The 5.3.6, 4.19.79, and 4.14.149 stable kernel updates have been released; each contains another set of important updates.

• Postgres Is Underrated—It Handles More than You Think

  After reading this article, you may want to list down the features you want from your data store and check if Postgres will be a good fit for them. It’s powerful enough for most applications.

• After nine years, Bill McDermott is stepping down as SAP CEO
• Dav1d 0.5 Released With AVX2, SSSE3 & ARM64 Performance Improvements - Benchmarks

  Friday marked the release of dav1d 0.5 as the newest version of this speedy open-source AV1 video decoder. With dav1d 0.5 are optimizations to help out SSSE3 most prominently but also AVX2 and ARM64 processors. Here are some initial benchmarks so far of this new dav1d video decoder on Linux.

  The SSSE3 code path for dav1d is now upwards of 40% faster with the v0.5 release. There is also single digit improvements for the AVX2 code path and up to 10% performance improvements for 64-bit ARM. There are also VSX, SSE2, and SSE4 optimizations among the work in this latest release as well as some decoder fixes. Dav1d 0.5 can be found at VideoLAN.org.

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• Red Hat's New Graphics Engineer Is A Longtime AMD/ATI Linux Developer

  Red Hat had been looking to hire another experienced open-source graphics driver developer and for that their newest member on their growing open-source graphics team is a longtime AMD/ATI developer. 

  Mentioned within the AMDGPU DDX driver update announcement from Michel Dänzer is confirmation that he left AMD and is now working for Red Hat. Michel is a longtime member of the open-source graphics community: Michel had been working at AMD since 2011 on their open-source driver stack while prior to that for five years was working for Mesa creators Tungsten Graphics and followed through when they got acquired by VMware. 

• xf86-video-amdgpu 19.1 Delivers A Batch Of Fixes

  AMD has released a new version of their X.Org display driver. 

  With all of the magic happening in their DRM/KMS kernel driver or Mesa components (and the likes of AMDVLK and ROCm), the xf86-video-amdgpu DDX doesn't receive much attention these days just like the other X.Org drivers. Many AMD Linux users are also using the xf86-video-modesetting generic driver these days or on Wayland-based desktops, but for those on xf86-video-amdgpu there is now a v19.1 release available. At least though AMD is still pushing out new DDX releases unlike Intel's xf86-video-intel that has been in v3.0 development now for over a half-decade without a release. 

• XWayland Lands RandR/Vidmode Emulation For Better Game Handling

  There is yet another significant improvement found for XWayland in the latest X.Org Server code that will hopefully see a long overdue release soon. 

  The work by Red Hat's Hans de Goede on XWayland RandR and Vidmode resolution change emulation has been merged. This emulated support doesn't change the actual resolution but rather a fullscreen window at the desired resolution and use that to fill the display output. 

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• Find DHCP Server IP Address on Linux Command Line
• Move ‘Show Applications’ Button to the Top in Ubuntu 19.10
• libnbd + FUSE = nbdfuse
• 50 Amazing Linux Crontab Commands For The SysAdmins

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• #SecTorCa: Millions of Phones Leaking Information Via Tor

  There is a privacy threat lurking on perhaps hundreds of millions of devices, that could enable potential attackers to track and profile users, by using information leaked via the Tor network, even if the users never intentionally installed Tor in the first place.

  In a session at the SecTor security conference in Toronto, Canada on October 10, researchers Adam Podgorski and Milind Bhargava from Deloitte Canada outlined and demonstrated previously undisclosed research into how they were able to determine that personally identifiable information (PII) is being leaked by millions of mobile users every day over Tor.

  The irony of the issue is that Tor is a technology and a network that is intended to help provide and enable anonymity for users. With Tor, traffic travels through a number of different network hops to an eventual exit point in the hope of masking where the traffic originated from. Podgorski said that there are some users that choose to install a Tor browser on their mobile devices, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that Tor is being installed by mobile applications without user knowledge and potentially putting users at risk.

