Linux Blimp

System76 has launched a line of mostly open hardware, Ubuntu-equipped “Thelio” desktop PCs built in Colorado with a choice of AMD and Intel CPUs.

We don’t regularly cover mainstream desktop and laptop computers, even when they ship with Linux, but System76’s Thelio is anything but mainstream. The x86-based Thelio computers are preloaded with either Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or the same Ubuntu-based, encryption enhanced Pop!_OS! distro that appears on its Linux-based laptops such as last year’s Intel Coffee Lake based Galago Pro. Unlike the Denver-based company’s earlier systems, this is fan-cooled desktop PC with a custom chassis built primarily with open source hardware (see farther below).

Thelio, Thelio Major, and Thelio Massive (left) and internal view
(click images to enlarge)

 

The gaming ready Thelio line is available in three models with AMD or Intel processors and a variety of customizations including additional graphics cards, M.2 storage devices, and more. All the systems ship standard in either Walnut or Maple styling with 802.11ac (WiFi 5) with Bluetooth, as well as the base level RAM shown below.

The systems default to a 250GB NVMe M.2 SSD, with other M.2 and SATA storage options ranging to 24TB (Thelio), 46TB (Major), and 86TB (Massive). You pay extra for keyboard, mouse, display, speakers. You also pay for higher-end or additional CPU and GPU, as well as additional RAM and storage.

The Thelio, Thelio Major, and Thelio Massive are detailed here in their default configurations and prices:

• Thelio — Ryzen 5 2400G with 4x dual-threaded 3.6GHz/3.9GHz cores (optional extra cost Ryzen 7 or Intel Core); 8GB to 32GB DDR4; 324 x 207 x 209mm; $1,099 and up
• Thelio Major — Ryzen Threadripper 1900X with 8x, dual-threaded 3.8GHz/4.0GHz cores (or Intel Core X-Series); Radeon RX 5500 GPU with 2GB RAM and 512 cores; 16GB to 128GB DDR4; 1300W power supply; 462 x 262 x 408mm; $2,299 and up
• Thelio Massive — Intel Xeon Bronze 3104 with 6x single-threaded 1.7GHz cores (optional, extra-cost dual-threaded Xeons with 8x to 28x cores and/or CPU option for second Xeon 3104); Radeon RX 5500 GPU with 2GB RAM and 512 cores; 16GB to 384GB DDR4 (768GB with 2nd Xeon); 1600W power supply; 492 x 262 x 527mm; $2,899 and up

All three Thelio system are available with optional GPU boards that can be used in conjunction with integrated graphics. As shown in the spec list below, the choice of GPU also dictates what display ports you get.

Thelio internal views
(click images to enlarge)

 

The base level Thelio lets you choose between the AMD Radeon RX 550/580, Nvidia GeForce 2070/2080, and Titan V graphics cards, or if you’re going with an Intel Core system, the built-in Intel UHD Graphics 630. The Major and Massive systems offer a slightly broader range of choices shown below, and can also load up to 4x GPUs, as long as you don’t mix and match AMD and Nvidia modules:

• Radeon RX 550: 1× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI, 1× DVI
• Radeon RX 580: 3× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI, 1× DVI
• RX Vega 64: 3× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI
• GeForce RTX 2070: 3× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI, 1× USB Type-C
• GeForce RTX 2080: 3× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI, 1× USB Type-C
• GeForce RTX 2080Ti: × DisplayPort, 1× HDMI, 1× USB Type-C
• Titan V: 3× DisplayPort, 1× HDMI

The standard Thelio and the Thelio Massive each ship with 2x GbE ports while the Major only has one. The Thelio provides 4x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and a single USB 3.1 Type-C port. The Major adds a bank of 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports for 8x host ports overall, and the Massive offers 10x USB 3.0 ports, but no Type-C port. The Massive also adds 2x eSATA ports and an S/PDIF port in addition to the standard trio of audio jacks found on all the systems.

Thelio rear view (left) and homegrown Thelio Io board
(click images to enlarge)

 

The Thelio features oversized fans and heat pipes that rapidly draw heat from the CPU. Ducts direct the hot air out of the system. “”To maximize performance, Thelio is constructed to prevent throttling of all components inside,” says System76.

A homegrown, open source Thelio Io daughter board acts as a chassis controller, hard drive backplane, and thermal controller. The Thelio thermal system uses motherboard data, fan speed, and GPU and OS data to coordinate optimal airflow. The Thelio Massive offers an additional home-grown open source board: referred to as an SAS backplane for high performance 2.5-inch PCIe storage.

