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Developing and deploying applications that communicate in distributed systems, especially in cloud computing, is complex. Messaging has evolved to address the general needs of distributed applications but hasn’t gone far enough. We need a messaging system that takes the next steps to address cloud, edge, and IoT needs. These include ever-increasing scalability requirements in terms of millions, if not billions of endpoints, a new emphasis toward resiliency of the system as a whole over individual components, end-to-end security, and the ability to have a zero-trust system. In this post we’ll discuss the steps NATS is taking to address these needs, leading toward a securely connected world.

Let’s break down the challenges into scalability, resiliency at scale, and security.

Scalability

To support millions, or even billions of endpoints spanning the globe, most architectures would involve a federated approach with many layers filtering up to a control layer, driven by a required central authority for configuration and security. Instead, NATS is taking a distributed and decentralized approach.

Read more at CNCF

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Pip is a package manager that facilitates the installation and management of Python software packages, for instance, those contained in the Python Package Index (PyPI).

In this article, I am going to show you how to install and use pip on Ubuntu 18.04.

Install pip for Python3 on Ubuntu

By default, Ubuntu 18.04 comes with Python3 in its installation. To install pip3 for Python3 follow the following steps

Update the system

# sudo apt-get update

Install pip for python3

# sudo apt-get install python3-pip

This command installs pip together with all the dependencies necessary for building python modules.

Sample Output

The following NEW packages will be installed:
libpython3-dev libpython3.4 libpython3.4-dev python3-chardet
python3-colorama python3-dev python3-distlib python3-html5lib python3-pip
python3-requests python3-setuptools python3-six python3-urllib3
python3-wheel python3.4-dev
0 upgraded, 15 newly installed, 0 to remove and 26 not upgraded.
Need to get 20.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 38.7 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y

Checking the version of pip3

To check the version of pip3 run the command below

# pip3 –version

OR

# pip3 -V

Output

pip 8.1.1 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (python 3.5)

Install pip for Python2 on Ubuntu

Python2 is not installed by default on Ubuntu 18.04. If you wish to install Python2 and pip for Python 2 run the following commands

Update the system

# sudo apt-get update

Install pip for python2

# sudo apt-get install python-pip

Checking the version of pip

To verify the installation of pip, run

# pip –version

OR

# pip -V

Output

# pip 10.0.1 from /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip (python 2.7)

Using pip in package management

Now that we have seen how to install various versions of pip in different python environments, it’s time to see how we can use it to install, upgrade and uninstall packages.

Installing a package with pip

When installing python modules, it’s recommended that you do so in virtual environments. a virtual environment creates an isolated environment for several python projects. This allows you to install a specific module per project without worrying about the module affecting other Python projects.

To install a package with pip

# pip3 install package_name

For instance

# pip install numpy

Output

Collecting numpy
Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/40/c5/f1ed15dd931d6667b40f 1ab1c2fe1f26805fc2b6c3e25e45664f838de9d0/numpy-1.15.2-cp27-cp27mu-manylinux1_x86 _64.whl (13.8MB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 13.8MB 3.2MB/s
Installing collected packages: numpy
Successfully installed numpy-1.15.2
You are using pip version 10.0.1, however version 18.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the ‘pip install –upgrade pip’ command.

To install a specific version of a package

If you wish to specify installation of a specific package run,

# pip3 install package_name==version no.

For example

# pip3 install numpy=1.15

Output

Collecting numpy==1.15
Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/29/b9/479ccb55cc7dcff3d4fc7c8c26d4887846875e7d4f04483a36f335bed712/numpy-1.15.0-cp35-cp35m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl (13.8MB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 13.8MB 101kB/s
Installing collected packages: numpy
Successfully installed numpy-1.15.0
You are using pip version 10.0.1, however version 18.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the ‘pip install –upgrade pip’ command.

To upgrade a package with pip

To upgrade a package to its latest version using pip run

# pip3 install –upgrade package_name

For example, we have seen from the output above that we are running pip version 10.0.1. To upgrade to the latest version which is 18.1, run

# pip3 install –upgrade pip

Output

Collecting pip
Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/c2/d7/90f34cb0d83a6c5631cf71dfe64cc1054598c843a92b400e55675cc2ac37/pip-18.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.3MB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 1.3MB 7.5MB/s
Installing collected packages: pip
Found existing installation: pip 10.0.1
Uninstalling pip-10.0.1:
Successfully uninstalled pip-10.0.1
Successfully installed pip-18.1

To uninstall a package with pip

To uninstall a package with pip run

# pip3 uninstall package_name

For example

# pip3 uninstall numpy

Output

Uninstalling numpy-1.15.2:
Would remove:
/usr/local/bin/f2py
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/numpy-1.15.2.dist-info/*
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/numpy/*
Proceed (y/n)? y

Viewing more options with pip

To view more pip options on the usage of pip run

# pip3 –help

In this guide, we have seen how to install and use pip on Ubuntu to install, upgrade and uninstall packages. For more options on pip usage, visit this documentation.

