Linux Blimp

Squid is an open source, full-featured and high-performance web proxy cache application that can be arranged hierarchically for an improvement in response time and a reduction in bandwidth usage.

It works by first caching frequently used websites and then reuse them to provide users with a much faster web browsing experience, as well as to reduce the costs of their expensive Internet plans.

Supports a wide range of protocols

The application supports proxying and caching of the well known HTTP/HTTPS and FTP Internet protocols, as well as other URLs. Furthermore, it supports proxying for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), cache hierarchies, cache digests, transparent caching, extensive access controls, HTTP server acceleration, and caching of DNS (Domain Name System) lookups.

In addition, it supports the ICP (Internet Cache Protocol), HTCP (Hypertext caching protocol), CARP (Common Address Redundancy Protocol), SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), and WCCP (Web Cache Communication Protocol) specifications.

Used by many ISPs around the world

The program is mostly used by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who want to deliver their users with ultra fast and high quality Internet connections, especially for intense web browsing sessions. It is also used by several websites to deliver rich multimedia content faster.

Being the result of many contributions by unpaid and paid volunteers, the Squid project has been successfully tested with popular GNU/Linux distributions, as well as with the Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Squid is an important project for all home Internet users, but it was extremely useful a few years ago when there weren’t so many high-speed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) out there.

Bottom line

These days, thanks to the ever-growing network technologies, one those not need to install and configure a Squid proxy cache server in order to have a faster web browsing experience. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s not useful in some third world countries where high-speed Internet connection is still available only to rich people or big companies.

Web proxy Proxy cache Proxy server Proxy Server Cache Web

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Whenever you’re running a Linux distro, it’s always a challenge to find all your necessary tools directly in the default repository. Granted, all the repositories of any Linux distro comes with a pretty large collection of default software and tools. However, in some cases, you may need to get software outside the repository and install it.

In the case of CentOS and RHEL, it uses “yum” as its package manager. In case you need to grab a software package from a different source, you either need to follow the classical method (grabbing the source, building the software and installing it) or locate an installable package. For CentOS and RHEL, you should look for RPM packages.

There are also other Linux distros that use the RPM package format as the default installable package type, for example, Fedora and OpenSUSE. Keep in mind that you should look for RPM packages that are specifically built for CentOS/RHEL system. Otherwise, you may need to depend on the Fedora/OpenSUSE package. In that case, use them at your own risk (high chance of it not working properly, malfunctioning or not even installing properly).

It’s time to learn about managing an RPM package on CentOS/RHEL! My test system is CentOS 7.

Obtain an RPM

At first, find a suitable RPM package that you’ll be working with. Whatever RPM package you grab, make sure that you choose the correct one according to your system’s architecture.

I’m going with the Google Chrome RPM package.

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

RPM usage

Before diving into the deep end, don’t forget to enable the EPEL repository on your CentOS system!

Run this command first –

sudo yum install epel-release

Then, update your system –

Installing an RPM package

By default, the following command should do the job –

sudo yum install ./ google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm

Now, let’s slow down and have a look at the command.

• yum: calling the “yum” tool for performing the installation of the RPM package.
• install: Perform an installation job. In this case, it’s the parsed RPM package.
• ./ : This is a very important part. Without this, “yum” won’t solve the dependency issues (missing/corrupted or unsatisfied dependencies).

You could also perform the action with “RPM” but working with “yum” is preferred, as it will solve all the dependency issues by default; no need to scratch your head and try to find out the required dependencies and packages etc.

Uninstalling the RPM package

If you’re no longer interested in the software you installed before, you can directly uninstall it by running the following command –

sudo yum remove <package_name>

• Converting DEB to RPM

This is an interesting thing to perform but it’s possible! You can convert a DEB (default Debian/Ubuntu installation package) into an RPM package. Of course, things are pretty much bound to break down.

However, this method came in handy in the past, so feel free to keep this trick in mind!

At first, grab a test DEB package. I’ll be using the Google Chrome DEB package.

Install the converting tool – alien. It comes from the EPEL repository, so make sure that you configured EPEL on your system.

Then, use the tool for performing the conversion!

sudo alien -r <deb_package_name>

Once the generation process is complete, you’ll end up with an installable RPM package on the directory.

