Linux Blimp

By default, Apple’s custom Mac silicon, the T2 Security Chip, prevents it from booting into unrecognized OS environments. But, Apple’s not stopping power-users from changing that in settings.

Apple’s T2 Security Chip provides a lot of great features for the vast majority of people, including secure boot, real-time AES 256-bit data encryption, and even Touch ID authentication for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. For them, it’s on by default and should just be left on by default.

Because of that security, it’s led some power-users to believe that Apple is locking down T2 machines, including those MacBooks as well as the iMac Pro and new Mac mini, so completely you will no longer be able to do things like boot into Linux.

My understanding is that you can, in fact, boot into Linux if you really want to. You just need to disable secure boot on your Mac first.

Here’s what the default, “Full Securit”y does:

Full Security is the default Secure Boot setting, offering the highest level of security. This is a level of security previously available only on iOS devices.
During startup, your Mac verifies the integrity of the operating system (OS) on your startup disk to make sure that it’s legitimate. If the OS is unknown or can’t be verified as legitimate, your Mac connects to Apple to download the updated integrity information it needs to verify the OS. This information is unique to your Mac, and it ensures that your Mac starts up from an OS that is trusted by Apple.

To change it:

1. Turn on your Mac, then press and hold Command (⌘)-R immediately after you see the Apple logo to start up from macOS Recovery.
2. When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility from the menu bar.
3. When you’re asked to authenticate, click Enter macOS Password, then choose an administrator account and enter its password.

From there, if you want to boot into Linux, you want t choose the “No Security” option.

Here’s how Apple describes it:

The No Security setting doesn’t enforce any of the above security requirements for your startup disk.

Because the T2 Security Chip is no longer verifying the system integrity, you will lose Touch ID authentication for Apple Pay. That’s because it can no longer guarantee the security of the connection between Touch ID and the purchase either. If you have an iPhone or iPad, though, you can still use those to authenticate Apple Pay on your Mac, just like you would on a Mac with no built-in Touch ID.

I haven’t had time to test booting into Linux on the new Mac mini yet, so it’s possible there are other levers that need pulling to make it all work, but there’s nothing Apple’s doing to actively prevent people who really want to boot into Linux to do it. And I’m looking forward to trying it out myself in the very near future.

Source

Vendetta Online is a popular online video game built by Guild Software Inc. It’s a very addictive game where thousands of players meet, interact, fight, and make alliances. Players take the role of spaceship pilots, flying to missions, planets, and stations all over the galaxy. All the combat is done in real time, against other people or NPCs (Non-player characters).

Participate in large scale battles

Gamers can even participate in large scale battles between nations or with the aliens. Vendetta Online has a complete economic system, making use of trading, mining, and smuggling. In this game you will be able to pilot your own ship in a single, persistent virtual universe. New gameplay content, such as missions, equipment, ships or trade items can be unlocked during the normal evolution of your character.

Ships are highly customizable

The ships are highly customizable, allowing the player to change its design and add new, powerful functionality. In addition, you can transform it into a trading ship or a combat one. Players can choose to be a military pilot, despicable pirate, guard for hire, peaceful trader, or whatever they desire. In addition, the difficulty of missions will increase as the player becomes more popular.

Play in lawless places

Another interesting feature is the ability to choose to play in lawless places or locations that are governed by the law. No matter in which one of them you decide to play, they all have their dangers. The game is actively developed by a group of talented developers who listen to their community and integrates new functionality or repairs flaws with every new release.

Runs on Linux, Mac and Windows

The software has been crafted to support the Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It is a true MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that can be played by players of all ages. If you like MMORPG games, then we suggests to give Vendetta Online a try. It is the best of its kind for Linux operating systems, and we promise that you won’t regret it a bit!

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Maybe you’ve heard of Go. It was first introduced in 2009, but like any new programming language, it took a while for it to mature and stabilize to the point where it became useful for production applications. Nowadays, Go is a well-established language that is used for network and database programming, web development, and writing DevOps tools. It was used to write Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform and Ethereum. Go is accelerating in popularity, with adoption increasing by 76% in 2017, and now there are Go user groups and Go conferences. Whether you want to add to your professional skills, or are just interested in learning a new programming language, you may want to check it out.

