Linux Blimp

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Python is easy to use, powerful, versatile and a Linux Journal reader favorite. We’ve round up some of the most popular recent Python-related articles for your weekend reading.

• Introducing PyInstaller by Reuven M. Lerner: Want to distribute Python programs to your Python-less clients? PyInstaller is the answer.
• Bytes, Characters and Python 2 by Reuven M. Lerner: Moving from Python 2 to 3? Here’s what you need to know about strings and their role in in your upgrade.
• Introducing Python 3.7’s Dataclasses by Reuven M. Lerner: Python 3.7’s dataclasses reduce repetition in your class definitions.
• Examining Data Using Pandas by Reuven M. Lerner: You don’t need to be a data scientist to use Pandas for some basic analysis.
• Multiprocessing in Python by Reuven M. Lerner: Python’s “multiprocessing” module feels like threads, but actually launches processes.
• Launching External Processes in Python by Reuven M. Lerner: Think it’s complex to connect your Python program to the UNIX shell? Think again!
• Thinking Concurrently: How Modern Network Applications Handle Multiple Connections by Reuven M. Lerner: exploring different types of multiprocessing and looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each.
• Threading in Python by Reuven M. Lerner: threads can provide concurrency, even if they’re not truly parallel.
• Using Python for Science by Joey Bernard: introducing Anaconda, a Python distribution for scientific research.
• Visualizing Molecules with Python by Joey Bernard: introducing PyMOL, a Python package for studying chemical structures.
• Novelty and Outlier Detection by Reuven M. Lerner: we look at a number of ways you can try to identify outliers using the tools and libraries that Python provides for working with data: NumPy, Pandas and scikit-learn.
• Learning Data Science by Reuven M. Lerner: I’ve written a lot about data science and machine learning. In case my enthusiasm wasn’t obvious from my writing, let me say it plainly: it has been a long time since I last encountered a technology that was so poised to revolutionize the world in which we live.
• Classifying Text by Reuven M. Lerner: I want to bring your attention to a surprisingly simple—but powerful and widespread—use of machine learning, namely document classification.
• Pythonic Science in the Browser by Joey Bernard: the web browser interface has become the de facto way of doing scientific programming with Python. It has become so popular in fact, it has spun off as its own project, named Jupyter. In this article, I take a look at how to get the latest version up and running, and I discuss the kinds of things you can do with it once it is set up.

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Vala is an open source, free and modern programming language and software project designed from the offset to bring new programming features to GNOME developers. It is a compiler for the GObject type system, allowing GNOME developers to create astonishing apps.

Features at a glance

Key features include interfaces, properties, signals, foreach, lambda expressions, type inference for local variables, generics, non-null types, assisted memory management, exception handling, as well as type modules a.k.a. plugins.

Effortlessly write complex object-oriented code

With the Vala compiler you, as a developer, will be able to effortlessly write complex object-oriented code while keeping the memory requirements low, and maintaining a standard C ABI and API.

Allows access to existing C libraries

The project has been designed in such a way that it allows access to existing C libraries, especially GObject-based libraries, without the need for runtime bindings.

It’s perfect for GTK+ and GNOME

Vala is a command-line compiler and programming languages. Developers who work with GTK+ and GNOME will be able to use Vala to write the code and compile it.

It’s influenced by C++, C, C#,Python, D and Java

The Vala programming language has been influenced by the well known and widely used C, C++, D, Python, C# and Java programming languages. It is a cross-platform software that can be easily ported on other operating systems.

It is supported by a wide range of IDE programs

Another interesting feature is the compatibility with various IDE (Integrated Development Environment) programs, including Anjuta, Valencia, Geany, Emacs, MonoDevelop, NetBeans, Val(a)IDE, Sublime Text, Vim, Vala Toys for Gedit, Euclide, RedCar, TextMate and Valama.

Availability and supported architectures

Vala is distributed only as a source archive. This means that the user must configure and compile the code prior to installation. Of course, it can also be easily installed on any GNU/Linux distribution from the default software repositories. Both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures are supported at this time.

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Nov 09, 2018, 10:00

In this article, we will explain how you can install the DropBox application on your Ubuntu system, both through the UI and the command line.

Complete Story

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Apple’s long-awaited refresh of the Mac Mini includes a component called the “T2 Security Chip” which Apple touts as having “a Secure Enclave coprocessor, which provides the foundation for APFS encrypted storage, secure boot, and Touch ID on Mac,” as well as integrating “the system management controller, image signal processor, audio controller, and SSD controller,” which were separate components in previous Mac systems. Because of the extent to which T2 is involved with the boot sequence of this new hardware, Apple controls what operating systems can be loaded onto their hardware.

