Hi all!
We continue to review news and other materials on the topic of free and open source software and some hardware. All the most important things about penguins and not only in Russia and the world. Hamburg plans to switch to free and open source software, the best remote courses from the Linux Foundation, the humanID project, the pre-order of the PineTab tablet that comes with Ubuntu Touch, the advantages and disadvantages of participating in Open Source, reasoning about free and / or domestic software, measures to protect your data on a case of excessive attention from organs and not only and much more.
Table of contents
Main news
Transfer of state institutions from Microsoft products to open source agreed in Munich and Hamburg
OpenNET writes:The Social Democratic Party of Germany and the European Green Party, which until the next elections in 2026 took a leading position in the city councils of Munich and Hamburg, published a coalition agreement that determines the reduction of dependence on Microsoft products and the return of the initiative to transfer the IT infrastructures of public institutions to Linux and open software. The parties have prepared and agreed, but not yet signed, a 200-page document describing the strategy for governing Hamburg over the next five years. In the field of IT, the document specifies that in order to avoid dependence on individual vendors, in the presence of technological and financial possibilities, the emphasis will be placed on open standards and applications under open licenses.».
Best Remote Courses from the Linux Foundation in 2020: Introduction to Linux, Cloud Engineer Bootcamp and more
Knowledge of GNU/Linux is in demand today more than ever when working with cloud technologies, even in Microsoft Azure GNU/Linux is more popular than Windows. Of particular importance is how and where people learn how to use this free system. And here in the first place, of course, the Linux Foundation. ZDNet writes that the Linux Foundation is an IT certification pioneer, offering its first remote certification programs back in 2014. Before that, it was almost impossible to get an IT certificate outside of a training center. The Linux Foundation has established robust and proven remote learning procedures. This has greatly simplified training and is especially important now, in the days of the pandemic, for professionals who want to get certified without traveling anywhere.
Examples of training programs (knowledge of English is required):
- Introduction to Linux (LFS101)
- Linux System Administration Basics (LFS201)
- Linux Networking and Administration (LFS211)
- Linux security basics
- Container Basics
- Introduction to Kubernetes
- Kubernetes Basics
- Cloud Engineer Bootcamp (7 courses in one block)
The humanID Project: Restoring Civilized Discussion Through Better Online Identification
Linux.com talks about a new project designed to improve the security and comfort of the Internet. Every day, billions of people use social accounts such as "Login with Facebook" and the like to access applications over the Internet. The main disadvantage of this system is the inability to distinguish a real user from a bot, the newspaper writes. The non-profit organization humanID, a recipient of the Harvard University Social Impact Fund, came up with an innovative idea: to develop an anonymous one-click login that serves as an alternative to social login. "With humanID, anyone can use the services without giving up privacy or selling their data. Botnets are automatically excluded while apps can easily block intruders and trolls, creating more civic digital communities”, says Bastian Pourrer, co-founder of humanID.
PineTab tablet available for order, shipped with Ubuntu Touch
OpenNET says:The Pine64 community has begun accepting orders for the 10.1-inch PineTab tablet that comes with the Ubuntu Touch environment from the UBports project. As an option, PostmarketOS and Arch Linux ARM builds are provided. The tablet sells for $100, and $120 comes with a detachable keyboard that allows you to use the device like a regular laptop. Delivery expected in July».
The main characteristics, according to the publication:
- 10.1-inch HD IPS screen with 1280×800 resolution;
- CPU Allwinner A64 (64-bit 4-core ARM Cortex A-53 1.2 GHz), GPU MALI-400 MP2;
- Memory: 2GB LPDDR3 SDRAM RAM, built-in 64GB eMMC Flash, SD card slot;
- Two cameras: rear 5MP, 1/4″ (LED Flash) and front 2MP (f/2.8, 1/5″);
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, single-band, hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP;
- 1 full USB 2.0 Type A, 1 micro USB OTG (can be used for charging), USB 2.0 port for docking station, HD Video out;
- Slot for connecting M.2 extensions, for which modules with SATA SSD, LTE modem, LoRa and RTL-SDR are optionally supplied;
- Battery Li-Po 6000 mAh;
- Size 258mm x 170mm x 11.2mm, keyboard version 262mm x 180mm x 21.1mm. Weight 575 grams (with keyboard 950 grams).
Details (, )
The world of Open Source: advantages and disadvantages according to an ordinary participant
An article appeared on Habré, where the author does "a subjective attempt to evaluate the world of open source, from the position of an ordinary contributor, after two years of daily participation". The author describes his approach as follows:I do not pretend to be the truth, I do not strain with advice, only structured observations. Perhaps this article will help you personally understand - to be or not to be an open source contributor” and names the following advantages and disadvantages of Open Source:
- advantages:
- versatile programming experience
- freedom
- soft skills development
- self-promotion
- karma
- Problems:
- hierarchy
- planning
- communication delay
Free or proprietary software. Standard or free education
In the blog of the company open and free OS for embedded systems Embox on Habré, a post was published with an analysis of issues that have recently become more and more relevant in our country. The author writes in the introduction to the article:In early February, Pereslavl-Zalessky hosted the fifteenth conference “Free Software in Higher Education” organized by the company “Basalt SPO”. In this article, I want to raise several questions that seemed to me the most important, namely, which software is better: free or domestic, and, more importantly, when training IT specialists: following standards or developing independence».