Why Go?

Go was created at Google by a team of three programmers: Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. The team decided to create Go because they were frustrated with C++ and Java, which over the years had become cumbersome and clumsy to work with. They wanted to bring enjoyment and productivity back to programming.

…The idea of Go’s design is to have the best parts of many languages. At first, Go looks a lot like a hybrid of C and Pascal (both of which are successors to Algol 60), but looking closer, you will find ideas taken from many other languages as well.

Go is designed to be a simple compiled language that is easy to use, while allowing concisely-written programs that run efficiently. Go lacks extraneous features, so it’s easy to program fluently, without needing to refer to language documentation while programming. Programming in Go is fast, fun, and productive.

Read more at Jayts.com

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On Raspberry Pi devices, the widely used and officially recommended operating system is Raspbian. Raspbian is based on Debian GNU/Linux. On Raspbian, the default web browser is Chromium. Chromium is the open source version of Google Chrome. It’s great. But many people like Firefox. If you’re one of these people, then this article is for you. In this article, I will show you how to install Firefox on Raspberry Pi devices with Raspbian operating system installed. So, let’s get started.

Firefox is not installed by default on Raspbian operating system. But it is available in the official package repository of Raspbian. So, it is very easy to install.

First, update the APT package repository cache with the following command:

$sudo apt  update

The APT package repository cache should be updated.

Now, run the following command to install Firefox on Raspbian:

$ sudo apt install firefox-esr

Now press y and then press <Enter> to continue.

Firefox should be installed.

Running Firefox on Raspbian:

Firefox on Raspbian is labeled as Firefox ESR. You can find Firefox ESR in the application menu of Raspbian. To start Firefox, click on the Firefox ESR icon as marked in the screenshot below.

As you’re running Firefox for the first time, Firefox should ask you whether you want to import bookmarks from other browsers or not. As you can see, Chromium is listed here. If you want to import bookmarks from Chromium (the default browser on Raspbian), select it and click on Next as marked in the screenshot below.

If you don’t want to import bookmarks from other browsers, just select Don’t import anything and then click on Next. I will go ahead and import the bookmarks from Chromium. It will be very helpful.

As you can see, I am running Firefox ESR 52.9.0 32-bit version.

Setting Firefox as the Default Browser on Raspbian:

Chromium is set as the default browser on Raspbian. So, when you click on the web browser icon as marked in the screenshot below, Chromium browser opens up.

If you want to set Firefox as the default browser on Raspbian, run the following command:

$ sudo update-alternatives –config x-www-browser

Firefox is in the list and the selection number of Firefox is 4 as you can see in the marked section of the screenshot below. Yours may be different depending on what browsers you have installed. Now, type in the selection number (in my case 4) and press <Enter>.

Firefox should be set as the default browser on Raspbian.

My Thoughts on Firefox in Raspberry Pi:

I am using Raspberry Pi 3 Model B single board computer for quite a while. It’s good. It has good hardware specification. But Firefox is a bit laggy on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. If you’re using older version of Raspberry Pi, then it may not be useable at all. I prefer the default Chromium browser for Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. It also lags a bit, but not as much as Firefox.

So, that’s how you install Firefox on Raspberry Pi with Raspbian installed. Thanks for reading this article.

Source

Do you take your online privacy seriously?

Most people don’t. They have an ideal scenario of just how private their online activities should be, but they rarely do anything to actually achieve it.

The problem is that bad actors know and rely on this fact, and that’s why there’s been a
steady rise in identity theft cases from 2013 to 2017. The victims of these cases often suffer a loss of reputation or financial woes.

If you take your online privacy seriously, follow this 10-step guide to protect it.

1. Beware of Internet Service Providers

You may not be aware of it, but your ISP already might know
all about your online searches.

Each time you search for something online, your browser sends a query to a DNS server. Before the query reaches a DNS server, however, it first has to go through your ISP. Needless to say, your ISP easily can read and monitor these queries, which gives it a window into your online activity.

Not all ISPs monitor your browser queries but the ones that don’t are the exception and not the rule. Most ISPs will keep records of your Web browsing for a period of a few months to a year. Most ISPs don’t record your texts, but they do keep records of who texted you.