Then, enjoy the RPM just like you would with a regular RPM!

sudo yum install ./<RPM_file>

Enjoy!

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I’ve written about and trained folks on various DevOps tools through the years, and although they’re awesome, it’s obvious that most of them are designed from the mind of a developer. There’s nothing wrong with that, because approaching configuration management programmatically is the whole point. Still, it wasn’t until I started playing with Ansible that I felt like it was something a sysadmin quickly would appreciate.

Part of that appreciation comes from the way Ansible communicates with its client computers—namely, via SSH. As sysadmins, you’re all very familiar with connecting to computers via SSH, so right from the word “go”, you have a better understanding of Ansible than the other alternatives.

With that in mind, I’ve written a few articles exploring how to take advantage of Ansible. It’s a great system, but when I was first exposed to it, it wasn’t clear how to start. It’s not that the learning curve is steep. In fact, if anything, the problem was that I didn’t really have that much to learn before starting to use Ansible, and that made it confusing. For example, if you don’t have to install an agent program (Ansible doesn’t have any software installed on the client computers), how do you start?

Ansible, Part I: the Automation Framework That Thinks Like a Sysadmin

How to get started with Ansible. Shawn tells us the reason Ansible was so difficult for him at first was because it’s so flexible with how to configure the server/client relationship, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. The truth is that Ansible doesn’t really care how you set up the SSH system; it will utilize whatever configuration you have. This article will get you set up.

Ansible, Part II: Making Things Happen

Finally, an automation framework that thinks like a sysadmin. Ansible, you’re hired.

Ansible is supposed to make your job easier, so the first thing you need to learn is how to do familiar tasks. For most sysadmins, that means some simple command-line work. Ansible has a few quirks when it comes to command-line utilities, but it’s worth learning the nuances, because it makes for a powerful system.

Ansible, Part III: Playbooks

Playbooks make Ansible even more powerful than before.

To be quite honest, if Ansible had nothing but its ad-hoc mode, it still would be a powerful and useful tool for automating large numbers of computers. In fact, if it weren’t for a few features, I might consider sticking with ad-hoc mode and adding a bunch of those ad-hoc commands to a Bash script and be done with learning. Those few additional features, however, make the continued effort well worth it.

Ansible, Part IV: Putting It All Together

Roles are the most complicated and yet simplest aspect of Ansible to learn.

I’ve mentioned before that Ansible’s ad-hoc mode often is overlooked as just a way to learn how to use Ansible. I couldn’t disagree with that mentality any more fervently than I already do. Ad-hoc mode is actually what I tend to use most often on a day-to-day basis. That said, using playbooks and roles are very powerful ways to utilize Ansible’s abilities. In fact, when most people think of Ansible, they tend to think of the roles feature, because it’s the way most Ansible code is shared. So first, it’s important to understand the relationship between ad-hoc mode, playbooks and roles.

This article was originally published May 2018, updated in January 2019 to add additional resources.

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The new year is upon us, which means yet another year has gone by in which Linux has not found itself dominating the desktop. Linux does many things very well, and in the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at the some of the very best distributions to suit your various needs, but for now, let’s take a step back and revisit this old issue.

For some, the idea of Linux dominance on the desktop has fallen to the wayside; instead, users simply want what works. The Linux operating system, however, does “just work.” And when you stop to realize that the typical user spends the vast majority of their time working (or playing) within a browser, it stands to reason that Linux (with its heightened security and reliability) is primed to become the dominant platform on the desktop market.

And yet it hasn’t. Why?

That’s the question that has confounded so many people for so many years. And, the possible answer five years ago would have been completely different from the answer today. To that end, I’ve come up with seven things that could help Linux gain traction on the desktop space. My suggestions are not necessarily easy or popular. No. What you’ll find here are seven ideas that could seriously help Linux stake its claim as a dominant player on the desktop market.

One Distro to Rule them All

I’ve been saying this for some time, but it’s not quite what you think it is. The distribution fragmentation within the Linux community is doing more harm than good. Consider this: Company X has a piece of software that already runs on Windows and Mac OS, and it’s incredibly popular. When asked to make their software available for Linux, the company says, “We’d love to do that, but it’s just too complicated.” When pressed further, it becomes clear that Company X refuses because there are so many permutations of Linux to consider. Which distribution? Which package manager? Which desktop? Which toolkit? The list goes on.