  The researchers explained that they set up several Tor exit nodes, just to see what they could find, and the results were surprising. The researchers found that approximately 30% of all Android devices are transmitting data over Tor.

• Just a GIF Image Could Have Hacked Your Android Phone Using WhatsApp

  Today, the short looping clips, GIFs are everywhere—on your social media, on your message boards, on your chats, helping users perfectly express their emotions, making people laugh, and reliving a highlight.

  But what if an innocent-looking GIF greeting with Good morning, Happy Birthday, or Merry Christmas message hacks your smartphone?

• FLOSS Weekly 550: CII Best Practices Badge Update

  The Linux Foundation (LF) Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII) Best Practices badge is a way for Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects to show that they follow best practices. Projects can voluntarily self-certify, at no cost, by using this web application to explain how they follow each best practice. The CII Best Practices Badge is inspired by the many badges available to projects on GitHub. Consumers of the badge can quickly assess which FLOSS projects are following best practices and as a result are more likely to produce higher-quality secure software.

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Perl 6 should soon be known as Raku, now that Perl creator Larry Wall has given his blessing to the name change.

[...]

Wall thus has ended a debate that has occupied the Perl developer community for the past few months and has been an issue for more than a decade. Back in August, Dutch software developer Elizabeth Mattijsen opened an issue in GitHub's Perl 6 repository seeking to rename Perl 6 because it's "confusing and irritating."

The problem – apart from Perl's dwindling popularity – simply is that Perl 5 and Perl 6 are separate, but related, programming languages. And when developers talk about Perl, they usually mean Perl 5. To give Perl 6 a chance to thrive on its own, the Perl community mostly agreed that a new name would be helpful.

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It’s been a few years since developer Lukas Hartmann and designer Ana Dantes unveiled their plans for a DIY, modular laptop designed to run free and open source software.

Since then, the folks behind the MNT Reform project created a small number of early prototypes, introduced new hardware with beefier specs and some other improvements, and have begun producing prototypes of version 2 of the laptop.

Once everything is up to snuff, the plan is to launch another crowdfunding campaign for folks interested in purchasing their own MNT Reform 2 laptop — but since the design files will be open source, there’s nothing stopping anyone from downloading the necessary files and assembling their own (if they also want to go through the trouble of sourcing all the components including a custom PCB).

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• GNU Binutils 2.33.1 Released With Support For Newer Arm Cortex CPUs, SVE2/TME/MVE

  The GNU Binutils 2.33(.1) release brings BFloat16 support (BF16), many ARMv8 architecture updates, eBPF support for the GNU toolchain to complement the GCC 10 compiler support for this alternative now to using LLVM, support for the new CTF (Compact Type Format) debug format, and other work accumulated in recent months.

