Linux

Let me know your feedback, especially if you haven't learned awk yet!

This release adds the following features:

• Drop heap as part of a housekeeping action
• Retry downloads to workaround flaky network connections

This release fixes the following bugs:

• Assume new ME versions are called CSME
• Fix a buffer-overread when parsing invalid CoSWID entity data
• Fix a logic thinko when parsing GUID strings
• Fix downloading files on Windows with libcurl >= 7.77.0
• Revert back to a simpler syscall blocklist-based filter

This release adds support for the following hardware:

• Acer U32 dock
• Luxshare 7-in-1 dock
• Pixart models 2404, 4206, 2440, 2418, 2752, 2840 and 2818

I know that there are ten different alternatives. Why don't we simply improve the basic stuff?

I am tired of creating a file with nano, saving it and then making it executable. Is there a command that makes it in one step?

I have the amd 6700 gpu. When i run lutris in the terminal it cant find vulkaninfo or fluidsynth

I am currently on win10 but have been toying with mint and liking it. I intend on fully switching over soon. I have also been toying with the idea of some simple 3D modeling, like making custom parts for projects around my house. Maybe using a CAD software to generate stls for a 3D print or using it to spec out parts for a design made out of aluminum extrusion (like 8020) little things like that. I was thinking about getting a solidworks hobbyist license for 45 a year but solidworks doesn't support Linux. I could keep a Windows dual boot HDD, but fuck that. Any suggestions on a CAD software that fits? Have a gaming PC with a 3060 and some beefy hardware.

I've been using Linux for about 7 months now and have become a lot more comfortable using the terminal but I feel like there is more that I can learn.

Most of my work is done in a browser or DaVinci Resolve. I do try to use the terminal where possible but it's limited due to my workflow.

Are there any interactive sites where I can practice/learn the terminal? I'm going through Linux Survival at the moment.

EDIT: I forgot to add some important details.

I don't have a massive need for the terminal for my current workflow but I think it is important to know (looks good for any future job applications as well) and expand your knowledge on things that interest you when possible.

In the future, I hope to have a home lab/NAS running Linux. I will most likely SSH into that and I'd like to deal with any issues via the terminal.

I use Arch btw (technically EndeavourOS)

I'm interested in automatically generating lengthy, coherent stories of 10,000+ words from a single prompt using an open source local large language model (LLM) on low-spec hardware like a laptop without GPU and with i5-8250U, 16GB DDR4-2400MHz. I came across the "Awesome-Story-Generation" repository which lists relevant papers describing promising methods like "Re3: Generating Longer Stories With Recursive Reprompting and Revision", announced in this Twitter thread from October 2022 and "DOC: Improving Long Story Coherence With Detailed Outline Control", announced in this Twitter thread from December 2022. However, these papers used GPT-3, and I was hoping to find similar techniques implemented with open source tools that I could run locally. If anyone has experience or knows of resources that could help me achieve long, coherent story generation with an open source LLM on low-spec hardware, I would greatly appreciate any advice or guidance.

Welcome to the monthly update for openSUSE Tumbleweed for April 2024. This month began after addressing last month’s supply chain attack against xz compression library for the rolling release. An explanation of that XZ Backdoor, how it was address and what was learned can be found on news.opensuse.org.

A flurry of updates, enhancements, and crucial security fixes arrived in openSUSE’s rolling release this month as the busy season for conferences begins. Should readers desire a more frequent amount of information about snapshot updates, readers are encouraged to subscribe to the openSUSE Factory mailing list.