While Apple provides a way to unlock parts of this process using Boot Camp Assistant to enable installation of Windows, Apple’s documentation (PDF link) indicates that “there is currently no trust provided for the the Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011, which would allow verification of code signed by Microsoft partners. This UEFI CA is commonly used to verify the authenticity of bootloaders for other operating systems such as Linux variants.”

SEE: Comparison chart: NAS devices (Tech Pro Research)

Because of this restriction, the Mac Mini is not suitable for users looking for a small form factor (SFF) PC to install Linux on. Though it may seem counterintuitive to purchase a Mac to not run OS X, Apple’s diminutive SFF PCs remain popular options with Linux users since they were introduced in 2005. Since that time, other manufacturers have introduced compelling miniature PCs with robust support for Windows and Linux, with easier access to internals for component upgrades.

Intel “Hades Canyon” NUC series

The Hades Canyon series includes a front-facing HDMI port for connecting a VR headset.

Image: Intel

Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) series, introduced in 2013, is perhaps the second most well-known brand of SFF PCs. Intel sells NUC systems as barebones kits, requiring the user to add their own memory and drive. Of these, the Kaby Lake-G, also known as “Hades Canyon” series are by far the most powerful, as they fuse Intel’s 8th generation Core CPUs with a custom AMD Radeon RX Vega M GPU on chip, providing a significant graphics performance benefit over the Intel UHD Graphics 630 found in the Mac Mini. The Hades Canyon NUCs have a wealth of ports, including two HDMI 2.0 and two ThunderBolt 3 USB-C ports, as well as five USB 3.0 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, and one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The NUC8i7HVK has a quad core i7‑8809G, rated for 3.1 GHz base/4.2 GHz turbo, with 8MB L3 cache, with an AMD GPU with 24 computing and 1536 shading units, rated for 1063 MHz base/1190 MHz turbo, paired with 4GB of HBM2 memory. It can be equipped with up to 64 GB RAM and has two PCIe 2.0 x4 linked M.2 slots. Intel was asking $999 at launch, though was discounted almost immediately thereafter. (Amazon sells it for $849.)

The NUC8i7HNK offers the same ports, but has a modestly less powerful CPU and GPU, smaller cache, and the CPU is locked on this model, preventing overclocking. The average $100 cost savings on this model is not worth the performance penalty. The case is not as visually appealing as the Mac Mini, but the LED Skull on the case is software-controlled and can be easily disabled, making it invisible. The case is slightly more retangular than the Mac Mini, making it modestly longer, though not as deep at 8.7 x 5.5 x 1.5″ (221.0 x 139.7 x 38.1 mm).

Intel Coffee Lake NUC series

The Coffee Lake series of NUCs share the same case style. All three models include additional headroom to store a 2.5″ HDD or SSD, as pictured, though the Core i5 and i3 models have a shorter variant which use only an M.2 SSD.

Image: Intel

For those who do not need a discrete GPU, the Coffee Lake series NUCs are affordable alternatives. That said, the Iris Plus Graphics 655 featured in the Coffee Lake NUCs have 48 execution and 384 shading units, double that of the CPUs used in the 2018 Mac Mini. Iris Plus also features 128 MB eDRAM, while the UHD Graphics 630 has none. The Coffee Lake NUCs have four USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and one ThunderBolt 3 USB-C port, as well as one HDMI 2.0, and one Gigabit Ethernet port each. The Coffee Lake series can be equipped with up to 64 GB RAM.

• The high-end NUC8i7BEH has a quad-core i7-8559U, rated for 2.7 GHz base/4.5 GHz turbo, and space for one 2.5″ and one M.2 drive, and retails for $469.
• The mid-range NUC8i5BEH has a quad-core i5-8259U, rated for 2.3 GHz base 3.8 GHz turbo, and space for one 2.5″ and one M.2 drive. While the NUC8i5BEK has only space for one M.2 drive. Both retail for $360.
• The low-end NUC8i3BEH has a dual-core i3-8109U, rated for 3.0 GHz base/3.6 GHz turbo, and space for one 2.5″ and one M.2 drive. While the NUC8i3BEK has only space for one M.2 drive. Both retail for $275.
• The Coffee Lake NUCs are smaller than the Mac Mini, measuring in at 4.6 x 4.4 x 2.0″ (116.8 x 111.8 x 50.8 mm), with models lacking space for a 2.5″ drive decrease height to 1.4″ (35.6 mm).

Gigabyte Brix

Like Intel’s Coffee Lake NUCs, the Gigabyte Brix series of SFF PCs include space for a 2.5″ HDD or SSD, as pictured, though shorter variants which use only M.2 SSDs are also available.