• GNU Binutils 2.33.1 has been released. Hello Everyone, We are pleased to announce that version 2.33.1 of the GNU Binutils project sources have been released and are now available for download at: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils https://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/releases/ The md5sum values are: 56a3be5f8f8ee874417a4f19ef3f10c8 binutils-2.33.1.tar.bz2 1a6b16bcc926e312633fcc3fae14ba0a binutils-2.33.1.tar.gz f4e7e023664f087b3017fc42955ebb46 binutils-2.33.1.tar.lz 9406231b7d9dd93731c2d06cefe8aaf1 binutils-2.33.1.tar.xz This release contains numerous bug fixes, and also the following new features: Assembler: * Adds support for the Arm Scalable Vector Extension version 2 (SVE2) instructions, the Arm Transactional Memory Extension (TME) instructions and the Armv8.1-M Mainline and M-profile Vector Extension (MVE) instructions. * Adds support for the Arm Cortex-A76AE, Cortex-A77 and Cortex-M35P processors and the AArch64 Cortex-A34, Cortex-A65, Cortex-A65AE, Cortex-A76AE, and Cortex-A77 processors. * Adds a .float16 directive for both Arm and AArch64 to allow encoding of 16-bit floating point literals. * For MIPS, Add -m[no-]fix-loongson3-llsc option to fix (or not) Loongson3 LLSC Errata. Add a --enable-mips-fix-loongson3-llsc=[yes|no] configure time option to set the default behavior. Set the default if the configure option is not used to "no". Linker: * The Cortex-A53 Erratum 843419 workaround now supports a choice of which workaround to use. The option --fix-cortex-a53-843419 now takes an optional argument --fix-cortex-a53-843419[=full|adr|adrp] which can be used to force a particular workaround to be used. See --help for AArch64 for more details. * Add support for GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI and GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_PAC in ELF GNU program properties in the AArch64 ELF linker. * Add -z force-bti for AArch64 to enable GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI on output while warning about missing GNU_PROPERTY_AARCH64_FEATURE_1_BTI on inputs and use PLTs protected with BTI. * Add -z pac-plt for AArch64 to pick PAC enabled PLTs. Utilities: * Add --source-comment[=] option to objdump which if present, provides a prefix to source code lines displayed in a disassembly. * Add --set-section-alignment = option to objcopy to allow the changing of section alignments. * Add --verilog-data-width option to objcopy for verilog targets to control width of data elements in verilog hex format. * The separate debug info file options of readelf (--debug-dump=links and --debug-dump=follow) and objdump (--dwarf=links and --dwarf=follow-links) will now display and/or follow multiple links if more than one are present in a file. (This usually happens when gcc's -gsplit-dwarf option is used). In addition objdump's --dwarf=follow-links now also affects its other display options, so that for example, when combined with --syms it will cause the symbol tables in any linked debug info files to also be displayed. In addition when combined with --disassemble the --dwarf= follow-links option will ensure that any symbol tables in the linked files are read and used when disassembling code in the main file. * Add support for dumping types encoded in the Compact Type Format to objdump and readelf. Our thanks go out to all of the binutils contributors, past and present, for helping to make this release possible. Note in case you are wondering about what happened to the 2.33 release, it is stuck pending the resolution of an issue with the keys used to sign the release. Once this is resolved the 2.33 tarballs will be uploaded, even though they will now be slightly out of date. Cheers Nick Clifton Binutils Chief Maintainer.
• 1er GNUFEST 2019

  On October 26 I was present at the event 1 GNUFEST 2019 in the city of San Cristóbal, in this event I was representing Fedora giving the talk “What do people live in Free Software?“, Is the second time I give this talk the which was created at FudConf Panamá 2011, I like to give this talk since I usually give technical talks, in this I explain how someone can live from Free Software and that there is an entire economic ecosystem behind free software that allows it to be self-sustaining.

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Thank you, O Great Chrome Web Store, for saving us from the clearly hazardous, manifestly unscrupulous, overtly duplicitous uBlock Origin. Because, doubtlessly, this open-source ad-block extension by its very existence and nature could never "have a single purpose that is clear to users." I mean, it's an ad-blocker. Those are bad.
Really, this is an incredible own goal on Google's part. Although I won't resist the opportunity to rag on them, I also grudgingly admit that this is probably incompetence rather than malice and likely yet another instance of something falling through the cracks in Google's all-powerful, rarely examined automatic algorithms (though there is circumstantial evidence to the contrary). Having a human examine these choices costs money in engineering time, and frankly when the automated systems are misjudging something that will probably cost Google's ad business money as well, there's just no incentive to do anything about it. But it's a bad look, especially with how two-faced the policy on Manifest V3 has turned out to be and its effect on ad-blocker options for Chrome.

It is important to note that this block is for Chrome rather than Chromium-based browsers (like Edge, Opera, Brave, etc.). That said, Chrome is clearly the one-ton gorilla, and Google doesn't like you sideloading extensions. While Mozilla reviews extensions too, and there have been controversial rejections on their part, speaking as an add-on author of over a decade there is at least a human on the other end even if once in a while the human is a butthead. (A volunteer butthead, to be sure, but still a butthead.) Plus, you can sideload with a little work, even unsigned add-ons. So far I think they've reached a reasonable compromise between safety and user choice even if sometimes the efforts don't scale. On the other hand, Google clearly hasn't by any metric.