Because of this, I believe Linux needs to come up with a single “official” distribution — one that all Company X’s can focus their efforts on. Say that official distribution is Debian with the GNOME desktop. All Company X needs to then do is make their software run on that combination. If you, as a user, want to run the software from Company X on Linux, you know you’d have to do so on the official distribution. That doesn’t mean all other distributions go away. Nay, nay. It just means there’s an official distribution that companies can focus their efforts on.

I realize this is not a popular idea, but it’s one that should seriously be considered. Otherwise, Linux will continue to miss out on the likes of Photoshop, Adobe Premier, MS Office, etc.

A Viable X.org Replacement

X.org has served its purpose, but the replacement is long overdue. Canonical tried — and failed — with Mir. Wayland has been under development for quite some time, but it’s not ready for prime time yet. Because X.org has been around for so long, it carries with it a lot of baggage, some of which could be considered a security risk. Think about this: Linux is growing and evolving quite rapidly. How fast can the desktop evolve if it relies on antiquated technology? Instead of continuing to stand on that aging GUI foundation, Linux needs something that can bring much more agility to desktop improvement. Is that solution Wayland, or is there another option available? Who knows. But, Linux software continues to evolve (from the kernel to the user-space apps) at a rapid pace, and the X Window system can no longer keep up. The feasibility of something new coming to fruition and being ready for deployment this year is a pipe dream, but we need to see some solid progress in 2019.

Culling the App Herd

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve opened up a Linux app store and searched for a tool, only to find apps that are no longer being developed, haven’t been updated in a very long time, or have broken or deprecated dependencies. This will not do. Those responsible for the curation of apps in the various app stores need to get rid of the cruft. The last thing Linux needs is out of date, non-functioning, insecure apps for users to install. I realize that one reason many of these apps remain is to keep the numbers high. But saying there are tens of thousands of titles, when a good percentage shouldn’t be there is misleading. Those outdated, deprecated, abandoned apps need to go.

Real-Time Antivirus and Anti-Malware

This is where I might lose some people … but stay with me. I cannot tell you how many times I get asked, “Does Linux need antivirus or antimalware software?” My answer is always, “No, at least not yet.” Why the “not yet”? Because when Linux starts pulling in the numbers that Windows and Mac OS currently enjoy, you can bet the Linux desktop will become a target. But beyond that, what about users who receive email with malicious payloads, who then (unwittingly) send those payloads on to others? Or what about web browser phishing attacks? Linux has tools like ClamAV (and ClamTK), but they don’t do real-time scanning. The Linux community needs to start planning for the future, which means developing a real-time, open source antivirus/anti-malware solution.

Prosumer-Grade Apps

Linux has plenty of apps for the average user. It also has plenty of apps for IT pros. What it doesn’t have is apps for prosumers. For those that don’t know, a prosumer is an amateur who purchases tools that are of professional-grade quality. That’s where the likes of Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Avid Pro Tools, and others come in. Linux doesn’t have the equivalent of any of these. Sure, Linux has an abundance of consumer-grade software (such as Audacity and OpenShot), but those tools are nowhere near prosumer-level. You’re simply not going to be editing a full-length film with OpenShot, or mastering an album with Audacity. Until Linux lands a few serious prosumer-grade tools, it’ll be ignored on that level of usage.

Better Font Rendering

Linux font rendering has come a long way, but it’s still light years behind that of Mac OS. If you use a MacBook Pro or iMac for a while and then come back to Linux, you’ll see the difference. A big part of this has to do with the fact that Linux is still relying upon X.org (see above). And, although this may seem like an afterthought to many, the beauty of a desktop is one of the first things that grabs a user’s attention. If a user looks at a desktop and sees an inferior result, that love affair won’t last long. And, to add injury to that insult, when you stare at a Linux desktop all day, as I do, you may find that poor font rendering can overwork your eyes. Linux needs some serious effort to provide superior font rendering.

