Fedora and IBM/Red Hat Leftovers

he Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has signed off on more feature work for the current Fedora 36 cycle as well as Fedora 37 due out toward the end of next year.

Arguably most interesting from the latest batch of approved changes is Fedora 36 establishing ELN-Extras. ELN as "Enterprise Linux Next" continues going strong with the various Fedora / Red Hat / CentOS organizational changes. ELN-Extras now is a new build target similar to ELN but closer in function to Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL). ELN-Extras will be the target for preparing and maintaining packages that are planned for EPEL N+1 while ELN is still targeting RHEL N+1.

Today I tried to update all packages with sudo dnf --refresh upgrade command in my Fedora 35 desktop. During the package update, I encountered with this issue - error: rpmdb: damaged header #5904 retrieved -- skipping.

I kept getting this error a lot. I couldn't update the Fedora system. After a couple web searches, I found that the RPM database is corrupted for some reason.

If you ever stuck into a situation like mine, you can easily solve the "rpmdb damaged header" error by rebuilding the RPM database as shown in the following steps.

This article shows how you can visualize Apache Kafka Streams with reactive applications using the Dev UI in Quarkus. Quarkus, a Java framework, provides an extension to utilize the Kafka Streams API and also lets you implement stream processing applications based directly on Kafka.

Digital transformation initiatives should be comprehensive and defined by a vision that leads organizations toward more efficient, data-driven, and goal-oriented performance. Digital transformation requires a clear end goal as well as detailed benchmarks to help lead teams in the right direction. The more specific and considered the goals and benchmarks, the more likely the organization is to see progress and ultimate success.

As your organization establishes its digital transformation vision, the most important question may be whether it is goal-oriented or outcome-oriented. While a goal-based perspective considers the big picture and long-term priorities, focusing on outcomes will prioritize steady progress and finding opportunities for incremental improvement on existing processes. The outcomes of that progress – cost savings or reduced workload, for example – help to build buy-in and momentum for the broader transformation.

Regardless of your overall approach, it’s important to use frequent, consistent measurements to ensure that work is moving forward. Regular measurement helps you identify your most successful efforts, which you can then replicate in other areas of the business. It’s also essential to not only review your goals regularly but also refine them. Benchmarks that made sense in January may no longer be ambitious enough after review in July.

IT automation often occurs organically – a sysadmin writing Bash scripts to simplify redundant tasks in their day-to-day job, for example. This kind of incremental automation doesn’t preclude big-picture vision and planning, however.

Automation strategies should be incremental. As recently noted by Red Hat technology evangelist Gordon Haff, incremental progress is part of the attraction. It’s in automation’s DNA.

“This is automation through the lens of traditional system admins and even site reliability engineers in many cases,” Haff says. “Do something manually more than once and automate it so that you don’t have to, ever again.”

This is a perfectly reasonable progression that can also be aligned with a higher-level strategy.

Tech careers are hotter than ever these days, but candidates still need to stand out in this competitive field. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, technology-related jobs will grow much faster than jobs in most other fields over the next decade. So, what does an ideal candidate look like at a startup or a large established corporation?