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• Plotting with PyQtGraph

  One of the major strengths of Python is in exploratory data science and visualization, using tools such as Pandas, numpy, sklearn for data analysis and matplotlib plotting. Buiding GUI applications with PyQt gives you access to all these Python tools directly from within your app, allowing you to build complex data-driven apps and interactive dashboards.

  While it is possible to embed matplotlib plots in PyQt the experience does not feel entirely native. For simple and highly interactive plots you may want to consider using PyQtGraph instead. PyQtGraph is built on top of PyQ5 native QGraphicsScene giving better drawing performance, particularly for live data, as well as providing interactivity and the ability to easily customize plots with Qt graphics widgets.

  In this tutorial we'll walk through the first steps of creating a plot widget with PyQtGraph and then demonstrate plot customization using line colours, line type, axis labels, background colour and plotting multiple lines.

• Python 3.5.8rc2

  Python 3.5 has now entered "security fixes only" mode, and as such the only changes since Python 3.5.4 are security fixes. Also, Python 3.5.8rc2 has only been released in source code form; no more official binary installers will be produced.

• Developers in 2020 need open source and want the ability to work remotely

  But at the same time I think participation in open source products, projects, is also a key aspect that people can bring to the table in terms of additional credibility and also just being able to showcase what they're able to do in terms of collaborations.

• Dirk Eddelbuettel: GitHub Streak: Round Six

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• One Weird Law That Interferes With Security Research, Remix Culture, and Even Car Repair

  How can a single, ill-conceived law wreak havoc in so many ways? It prevents you from making remix videos. It blocks computer security research. It keeps those with print disabilities from reading ebooks. It makes it illegal to repair people's cars. It makes it harder to compete with tech companies by designing interoperable products. It's even been used in an attempt to block third-party ink cartridges for printers.

  It's hard to believe, but these are just some of the consequences of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives legal teeth to "access controls" (like DRM). Courts have mostly interpreted the law as abandoning the traditional limitations on copyright's scope, such as fair use, in favor of a strict regime that penalizes any bypassing of access controls (such as DRM) on a copyrighted work regardless of your noninfringing purpose, regardless of the fact that you own that copy of the work.  

• One Weird Law That Interferes With Security Research, Remix Culture, and Even Car Repair
• Spotify is Defective by Design

  I never used Spotify, since it contains DRM. Instead I still buy DRM-free CDs. Most of my audio collection is stored in free formats such as FLAC and Ogg Vorbis, or Red Book in the case of CDs, everything can be played by free players such as VLC or mpd.

  Spotify, which uses a central server, also spies on the listener. Everytime you listen a song, Spotify knows which song you have listened and when and where. By contrast free embedded operating systems such as Rockbox do not phone home. CDs can be baught anonymously and ripped using free software, there is no need for an internet commection.

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• What have you been playing recently and what do you think about it?

  Having seen a number of great Linux releases lately, it's getting tough opening Steam and actually picking something to play. The very new release of Pine has certainly sucked away a lot of my time, something about the world Twirlbound created has seriously pulled me in. It's not without issues though. While forcing my CPU to stay in Performance mode has made it smoother, it definitely needs improving.

• Dota 2 matchmaking may be less terrible now for solo players and more difficult for toxic people

  Valve continue to do some pretty big tweaks to the matchmaking system in Dota 2, with another blog post and update talking about all the improvements they're implementing.

  This is following on from all the other changes recently like the ban waves and sounds like they're really pushing to make the Dota 2 community and gameplay better for everyone.