More Companies Shipping Quality Products

After visiting System76 (to see the new Thelio factory), I have become convinced the future of the Linux desktop depends on companies like that. System76 is creating a holistic approach to Linux, such that the hardware they ship works seamlessly and beautifully. That’s exactly the experience we need for Linux. Someone who wants to use Linux should be able to purchase a laptop or desktop, connect it to their peripherals, and everything work out of the box… with zero effort. That’s what System76 delivers. Linux needs more companies doing that same thing, with the same level of proficiency. Period.

A Place to Start

Linux doesn’t have to have all seven of these ideas fall into place at once. But if we want to dominate the desktop, this list would be a good place to start. Are there more areas in which Linux can improve? Of course. But let’s begin with the obvious and go from there.

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Last year was among the best of times for Linux and open-source. It was also the worst of years. The top five Linux and open-source stories tell it all.

Spectre/Meltdown

First, last January there were a lot of exhausted and angry Linux kernel developers. That’s because a fundamental chip design mistake led to Linux and all Intel-based operating systems having to deal with the Spectre and Meltdown major security problems.

Also: Researchers discover seven new Meltdown and Spectre attacks

Intel’s refusal to let developers work openly with each other led to massive delays in fixing the problems. As Greg Kroah-Hartman, the stable Linux kernel maintainer, explained, “When we get a kernel security bug, it goes to the Linux kernel security team, we drag in the right people, we work with the distributions getting everyone on the same page and push out patches.” Not this time. “Intel siloed SUSE, they siloed Red Hat, they siloed Canonical. They never told Oracle, and they wouldn’t let us talk to each other.”

Linus Torvalds, Linux’s master developer, added, that with the “security issues kept under wraps, we couldn’t do our usual open methods. This made fixing the bugs much more painful than it should be.”

Adding insult to injury Spectre problems persist to this day, and the fixes cause significant slowdowns for both Linux and all other operating systems. We will be stuck with this until a new generation of CPUs fixes the Spectre-family of bugs once and for all.

IBM Buys Red Hat

I didn’t see this coming. IBM made the biggest software company acquisition of all time when it paid $34 billion for Red Hat. This deal wasn’t about Linux. It was about IBM wanting Red Hat’s cloud, container, and Kubernetes expertise.

Also: How the cloud wars forced IBM to buy Red Hat for $34 billion

Will it work? Maybe. IBM is betting the farm on becoming a hybrid-cloud power. On the other hand, had IBM stayed pat with its current offerings, it would have only continued its long slow decline.

To make the deal work, in 2019 IBM must double-down on its Red Hat wager. That means putting Red Hat executives in charge of the merged company. I’ll feel much better about this deal’s future if IBM CEO Ginni Rometty retires and is replaced by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.

Torvalds steps back from running Linux and Linux developers adopt a new code of conduct

Even now it’s hard to believe that Linus Torvalds took a break from running Linux. For almost 25 years, Torvalds was the benevolent dictator for life of Linux. The only way most people could see him leaving was if he was hit by a bus.

Also: Linus Torvalds and Linux Code of Conduct: 7 myths debunked

It turns out that what could make him step back was realizing his take-no-crap from anyone management style wasn’t working anymore. Torvalds said, “I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely.”

Torvalds wouldn’t be gone for long. As he came back, a new code of conduct for Linux kernel developers came with him. Despite numerous cries of outrage, mostly from people who weren’t Linux programmers, claiming Linux had been taken over by Social Justice Warriors (SJW)s, Linux development has continued on as always.

Google incorporates Linux into Chrome OS

If you look closely, you can see that Linux is the foundation operating system for Google’s Chrome OS. This makes Chrome OS, I argue, the most successful Linux desktop to date.

Also: Google’s Chrome OS gets new app muscle with built-in Linux CNET

It was only in 2018, however, that Google has made it possible to run native Linux simultaneously with Chrome OS. Curiously, this follows on the heels of Microsoft enabling Windows 10 users to run Linux with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). We may never have a year of Linux on the desktop, but Linux is nevertheless becoming ever more possible as a built-in add-on to other desktop operating systems.

Microsoft buys GitHub and open-sources its patent portfolio

Microsoft buying GitHub, the leading Git-based open-source code collaboration site, was surprising. Microsoft open-sourcing its patent portfolio was shocking.

