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21 TiB Of "Open Source" Software From GitHub Is Now Stored In the Norwegian Arctic World Archive
Microsoft has backed up a total of 21 TiB of open source code from the GitHub repository in the Arctic World Archive vault located on the island of Svalbard in Norway (not Antarctica). All open GitHub projects as of February 2020 are now stored in the vault using special-purpose film reels. These film reels should, in theory, last several thousand years.
Dozens Of High Profile Twitter Accounts Owned And Used For Bitcoin Scam: "Tough day" For Twitter
A long list of high profile Twitter accounts were taken over and used for a very obvious scam: "I am doubling all payments sent to my BTC address for the next 30 minutes. You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.". Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg and many large corporations such as Apple, Uber and Coinbase had their accounts used for scam purposes. The fact that the Twitter Support account was compromised points to an inside job.
Apple Recommend Not Covering Your Laptops Webcam, Claims It Can Damage Hardware
American computer giant Apple has come out with a warning against covering up the camera on their MacBook laptop line. Their advisory states that closing a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro laptop with something covering the camera "might damage your display". Those who want to safely use Apple laptop computers can replace their bundled macOS with a GNU/Linux distribution and disable the web camera by either blacklisting the driver module or by compiling a custom kernel without the camera-related modules.
The New Wine Vulkan Backend For DirectX 9-11 Is Coming Along Nicely
The Wine Is Not an Emulator compatibility layer for running Windows software on GNU/Linux machines has long had a built-in OpenGL compatibility layer for games and other software using Direct3D 9-11. There is also an alternative compatibility layer for Direct3D 9-11 called DXVK available which translates Direct3D calls to Vulkan instead of OpenGL. DXVK is written in C++ and it is kind of a mess. The Wine developers have secretly been working on their own Direct3D 9-11 to Vulkan translation layer written entirely in beautiful C. This new wined3d Vulkan renderer is now at a point where it can be used to perfectly run some Direct3D 10 games.
The Debian Project Wants You To Tell Them If And Why You Are Using Debian LTS Versions
The Debian Stretch release will enter Long Term Support (LTS) mode on July 18th. It will from then on only receive security updates until it goes end of life on July 18th, 2022. The Debian developers are aware that many people prefer to keep on using the older Stretch release over upgrading to the newer Debian 10 Buster release. They would very much like to know why so they have prepared a survey that they would like you to fill out if you are using, or would like to use, Debian Long Term Support releases.
SuperTuxKart git20200711 Snapshot Is Released For Android, Linux, and Windows
The latest version of the popular kart racing game SuperTuxKart has a improved tutorial for new users, improved gamepad support, full IPv6 LAN and WAN support and better server performance when it is set up to act as a server. This is a snapshot release in anticipation of an upcoming beta release that will be followed by a full release in the fall. We can also reveal that SuperTuxKart will get Vulkan support and it may arrive sooner than you think.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Has A New Anti-Cheat Trusted Mode
The popular free (as in price, not free software) first person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from Valve has a new "trusted mode" anti-cheat system. The new "trusted mode" is active on the native Linux version of the game as of the latest update. Actual game-play does not appear to be affected, nor does game streaming using OBS.
Linus Torvalds: AVX512 Is "A Hot Mess" "I hope AVX512 dies a painful death"
Linus Torvalds is not happy with the variety of instructions that may or may not be present on a processor that supposedly supports what Intel refers to as AVX512. "I hope AVX512 dies a painful death, and that Intel starts fixing real problems instead of trying to create magic instructions to then create benchmarks that they can look good on.", Linus wrote in a message on the RealWorldTech forums. He went on to call it "special-case garbage", "power virus" and "not reliably enough".
Linus Torvalds Has Merged Inclusive-Terminology Rules Into The Linux Kernel Git Tree
"The discussion has tapered off as well as the incoming ack, review, and sign-off tags. I did not see a reason to wait for the next merge window". Word like master, slave, blacklist and whitelist is now banned from the Linux kernel. Accepted new-speak replacement word include primary, main, secondary, replica, subordinate, initiator, requester, target, responder, controller,host, device, worker, proxy, leader, follower, director and performer. The new terms will likely confuse non-technical people, non-native English speakers and others who have been using the now-banned technical terms for decades.