New Features and Enhancements

• Linux Kernel: The month of April had a few kernel updates. Notable changes with the 6.8.5 version included mitigation for Branch History Injection (BHI) vulnerabilities, improvements to Spectre mitigation, updates for Intel graphics drivers, fixes for SMB client vulnerabilities and fixes for RISC-V architecture. Version 6.8.7 included updates and fixes for AMD display drivers, Intel i915 driver, x86 speculative execution vulnerabilities, arm 64 device tree files, DRM drivers, filesystem handling, and more.
• KDE Frameworks 6.1.0: The numpy package introduces enhanced support for structured arrays and flexible indexing, while pandas incorporates improved handling of missing data and new methods for data manipulation. Additionally, the matplotlib package offers enhanced customization options for plot aesthetics. New algorithms for machine learning tasks in scikit-learn were included in the update.
• KDE Gear 24.02.2: The KDE Gear 24.02.2 update encompasses a wide range of fixes and enhancements, including resolving issues with tag addition functionality in Akonadi, addressing translated shortcut and icon appearance problems in Akregator, various improvements and fixes in ark such as disabling RAR4 compression method, multiple fixes in Elisa including volume slider and track playback issues and numerous enhancements in Konsole. There were fixes for calendar selection and the todo view updates in Korganizer.
• PHP8 8.3.6: There were significant bug fixes, security patches and improvements across different components including in the update. Besides fixes with Core, DOM, GD, Opcache and Session other fixes include:
  • FPM: Fixes have been applied to address issues with the configuration test running twice in daemonized mode and incorrect checks in fpm_shm_free().
  • Gettext: Fixes have been made to address issues with dcgettext and dcngettext calls with specific configurations.
  • MySQLnd: Various fixes have been applied, including correcting handshake response and charset length checks.
  • Random: Compatibility improvements have been introduced for PHP versions prior to 8.2, and issues with global Mt19937 reset have been resolved.
  • Standard: Validation has been added for specific characters in the mail() function, and various bug fixes have been implemented, including addressing command injection and cookie bypass vulnerabilities. (Noted in CVE-2024-1874, CVE-2024-2756 and fixing issues with mb_encode_mimeheader and password_verify with CVE-2024-3096 and CVE-2024-2757.
• Mozilla Firefox 125.0.2. The browser brought new features such as:
  • Support for AV1 codec in Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for improved video playback quality.
  • Enhanced PDF viewer capabilities with text highlighting.
  • Introduction of the URL Paste Suggestion feature, improving usability by allowing quick navigation to URLs copied to the clipboard.
  • Multiple critical security fixes addressing vulnerabilities like out-of-bounds reads and use-after-free errors that enhance browser security.
• dracut: There were improvements such as the addition of tpm2.target and systemd-tpm2-generator and several memory leak fixes.
• ffmpeg: Versions 4 and 6 took care of some video handling issues and made fixes for memory leaks with improved EOF handling. The updates addresses:
  • CVE-2023-51793 and CVE-2023-49502.
  • CVE-2023-50008 and CVE-2023-50007
• sqlite3: An update from version 3.45.2 to 3.45.3 addresses a long-standing bug affecting the accuracy of trigger responses in certain UPSERT operations to ensure for more reliable database operations.
• Flatpak: The 1.15.8 update had some security fixes to prevent sandbox escape and various other usability improvements.
• Python3.11: The 3.11.9 version had various security patches and bug fixes, such as addressing CVE-2023-52425, updating bundled libexpat to version 2.6.0, fixing possible crashes in collections.deque.index() and improves SSLContext behavior.
• Cppcheck: New checks in version 2.14.0 include:
  • eraseIteratorOutOfBounds: Warns about calling erase() on an iterator that is out of bounds, enhancing the robustness of code.
  • returnByReference: Warns when a large class member is returned by value from a getter function, which can impact performance and memory usage.

Other Package Updates

• SDL2: Version 2.30.2 introduces support for various new controllers, including the 6-button SEGA Mega Drive Control Pad and the Hori Fighting Stick EX2.
• Cryptsetup: Version 2.7.2 addressed several issues, including fixes for OPAL device formatting and activation.
• SpamAssassin: A package with a great name, version 4.0.1 enhances URL shortener link redirection handling and improved TxRep locking management, which bolsters email security for users.

Bug Fixes

• Xwayland: CVE-2024-31083 This critical security vulnerability mitigates an Xorg servers vulnerable due to use-after-free flaw in ProcRenderAddGlyphs(), allowing authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code.
• [PHP8]((https://www.php.net/):[CVE-2023-51793](https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-51793.html), CVE-2023-49502, CVE-2023-50008 and CVE-2023-50007
• glibc: CVE-2024-2961 allows buffer overflow when converting to ISO-2022-CN-EXT, causing crashes or variable overwrites. libxml2: CVE-2024-25062 was a vulnerablity to use-after-free via crafted XML documents.
• Python3.11: CVE-2023-52425, CVE-2023-6597
• QEMU: Backports and bugfixes were made for a flaw that allows a malicious guest to crash QEMU and cause a denial of service condition with CVE-2024-3567. CVE-2024-3446 could affect arbitrary code execution and CVE-2024-3447 was also backported.
• Freerdp2: Version 2.11.5 provided fixes for CVE-2023-40574, which experienced an Out-Of-Bounds Write in the writePixelBGRX function that was likely due to incorrect variable calculations, and CVE-2023-40575, which results in crashes.