There are two ways to protect your privacy if you don’t want your ISP monitoring your browser queries: 1) Switch to an ISP that doesn’t monitor your online data, if practicable; or 2) Get a VPN to protect your data (more on this later).

2. Strengthen and Protect Your Login Credentials

One thing most people take for granted is the login credentials they use to access their many online accounts. Your username and password are the only things keeping your information and privileges from getting into the wrong hands. This is why it’s important to make them as strong as possible.

Choose a strong username that is simple and easy to remember but can’t easily be linked to your identity. This is to prevent hackers from correctly guessing your username based on your name, age, or date of birth. You’d be surprised just how cunningly hackers can find this information. Also, never use your Social Security Number as your username.

Next, pick a strong password. There are many ways to do this, but we can narrow them down to two options: 1) Learn how to make strong passwords; or 2) Use a password manager app.

Learning how to make a strong password requires time and imagination. Do you want to know what the most common passwords are? They are “1234,” “12345,” “0000,” “password” and “qwerty” — no imagination at all. A password combining your name and date of birth won’t cut it. Nor will a password that uses any word found in the dictionary.

You need to use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and even symbols (if allowed). Complexity is what matters, not length, since a complex password will take centuries for a computer to figure out. In fact, you can
try your password if you want to see just how long it will take to crack.

If you don’t have the time and imagination to formulate a strong and complex password, you can use one of the
six best password managers. These apps not only save you the hassle of memorizing your complex passwords but also auto-fill online login forms and formulate strong passwords for you.

Whether you want to learn how to make strong passwords or choose to install a password manager app is up to you. What you should never neglect, though, is 2FA (2-factor authentication). 2FA adds an extra layer of protection for your passwords in case someone ever does learn what they are. In fact, you may already have tried it when logging into an account on a new device.

The app or service requires you to key in the access code sent to another one of your devices (usually your phone) before you are given access to your account. Failing to provide this access code locks you out of your account. This means that even if hackers obtain your login credentials in some way, they still can’t log into your account without the access code.

Never use the same usernames or passwords for different accounts. This prevents hackers from accessing multiple accounts with just one or more of your login credentials. Also, never share your login credentials with anybody —
not even your significant other.

3. Check the WiFi You’re Using

Have you ever heard of a
KRACK attack? It’s a proof-of-concept cyberattack carried out by infiltrating your WiFi connection. The hacker then can steal information like browsing data, personal information, and even text message contents.

The problem is that not even WPA2 encryption can stop it. This is actually why The WiFi Alliance started development of WPA3, which it officially introduced this summer.

Do you need WPA3 to defend against KRACK attacks? No. You just need to install security updates when they become available. This is because security updates ensure that a key is installed only once, thereby, preventing KRACK attacks. You can add additional layers of protection by visiting only HTTPS sites and by using a VPN.

You also can use a VPN to protect your device whenever you connect to a public network. It prevents hackers from stealing your information via a MitM (Man in the Middle) attack, or if the network you’ve connected to is actually a rogue network.

4. Watch Your Browser

If you read through your browser company’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, you might find that they actually track your online activities. They then sell this information to ad companies that use methods like analytics to create a profile for each user. This information then is used to create those annoying targeted ads.

How do they do this?

Answer: Web cookies.

For the most part, Web cookies are harmless. They’re used to remember your online preferences like Web form entries and shopping cart contents. However, some cookies (third-party cookies) are made specifically to remain active even on websites they didn’t originate from. They also track your online behavior through the sites you visit and monitor what you click on.

This is why it’s a good idea to clear Web cookies every once in a while. You may be tempted to change your browser settings to simply reject all cookies, but that would result in an overall inconvenient browsing experience.

Another way to address the monitoring issue is to use your browser’s Incognito mode. Your browser won’t save any visited sites, cookies, or online forms while in this mode, but your activities may be visible to the websites you visit, your employer or school, and your ISP.

The best way I’ve found so far is to replace your browser with an anonymous browser.

One example is TOR (The Onion Browser). TOR is a browser made specifically to protect user privacy. It does this by wrapping your online data in several layers of encryption and then “bouncing” it for the same number of times before finally arriving at the right DNS server.