Also: Pretty much no one quit GitHub over the Microsoft acquisition TechRepublic

By joining the Open Invention Network (OIN), an open-source patent consortium, Microsoft essentially agreed to grant a royalty-free and unrestricted license to its entire patent portfolio to all other OIN members.

This — not Torvalds stepping back from kernel development — was the most surprising Linux news of the year. Years ago, I’d said the one thing Microsoft had to do — to convince everyone in open source that it’s truly an open-source supporter — is stop using its patents against Android vendors. Well, that day finally arrived.

Even now, there are many people who think Microsoft is the Evil Empire, which will stab Linux and open-source in the back. They’re wrong. With this move, Microsoft is putting its own multi-billion dollar intellectual property behind Linux. As unbelievable as it may seem, Microsoft has become a leading open-source and Linux company.

Last year was a heck of a year. While I’m sure there will be many new, major developments for Linux and open-source software in 2019, I find it almost impossible to imagine that 2019 will bring even greater surprises… Well, unless we see MS-Linux. While I think that’s possible, it would also be a real shocker.

Related Stories:

• How Linux is dealing with Meltdown and Spectre
• IBM to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion
• Linus Torvalds takes a break from Linux
• Linux comes to Chromebooks
• Microsoft open-sources its patent portfolio

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You have probably had your fill of Surface Go reviews that seem to split the tech world in two. You’ve also most likely seen the brawls between the Surface Go and the iPad Pro, especially those revolving around the rhetoric of real PCs. So why not have yet another Surface Go review? This time, however, we’ll take a rather different spin and highlight one aspect that really does make the Surface Go a “real PC”: being able to install other operating systems like Linux. And in that regard, it is near perfect as an on-the-go Linux digital notepad.

Specs and Design

I won’t bore you with the details you’ve most likely read before. The Surface Go is by no means a powerful machine. If pure performance is measured, it could very well be outranked by last year’s iPad Pros, especially when it comes to battery life. But just to recap, Microsoft’s smallest Surface runs on a “special” Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y. The 10-inch screen still bears Microsoft’s unique 3:2 ratio, this time at 1800×1200 pixels. The battery is rated at 27Wh and charges either via Microsoft’s usual proprietary Surface Connect or, surprise surprise, a lone USB-C port that does both power, data, and video out.

One point of contention with earlier Surface Go reviews was the fact that most of them reviewed the more expensive model with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD, which is also what I bought. While that may almost be a necessity when it comes to Windows 10, especially after breaking out of S Mode, it may be a minor consideration if you have Linux in mind right from the very start. Linux is more efficient with both RAM and storage, though the 64 GB eMMC type on the base model could be a bottleneck. If, however, you plan on dual booting Windows and Linux, at least get the third model with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD storage.

The Surface Go is definitely a looker for its size and bears the same design as its larger and more professional siblings. The sleek magnesium chassis makes it look pro even for its diminutive size while the slightly curved edges and lightweight construction make it comfortable to hold with one hand over longer periods. Not too long, though, because it’s still 1.1 lbs of metal and plastic. All the ports, which includes a headphone jack, are on the right side while the opposite edge is left barren to make room for magnetically sticking a Surface Pen to. The top has the power and volume rocker buttons along the plastic antenna area while the bottom has the groove and POGO pins for the Surface Go Type Cover. Both accessories are sold separately, of course.

Living side by side

It’s quite impressive and comforting how Linux has come a long way in supporting even new devices that have just come out of the market. Perhaps it helps that many of the components that Microsoft used in the Surface Go have also been used in other Surface Pros, which have already been tested by daring Linux users.

As such, it fortunately didn’t take much to get Linux cohabiting with Windows 10 on the same machine. It may or may not be easier to have simply wiped off Microsoft’s OS but I still had use for that. On the Windows side, the biggest step was to disable BitLocker encryption on the C: drive (if it was even enabled) and then shrinking the Windows partition to make room for Linux plus 8 GB or so of swap. As mentioned, Linux isn’t much of a memory hog and non-critical system files can be offloaded to a microSD card anyway. Linux distros have also come a long way in making sure their installers work with modern features like UEFI and Secure Boot so the process was thankfully straightforward and uneventful.