  Ever played a game of Dota 2 by yourself and get matched against an entire team of people? I have, it sucks. They're all forming a strategy, while half of your team are telling each other they're going to report them. It happened for a lot of others too and Valve have finally put a stop to it. In the latest blog post, Valve said that now a five-player team will only be matched up against other five-player teams. For Solo players, they will now only be matched up with a party maximum of two, so Solo players will either now be against an entire team of other Solo players or possibly three solo players and one party of two.

• Arizona Sunshine | Linux Gaming | Ubuntu 19.04 | Steam Play

  Arizona Sunshine VR running through Steam play.

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• How to explain multi-cloud in plain English
  
• How to Install LAMP Stack on CentOS 8/RHEL 8
• How To Set Permanent DNS Nameservers in Ubuntu and Debian
• How To Install Pip on Debian 10 Buster
• How to Install LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Debian 9
• How to play The Sims 3 on Linux
• How to install Lubuntu 19.10

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Version 1.3 of the Open Document Format (ODF), an open standard for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, will be ratified by the OASIS standardisation organisation in December, according to the Document Foundation – the organisation supporting the development of LibreOffice. This update of the ODF standard has been made possible by financial contributions from the United Kingdom, the European Commission, and three office productivity software companies: US multinational Microsoft, UK-based Collabora, and German software maker CIB.

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• Google Pixel 4 might be faster than Android fans could have ever imagined
• Gaming, photo apps in Google Play infect Android handsets with malware
• [Update: Pocket Cases, Shazam] Here are some 3rd-party apps w/ Android 10 dark theme support
• MIUI 11 to start rolling out globally on October 16
• How To Stream PS4 Games To Any Android Phone

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It’s finally here! Mastodon 3.0 is live! The team has been hard at work on making sure that this release is one of our most user-friendly yet with some exciting new features! Here are just a few: [...]

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• Openwashing Reports Are on Hold
• Support the GNU Project and Support Free Speech
• The Campinos Car Crash
• Software Patents (or Monopolies on Algorithms) Are Not ‘Property’ and They’re Not Even Legally Valid
• Today’s EPO is Working for Patent Trolls and the ‘Aye Pee’ (IP) ‘Industry’ Instead of Science
• The EPO’s Universal Patent Injustice Concealed With Polyglottic Tricks
• Microsoft Tweets in Linux Platforms
• IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 11, 2019
• Links 12/10/2019: Rspamd 2.0, Kdenlive 19.08.2, Plasma Mobile Progress, FreeBSD 12.1 RC1

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Peek is a really nice creation. It's easy to use, it's robust, it works well, and it produces high-quality output. There's just the right balance of everything. I would like to complain, but there's nothing to fault. The only improvement that I can think of would be to auto-frame windows on mouse-click, so it saves some resizing. Other than that, there's nothing else here. In fact, it's very easy to enhance the feature set, but that might actually disrupt the finely tuned elegance and refreshment.

If you're a software tester, or you need to share mini-tutorials with family, friends or colleagues without going overboard with full video creation suites plus something like a Youtube account or alike, Peek is the tool for you. Within seconds, you can render tiny projects that looks clear and sharp, and should be small enough to email. Just what you need in an age of over-complicated abstractions. Well done, highly recommended.

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• Android cofounder Andy Rubin should stop making smartphones
• Pinterest Lite Debuts for Android Users in 5 Countries
• Best new mobile games on iOS and Android - October 2019 round-up
• 15 of the best tower defense games available on Android in 2019
• Top 10 Ways to Fix Google Calendar Sync Error on Android
• Motorola One Zoom review: Ready for its closeup
• Breaking: Galaxy S10 Android 10 One UI 2.0 beta program is now live!
• Xiaomi is working on a 120Hz Android 10 smartphone
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro starts receiving Android 10
• Samsung opens Android 10-based One UI 2.0 beta program for the Galaxy S10 lineup
• Google Confirms Next Operating System Is Android 11, Mentions OS' Latest Features
• Google to Focus on Digital Wellbeing With Future Android Devices
• Google's Upcoming Pixel Watch Might Run A Version Of Android OS

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