Another example is Epic Browser. While this browser doesn’t run on an onion network like TOR, it does do away with the usual privacy threats, including browsing history, DNS pre-fetching, third-party cookies, Web or DNS caches, and auto-fill features. It automatically deletes all session data once you close the browser.

SRWare Iron will be familiar to Google Chrome users, since it’s based on the open source Chromium project. Unlike Chrome, however, it gets rid of data privacy concerns like usage of a unique user ID and personalized search suggestions.

These three are the best ones I’ve found, but there are other alternatives out there. Whatever privacy browser you choose, make sure it’s compatible with your VPN, as not all privacy browsers are VPN-compatible — and vice-versa.

5. Use a Private Search Engine

Presenting risks similar to popular browsers are the search engines many people use. Most browser companies also produce their own search engine, which — like the browser — also tracks your online searches. These searches then can be traced to your personal identity by linking them to your computer, account, or IP address.

Aside from that, search engines keep information on your location and usage for up to several days. What most people don’t know is that persons in the legal field actually are allowed to use the information collected by search engines.

If this concerns you at all, you may want to switch to a private search engine. These private search engines often work in the same way: They obtain search results from various sources, and they don’t use personalized search results.

Some of the more popular private search engines include DuckDuckGo, Fireball, and Search Encrypt.

6. Install a VPN

What is a VPN, and why do I strongly recommend it?

A VPN (virtual private network) is a type of software that protects your Internet browsing by encrypting your online data and hiding your true IP address.

Since you already know how online searches are carried out, you already know that browser queries are easily readable by your ISP — or anyone else, for that matter. This is because your online data is, by default, unencrypted. It’s made up of plain text contained in data packets.

You also already know that not even built-in WPA2 encryption is good enough to protect against certain attacks.

This is where a VPN comes in. The VPN courses your online data through secure tunnels until it gets to its intended DNS server. Anyone intercepting your browsing data will find unreadable jargon instead.

You may hear advice against trusting VPNs with your security. I’m actually inclined to partially agree — not all VPNs are secure. However, that doesn’t mean all VPNs are not secure.

The unsecured VPNs I’m referring to are the “free lunch” types that promise to be free forever but actually use or sell your data to ad companies. Use only the safest VPN services you can find.

A VPN is primarily a security tool. While you may enjoy some privacy from its functions, you will want to pair it with a privacy browser and search engine to get the full privacy experience.

A VPN can’t secure your computer or device from malware that’s already present. This is why I always recommend using a VPN together with a good antivirus and firewall program.

Some popular browsers run WebRTC protocols by default. You have to turn off this protocol. This protocol compromises a VPN’s security by allowing your true IP address to be read.

7. Watch Out for Phishing

You may have the best VPN, anonymous browser, and private search engine on the market, but they won’t do you much good if you’re hooked by a phishing scam.

Phishing employs psychological analysis and social engineering to trick users into clicking a malicious link. This malicious link can contain anything from viruses to cryptojackers.

While phishing attacks usually are sent to many individuals, there’s a more personalized form called “spearphishing.” In that case, the hackers attempt to scam a specific person (usually a high-ranking officer at a company) by using information that’s available only to a select few people that the target knows.

So, how do you avoid being reeled in by phishing attacks?

The first option is to learn how to identify phishing attempts. Beware of messages from people you don’t know. Hover over a link before clicking it to make sure it navigates to the site it portrays. Most importantly, remember that if it’s too good to be true, it most likely is.

The second option is to install an antiphishing toolbar. This software prevents phishing by checking the links you click against a list of sites known to host malware or those that trick you into disclosing financial or personal information.

It then will prompt you, once it determines the link to be connected to one of those sites, and provide you with a path back to safety.

The best examples I’ve found are OpenDNS, Windows Defender Browser Protection, and Avira Browser Safety.

8. Encrypt Your Communications

If you’ve been following tech news in the recent months, you may have found an item about the FBI wanting
to break Facebook Messenger’s encryption. Say what you will about the social network giant, but this news reveals one thing: Even the FBI can’t crack encrypted messages without help.

This is why you should always use “encryption mode” in your messaging apps. Apps like Signal, Telegram, and Threema all come with end-to-end encryption and support for text, calls, and even video calls.