Xfce Classic Brings An Alternative To Those Who Do Not Want Xfce To Become GNOME Light
The next version of the popular Xfce desktop environment for GNU/Linux computers will have the controversial client side decorations (CSD) for window borders, identical to those of the GNOME 3 desktop environment. Many free software users moved from GNOME to avoid these kinds of user-hostile design decisions, and developers decided to create new classic desktop environments like Unity, Cinnamon and Mate. Users who do not want to upgrade Xfce and find themselves in a foreign unfamiliar desktop environment with strange window header-bars, instead of sane window decorations, have a new choice when Xfce 4.16 arrives: Shawn Anastasio has taken the lead in a new Xfce fork called "Xfce Classic".
Brave Web Browser Caught In Affiliate Link Controversy Prompting Fork
The Brave web browser is free software even though the distributed version has many commercial elements. Attentive users of that web browser recently noticed that the corporation behind it, Brave Software Inc, were making money off affiliate links who magically appeared in the address bar as unwelcome additions when a users typed in certain domains. A small group of upset users decided to fork Brave into Bold Browser. Brendan Eich quickly sued the one person in the group who forked Brave who used his real name. He also removed the code adding affiliate links, claiming it was a "mistake".
Twice Fanfare Contest: Find The Missing Twice Member
The South Korean all-girl pop group Twice is currently holding a fanfare contest at one of their Korean fan sites. The objective is to find out which of the nine members are missing from a picture where each member, except one, is repeated numerous times. You will be able to see which member is missing if you have a clear mind and you patiently study the picture.
GNUnet 0.13.0 Released With A New Protocol Version
GNUnet is a very old little-known little-used anonymous peer to peer file sharing network program developed by the GNU Project. The latest version uses a entirely new protocol which is incompatible with previous versions. GNUnet 0.13.0 is about as practically usable as the first GNUnet version was when it was released all the way back in 2001.
Intel Is Pushing For 1984-Style Revision Of Words Allowed In Linux Kernel Development And Documentation
Intel Corporation has submitted a long documentation proposal for "inclusive-terminology" to the Linux Kernel Mailing List which forbids commonly used terminology like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist. The Intel-proposed new-speak replacements such red/green seem more confusing than the long-used long-established commonly known terms they would replace. A majority of kernel developers seem to be on-board with Intel's new-speak proposals.
Linux Mint 20 Blocks And Removes Snap Citing Backdoor To Canonicals SnapCraft Store
The popular Linux Mint operating system has decided to purge the snap package manager from its repositories and forbid installation of it. The motivation for this drastic move is that the upstream Ubuntu Linux distribution Linux Mint is based on will stealthily install snapd and use that to install Chromium from the Canonical-controlled SnapCraft instead of installing a regular Chromium package like most users expect.
Linux 5.8 Brings Per-Core Energy Sensor Support For AMD CPUs
The new amd_energy can in theory tell you how much energy each core on AMD family 17h and above CPUs consume as well as the total amount of energy consumed by the CPU package. The readings given in Joules and the reported total package figures appear to be fairly accurate. If the per-core energy readings are correct or not is an entirely different question.
The Flutter SDK Is Ready To Be Used For Native Linux Software Development
Flutter is a cross-platform software development kit from Google which is widely used for mobile app development. Google has, in collaboration with Ubuntu Linux maker Canonical, adopted the Flutter UI framework so it can be used to make native GNU/Linux programs. A Flutter SDK alpha-version snap is available for those who want to do Android-style native Linux software development.
Mpv drops GNOME support
Most of the developers of the GNOME desktop environment have the strange idea that GNOME is somehow a "platform" that is separate from, and not a part of, the overall GNU/Linux ecosystem. One direct result of this self-isolation has been the regular breakage of non-GNOME software when it is running in GNOME. This has affected free software project like mpv, SuperTuxKart, SDL and many more. One mpv developer who has had enough of GNOME nonsense made mpv print a "no support" message and exit if it was running under GNOME earlier today.
Suddenly Seeing Random KDE Programs Scale And Become Huge While Others Do Not When Launched Outside Of KDE Plasma? This Variable Can Save The Day
Recent KDE framework versions combined with Qt 5.14+ will randomly up-scale some KDE programs while other programs remain the same sane sizes they've always been when KDE programs are used outside of the KDE Plasma desktop. This unfortunate issue affects users of desktop environments like Xfce, IceWM and LXQt on several distributions including OpenSUSE and Fedora. Adding export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0 to $HOME/.bash_profile or another file read when the desktop session is launched can save the day.