Aiming for open hardware

The Thelio systems are OSHWA certified open hardware, offering the same open source CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike) license used by the BeagleBone boards. You also get GPLv3 licensed, Ubuntu based firmware.

Like Olimex’s community backed Teres-A64 laptop, Thelio is not as open source as your typical open-spec hacker board. This is due to the variety of components demanded by PC customers that are hard to find with open source licensing. In addition, like most hacker boards — with the exception of SiFive’s expensive, RISC-V based HiFive Unleashed development board — it’s powered by mostly proprietary CPUs and GPUs.

Thelio, Thelio Major, and Thelio Massive
(click image to enlarge)

 

Nevertheless, the Thelio systems are said to be certified by

OSHWA

(Open Source Hardware Association) as being open hardware. As explained in System76’s

blog entry

on open hardware, every effort was made to select open source components or build them inhouse.

In the past, like fellow Linux laptop specialists ZaReason, System76 has primarily been a system integrator, offering highly customizable laptops pre-loaded with Linux. For the Thelio, however, it built its own factory and manufactured the chassis and some of the components itself. “To remove functionality from the proprietary mainboard,” System76 designed the open source Thelio Io daughter board.

As celebrated in the betanews story that alerted us the Thelio, the computer is also notable for being primarily made in the U.S. This may not mean much if you live elsewhere, but it’s a selling point for some U.S. buyers ranging from American Firsters to environmentally conscious techno-locavores.

Further information

The Thelio computers are available for pre-order starting at $1,099, with shipments beginning in early December. More information may be found on System76’s Thelio product page (specs are at the bottom), which offers links to individual shopping configurator pages. Thelio and Thelio Io design files may be found on the Thelio GitHub page.

Source

By Jack M. Germain, Nov 2, 2018 11:52 AM PT

Feren OS is a nice alternative to Linux Mint and an easy stepping stone to transition to Linux from Microsoft Windows or macOS.

I am a long-time user of Linux Mint, but I am falling out of love with it. Mint is getting stale. It is annoyingly sluggish at times. I run it on a number of computers and experience the same symptoms on a variety of hardware configurations. Linux Mint is starting to suffer from a developmental malaise.

That diagnosis started me thinking about a suitable replacement distro that runs the Cinnamon desktop with a bit more innovation and flare. Not everyone finds the Cinnamon desktop to be an ideal computing environment. However, for me, Cinnamon offers the best all-around combination of features, productivity and ease of use.

Feren OS, with its tweaking of the Cinnamon desktop and other enhancements, is a very appealing replacement candidate. Plus, the developers plan to release a KDE edition as a desktop option in about 18 months.

Smart Strategy

What also makes Feren OS attractive is its developmental strategy. This distro follows a partial rolling release schedule that provides constant updates to the OS for its lifetime.

A true rolling release ensures that you never have to handle ISO installations again. That means no more configuring settings and getting the upgrade working with the same look and feel as the current version.

Feren OS pushes software updates and security patches as they are ready. At predetermined intervals, you can download an updated snapshot and let the software manager automatically integrate the latest core elements and system upgrades.

The latest snapshot upgrade came three months after the previous update. This process spares you from having to rebuild your system each time a new version is released. This modified rolling release feature is essential and convenient.

For example, it eliminates the hassle of upgrading each major new release on my cadre of Linux computers. Inevitably, one or two of my computers upgrade Linux Mint successfully over-the-air from the Mint repository.

I am always stuck having to do a fresh new installation on the other computers I use, or just skipping the upgrade entirely. A glitch always seems to find a weak spot in my hardware even though the installed version had no compatibility issues.

Feren’s Heritage

Feren OS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Linux Mint 19. It ships with the Cinnamon desktop environment and includes the WINE compatibility layer for running Windows applications.

Feren OS is a young entry in the crowded field of up and coming Linux operating systems. The distro first appeared in late 2015. The developers grew the Linux Mint alternative into a very polished computing platform in a relatively short period of time. It has its own personality, so you will not feel like you are using a Mint clone.

The U.S.-based developer last month released a new stable version of Feren OS, called “October snapshot.” The latest release comes with a number of desktop tweaks and is also available for 32-bit computers, something of an oddity today. The 32-bit architecture is aging and is suitable only for very old computers.