What to do if siloviki came to your host
A small but interesting article about protecting your data from a rather non-standard threat, but unfortunately not so incredible, was published on the blog of the RUVDS hoster on Habré. The author writes in the introduction:If you rented a server, then you do not have full control over it. This means that specially trained people can come to the hoster at any time and ask for any of your data. And the hoster will give them back if the requirement is executed according to the law. You really don't want your web server logs or user data to get to someone else. It is impossible to build a perfect defense. Protecting yourself from a host that owns a hypervisor and provides you with a virtual machine is next to impossible. But perhaps it will be possible to reduce the risks a little».
Short line
News from FOSS organizations
- Useful post: Kogito ergo sum; Delta, Kappa, Lambda; Operator SDK - useful links to live events, videos, meetups and technical talks from RedHat
- FreeBSD Project Adopts New Code of Conduct for Developers
- Go language gets rid of politically incorrect terms whitelist/blacklist and master/slave
- The OpenZFS project, due to political correctness, got rid of the mention of the word “slave” in the code
- PeerTube started fundraising for new functionality, including live broadcasts
Legal Issues
- Dispute over Rambler's rights to Nginx continues in US court
Kernel and distributions
- Comparison Linux Mint XFCE vs Mate
- Beta testing of the Android 11 mobile platform has begun
- The elementary OS distribution introduced OEM builds and agreed to pre-install on laptops
- Canonical has proposed patches to speed up the activation of sleep mode
- seL4 microkernel mathematically verified for RISC-V architecture
Systemic
- How Time Synchronization Became Secure
- How and why the noatime option improves Linux system performance
- Proxy setup for WSL (Ubuntu)
Special
- Installing Wireguard on Ubuntu
- Nextcloud vs ownCloud: What's the difference? What to use?
- OpenShift virtualization: containers, KVM and virtual machines
- How to create curved text in Gimp?
- Installing and configuring RTKRCV (RTKLIB) on Windows 10 using WSL
- Okerr hybrid monitoring system overview
Security
- uBlock Origin added script blocking for scanning network ports
- Remote exploitable vulnerability in GNU adns library
- CROSSTalk - Vulnerability in Intel CPUs leading to data leakage between cores
- Intel Firmware Update Addressing CROSSTalk Vulnerability Causes Issues
- Referral code substitution detected in Brave browser when opening some sites
- Vulnerability in GnuTLS allowing TLS 1.3 session to be resumed without knowledge of the key
- Vulnerability in UPnP suitable for amplifying DDoS attacks and scanning the internal network
- Vulnerability in FreeBSD exploited via a malicious USB device
For developers
- Agglomerative Clustering: Algorithm, Performance, Code on GitHub
- How to fix it myself if bug reports are ignored: debugging wkhtmltopdf on Windows
- Automated testing tools: Yandex.Money meetup
- Accelerating deployment to production with canaries and self-written monitoring
- Command & Conquer source code published: see what's inside
- Linux and WYSIWYG
- transparent coroutines. About a C++ library to help inline coroutines transparently to third-party code
Custom
- How to find motherboard model in Linux?
- Kup, the backup utility, joins KDE
- SoftMaker Office 2021 is an impressive replacement for Microsoft Office on Linux
- How to use Microsoft OneDrive on Linux?
- How to change folder color in Ubuntu 20.04?
- How to set up a gaming mouse on Linux using the Piper GUI?
- How to remove Title Bar from Firefox and save some screen space
Miscellanea
- A site where you can order a key to replace the Windows key
Releases
Kernel and distributions
- The second beta release of the Haiku R1 operating system
- Release of the distribution kit Network Security Toolkit 32
- Release of the popular live distribution based on Arch Linux for data recovery and working with partitions SystemRescueCd 6.1.5
System software
- Release of the Linux sound subsystem - ALSA 1.2.3
- New version of Exim mail server 4.94
- nftables 0.9.5 packet filter release
- nginx preview with QUIC and HTTP/3 support
- KDE Plasma 5.19 release
For developers
- Release of Kuesa 3D 1.2, a package to simplify the development of 3D applications on Qt
- Apache NetBeans IDE 12.0 Released
- Release of the cross-platform framework for creating GUI applications U++ Framework 2020.1
Special software
- Release of the free 3D modeling system Blender 2.83
- GIMP 2.10.20 graphics editor release
- Release of Natron 2.3.15 special effects software
- First release of Matrix Federated Network Peer-to-Peer Client
- A program for working with maps and satellite images SAS is available. Planet 200606
Custom software
- June Update for KDE Applications 20.04.2
- Release of instant messaging client Pidgin 2.14
- Release of terminal file manager n³ v3.2
- Vivaldi 3.1 Browser Release - Noticeable Joys
That's all, until next Sunday!
I express my gratitude to Linux.com for their work, a selection of English-language sources for my review is taken from there. Also a big thank you to OpenNET , many news items and announcements about new releases are taken from their website.
If anyone is interested in compiling reviews and has the time and opportunity to help, I will be glad, write to the contacts listed in my profile, or in private messages.
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Source: habr.com