It’s almost surprising, pleasantly, of course, how many things worked properly right out of the box. Wi-Fi needed a bit of coaxing but that is fortunately already documented. Bluetooth was working from day one. Display, touch, and even the Surface Pen’s pressure sensitivity and buttons worked without a hitch. The Type Cover’s touch pad was also properly detected and supported multi-finger gestures. Even power management was off to a good start. Accelerometer and proximity sensors are also detected, though their use mostly depends on your distro and desktop environment of choice. In this case, I used the Ubuntu-based KDE Neon. Long story short, save for a few pieces we’ll get to later, the Surface Go Linux experience is almost painless, as if you were installing it on any other modern laptop.

Performance and Battery

Installing Linux on the Surface Go would have been an exercise in futility if it ended up being unusable. Then again, this piece probably wouldn’t have been written in the first place if that were the case. While it’s harder to benchmark Linux performance due to lack of popular tools and the combinations off distros and desktops, one can probably make a generalization and rate it as “Great!”.

The display is bright and crisp. It’s considered a High DPI screen, though, so you may have to adjust the resolution or zooming to your comfort levels. Touch is completely usable and may even be fun to use, provided you’re using software that support it. Linux users might have to workaround those, but there is no shortage of utilities and tools for those. Onboard, for example, makes for a great configurable virtual keyboard while Touchegg on Ubuntu lets you have some multi-finger touch screen gestures as well.

Performance, of course, varies depending on the software you use. Again, Linux and its programs are kinder to CPU and memory but there will be times that even the 8 GB RAM might cause the system to choke for a bit. That’s especially true when you have multiple tabs open in Chrome or having multiple hi-res layers in Krita. Compiling in the background with multiple programs often could also result in some noticeable lag but nothing I threw at it has caused the Surface Go to grind to a halt. Yes, you can even play games on it, including those found on Steam for Linux. Your concern, however, will be the middling Intel GPU and throttling due to heat.

Battery life is another one of those metrics that is hard to pin down. Microsoft advertises 9 hours but none of the reviewers reached that much. They consider themselves lucky if they reach 6 hours. On Linux, 7 hours average is normal and might even be on the low end. The Surface Go makes up for its disappointing longevity with its ability to be topped off with a power bank. That said, not any power bank would do. One that has USB-C Power Deliver and dishes out 30 to 40 watts is probably the best. A slim 18W would be the bare minimum but, depending on what you’re doing, it could be a slow trickle or even a slow discharge.

Almost Perfect

Unsurprisingly, not everything works, or at least not yet. Neither camera is detected, for one, and while that saves you from being ridiculed taking photos with a large slab, it does leave out video chats and conferences. Audio is also a bit on the soft side though the mic does work at least. The biggest problem at the moment, however, is that the Surface Go boots directly into Windows, no matter how you installed Linux properly. You have to boot into Advanced Restart options after booting into Windows to get it to boot into GRUB. Or probably don’t reboot at all since Suspend works just fine.

So why go through all that to install Linux? It isn’t a matter of “because you can”, though there’s definitely some bragging rights involved. The Surface Go is actually an impressive piece of tech and is probably the lightest, best-looking, and well-performing Linux tablet you’ll be able to get your hands on. Save for a tablet that’s been made and designed to run Linux from that start, of course.

There is no shortage of small-form Linux computers out there, from Planet Computing’s Gemini PDA to the GPD Pocket “palm top” to the quirky stylus-enabled One Mix Yoga. But when it comes to an eye and finger-friendly general purpose Linux tablet that you can do almost anything on, within reason and limitations, the Surface Go seems to have, rather ironically, come closest to being the Linux iPad Pro. Now that is a real computer.

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Last updated January 4, 2019

Here’s a quick review of lightweight, fast, open source web browser Midori that has returned from the dead.

If you are looking for a lightweight alternative web browser, try Midori.

Midori is an open source web browser that focuses more on being lightweight than providing you a ton of features.

If you have never heard of Midori, you might think that it is a new application but Midori was first released in the year 2007.

Because it focused on speed, Midori soon gathered a niche following and became the default browser in lightweight Linux distributions like Bodhi Linux, SilTaz etc.