The latest Feren OS update has no big surprises or major improvements. It simply adds more spit and polish to an already fine-tuned operating system. Most of the work has been done improving the back end of many of Feren’s own applications.

I like the concept of downloading Feren OS once and staying updated forever. This October snapshot brings it completely up to date. Out of the box, it is ready to install and use without massive configuration steps.

What’s Inside

Feren OS comes with a handy selection of applications that are available by default. The OS also gives you access to thousands of applications available through the Ubuntu Repository.

Some of the Feren OS staples are the Vivaldi Web browser, Files to manage applications and system locations, Remmina for connecting to remote computers, LibreOffice, Calendar, Photos to display your photo collection, Text Editor for writing, Krita for digital painting, Evince document viewer, Weather, Calculator and Maps.

The Themes manager makes personalizing the desktop easy. It lets you alter the appearance of icons, background, window decoration, and just about everything else governing how Feren OS looks on the screen.

This distro provides a handy tool not available in most other Linux distros. The Windows Transfer Tool makes it next to foolproof to move your Microsoft Windows documents and some settings to the Feren OS partition during the installation process.

Feren OS runs the Vivaldi browser by default. The Web Browser Manager tool makes it easy to click and install other Web browsers.

Overall Impressions

Feren OS is very easy to install. This makes it suitable for those migrating to Linux, or at least to this operating system. Feren OS offers a specialized software repository that is colorful and efficient to use. It has several specialized launchers to install and configure software packages with a single mouse click.

The in-house customization of the Cinnamon desktop environment gives Feren OS a considerably different atmosphere than the current Linux Mint Cinnamon iteration. In several ways, the look and feel, along with the easy operation, resembles the Zorin OS. However, Feren OS has what Zorin OS lacks — the Cinnamon desktop.

Feren OS is not a retread of Zorin, which runs the GNOME desktop (or an alternative edition that runs the Xfce desktop) or Linux Mint. Both Feren and Zorin are designed to look like classic Windows.

They both resemble many other Linux distributions belonging to the Debian Linux family. Feren OS displays a handful of system icons on the desktop if you want them. It shows a fully functional taskbar or panel on the bottom of the screen.

Two strong points with Feren OS are the Cinnamon desktop-powered panel at the bottom of the screen and the Software Manager plugged into the Ubuntu repository.

Cinnamon Flavoring

If you are not familiar with the Cinnamon desktop, you do not have to worry about much of a learning curve. The Cinnamon desktop is easy to use, especially with all of the customized features the Feren OS developer team added.

The left side of the panel is home to the main menu button and several launch icons for the Web browser, the file manager and the Software Center. The right end of the panel houses the notifications tray and systems tools launchers.

You can add a broad assortment of applets to that taskbar. You can choose from a library of desklets on the desktop to display various readouts such as weather and system monitors.

Do embedded clock gadgets on the desktop bug you? Feren OS lets you easily enable or disable the clock widget on the screen. You do this simply by calling up the Conky Toggler tool from the main menu and clicking the enable/disable button. Simple and done.

Special Factors

The main menu in Feren OS is a change from the typical cascading display used in Windows and many Linux distros. It is a two-column display with the categories in the left column once you click on the All Applications label at the bottom of the menu panel. Otherwise, you see a left column with a few default applications and a right column showing places.

I like that I can hover the mouse pointer over a menu item to get a brief description of what that application does. This makes getting acclimated to the OS very easy.

Feren OS runs the Vivaldi browser by default. The Web Browser Manager tool makes it easy to click and install other Web browsers. The main menu in Feren OS is a change from the typical cascading display used in Windows and many Linux distros.

Feren OS runs the Vivaldi browser by default. The Web Browser Manager tool makes it easy to click and install other Web browsers. This tool originally appeared in Zorin OS.

The browser options available in this tool are Firefox, Google Chrome, Chromium, Opera and Brave. You also can select a more generic Web browser called “Web.” Either way, this tool makes it a one-click process to add/remove Web browsers.

I have not seen this Web browser in other Linux distros. It is an open source simple, clean screen style powered WebKitGTK+.

Game players will be disappointed. No default games are included. In fact, the menu does not have a game category. That doesn’t mean you can’t run games on this distro. You just have to download games you want from the software center.

System Requirements

To run Feren OS smoothly, you need 1-2 GB of RAM. However, for the top-notch performance this distro can deliver, you need at least 4 GB of system memory.

You need at least 20 GB of disk space, too. To keep up with optimum performance needs, having 50 or more gigabytes is recommended.