Read Also:

• How to Install Latest Python on Ubuntu 18.04

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If you’re a Linux fan then you can consider this article as your complete guide to everything there is regarding Ubuntu 18.10. The official codename of Ubuntu 18.10 was revealed in May 2018 as “Cosmic Cuttlefish”.

If we dig deep into it, we can understand that “Cosmic” is an adjective which narrates to the universe. It also means, “Something inconceivably vast”. Whereas “Cuttlefish” is a marine animal having two long tentacles, eight arms, and ‘w’ shaped eyes. According to Wikipedia, the highest brain-to-body ratio in all invertebrates is found in Cuttlefish. What they might be trying to indicate is that this release could be something super smart and out of the world may be.

Ubuntu Release Date

Canonical releases a new version of their Linux-based OS, Ubuntu, twice a year. One version being released in April and the other in October. These releases aren’t like those regular Ubuntu updates, but major and new upgrades which includes new features, updated themes and designs, better performance and all. The new Ubuntu 18.10 is set to hit the market on October 18, 2018. From that day onward, it will be available for everyone as a 64-bit ISO image on their official website as well as selected mirrors and an official torrent too. Before the actual release, there’s an opportunity to test the beta version of Ubuntu 18.10, available since September 2018.

Ubuntu 18.10 What’s New?

Yaru, A New Default Theme

Ubuntu 18.10 comes with a new and fresh look. It was for first decided to be released in Ubuntu 18.4 but it is now all set to make an appearance this time named as “Yaru”. The new theme includes new Suru icon pack, a GTK3 theme, GNOME Shell theme as well as lays foundation on Adwita/Ambiance. The theme provides a modern and clearer look to OS, from boot up to shut down. Also, it can be activated system-wide, which means that the redesign will affect every part of the desktop, even the lock screen would have a new look.

GNOME v3.30

Cosmic Cuttlefish or Ubuntu 18.10 will comprise the latest version of GNOME i.e. v3.30, released in the month on October. The GNOME v3.30 will probably feature a bunch of improvements related to performance, GNOME Shell Desktop as well as core apps like Nautilus. The GNOME v3.30, also codenamed as Almeria, includes a lot of new features:

• Better performance and bug fixes to make it a better experience than before
• Automatic updating of Flatpaks
• Various GNOME apps updates.
• GNOME panel providing access to ThunderBolt settings directly.

Android Integration

The most out of the box feature in Ubuntu 18.10 is that it will allow you to manage your phone through your PC. It features GS-connect, based on KDE Connect, which supports the GNOME Desktop Environment. It allows the following:

• Checking your notifications
• Browsing files of your phone
• File sharing between phone and desktop wirelessly

The only requirement is that you must have KDE Connect app on your smartphone.

Possibly a Better Battery Life

We have all known this fact that how quickly laptops run out of battery when using Linux. Like Fedora 28, Canonical (Ubuntu’s parent company) is also working on how to save battery, our hunch is that the Ubuntu development team is also currently exploring options to improve laptop’s battery life without having any impact on the stability of the system.

Fingerprint Scanner

Ubuntu 18.10 will support the fingerprint scanner of your machine. So now you’ll be able to unlock your system with just one touch, no need to type those passwords again and again.

Low Bandwidth Mode

Although it is available already, this time it might be easier to find it. The features allow you to enable a “low bandwidth” mode to save your data. This feature comes in handy when you have limited internet or if you’re using a cellular data.

DLNA Support

Ubuntu 18.10 will be supporting DLNA to enable easy file transfer from your PC to your Smart TV. It will be more beneficial for those who have a huge bundle of media files, like audio, family pictures and all that they want to transfer them to their TV without any hassle.

Improved Boot time and Performance

Ubuntu 18.10 comes with an improved boot time and the difference is so huge that it can be felt while using it. A lot of work has been put to improve the battery life of systems. A low power mode, by Linux Kernel, for USB-HDD controllers and other devices. Snap apps will also encompass improvements which will result in the boosted launch, few bug fixes and everything that hinders Snap apps from being smooth and stable.