Even elementary OS used Midori as its default browser. But the development of Midori stalled around 2016 and its fans started wondering if Midori was dead already. elementary OS dropped it from its latest release (I assume) for this reason.

The good news is that Midori is not dead. After almost two years of inactivity, the development resumed in the last quarter of 2018. A few extensions including an ad-blocker were added in the later releases.

Features of Midori web browser

Here are some of the main features of Midroi browser

• Written in Vala with GTK+3 and WebKit rendering engine.
• Tabs, windows and session management
• Speed dial
• Saves tab for the next session by default
• Uses DuckDuckGo as a default search engine. It can be changed to Google and Yahoo.
• Bookmark management
• Customizable and extensible interface
• Extension modules can be written in C and Vala
• Supports HTML5
• An extremely limited set of extensions include an ad-blocker, colorful tabs etc. No third-party extensions.
• Form history
• Private browsing
• Available for Linux and Windows

Trivia: Midori is a Japanese word that means Green. Midori developer is not Japanese, if you were guessing something on that line.

Experiencing Midori

I have been using Midori for past few days. The experience is mostly fine. It supports HTML5 and renders the websites quickly. The ad-blocker is okay. Browsing experience is more or less smooth as you would expect in any standard web browser.

The lack of extensions has always been a weaker point of Midori so I am not going to talk about that.

What I did notice that it doesn’t support international languages. I couldn’t find a way to add new language support. It could not render the Hindi fonts at all and I am guessing it’s the same with many other non-Romance languages.

I also had my fair share of troubles with YouTube videos. Some videos would throw playback error while others would run just fine.

Midori didn’t eat my RAM like Chrome so that’a a big plus here.

If you want to try out Midori, let’s see how can you get your hands on it.

Install Midori on Linux

Midori is no longer available in Ubuntu 18.04 repository. However, the newer versions of Midori can be easily installed using the Snap packages.

If you are using Ubuntu, you can find Midori (snap version) in the software center and install it from there.

Midori browser is available in Ubuntu Software Center

For other Linux distributions, make sure that you have Snap support enabled and then you can install Midori using the command below:

sudo snap install midori

You always have the option to compile from the source code. You can download the source code of Midori from its website.

If you like Midori and want to help this open source project, please donate to them or buy Midori merchandise from their shop.

Do you use Midori or have you ever tried it? How’s your experience with it? What other web browser do you prefer to use? Please share your views in the comment section below.

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Ubuntu Linux gets back to basics with the Ubuntu 18.10 release – an appealing and practical distro that isn’t worried about conquering the world.

Ubuntu is back. The same Ubuntu that I loved back in 2011 before Unity and Gnome 3 happened. Both were great projects, but they broke my workflow, so I moved to openSUSE and Arch Linux with the Plasma desktop.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since then. Canonical’s dream of taking over Microsoft (Windows), Google (Android), and Apple (iOS) didn’t materialize, and they decided to reduce their focus on the consumer space.

What was supposed to be bad news for Canonical turned out to be good news for open source communities, because Canonical shut down its in-house projects and returned those projects upstream. The controversial Unity desktop went away, and Gnome resumed the throne of being the default desktop environment and shell for the world’s most popular Linux distribution.

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I’ve covered tons of different scientific
applications you can run on your computer to do rather complex
calculations, but so far, I’ve not really given much thought to
the hardware on which this software runs. So in this article, I take a look at
a software package that lets you dive deep down to the level of the
logic gates used to build up computational units.

At a certain point,
you may find yourself asking your hardware to do too much work. In those cases,
you need to understand what your hardware is and how it works. So,
let’s start by looking at the lowest level: the lowly
logic gate. To that end, let’s use a software package named Logisim
in order to play with logic gates in various groupings.

Logisim should be available in most distributions’ package management
systems. For example, in Debian-based distros, install it
with the following command:

sudo apt-get install logisim

You then can start it from your desktop environment’s menu,
or you can open a terminal, type logisim and press
Enter. You should see a main section of the application
where you can start to design your logic circuit. On the left-hand side,
there’s a selection pane with all of the units you can use for your
design, including basic elements like wires and logic gates, and
more complex units like memory or arithmetic units.

Figure 1. When you first start Logisim, you get a blank project where
you can start to design your first logic circuit.