If you require constant use of emails, ProtonMail, Tutanota, Mailinator, and MailFence are great alternatives to popular email services that actually monitor your email content.

9. Watch What You Share on Social Media

Social media has become one of the best ways to keep in touch with important people in our lives. Catching up to everyone we care about is just a few clicks away. That said, we’re not the only ones looking at their profiles.

Hackers actually frequent social media sites as they hunt for any personal information they can steal. They even can circumvent your “friends only” information by adding you as a friend using a fake account. I don’t think I need to mention the problems hackers can cause once they’ve stolen your identity.

This is why you should exercise caution about what you share on social media. You never know if hackers are using the photos you share to target you for their next attack. You may want to skip out on filling out your profile completely. Avoid giving your phone or home number, and perhaps use a private email to sign up.

10. Update Early and Often

You may have heard this before but it’s worth repeating now: Don’t ignore system updates. You may not be aware of it, but updates fix many vulnerabilities that could jeopardize your online privacy.

Most people put off installing updates since they always seem to come at inopportune times. Sometimes we just can’t put up with the dip in performance or Internet speed while updates are being installed.

It’s usually best to suffer what minor inconvenience they cause early rather than risk getting caught in the whirlwind of problems hackers can cause if you should get targeted. Most software and apps now come with an auto-update feature, so you won’t have to manually search and download them.

In Conclusion

Privacy is a human right, and our online privacy should be taken seriously. Don’t neglect to take the necessary steps to protect yours.

Beware of your Internet service provider, and always protect your login credentials no matter how strong they are. Remember to check the network you’re connecting to before you log in.

Watch what your browser and search engine are doing, and consider replacing them with more private ones. Prepare against phishing by learning to identify attempts and installing an antiphishing toolbar.

Always use encrypted messaging, and watch what you share on social media. Finally, never ignore system updates when they become available.

Follow these steps and you’ll soon be on your way to a more private browsing experience.

Source

November 7, 2018

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Adobe, Alibaba, Amadeus, Ant Financial, Atlassian, Atos, AT&T, Bandwidth, Etsy, GitHub, Hitachi, NVIDIA, Oath, Renesas, Tencent, and Twitter have joined an ongoing industry effort to combat harsh tactics in open source license enforcement by adopting the GPL Cooperation Commitment. By making this commitment, these 16 corporate leaders are strengthening long-standing community norms of fairness, pragmatism, and predictability in open source license compliance.

We are thrilled to see the continued success of the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Compliance in the open source community is a forgiving process and rightly aimed at maximizing use of open source software.

Today’s announcement follows an earlier wave of adoption of the commitment within the technology industry. Red Hat, Facebook, Google and IBM made the initial commitment in November 2017. They were joined in March 2018 by CA Technologies, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, SAP and SUSE. In July 2018, 14 additional companies signed on to the commitment: Amazon, Arm, Canonical, GitLab, Intel Corporation, Liferay, Linaro, MariaDB, NEC, Pivotal, Royal Philips, SAS, Toyota and VMware. One month later, in August 2018, the eight funding members of the Open Invention Network (OIN) — Google, IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, Sony, NEC, Philips, Toyota — announced that they had unanimously adopted the GPL Cooperation Commitment. With today’s announcement, more than 40 organizations have adopted the GPL Cooperation Commitment.

The 16 new companies in today’s announcement are a diverse set of technology firms whose participation makes evident the worldwide reach of the GPL Cooperation Commitment. They comprise globally-operating companies based on four continents and mark a significant expansion of the initiative into the Asia-Pacific region. They represent various industries and areas of commercial focus, including IT services, software development tools and platforms, social networking, fintech, semiconductors, e-commerce, multimedia software and more.

The GPL Cooperation Commitment is a means for companies, individual developers and open source projects to provide opportunities for licensees to correct errors in compliance with software licensed under the GPLv2 family of licenses before taking action to terminate the licenses. Version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2), version 2 of the GNU Library General Public License (LGPLv2), and version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv2.1) do not contain express “cure” periods to fix noncompliance prior to license termination. Version 3 of the GNU GPL (GPLv3) addressed this by adding an opportunity to correct mistakes in compliance. Those who adopt the GPL Cooperation Commitment extend the cure provisions of GPLv3 to their existing and future GPLv2 and LGPLv2.x-licensed code.