Xfce4-time-out-plugin 1.1.1 Is Released
Xfce developer Andre Miranda is proud to announce a new version of the "time-out" panel plugin for the Xfce4 desktop environment. This plugin will lock your screen, forcing you to take a break, every X minutes. The latest release fixes a bug where the lock countdown would start if its configuration was changed.
Dooble Web Browser 2020.07.07 Is Released
The mysterious developer "textfield" has released a new version the Dooble web browser which is desribed in the bundled README.md as a "weather bug browser". The Dooble browser uses the mature Qt5 webview module to render web pages. It supports tabs and most other features you would expect from a simpler modern web browser. The latest release adds HiDPI and Qt 5.15 support.
Video Trimmer 0.2.0 Is Out
Russian programmer Ivan Molodetskikh has released another fine version of his "Video Trimmer" for GNU/Linux which is, as the name implies, a simple tool for trimming video clips. If you have a four minute video and you would like to quickly save the first or last two minutes of that clip then the latest version of Video Trimmer may be exactly what you need.
Zettlr Markdown Editor 1.7.1 Is Released With Vim And Emacs Input Modes
The latest version of the Zettlr Markdown editor has a completely new file core, new code block languages, a interactive tutorial for noobs, shiny new icons and, more importantly, an emacs input mode. There is also a new Vim input mode in this release. Zettlr is available for GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows.
SLOS-GIMPainter Brush Package Can Make GIMP A Better Painting Tool
A Chinese comic book artist going by the name SenlinOS has released a brush package for the GNU Image Manipulation Program for those who use GIMP to do more than just image manipulation. SLOS-GIMPainter provides a rich set of brushes as well as easy to use brush presets. It is a great add-on for GIMP users who love to draw.
Linux Desktop Market Share Could Have Doubled, Or Stagnated, In Q2 2020
There is no sure way to tell exactly how many people are running a GNU/Linux variant on their desktop or laptop computer. Some industry players like Valve release fairly reliable data on a regular basis so we can get an fairly accurate idea of what the GNU/Linux gaming market share looks like. We can also get a ball-park idea of what the overall GNU/Linux desktop market share looks like from players like Netmarketshare. Their numbers indicate that the GNU/Linux desktop market share DOUBLED in Q2 2020.
Firefox 78 Is Released With 14 Security Fixes
Eight "high", four "medium" and two "low" impact security vulnerabilities were fixed with the release of Mozilla Firefox 78. This version is both a regular release and a Extended Support Release (ESR) expected to receive minor bug fixes for a twelve months. There are a few new features in this release, none of which are particularly noteworthy.
Mstdn.jp Is Back After Hours Of Downtime Due Post Containing Islamic Terrorist Material
mstdn.jp, one of Japan's larger social media sites and the world's largest using entirely free software, is back up after being down for several hours yesterday. It turns out that their hosting provider was "asked" to take the site down because of a problematic post in Arabic calling for Jihad. The Japanese have a very low tolerance for Islamic terrorist material.
Older Ubuntu Server Version Have Gained Support For AMD Rome Processors
The Linux kernel has had full support for AMD EPYC processors, code-named "ROME", since version 5.4. All the latest versions of modern distributions have the code required to utilize these second-generation high-end server processors. That has so far not been the case with older Long Term Support versions of Ubuntu. Canonical has now back-ported the required code to older kernels and given all their LTS versions support for AMD EPYC CPUs.
Glib-networking up to 2.64.2 accepts any TLS certificate as valid for any domain
You should make sure your system is using a up-to-date version of glib-networking if you are using GNOME and/or the Balsa e-mail client. The glib-networking library up to and including version 2.64.2 has an implementation flaw that allows a server to present a certificate for any domain and have glib-networking accept it has valid as long as the server neglects to provide a server identity. A server could present a certificate valid for example.tld and have glib-networking accept it as valid for yourbank.tld.
New Hong Kong Security Law Could Slow SuperTuxKart Development
A new security law imposed on Hong Kong by China could slow development of the free software kart racing game SuperTuxKart down to a grinding halt. One of the two main developers is located in Hong Kong and he, who we choose not to name at this time due to potential repercussions from China, may be forced to re-locate to the United Kingdom. This would significantly impact his ability to improve the free software SuperTuxKart kart racing game.