Conclusion

The month of April 2024 had a blend of feature enhancements and crucial security fixes. From improved gaming support with SDL2 to strengthened encryption practices with Cryptsetup, users benefited from a host of updates aimed at enhancing functionality, stability and security. Other packages to update in Tumbleweed during the month were Mesa, GTK4, transactional-update and more .

For those Tumbleweed users that want to contribute, subscribe to the openSUSE Factory mailing list. The openSUSE team encourages users to continue participating through bug reports, feature suggestions and discussions.

Contributing to openSUSE Tumbleweed

Your contributions and feedback make openSUSE Tumbleweed better with every update. Whether reporting bugs, suggesting features, or participating in community discussions, your involvement is highly valued.

More Information about openSUSE:

• https://news.opensuse.org/
• https://discuss.tchncs.de/c/openSUSE@kbin.social

this command line music player, kew, looks so good, wanted to share it with you guys. but it needs improvements (a lot) tho

https://github.com/ravachol/kew

I am running Fedora 39 right now and the last time I did a distro upgrade my graphics drivers were a huge PITA. Did your upgrade to 40 went smooth?

Release Notes

For those of you who don't know, Linux From Scratch is a project that teaches you how to compile your own custom distro, with everything compiled from source code.

What was your experience like? Was it easier or harder than you expected? Do you run it as a daily driver or did you just do it for fun?

Essentially as the title says, I'm running SDDM with the Wayland backend on Fedora 40 Sway edition and I want to enable tap-to-click for my touchpad. Any ideas on how I can do that? I tried doing it in the xorf config but then I realised the x server isn't even installed so SDDM is actually running on Wayland, and I don't know how to do that on Wayland with SDDM. Any ideas?

Edit: So if Plasma is installed, SDDM uses kwin_wayland, and the docs say that it normally uses weston. But what happens when neither of those are installed? Well, as it turns out, on Fedora Sway, they use Sway as the compositor for SDDM (probably to lower the ISO size). So imagine my delight when I did a sudo -e /etc/sway/sddm-greeter.conf and copied the tap-to-click (and keyboard layout for good measure) blocks of code from my old sway config to that file, saved and logged out. It worked! So yeah, the secret is in realising what compositor SDDM is using (and I think you might be able to force a compositor of your choice in the SDDM config, but I'm not sure how)

So i tried to connect steamdeck to pc using usb and i read its immpossible because steamdeck is a computer and some explanation on quora about strong master slave relationship. But then why is it possible for android phones to connect to pc whilist also having the ability to use USB and other usb c accesories. Also why cant it be a toggle? So that you can change whetewer this usb( or device ) is reciving data ot sending data .

tl;dr :

• Hexchat IRC client app development stopped
• Linux Mint team was building IRC client to replace Hexchat
• The team tried Matrix and liked it
• Linux Mint’s communication channels are moving from IRC to Matrix
• The desktop app will be named Matrix to avoid confusion

Pretty much the title. I'm not a regular on Discord and the website doesn't have any info about a release plan.

Link: https://tauonmusicbox.rocks/

For podcasts and radio, you'll need another program. But this is the closest any player has come to the Windows-only MusicBee masterpiece. Via Wine, I've been using MusicBee since I switched to Linux a few months ago, but it was tedious to set up.

Tauon Music Box has the best search I've ever seen, just type anywhere and start playback with left click or jump to song/artist/album with right click. It also has a great way to write filter and sort queries for custom libraries (the same as playlists here). F5 shows the current cover and song name in "fullscreen" with a frequency spectrum visualizer.

Screenshots from my library with custom settings:

I also consider using it to play my audiobooks, because you can separate playlists to scan separate folders and not get music and audiobooks mixed.

I noticed the AppOutlet repo has been archived, but I really liked the idea of one store to rule them all (I.e. snaps, appimages, flatpaks, etc. in one place).

Any current recommendations for an alternative?