Specifically, the commitment language adopted by each company is:

Before filing or continuing to prosecute any legal proceeding or claim (other than a Defensive Action) arising from termination of a Covered License, [Company] commits to extend to the person or entity (“you”) accused of violating the Covered License the following provisions regarding cure and reinstatement, taken from GPL version 3. As used here, the term ‘this License’ refers to the specific Covered License being enforced.

However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.

[Company] intends this Commitment to be irrevocable, and binding and enforceable against [Company] and assignees of or successors to [Company]’s copyrights.

[Company] may modify this Commitment by publishing a new edition on this page or a successor location.

Definitions

‘Covered License’ means the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2), the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1), or the GNU Library General Public License, version 2 (LGPLv2), all as published by the Free Software Foundation.

Defensive Action’ means a legal proceeding or claim that [Company] brings against you in response to a prior proceeding or claim initiated by you or your affiliate.

‘[Company]’ means [Company] and its subsidiaries.

Read the individual commitments:

Supporting Quotes

Michael Cunningham, executive vice president and general counsel, Red Hat
“We are thrilled to see the continued success of the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Compliance in the open source community is a forgiving process and rightly aimed at maximizing use of open source software. Adoption of the commitment by these 16 prominent technology companies strengthens this message and will enhance predictability in the use of open source software.”

Jiangwei Jiang, general manager of Technology R&D, Alibaba Cloud
“Alibaba is an active advocate, contributor and leader in the open source movement, and resorts to openness and inclusiveness to address controversy within the community.”

Benjamin Bai, vice president of Intellectual Property, Ant Financial
“Ant Financial is pleased to join the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Open source software has thrived on the basis of collaboration. Litigation should be used only as a last resort and in a responsible manner.”

Sri Viswanath, chief technology officer, Atlassian
“Atlassian embraces the open source movement and wants to help in responsibly shaping its future. The GPL Cooperation Commitment is a common-sense solution that makes it easier for users to adopt and innovate with open source, which is why we are pleased to join the Commitment.”

Mazin Gilbert, vice president of Advanced Technology and Systems, AT&T Labs
“AT&T is delighted to join the already successful GPL Cooperation Commitment. As a long-time contributor to the open source community, we’re excited to continue on this journey and encourage the spirit of collaboration.”

Mike Linksvayer, director of Policy, GitHub
“We’re thrilled to encourage and join in broad software industry cooperation to improve the legal and policy underpinnings of open source, which ultimately protects and empowers the people–and the community–behind the technology.”

Gil Yehuda, senior director of Open Source, Oath
“Oath is committed to promoting open source success and we support the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Open source collaboration is about working together to make better software for the entire industry.”

Hisao Munakata, senior director of Automotive Technical Customer Engagement Division, Automotive Solution Business Unit, Renesas
“Renesas is committed to being a first-class citizen in an OSS community which is why we contributed to the development of the Linux kernel, especially for the development of device drivers. We strongly believe by supporting the GPL Cooperation Commitment, we will be able to drive the worldwide adoption of the OSS license and bring great advantages to the whole automotive industry.”

Takahiro Yasui, director of OSS Solution Center, Systems & Services Business Division, Hitachi, Ltd.
“It is our pleasure to declare our participation to this Cooperation Commitment. Hitachi has been participating in the open source ecosystem through being a member of wide varieties of open source communities and working with open source organizations. Hitachi believes this activity helps the open source community grow healthy, and accelerate the speed of further open innovation in the open source ecosystem.”

Sam Xu, head of Intellectual Property, Tencent
“Open source is a key part of Tencent’s technology strategy. We look forward to working more closely with the international open source community to create new and cutting edge open source solutions. The GPL Cooperation Commitment will provide more reasonable and predictable protection for developers and contributors, which will foster a thriving and healthy open source ecosystem.”