Other Changes

Tiny changes here and there in Ubuntu- 18.10 which are worth mentioning include:

• Improved sound settings
• PulseAudio 12.2
• Multi-monitor support in GNOME Display Manager
• Enhanced quality and performance of video player
• New app installs will add icons to the screen

Conclusion

In the end, it is safe to say that Ubuntu 18.10 daily builds are pretty stable, contain a lot of features, including an improved performance as well as bug fixes. Canonical is surely working on the improvement of what they have achieved so far and are trying their best to introduce new features.
You can always check out the new Ubuntu 18.10 beta release. However, the beta releases are not for general usage. In order to avoid any kind of bug or instability, don’t install it.

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HashiCorp, maker of open source cloud tools for DevOps, has a valuation of $1.9 billion in Series D round.

Christine Hall | Nov 05, 2018

While the big story last week was the $33 billion IBM shelled out to take Red Hat under its wing, another open source company was busy attracting investor interest as well. On Thursday, the six-year-old open source startup, HashiCorp, whose cloud tools are popular with DevOps, announced it has raised $100 million in Series D funding.

The funding round was led by new investor IVP, with participation from another first timer, Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing HashiCorp investors GGV Capital, Mayfield, Redpoint Ventures, and True Ventures also participated in the round. This brings the privately held San Francisco-based company’s total funding to $174 million and gives it a valuation of $1.9 billion.

Like Red Hat, HashiCorp is focused on helping customers move from on-premises, monolithic, legacy cloud infrastructures to take advantage of hybrid and multi-cloud solutions. In HashiCorp’s case, this comes from a line of automation and cloud tools for provisioning, security, networking, and application runtime.

A blog post from IVP’s Tom Loverro, Sandy Miller, Steve Harrick and Michael Miao indicated that HashiCorp’s expertise in multi-cloud environments was a main driver behind the decision to invest. They also mentioned that HashiCorp has a penchant for “having the right product for the market at the right time.”

ITPro Today talked about that latter aspect with HashiCorp’s co-founder and co-CTO, Mitchell Hashimoto, back in August.

“When you found a startup, your idea at that point in time has some sort of future value to it,” he said. “But eventually, that future comes and goes and you have to keep innovating from there. The question then becomes, what’s next? Where do you go from there? The truth is, you don’t control that future directly. There are external events that happen, and you have to adapt to those.”

Hashimoto told us that staying relevant in the ever changing world of tech requires more than setting back and waiting for the next big thing to arrive, but requires effort to get ahead of the curve.

“One thing I always say to our engineers, and even our executive management, is if you wait until something is mainstream or something is safe, then you’re too late,” he said. “You’re not going to be a market leader in something where you wait.”

Not surprising for a company focused on cloud deployments, these days Hashicorp seems to be focused on containers. In September it brought tighter Kubernetes integration to Consul, its service discovery and configuration tool, allowing users to better synchronize and manage data across multiple infrastructure deployments. In late October it added heightened Kubernetes integration throughout it’s product line.

The company offers free and open source versions of all of its products, along with enterprise versions that include added features. It counts over 50 Fortune 500 companies and more than 100 of the Global 2000 among its paying customers. Its customer base includes Adobe, Barclays, Citadel, Equinix, Hulu, Pandora, and Petco.

HashiCorp said it will use the money raised for open source and commercial product development, increased hiring in global go-to-market functions, and its customer success, support, and training efforts for its worldwide customer base.

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Nov 02, 2018, 19:00

As MongoDB has changed their license from AGPL to SSPL many are concerned by this change, and by how sudden it has been. Will SSPL be protective enough for MongoDB, or will the next change be to go to an altogether proprietary license? According to our poll, many are going to explore MongoDB alternatives. This blog post provides a brief outline of technologies to consider.

Complete Story

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LibreOffice is an open source productivity suite that provides all the necessary office components for small-business, educational and non-profit organizations. It is a fork of the well-known OpenOffice.org application.

A drop-in replacement for OpenOffice.org

LibreOffice’s story starts not so long ago, as a continuation of the work already implemented in the OpenOffice.org software. The initial release of LibreOffice was made available back in 2011. Since then, the project got a lot of attention from the open source community, many developers joined the team, and in only a couple of years it became the number one office suite for almost, if not all Linux distributions.

It’s compatible with major office suites

The project is compatible with various other major office suite applications, including OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office, it is available on a variety of platforms, and it’s comprised of six main components: Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Math, and Draw.

LibreOffice’s main components

LibreOffice Writer is the main component, and probably the most used one. It is also the most important one from the entire office suite, as many people install LibreOffice to create high quality word documents. It provides users with plenty of options for formatting text, inserting tables, drawings and images.

