FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

Hi all!

We continue our roundup of news and other materials on free and open source software and a little hardware. Everything you need to know about penguins and more, in Russia and around the world. Hamburg plans to transition to free and open source software, and the best online courses from Linux Foundation, humanID project, pre-order of the PineTab tablet supplied with Ubuntu Touch, the advantages and disadvantages of participating in Open Source, discussions on free and/or domestic software, measures to protect your data in case of excessive attention from the authorities and others, and much more.

Table of contents

  1. Main news
    1. Transfer of state institutions from Microsoft products to open source agreed in Munich and Hamburg
    2. The best distance learning courses from Linux Foundation in 2020: Introduction to Linux, Cloud Engineer Bootcamp and others
    3. The humanID Project: Restoring civilized discourse through better online identification
    4. The PineTab tablet, supplied with Ubuntu touch
    5. Open Source World: Advantages and Disadvantages
    6. Free or proprietary software. Standard or free education
    7. What to do if siloviki came to your host
  2. Short line
    1. News from FOSS organizations
    2. Legal Issues
    3. Kernel and distributions
    4. Systemic
    5. Special
    6. Security
    7. For developers
    8. Custom
    9. Miscellanea
  3. Releases
    1. Kernel and distributions
    2. System software
    3. For developers
    4. Special software
    5. Custom software

Main news

Transfer of state institutions from Microsoft products to open source agreed in Munich and Hamburg

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

OpenNET writes:The Social Democratic Party of Germany and the European Green Party, which have taken leading positions in the city councils of Munich and Hamburg until the next elections in 2026, have published a coalition agreement that defines a reduction in dependence on Microsoft products and the return of the initiative to transfer the IT infrastructure of public institutions to Linux and open source software. A 200-page document outlining Hamburg's management strategy for the next five years has been prepared and agreed upon by the parties, but has not yet been signed. In the IT area, the document specifies that, in order to avoid dependence on individual suppliers, given the technological and financial capabilities, an emphasis will be placed on open standards and openly licensed applications.Β».

Details

The best distance learning courses from Linux Foundation in 2020: Introduction to Linux, Cloud Engineer Bootcamp and others

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

Knowledge of GNU/Linux is in demand today more than ever when working with cloud technologies, even in Microsoft Azure GNU/Linux more popular Windows. It is especially important how and where people learn to work with this free system. And here, naturally, the first priority is Linux Foundation. ZDNet writes, Linux Foundation is a pioneer in IT certification, offering its first remote certification programs back in 2014. Before that, it was virtually impossible to obtain an IT certificate outside of a training center. Linux The Foundation has established reliable and proven remote training procedures. This has significantly simplified training and is especially important now, during the pandemic, for professionals wishing to obtain certification without traveling.

Examples of training programs (knowledge of English is required):

  1. Introduction to Linux (LFS101)
  2. Fundamentals of System Administration Linux (LFS201)
  3. Networking and Administration Linux (LFS211)
  4. Security basics Linux
  5. Container Basics
  6. Introduction to Kubernetes
  7. Kubernetes Basics
  8. Cloud Engineer Bootcamp (7 courses in one block)

Details

The humanID Project: Restoring Civilized Discussion Through Better Online Identification

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

Linux.com reports on a new project designed to improve online security and usability. Every day, billions of people use social accounts like "Login with Facebook" and similar apps to access apps online. The main drawback of this system is the inability to distinguish a real user from a bot, the publication writes. The nonprofit humanID, a recipient of Harvard University's Social Impact Fund, has come up with an innovative idea: developing 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.

Details

The PineTab tablet, supplied with Ubuntu touch

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

OpenNET says:The Pine64 community has begun accepting orders for the 10.1-inch PineTab tablet, which comes with an environment Ubuntu Touch from the UBports project. PostmarketOS and Arch builds are available as options. Linux ARM. The tablet retails for $100, with a detachable keyboard available for $120, allowing the device to be used as a regular laptop. Shipping is expected to begin in July.Β».

The main characteristics, according to the publication:

  1. 10.1-inch HD IPS screen with 1280Γ—800 resolution;
  2. CPU Allwinner A64 (64-bit 4-core ARM Cortex A-53 1.2 GHz), GPU MALI-400 MP2;
  3. Memory: 2GB LPDDR3 SDRAM RAM, built-in 64GB eMMC Flash, SD card slot;
  4. Two cameras: rear 5MP, 1/4β€³ (LED Flash) and front 2MP (f/2.8, 1/5β€³);
  5. Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, single-band, hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP;
  6. 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;
  7. Slot for connecting M.2 extensions, for which modules with SATA SSD, LTE modem, LoRa and RTL-SDR are optionally supplied;
  8. Battery Li-Po 6000 mAh;
  9. Size 258mm x 170mm x 11.2mm, keyboard version 262mm x 180mm x 21.1mm. Weight 575 grams (with keyboard 950 grams).

Details (1, 2 (in))

The world of Open Source: advantages and disadvantages according to an ordinary participant

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

An article appeared on HabrΓ©, 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:
    1. versatile programming experience
    2. freedom
    3. soft skills development
    4. self-promotion
    5. karma
  • Problems:
    1. hierarchy
    2. planning
    3. communication delay

Details

Free or proprietary software. Standard or free education

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

In the blog of the company open and free OS for embedded systems Embox on HabrΓ©, 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 β€œFree Software in Higher Education” organized by the company β€œBasalt 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 independenceΒ».

Details

What to do if siloviki came to your host

FOSS News #20 - Free and Open Source News Review June 8-14, 2020

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 HabrΓ©. 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 littleΒ».