Image: Gigabyte

Popular motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte also offers a variety of configurations in their Brix lineup of SFF PCs, from the high-end Intel Core i7 to low-power Celeron offerings.

For the current generation of Brix systems, the GB-BRI7H-8550 is powered by a quad-core i7-8550U, rated for 1.8 GHz base/4.0 GHz turbo, space for one 2.5″ and one M.2 drive, and retails for $499. It measures in at 4.7 x 4.43 x 1.84″ (119.4 x 112.6 x 46.8 mm) with the GB-BRi7-8550 removing space for the 2.5″ drive, decreasing height to 1.35″ (34.4 mm).

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Canonical and Spicule have joined forces to bring your business a better option for open source big data and streaming analytics.

You can learn more about us at some of our upcoming events – read on to find out more.

Or, jump right in and get started using JAAS to deploy a fully supported Hadoop stack for interactive SQL based analytics.

Get started with JAAS

Organisations have massive amounts of valuable data at their fingertips. The challenge is how to operationalise, analyse and gain insights from that data that can mean big advantages for your business in terms of:

• Increased revenue
• Efficiencies in modeling, processing, automation, deployment, and
• Informing decisions about operations and performance

Ubuntu is the platform of choice for these ambitions, working in partnership with companies such as Spicule. Together, we bring easy-to-use, customisable, flexible data platforms developed by Juju experts, and the expertise and efficiency on any cloud that solves for the complexities of big software.

Using Juju as a service (JaaS), users have the ability to spin up complex applications onto different platforms. Combine this with Anssr from Spicule, the software needed to manage data, and we level the competitive playing field for companies looking to configure, scale and install data-based solutions.

If you want to get started and see what it’s all about, check out our tutorial which walks you step-by-step through building and deploying a model.

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On most computer systems, Linux or otherwise, when you plug a USB thumb drive in, you’re alerted that the drive exists. If the drive is already partitioned and formatted to your liking, you just need your computer to list the drive somewhere in your file manager window or on your desktop. It’s a simple requirement and one that the computer generally fulfills.

Sometimes, however, a drive isn’t set up the way you want. For those times, you need to know how to find and prepare a storage device connected to your machine.

What are block devices?

A hard drive is generically referred to as a “block device” because hard drives read and write data in fixed-size blocks. This differentiates a hard drive from anything else you might plug into your computer, like a printer, gamepad, microphone, or camera. The easy way to list the block devices attached to your Linux system is to use the lsblk (list block devices) command:

Read more at OpenSource.com

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VMware is the company that did more than perhaps any other to help usher in the era of enterprise server virtualization that has been the cornerstone of the last decade of computing. Now VMware once again is positioning itself to be a leader, this time in the emerging world of Kubernetes-based, cloud-native application infrastructure.

On Nov. 6, VMware announced that it is acquiring privately held Kubernetes startup Heptio, in a deal that could help further cement VMware’s position as a cloud-native leader. Heptio was launched in 2016 by the co-founders of Kubernetes, Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, in an effort to make Kubernetes more friendly to use for enterprises. Financial terms of the deal have not been publicly disclosed, though Heptio has raised $33.5 million in venture funding.

VMware’s acquisition of Heptio comes a week after IBM announced its massive $34 billion deal for Red Hat. While Heptio is a small startup, the core of what IBM was after in Red Hat is similar to what VMware is seeking with Heptio, namely a leg up in the Kubernetes space to enable the next generation of the cloud.

The Kubernetes market has grown quickly, especially given that the technology is just over 4 years old. On the occasion of Kubernetes’ fourth birthday, Beda explained in an eWEEK video how the cloud landscape has changed and evolved with Kubernetes.

Heptio’s product portfolio includes the company’s distribution of Kubernetes, as well as multiple open-source projects including the Ksonnet configuration, Ark disaster recovery and Sonobuoy diagnostics projects.

As to why Heptio decided to sell to VMware, it’s all about scale.

“Our mission has been to make an upstream open rendition of Kubernetes ubiquitously available in a multicloud world,” McLuckie said during a press call announcing the deal. “Obviously, the set of resources that we can bring to bear as a 2-year-old startup is at a certain level, whereas when you look at an organization like VMware, they have led the enterprise through disruptive transformation that’s not all that dissimilar from this new cloud-native change.”

Kubernetes at VMware

VMware wasn’t a stranger to Kubernetes prior to Heptio and already has its Pivotal Container Service (PKS) in market. PKS was announced in August 2017 as a collaboration between Google, VMware and Pivotal. The platform has been updated and expanded in the year since, with the most recent PKS 1.2 update, which was released on Sept. 25. Heptio’s technology is set to be folded into PKS, providing further usability and feature enhancements.