LibreOffice Calc is there for those of you who work with spreadsheet documents, and LibreOffice Math can be used to easily insert equations and formulas in word, spreadsheet, drawing, and presentation documents.

If you work a lot with presentations and slideshows, we strongly recommend to use the Impress component of LibreOffice. Moreover, LibreOffice Draw allows you to generate drawings that include charts, formulas or tables.

The last component, and the most advanced one, is LibreOffice Base, which can be used to design and maintain databases for storing all sorts of data, from survey information to financial reports.

Bottom line

Thanks to its CMIS standard, LibreOffice allows users to easily collaborate with online document storage and CMS (Content Management System) systems. Being one of the fastest growing open source office suite in the world, LibreOffice is now adopted by many Linux operating systems and it is our number one choice for ordinary desktop office tasks.

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If useful documentation is so important to the success of projects and developer well-being, why don’t all projects have it? The answer, I believe, is that like good code, good documentation is difficult and time consuming to write.

In my eyes, there are eight rules that we can follow to produce good documentation:

1. Write documentation that is inviting and clear
2. Write documentation that is comprehensive, detailing all aspects of the project
3. Write documentation that is skimmable
4. Write documentation that offers examples of how to use the software
5. Write documentation that has repetition, when useful
6. Write documentation that is up-to-date
7. Write documentation that is easy to contribute to
8. Write documentation that is easy to find

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Four types of number systems are popular in computer systems. These are Decimal, Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal. The binary system is 2 based and all arithmetic calculations are done by computer in Binary system. It uses only two digits, 0 and 1 for calculation. The number system that we use for general calculation is decimal system which is 10 based. 0 to 9 numbers are used in the decimal system for calculation. The octal number system is 8 based and represented by 0 to 7 digits. The hexadecimal number system is 16 based and it uses 0 to 9 and A to F characters to represents the number. You can easily convert one number to another number system using the bash script. How you can convert Hexadecimal (hex) number to Decimal number in Bash is shown in this tutorial using various examples.

One of the simple ways to convert any number system to another number system is to use ibase, obase and bc. Create a bash file named hextodec1.sh and add the following code. According to this example, a hex number will be taken as input and converted into the decimal number based on the value of obase and ibase. Here, obase is set to 10 for converting decimal number, ibase is set to 16 to take the input number as hex number and `bc` command is used for conversion.

#!/bin/bash
echo “Type a hex number”
read hexNum
echo -n “The decimal value of $hexNum=”
echo “obase=10; ibase=16; $hexNum” | bc

Output:

Run the script with bash command and give any hexadecimal number as input to find out the decimal value.

Example-2: Using ibase, command line argument and bc

Create a bash file named hextodec2.sh and add the following code. In this example, the input value has to give in the command line argument, which will be read by $@. Here, just ibase with 16 value is used to convert hex to the decimal number.

#!/bin/bash
echo -n “The decimal value of $@=”
echo “ibase=16; $@”|bc

Output:

Run the script with bash command, file name and a hexadecimal number as command line argument. Here, FF is given as command line argument which is taken as hex value.

Example-3: using printf method

Another option for converting hex to the decimal number is printf. ‘%d’ format specifier is used in printf method to convert any number to decimal number. Create a bash file named hextodec3.sh and add the following code. According to this script, a hex number will be taken as input and it is used in printf method with %d to print the decimal value.

#!/bin/bash
echo “Type a hex number”
read hexNum
printf “The decimal value of $hexNum=%dn” $((16#$hexNum))

Output:

Run the script with bash command and give any hexadecimal number as input to find out the decimal value.

Example-4: using double brackets

There is another way to convert hex to the decimal number without using ibase, obase and bc or printf method. You can use double brackets expression with 16 base to convert hex to the decimal number. Create a bash file named hextodec4.sh and add the following code. Here, echo command will take the number as hex and print the output in the decimal number system.

#!/bin/bash
echo “Type a hex number”
read hexNum
echo $(( 16#$hexNum ))

Output:

Run the script with bash command and give any hexadecimal number as input to find out the decimal value.

Example-5: Converting the list of hexadecimal numbers

Suppose, you have a text file named ‘hexList.txt’ that contains the following list of hex numbers.

HexList.txt
AB05
FF
ABCD
ACCD
BED

Create a bash file named hextodec5.sh and add the following code to convert each hex value of hexList.txt into the decimal value. Here, obase, ibase, and bc are used for conversion. while loop is used to read each hex value from the text file, convert to decimal value and print.