If your hardware falls short of these minimum requirements or comes close to not measuring up with decent performance, try the lightweight version. This is a younger variant of Feren OS that is designed to run on PCs with lower specifications. It is a stripped-down desktop version.

Bottom Line

Feren OS is a popular replacement for Linux Mint. It is speedy and has enough developer differences to make using it interesting and fun. From a practical viewpoint, Feren OS does a nice job of improving on the core Linux Mint Cinnamon experience.

Feren OS is a nearly flawless Linux computing platform. This distro is practically maintenance-free. The developers have taken the best parts of several innovative Linux distros and seamlessly integrated them into an ideal computing platform.

Want to Suggest a Review?

Is there a Linux software application or distro you’d like to suggest for review? Something you love or would like to get to know?

Please
email your ideas to me, and I’ll consider them for a future Linux Picks and Pans column.

And use the Reader Comments feature below to provide your input!

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open source technologies. He has written numerous reviews of Linux distros and other open source software.
Email Jack.

Source

Slipstream is a racing game that looks like it was ripped out of the 90’s and it’s very cool. To make it sweeter, the latest and possibly last update expands it quite a lot.

This update adds in local multiplayer, a customisable “Cannonball” game mode, a “Battle Royale” mode which is essentially eliminating the last racer on each track, a time trial mode, new physics and better controls, soundtrack customisation and more.

Quite a surprisingly big update, one which many other developers likely would have shovelled into some form of DLC so it’s really pleasing to see it so well supported by ansdor. The Linux version runs beautifully and it’s quite a challenging and fun arcade racer that’s well worth a look. Drifting past multiple racers at high speed feels exhilarating, they did a really fantastic job at making it exciting to play.

As a reminder, Slipstream was developed on Linux which I always think is pretty sweet. Talking about the update, the developer said this will be the last major update for it outside of minor fixes. After working on it for three years, they’re moving on. Can’t argue with that, working on the same thing for so long can get pretty stale.

Find it on Steam and itch.io, it’s unclear if the itch version is up to date.

Source

The ls command is used to list directory contents and the results can be sorted upon several criteria such as by date, alphabetical order of filenames, modification time, access time, version and file size.

In this article, I will show you how to sort files by date using ls command in Linux.

Hope you interested in reading: How to Sort all Files by Size Using ls command in Linux

1) List Files directory with Last Modified Date/Time

To list files and shows the last modified files at top, we will use -lt options with ls command.

$ ls -lt /run
output
total 24
-rw-rw-r–. 1 root utmp 2304 Sep 8 14:58 utmp
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Sep 8 12:41 dhclient-eth0.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 100 Sep 8 03:31 lock
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 60 Sep 7 23:11 user
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 160 Aug 26 14:59 udev
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Aug 21 13:18 tuned

2) List Files with Last Modified Date/Time (most recent at bottom)

We will use -ltr options with ls command to list files of a specific directory with recently modified files at the bottom.

$ ls -ltr /run
$ ls -ltr /run
total 13404
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 14 2016 scripts
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4688 Dec 14 2016 perms.py
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 9718 Jun 23 14:47 ddagent-install.log
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 1457471 Jun 26 01:26 rocket.zip
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 26 10:40 ssl-21APR2018-11JUN2020
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jun 27 09:29 incubator-pagespeed-ngx-latest-stable
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Jun 27 09:29 nginx-1.15.0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jul 2 19:55 rocket-nginx
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 18186 Jul 11 13:17 memcachy.zip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12202195 Sep 4 12:21 Linux_64bit.install
:~#

If you want to sort by directory, then by dates use

$ ls -Rltr

3) Display in Human Readable format

We will use -halt options with ls command to list files of a specific directory in human readable file sizes, long format. It uses K, M, G, and T suffixes (or no suffix for bytes)

$ ls -halt /run
total 28K
-rw-rw-r–. 1 root utmp 1.9K Oct 28 06:02 utmp
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 60 Oct 28 06:02 user
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 100 Oct 28 03:48 lock
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Oct 28 02:50 dhclient-eth0.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 160 Oct 25 12:16 udev
drwxr-xr-x. 21 root root 600 Oct 25 12:15 .

4) Find files modified in Last 10 minutes

We can get files modified in last 10 minutes with command below:

$ find . -mmin -10 -type f -exec ls -l {} +
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 53 Nov 1 01:58 ./smart.txt
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 15 Nov 1 02:00 ./test/file1

5) Recently modified 10 files

Let see how to check recently modified 10 files in a directory using ls commands. We will use a combination of ‘ls” and ‘head’ command.