To learn how to start using Logisim, let’s look at how to set up one of
the most basic logic circuits: an AND gate.

Figure 2. You easily can add logic gates to your circuit to model
computations.

If you click the
Gates entry on the left-hand side, you’ll see a full list of available
logic gates. Clicking the AND gate allows you to add them to the design
pane by clicking on the location where you want them added. At the bottom
of the left-hand side, you’ll see a pane that displays the attributes
of the selected gate. You can use this pane to edit those attributes to
make the gate behave exactly the way you want. For this example,
let’s change the number of inputs value from 5 to 2. The next
step is to add an output pin in order to see when the output is either
1 or 0. You can find pins in the wiring section.

On the front side of the
AND gate, you’ll want to add pins so you can control input. In the
attributes for each of the pins, you’ll see that you can change whether
the pin is supposed to be an output pin. You also can set whether
the pin is supposed to be a three-state pin.

The last step is to
connect all of these pieces by simply clicking and dragging
between the separate components.

Figure 3. You can add extra items, like inputs and outputs, to your
logic circuit.

By default, the input pins
currently are set to 0, so once the wires are connected, you should see
that the output is set to 0. In order to toggle the input pins, you first need
to select the toggle tool from the toolbar at the top of the window
(the one shaped like a pointing hand). Once you have selected this tool,
you can click on the input pins to change their states. Once both inputs
are set to 1, you should see the output flip to 1 also.

While you can build your circuits up from first principles and see how
they behave, Logisim also lets you define the behavior first and generate
a circuit that gives you the defined behavior. Clicking the
Window→Combinational Analysis menu item pops up a new window where you can
do exactly that.

Figure 4. You can build up your logic circuits in reverse by defining
the behavior you wanted first, then allowing it to generate a circuit that
gives you this required behavior.

The first step is to provide a list of
inputs. You simply add a series of labels, one for each input. For this
example, you’ll define an x, y and z. Next, you’ll need to click
the outputs tab and do the same for the number of outputs you want to
model. Let’s just define a single output for this example.

The last step
is actually to define the behavior linking the inputs to the outputs. This
is done through a logic table. So here, you’ll have the output
as 0, unless either x and z or y and z are high.

Figure 5. Logisim includes a tool that allows you to generate logic circuits
based on a truth table that you define to handle the computation you’re
interested in modeling.

Once
you’re happy with the definition, click the Build Circuit
button at the bottom of the window. This pops up a new dialog window
where you can define the name and select the destination project, as
well as choosing whether to use only NAND gates or only 2-input
gates.

Figure 6. By using the Combinational Analysis window, you can create
more complex circuits based purely on their expected behavior.

You can click on the inputs to toggle them and
verify that everything behaves as you had planned.
The Combinational Analysis window has two other tabs: Expression and Minimized. The
Expression tab shows you the logical mathematical expression that
describes the truth table you defined. You can edit your
circuit further by editing this equation directly. The minimized tab gives you
the logical equation as either the sum of products or the product of sums.

Once you finish your circuit, you can save it in a .circ
file. These files define a complete circuit that can be reused as a single
unit. When you do want to reuse them in a larger, more complex circuit,
click Project→Load Library→Logisim Library and
select the saved file. This allows you to build up very
complicated computing circuits rather quickly.

You also can export the circuit itself
by clicking File→Export Image. This allows you
to save the circuit as an image that you can use in a report or
some other process.

This is just a brief introduction, but I hope Logisim helps you learn a bit more
about the fundamentals of computing and logical structures.

Source

Git is an excellent version control tool for managing projects, but it can be hard for novices to learn. It’s difficult to work from the Git command line unless you’re familiar with the flags and options and the appropriate situations to use them. This can be discouraging and cause people to be stuck with very limited usage.

Fortunately, most of today’s integrated development environments (IDEs) include Git extensions that make using it a lot easier. One such Git extension available in Emacs is called Magit.

The Magit project has been around for 10 years and defines itself as “a Git porcelain inside Emacs.” In other words, it’s an interface where every action can be managed by pressing a key. This article walks you through the Magit interface and explains how to use it to manage a Git project.

If you haven’t already, install Emacs, then install Magit before you continue with this tutorial…

Source