VMware is also very active in the open-source community that enables Kubernetes. The Kubernetes 1.12 milestone, which was released on Sept. 27, was led by VMware senior staff engineer Tim Pepper. VMware’s larger open-source efforts have also expanded in recent years, thanks to the leadership of the company’s chief open-source officer, Dirk Hohndel.

Multicloud

Fundamentally the direction that enterprise IT seems to be heading is multicloud. While the term “multicloud” is often used and misused as a marketing term, it is an actual reality. Organizations are using on-premises assets, sometimes aligned as private cloud, as well as more than one public cloud provider.

Managing and orchestrating a consistent set of policies and workflows across on-premises deployments and multiple public cloud providers is not an easy task when each of the different deployment modalities have their own unique set of options. That’s where Kubernetes fits in and has truly become the enabler, the glue if you will, that binds the real multicloud together.

With Kubernetes’ capable on-premises infrastructure and the same Kubernetes base available across all public cloud providers, it is possible to manage uniform policy and control in a multicloud way. Red Hat’s OpenShift has been a strong early leader in the space, and VMware, with its large on-premises install base, doesn’t want to be left behind.

Kubernetes is the key to multicloud, and with Heptio, VMware now has added significant talent and capability to help organizations make multicloud a reality.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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Enterprises across the world are facing an uphill struggle with managing their increasing data growth, and academic institutions are no exception. Indeed, many universities face unique challenges in this area.

The Challenge is that so many fields of study now generate mountains of data which require ever-growing volumes of storage. Whether it’s physics calculations or data collected from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern or Teaching Hospitals that are archiving MRI scans, X-Ray images and ultrasound recordings all of it takes up storage space and adds to the IT budget bottom line. And that doesn’t factor in the data that students are storing. Schools of the Arts are storing images of artwork, music, and video, just to name a few.

In order to meet these challenges, universities have started looking at software-defined software solutions. And many have chosen SUSE® Enterprise Storage as their solution of choice. Powered by Ceph technology, SUSE® Enterprise Storage offers greater flexibility, easier management, and more granularity in adding storage capacity. It is highly scalable and resilient, cost-effective, and eliminates vendor lock-in. Whether it’s Heavy Matter or Heavy Data let us help you solve your storage challenges with SUSE® Enterprise Storage.

To learn more about how Academia is working with SUSE® and software-defined storage go HERE

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Samsung will start a private beta of its Linux on DeX product on November 12 that will allow users to open an Ubuntu desktop from a Note 9.

Linux on DeX will only support one Ubuntu version, namely 16.04 LTS, and only works on Note 9 and Tab S4 devices with at least 8GB of storage and more than 4GB of memory, Samsung said. All packages must be compiled for Arm 64.

See: Samsung DeX 101: Turn a Galaxy phone into your primary computer

Samsung is claiming the new Linux on DeX environment can be used by developers to program “on the go”, and, in the case of the Tab S4, bring a fuller environment to a tablet.

“Linux on DeX may slow down or suddenly be turned off in case of lack of memory,” the Korean electronics giant warned.

Those interested in the beta can sign up prior to the beta starting.

Whereas DeX originally required a dock, Samsung’s latest devices only need a USB-C to HDMI cable.

Also read: Convergence returns as former players exit

Earlier this week, Samsung showed off its Infinity Flex display foldable phone.

In its unfolded state, the display is 7.3 inches, with a resolution of 1,536×2,152 pixels, ZDNet’s sister site CNET reported, and when folded the resolution becomes 840×1,960 pixels.

At the same time, the company announced it would be opening up its Bixby assistant to developers.

Related Coverage

Citrix brings unified workspace app to Samsung DeX-enabled devices

The new Citrix Workspace app brings customers new capabilities, such as secure access to SaaS applications, when using a mobile device for desktop computing.

At Mobile World Congress, Samsung advances with DeX Pad and may just will it to success

Samsung’s efforts with the DeX Pad and ability to stick with a concept and iterate may ultimately mean that one compute device can do all for most people.

Samsung DeX 101: Turn a Galaxy phone into your primary computer

Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones are extremely powerful, and with the DeX platform, these phones can power a desktop experience that includes productivity, creativity, and communication applications.

Samsung marries new Galaxy Tab S4 with DeX for productivity boost

Samsung Electronics has unveiled its flagship Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4, with Samsung DeX connectivity for the first time on a tablet, giving consumers multi-screen options and a powered-up S Pen to cater to the enterprise and professionals.

How Samsung’s DeX could transform workplace productivity (TechRepublic)

Samsung’s Jonathan Wong explains how your mobile phone could power a PC-like productivity experience.

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