Remy DeCausemaker, Open Source Program Manager, Twitter
“Twitter is proud to join the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Efforts like these encourage adoption, reduce uncertainty, and build trust. #GPLCC

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in information technology spending; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; risks related to errors or defects in our offerings and third-party products upon which our offerings depend; risks related to the security of our offerings and other data security vulnerabilities; fluctuations in exchange rates; changes in and a dependence on key personnel; the effects of industry consolidation; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to meet financial and operational challenges encountered in our international operations; and ineffective management of, and control over, the Company’s growth and international operations, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Source

In 1984, Rob Pike and Brian W. Kernighan published an article called “Program Design in the Unix Environment” in the AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, in which they argued the Unix philosophy, using the example of BSD’s cat -v implementation. In a nutshell that philosophy is: Build small, focused programs—in whatever language—that do only one thing but do this thing well, communicate via stdin/stdout, and are connected through pipes.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, I thought so. That’s pretty much the definition of microservices offered by James Lewis and Martin Fowler:

In short, the microservice architectural style is an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API.

While one *nix program or one microservice may be very limited or not even very interesting on its own, it’s the combination of such independently working units that reveals their true benefit and, therefore, their power.

*nix vs. microservices

The following table compares programs (such as cat or lsof) in a *nix environment against programs in a microservices environment.

	*nix	Microservices
Unit of execution	program using stdin/stdout	service with HTTP or gRPC API
Data flow	Pipes	?
Configuration & parameterization	Command-line arguments, environment variables, config files	JSON/YAML docs
Discovery	Package manager, man, make	DNS, environment variables, OpenAPI

Let’s explore each line in slightly greater detail.

Unit of execution

The unit of execution in *nix (such as Linux) is an executable file (binary or interpreted script) that, ideally, reads input from

stdin

and writes output to

stdout

. A microservices setup deals with a service that exposes one or more communication interfaces, such as HTTP or gRPC APIs. In both cases, you’ll find stateless examples (essentially a purely functional behavior) and stateful examples, where, in addition to the input, some internal (persisted) state decides what happens.

Data flow

Traditionally, *nix programs could communicate via pipes. In other words, thanks to Doug McIlroy, you don’t need to create temporary files to pass around and each can process virtually endless streams of data between processes. To my knowledge, there is nothing comparable to a pipe standardized in microservices, besides my little Apache Kafka-based experiment from 2017.

Configuration and parameterization

How do you configure a program or service—either on a permanent or a by-call basis? Well, with *nix programs you essentially have three options: command-line arguments, environment variables, or full-blown config files. In microservices, you typically deal with YAML (or even worse, JSON) documents, defining the layout and configuration of a single microservice as well as dependencies and communication, storage, and runtime settings. Examples include Kubernetes resource definitions, Nomad job specifications, or Docker Compose files. These may or may not be parameterized; that is, either you have some templating language, such as Helm in Kubernetes, or you find yourself doing an awful lot of sed -i commands.

Discovery

How do you know what programs or services are available and how they are supposed to be used? Well, in *nix, you typically have a package manager as well as good old man; between them, they should be able to answer all the questions you might have. In a microservices setup, there’s a bit more automation in finding a service. In addition to bespoke approaches like Airbnb’s SmartStack or Netflix’s Eureka, there usually are environment variable-based or DNS-based approaches that allow you to discover services dynamically. Equally important, OpenAPI provides a de-facto standard for HTTP API documentation and design, and gRPC does the same for more tightly coupled high-performance cases. Last but not least, take developer experience (DX) into account, starting with writing good Makefiles and ending with writing your docs with (or in?) style.

Pros and cons

Both *nix and microservices offer a number of challenges and opportunities

Composability

It’s hard to design something that has a clear, sharp focus and can also play well with others. It’s even harder to get it right across different versions and to introduce respective error case handling capabilities. In microservices, this could mean retry logic and timeouts—maybe it’s a better option to outsource these features into a service mesh? It’s hard, but if you get it right, its reusability can be enormous.

Observability

In a monolith (in 2018) or a big program that tries to do it all (in 1984), it’s rather straightforward to find the culprit when things go south. But, in a

yes | tr \n x | head -c 450m | grep n

or a request path in a microservices setup that involves, say, 20 services, how do you even start to figure out which one is behaving badly? Luckily we have standards, notably OpenCensus and OpenTracing. Observability still might be the biggest single blocker if you are looking to move to microservices.

Global state

While it may not be such a big issue for *nix programs, in microservices, global state remains something of a discussion. Namely, how to make sure the local (persistent) state is managed effectively and how to make the global state consistent with as little effort as possible.