#!/bin/bash
while read

number

doecho -n “The decimal value of $number(Hex)=”

echo “obase=10; ibase=16; $number” | bc
done <

hexList.txt

Output:

Run the script with bash command. There are five hex values in the text file and the output shows five decimal values after conversion.

This tutorial shows multiple ways to convert hex to decimal values using the bash script. You can follow any of the ways for your conversion purpose. You can also convert other number systems using the scripts mentioned in this tutorial just by changing the base value.

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LISBON (AFP) –

The inventor of the worldwide web, Tim Berners-Lee, on Monday announced plans for a “contract” to ensure the internet remains “safe and accessible” for all.

“All kinds of things have things have gone wrong,” the computer scientist, who in 1989 invented the Web as a platform, said at the opening of the Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech event.

“We have fake news, we have problems with privacy, we have people being profiled and manipulated,” he said.

Like other tech pioneers, Berners-Lee saw the internet as a platform that would open new horizons but he is disappointed with how it has evolved.

Employees of Google, Facebook and other tech giants have in recent months gone public with their regrets, calling the products they helped build harmful to society and overly addictive.

“We’ve lost control of our personal data and that data is being weaponised against us. The power to access news and information from around the globe is being manipulated by malicious actors,” his Web Foundation said in a report outlining the need for a new contract for the web.

“Online harassment is rampant, and governments are increasingly censoring information online — or shutting down the internet altogether,” it added.

Berners-Lee, 63, wants governments, companies and citizens to iron out a “complete contract” for the web by May 2019, the date by which 50 percent of the world will be online for the first time.

The French government and internet giants Google and Facebook back the principles of the proposed contract, such as respect for people’s right to privacy and guarantees that everyone can connect to the internet, according to his Web Foundation.

The two firms now have direct influence over nearly three quarters of all internet traffic thanks to the vast amounts of apps and services they own such as YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram.

“We have big and small players, it’s not the UN of the digital world, it’s a call for voluntary engagement, for those who want to be part of the solution, whether they’re part of the problem or not,” the foundation’s policy director, Nnenna Nwakanma, told AFP.

The Web Foundation said the majority people not online live in poor countries and it criticised the fact that “billions of people” access the internet “through a small handful of huge companies”.

The United Nations General Assembly in 2013 called on countries to “respect and protect the right to a private life, including online”.

© 2018 AFP

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Nov 5, 2018 — by Eric Brown

EFCO’s fanless “SmartSL Plus” embedded box computer is built around a Intel Bay Trail based Congatec Qseven module. The system features 3x GbE ports with PoE, mini-PCIe and mSATA, dual displays, and isolated GPIO.

EFCO’s compact SmartSL Plus embedded computer has begun sampling at $450 and up, targeting machine vision, video, AOI, test & measurement, factory automation, IoT gateways, digital signage, home automation, surveillance, and IP PBX server applications. Like EFCO’s Intel Kaby Lake based SmartMod computer, it features Gigabit Ethernet ports with 802.3at compliant Power over Ethernet (PoE). Although the product page lists only Windows support, EFCO tells us the product also supports Linux, with specific support for Ubuntu and Yocto Project.

SmartSL Plus, front and back

 

The SmartSL Plus is powered by Congatec’s

Conga-QA3

, a Qseven form-factor module equipped with an Intel Bay Trail system-on-chip. The 196 x 100 x 38.2mm system provides a choice of the quad-core, 2.0GHz Celeron J1900 with 10W TDP or the dual-core, 1.58GHz Celeron N2807 with 4.5W TDP.

The Qseven based design should enable future upgrades, says EFCO. One possibility that comes to mind is the newer, Intel Apollo Lake based Conga-QA5.

Congatec Conga-QA3 (left) and block diagram

 

You can load up to 8GB of DDR3L-1333 on the SmartSL Plus via a single socket, and there’s a dedicated mSATA slot for storage. The system offers 3x GbE ports with standard PoE support, as well as a full-length mini-PCIe slot. Three antenna holes and a nano-SIM slot support wireless connectivity, including LTE.

Dual displays are supported with HDMI and VGA ports, and audio is supplied by line-out and mic-in jacks. In addition to a USB 3.0 port, the system furnishes 3x USB 2.0 ports and an RS-232/422/485 serial port. Isolation GPIO (8-bit in and out) is also available

SmartSL Plus

The fanless SmartSL Plus provides an aluminum chassis with a 0 to 60° range and a wide-range 9-32VDC input. A watchdog and a power button are also onboard.

Further information

SmartSL Plus samples are available starting at $450. More information may be found on EFCO’s SmartSL Plus product page.

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