVM
  community's work over the past six months, including: speculative load
  hardening, concurrent compilation in the ORC JIT API, no longer
  experimental WebAssembly target, a Clang option to initialize
  automatic variables, improved pre-compiled header support in clang-cl,
  the /Zc:dllexportInlines- flag, RISC-V support in lld. And as usual,
  many bug fixes, optimization and diagnostics improvements, etc.

  For more details, see the release notes:
  https://llvm.org/releases/8.0.0/docs/ReleaseNotes.html
  https://llvm.org/releases/8.0.0/tools/clang/docs/ReleaseN...
  https://llvm.org/releases/8.0.0/tools/clang/tools/extra/d...
  https://llvm.org/releases/8.0.0/tools/lld/docs/ReleaseNot...
  https://llvm.org/releases/8.0.0/projects/libcxx/docs/Rele...

  Special thanks to the release testers and packagers: Amy Kwan, Bero
  Rosenkränzer, Brian Cain, Diana Picus, Dimitry Andric, Kim Gräsman,
  Lei Huang, Michał Górny, Sylvestre Ledru, Ulrich Weigand, Vedant
  Kumar, and Yvan Roux.

  For questions or comments about the release, please contact the
  community on the mailing lists. Onwards to LLVM 9!

  Thanks,
  Hans

• LLVM 8.0.0 released

  Version 8.0.0 of the LLVM compiler suite is out. "It's the result of the LLVM community's work over the past six months, including: speculative load hardening, concurrent compilation in the ORC JIT API, no longer experimental WebAssembly target, a Clang option to initialize automatic variables, improved pre-compiled header support in clang-cl, the /Zc:dllexportInlines- flag, RISC-V support in lld." For details one can see separate release notes for LLVM, Clang, Extra Clang Tools, lld, and libc++.

• LLVM 8.0 Released With Cascade Lake Support, Better Diagnostics, More OpenMP/OpenCL

  After being delayed the better part of one month, LLVM 8.0 officially set sail this morning.

• Linux, Open Source Tech, And AMD: Google Stadia’s Building Blocks

  At the 2019 Games Developer Conference, Google unveiled its much-anticipated cloud gaming streaming service called Stadia. The company will be using its vast network of high-performance server infrastructure to create a service like “Netflix for Games.”

  At launch, which will take place at some point in 2019, the players will be able to play games at 4K and 60fps in Chrome. Later, the quality will go as high as 8K and 120fps. You can read more about Stadia and its features in this dedicated post.

• Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service, launches in 2019

  Google is launching its Stadia cloud gaming service at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco today. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who says he plays FIFA 19 “quite a bit,” introduced the Stadia service during a special keynote at GDC this morning. Describing it as a platform for everyone, Pichai talked up Google’s ambitions to stream games to all types of devices. Stadia will stream games from the cloud to the Chrome browser, Chromecast, and Pixel devices, and it will launch at some point in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe.

• New Version of PuTTY Fixes Several Vulnerabilities, Google Announces the Stadia Cloud Gaming Service, Save the Internet Day March 23, Google Fined $1.49 Billion and NVIDIA Launches the Jetson Nano

  Google announces Stadia, its new cloud gaming service. The Verge reports that "Stadia will stream games from the cloud to the Chrome browser, Chromecast, and Pixel devices, and it will launch at some point in 2019 in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe." Google also is launching the Stadia Controller, which "looks like a cross between an Xbox and PS4 controller, and it will work with the Stadia service by connecting directly through Wi-Fi to link it to a game session in the cloud."

• Nightdive Studios have released more footage of their System Shock reboot

  Two bits of System Shock updates in the same week, what a time to be alive. After the System Shock 3 news, we also now have more to show for the System Shock reboot from Nightdive Studios.

• Wizard of Legend, the excellent action game from Contingent99 just had a huge upgrade

  Wizard of Legend is one of my favourite indie games to play in local co-op and it's great fun alone too, the developer Contingent99 just released the huge Sky Palace update.