Below command will show modified 10 files with the recently updated file at the top

$ ls -lt /run/ | head -10
-rw-rw-r–. 1 root utmp 1920 Oct 31 01:57 utmp
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 60 Oct 31 01:57 user
drwxr-xr-x. 16 root root 400 Oct 30 23:06 systemd
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Oct 30 18:42 dhclient-eth0.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 100 Oct 30 03:06 lock
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 160 Oct 28 06:09 udev
-rw——-. 1 root root 3 Oct 25 12:15 syslogd.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Oct 25 12:15 tuned
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Oct 25 12:15 sshd.pid

Or

with tail combination, it shows recently updated file at the bottom.

$ ls -ltr /run/ | tail -10
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 100 Oct 25 12:15 NetworkManager
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Oct 25 12:15 sshd.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Oct 25 12:15 tuned
-rw——-. 1 root root 3 Oct 25 12:15 syslogd.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 160 Oct 28 06:09 udev
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 100 Oct 30 03:06 lock
-rw-r–r–. 1 root root 4 Oct 30 18:42 dhclient-eth0.pid
drwxr-xr-x. 16 root root 400 Oct 30 23:06 systemd
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 60 Oct 31 01:57 user
-rw-rw-r–. 1 root utmp 1920 Oct 31 01:57 utmp

Thanks for reading this article and please comment below if you find any other options useful.

Read Also:

• Exploring 20 ‘LS’ Command in Linux for Displaying Entries of Directory

Source

Bitnami Composr Module (formerly Bitnami ocPortal Module) is a freely distributed software project, a module that can be used on top of a Bitnami LAMP/WAMP/MAMP server, specially designed for the Composr application. It is supported on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

What is ocPortal?

Composr is an open source web-based software that supports many types of content (news/newsletters, galleries, etc.) – and integrating rich media and advertising into them. Community features include forums, Wiki, member blogs, chat rooms, content commenting and rating, theme wizard, newsletters, RSS and Atom feeds, polling, site stats and calendar.

Installing Bitnami Composr Module

Just like Bitnami Composr Stack, the Bitnami ocPortal Module product is distributed as native installers for the aforementioned operating systems, built using the BitRock InstallBuilder tool. To install Composr on top of your Bitnami LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) installation, you will have to first download the package that corresponds to your computer’s hardware architecture (64-bit or 32-bit), run it and follow the instructions displayed on the screen.

Virtualize Composr or run it on the cloud

Besides installing Composr on a personal computer, either standalone or on top of a LAMP server, you can also run it on the cloud with your own hosting platform or by using a pre-built cloud image for Windows Azure and Amazon EC2 cloud hosting providers, as well as to virtualize it, thanks to Bitnami’s virtual appliance for Oracle VirtualBox and VMware ESX/ESXi virtualization software, based on the latest LTS release of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

The Bitnami Composr Stack

Bitnami also offers an all-in-one solution that greatly simplifies the installation and hosting of the Composr web-based application and its runtime dependencies on a desktop computer or laptop. You can download the Bitnami Composr Stack product right now from Softpedia, free of charge.

Source

This month in Linux Voice.

We have long believed that you can find a Linux application to do about anything. This month we put that theory to the test with an article on OpenAstro, a free application that lets you generate a complete set of astrological star charts to use for the kind of high-end analysis performed by professional astrologers. Tune in to what the stars were whispering at the moment of your birth. And speaking of whispered (or shouted) discussions of the past, are you old enough to remember Usenet, the vast network of servers that used to supply the world with forums and discussion groups before the World Wide Web stole its thunder? Well Usenet is still out there, and you can still use it to express your thoughts and even download videos encoded into massive text files.

If you want to get even more creative, read on to our tutorial section for a look at how to integrate RSS feeds with your Python scripts.

[…]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Source

Bitnami Composr Stack (formerly Bitnami ocPortal Stack) is a cross-platform software project, distributed for free by Bitnami and designed from the ground up to to a help users with the deployment of the Composr (Content Management System) application and all of its runtime dependencies on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.

What is Composr?

Composr is an open source and free web-based software that supports many types of content (galleries, news/newsletters, etc.) – and integrating rich media and advertising into them. Community features include forums, member blogs, WIKI, chat rooms and content commenting/rating.