Wrapping up

In the end, the question remains: Are you using the right tool for a given task? That is, in the same way a specialized *nix program implementing a range of functions might be the better choice for certain use cases or phases, it might be that a monolith is the best option for your organization or workload. Regardless, I hope this article helps you see the many, strong parallels between the Unix philosophy and microservices—maybe we can learn something from the former to benefit the latter.

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November 7, 2018

If you are the proud owner of a MediaTek-powered Chromebook such as the Acer Chromebook R13 or Lenovo Flex 11, some new features are headed your way.

Spotted in the Canary channel in mid-October, the Crostini Project is now live in the Developer channel for Chromebooks with the ARM-based MediaTek processor. This brings native Linux app functionality to the Chromebooks with the MT8173C chipset and although the number of devices is few, MediaTek Chromebooks are relatively inexpensive and versatile machines.

Here’s the list of Chromebooks with the MediaTek processor.

• Lenovo 300e Chromebook
• Lenovo N23 Yoga Chromebook
• Acer Chromebook R13
• Poin2 Chromebook 11C
• Lenovo Chromebook C330
• Poin2 Chromebook 14
• Lenovo Chromebook S330

I have the Lenovo 300e at my desk and it looks to be handling Linux apps like a champ thus far. I know that the low-powered ARM processor isn’t going to be a device that will draw developers in need of serious horsepower but for the average user, these devices are great. On top of that, you can pick up most of the Chromebooks on this list for $300 or less. As a second device to pack around when you’re out of the office or relaxing on the couch, they’re tough to beat.

If you’re interested in checking out Linux apps on your MediaTek Chromebook, head to the settings menu and click About Chrome OS>Detailed build information>Change Channel. Keep in mind, the Developer channel can frequently be unstable and moving back to Beta or Stable will powerwash your device and delete locally saved data. Make sure you back up anything you don’t wish to lose. Once you’re there, head back to settings and you should see a Linux apps menu. Turn it on and wait for the terminal to install.

If you’re new to Linux apps, you can check out how to install the Gnome Software center here and start exploring new apps for your Chromebook.

Shop MediaTek Chromebooks On Amazon

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Sending and receiving emails is like breathing these days, and you will need a reliable and extremely stable application to do it right. Mozilla Thunderbird is one of those rare applications that provides users with a feature-rich, easy to use and extendable email client. Besides begin an email client, the software is also a very good RSS news reader, as well as a newsgroup and chat client. It is supported and installed by default in many Linux operating systems.

Features at a glance

Among some of its major highlights, we can mention adaptive junk mail controls, saved search folders, global inbox support, message grouping, privacy protection, and comprehensive mail migration from other email clients.

Mozilla Thunderbird is designed to be very comprehensive. It will help users communicate better in an office space, allowing them to send, received emails, chat with their colleagues, and stay updated with the latest news.

Few know that the application provides users with a built-in web browser functionality, using a tabbed user interface and based on its bigger brother, the powerful Mozilla Firefox web explorer. Another interesting feature is the ability to add extensions, popularly known as add-ons, which will extended the default functionality of the application.

Supported operating systems

Do to the fact that it is written by Mozilla, the software supports multiple operating systems, including Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, as well as the 64-bit and 32-bit hardware platforms.

There are many popular Linux distribution that use Mozilla Thunderbird as the default email client application, integrated in a wide range of open source desktop environments including GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, Openbox, Enlightenment, or KDE.

Bottom line

Using the Mozilla applications in a Linux environment is the best choice one can make. They are without any doubt among the most popular and open source email, news reader, newsgroup, chat and web browsing apps.

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Addressing the rapidly growing user base around GraphQL, The Linux Foundation has launched the GraphQL Foundation to build a vendor-neutral community around the query language for APIs (application programming interfaces).

“Through the formation of the GraphQL Foundation, I hope to see GraphQL become industry standard by encouraging contributions from a broader group and creating a shared investment in vendor-neutral events, documentation, tools, and support,” said Lee Byron, co-creator of GraphQL, in a statement.

“GraphQL has redefined how developers work with APIs and client-server interactions,” said Chris Aniszczyk, Linux Foundation vice president of developer relations…

Read more at The New Stack

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