Total War: SHOGUN 2 Is Being Given Away For Free On Steam Until May 1st
Feral Interactive is giving away licenses to the proprietary turn-based strategy game Total War: SHOGUN 2, released in 2011, in the Steam Store until May 1st. The game has a native GNU/Linux version and very low system requirements, you can play it on a laptop with integrated Intel graphics. The game's graphics are decent and the gameplay is alright, purchasing a license at zero price is worth it if you enjoy playing turn-based strategy games. There's also huge rebates on DLC packs and battle packs which can be had for a few dollars each while the give-away lasts.
Chromium 81 Is Released With Many Security Fixes And Mostly Working Vulkan Rendering Support
The latest version of the free software Chromium web browser, which forms the basis for Google's commercial Chrome product, has 32 security fixes. Three of those are "high" impact and eight of them are listed as "medium". More importantly, the Vulkan support added in Chromium 79 no longer leads to a total disaster when it is enabled on GNU/Linux systems. Vulkan rendering actually works as of this release.
Qt Could Go Proprietary, KDE Relationship And Qt-Based Free Software In Jeopardy
The Qt Company, maker of the popular Qt toolkit used by a lot of free software, announced that they would be restricting LTS releases of the Qt toolkit to paying customers in a widely criticized move back in January, 2020. They are currently strongly considering taking that one step further by restricting all Qt releases to paying license holders for the first 12 months. This jeopardizes the future of the popular KDE Plasma desktop environment as well as the LXQt desktop environment and it puts the wisdom of using the Qt toolkit for free software development in question.
The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M 2.1.0 RC1 Is Released
Development of the Super-Mario like 2D jump and run sidescroller platform game The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M. (TSC) is moving forward with the first version 2.1.0 release candidate following three months of rigorous testing since the release of 2.1.0 beta 2 late January 2020. TSC has wonderful graphics, original music, original levels and it is overall a fun free software game worth trying if you have time to waste playing games. TSC is available for Windows and Linux.
Linux 5.6.2 Is Released With Intel Wifi Fix
There were some small bug fixes in Linux 5.6.1 and mostly small bug fixes in Linux 5.6.2 too except for one rather important fix for those who have wireless Intel WIFI chips. Linux 5.6 broke wifi support for everyone using the iwlwifi driver for wireless Intel cards. 5.6.2 has a small fix which restores wifi functionality for all the affected users.
GNOME And KDE Are Merging To KNOME - The Next Generation Linux Desktop Environment
Do you like the simplicity and lack of features GNOME offers yet you would also like the customization options and feature-richness KDE has? We have good news, KDE and GNOME are merging their desktop environments into KNOME! KDE+GNOME = KNOME, the future desktop environment for free software users.
Second Mini Album "Dear My Color" From Korean Pop Sensation 보라미유 (Boramiyu) Is Released And It Is Wonderful
The second mini-album from Korean solo artist 보라미유 (Boramiyu) starts off with the very soothing and charming song love song "우리가 틀렸던 건 아닐 거야". The mini-albums second song, 10분 전, is a very happy and cheerful song which shines with wonderful vocal performance. It just gets better from there.
Wine 5.5 Brings Bux Fixes For Beat Hazard 2, iTunes, How To Survive And More
The latest development release of the Wine compatibility layer for running Windows software on Linux has better WebServices support, better support for debug information in Portable Executable files and 32 mostly application-specific bug-fixes.
Linux 5.6 Is Released
The latest kernel displays Vcore, Vsoc, Icore and Isoc power values on AMD chips using the k10temp hardware monitoring driver, there's multipath TCP (MPTCP) support, WireGuard network tunnel support for VPN connections, support for passing a configuration file with kernel options upon boot and much more. Intel WIFI support is broken in this kernel so you should avoid it if you are using a laptop or a notebook with a Intel WIFI chip.
Pale Moon v28.9.0.2 Is Released
The European developer "Moonchild" has released a "major development" update to the Pale Moon web browser yesterday. New features include "promise-based media playback" and 1.25x playback of HTML media elements. There were some minor problem with that release so two more minor point versions were related today.