Details

Short line

News from FOSS organizations

  1. Useful post: Kogito ergo sum; Delta, Kappa, Lambda; Operator SDK - useful links to live events, videos, meetups and technical talks from RedHat [β†’]
  2. FreeBSD Project Adopts New Code of Conduct for Developers [β†’]
  3. Go language gets rid of politically incorrect terms whitelist/blacklist and master/slave [β†’]
  4. The OpenZFS project, due to political correctness, got rid of the mention of the word β€œslave” in the code [β†’]
  5. PeerTube started fundraising for new functionality, including live broadcasts [β†’]

Legal Issues

  1. Dispute over Rambler's rights to Nginx continues in US court [β†’]

Kernel and distributions

  1. Comparison Linux Mint XFCE vs. Mate [β†’]
  2. Beta testing of the mobile platform has begun Android 11 [β†’]
  3. The elementary OS distribution introduced OEM builds and agreed to pre-install on laptops [β†’]
  4. Canonical has proposed patches to speed up the activation of sleep mode [β†’]
  5. seL4 microkernel mathematically verified for RISC-V architecture [β†’]

Systemic

  1. How Time Synchronization Became Secure [β†’]
  2. How and why the noatime option improves performance Linux-systems [β†’]
  3. Setting up a proxy for WSL (Ubuntu) [β†’]

Special

  1. Installation Wireguard Π² Ubuntu [β†’]
  2. Nextcloud vs ownCloud: What's the difference? What to use? [β†’ (en)]
  3. OpenShift virtualization: containers, KVM and virtual machines [β†’]
  4. How to create curved text in Gimp? [β†’ (en)]
  5. Installing and configuring RTKRCV (RTKLIB) on Windows 10 using WSL [β†’]
  6. Okerr hybrid monitoring system overview [β†’]

Security

  1. uBlock Origin added script blocking for scanning network ports [β†’]
  2. Remote exploitable vulnerability in GNU adns library [β†’]
  3. CROSSTalk - Vulnerability in Intel CPUs leading to data leakage between cores [β†’]
  4. Intel Firmware Update Addressing CROSSTalk Vulnerability Causes Issues [β†’]
  5. Referral code substitution detected in Brave browser when opening some sites [β†’]
  6. Vulnerability in GnuTLS allowing TLS 1.3 session to be resumed without knowledge of the key [β†’]
  7. Vulnerability in UPnP suitable for amplifying DDoS attacks and scanning the internal network [β†’]
  8. Vulnerability in FreeBSD exploited via a malicious USB device [β†’]

For developers

  1. Agglomerative Clustering: Algorithm, Performance, Code on GitHub [β†’]
  2. How to fix everything yourself if bug reports are ignored: debugging wkhtmltopdf under Windows [β†’]
  3. Automated testing tools: Yandex.Money meetup [β†’]
  4. Accelerating deployment to production with canaries and self-written monitoring [β†’]
  5. Command & Conquer source code published: see what's inside [β†’]
  6. Linux and WYSIWYG [β†’]
  7. transparent coroutines. About a C++ library to help inline coroutines transparently to third-party code [β†’]

Custom

  1. How to find out the motherboard model Linux? [β†’]
  2. Kup, the backup utility, joins KDE [β†’]
  3. SoftMaker Office 2021 is an impressive replacement for Microsoft Office. Linux (Note: regarding openness, see the note in the article!) [β†’ (en)]
  4. How to use Microsoft OneDrive in Linux? [β†’ (en)]
  5. How to change the color of a folder in Ubuntu 20.04? [β†’ (en)]
  6. How to set up a gaming mouse Linux using Piper GUI? [β†’ (en)]
  7. How to remove Title Bar from Firefox and save some screen space [β†’ (en)]

Miscellanea

  1. A website where you can order a replacement key Windows key [β†’]

Releases

Kernel and distributions

  1. The second beta release of the Haiku R1 operating system [β†’]
  2. Release of the distribution kit Network Security Toolkit 32 [β†’]
  3. Release of a popular live distribution based on Arch Linux SystemRescueCD 6.1.5 for data recovery and partition management [β†’]

System software

  1. Release of the sound subsystem Linux β€” ALSA 1.2.3 [β†’]
  2. New version of Exim mail server 4.94 [β†’]
  3. nftables 0.9.5 packet filter release [β†’]
  4. nginx preview with QUIC and HTTP/3 support [β†’]
  5. KDE Plasma 5.19 release [β†’]

For developers

  1. Release of Kuesa 3D 1.2, a package to simplify the development of 3D applications on Qt [β†’]
  2. Apache NetBeans IDE 12.0 Released [β†’]
  3. Release of the cross-platform framework for creating GUI applications U++ Framework 2020.1 [β†’]

Special software

  1. Release of the free 3D modeling system Blender 2.83 [β†’]
  2. GIMP 2.10.20 graphics editor release [β†’]
  3. Release of Natron 2.3.15 special effects software [β†’]
  4. First release of Matrix Federated Network Peer-to-Peer Client [β†’]
  5. A program for working with maps and satellite images SAS is available. Planet 200606 [β†’]

Custom software

  1. June Update for KDE Applications 20.04.2 [β†’]
  2. Release of instant messaging client Pidgin 2.14 [β†’]
  3. Release of terminal file manager nΒ³ v3.2 [β†’]
  4. Vivaldi 3.1 Browser Release - Noticeable Joys [β†’]

That's all, until next Sunday!

Thank you Linux.com www.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 www.opennet.ru, 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.

Subscribe to our Telegram channel or RSS so you don't miss out on new editions of FOSS News.

← Previous issue

Source: habr.com

Buy reliable hosting for sites with DDoS protection, VPS VDS servers πŸ”₯ Buy reliable website hosting with DDoS protection, VPS VDS servers | ProHoster