Installing Bitnami Composr Stack

Bitnami’s Composr Stack is distributed as native installers, which are built using the BitRock InstallBuilder tool and designed to work with all GNU/Linux distributions. To install Composr on your computer, download the package that corresponds to your computer’s hardware architecture (64-bit or 32-bit), make it executable, run it and follow the on-screen instructions.

Run Composr on the cloud

Thanks to Bitnami, users can run Composr on the cloud with their hosting platform or by using a pre-built cloud image that helps you deploy ocPortal on the Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure cloud hosting providers.

Virtualize Composr or use the Docker container

In addition to install the Composr application on your personal computer or run in on the cloud, it is also possible to virtualize it, thanks to Bitnami’s virtual appliance for VMware ESX, ESXi and Oracle VirtualBox virtualization software. The VM image is based on the latest stable release of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

The Bitnami Composr Module

Besides the Bitnami Composr Stack product reviewed here, Bitnami also offers a module for its Bitnami LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) stack, which allows users to install only Composr, without its runtime dependencies. Bitnami ocPortal Module is available for download from Softpedia, free of charge.

Source

Today, we are announcing a suite of open source Linux kernel components and related tools that address critical fleet management issues. These include resource control, resource utilization, workload isolation, load balancing, measuring, monitoring, and much more.

Kernel and kernel application developers at Facebook partner with various internal teams to develop technologies that resolve issues and concerns in Facebook’s data centers — the same challenges that many throughout the industry share. The following products are now in production on a massive scale throughout all of Facebook’s infrastructure, as well as at many other organizations.

BPF

BPF is a highly flexible, efficient code execution engine in the Linux kernel that allows bytecode to run at various hook points, enabling safe and easy modifications of kernel behaviors with custom code. Although it’s been widely used for packet filtering, BPF’s instruction set is generic and flexible enough to support and allow for a wide variety of use cases beyond networking such as tracing and security (e.g., sandboxing).

Read more at Facebook blog

Source

RALEIGH, N.C., Nov. 1, 2018 — Red Hat, Inc., a leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6, a consistent hybrid cloud foundation for enterprise IT built on open source innovation. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 is designed to enable organizations to better keep pace with emerging cloud-native technologies while still supporting stable IT operations across enterprise IT’s four footprints.

According to Gartner, “the landscape of cloud adoption is one of hybrid clouds and multiclouds. By 2020, 75% of organizations will have deployed a multicloud or hybrid cloud model.” Red Hat believes that this indicates that a common foundation, one that can handle workloads in a consistent fashion regardless of whether they are running on bare metal or on a public cloud instance, is a key need for enterprises as they embrace a variety of cloud computing models.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 helps to provide this foundation, enabling organizations to deploy applications on a footprint that can best fit their unique needs, with the knowledge that the underlying operating system remains the same consistent and mission-critical-ready platform. The latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 brings enhancements designed to address a range of IT challenges, emphasizing security and compliance, management and automation, and Linux container innovations.

Security and compliance

IT security remains a constant, key challenge for many IT departments, and one that does not get easier in complex hybrid and multicloud environments. To better answer these IT security needs, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 introduces Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 hardware modules as part of Network Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE). This provides two layers of security for hybrid cloud operations to help keep information on disks physically more secure: The network-based mechanism (NBDE) provides security across networked environments, while TPM works on-premise to add an additional layer, tying disks to specific physical systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 also makes it easier to manage firewalls with enhancements to nftables, simplifying the configuration of counterintrusion measures and giving operations teams more visibility into these mechanisms. Additionally, updated cryptographic algorithms delivered for RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) are enabled by default, helping organizations handling sensitive information to better keep pace with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance and requirements from standards bodies like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Management and automation

As Linux becomes a default choice in many datacenters, Linux operating systems need to become more accessible to new administrators, both those new to the role and sysadmins that have previously managed other operating systems like Windows. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 is designed to help make Linux adoption easier for these users with enhancements to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Web Console, which provides graphical overview of Red Hat system health and status. These enhancements include easier to find updates, automated configuration of single sign-on for identity management and a firewall control interface.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 also provides support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Roles, a collection of Ansiblemodules that are designed to provide a stable and consistent way to automate and remotely manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments. Each module provides a ready-made automated workflow for handling common, complex tasks that arise as part of the day-to-day management of Linux environments. This automation helps to remove the human element of error from these tasks and free up IT teams to focus on adding business value instead of “keeping the lights on.”

Linux container innovations

The rise of cloud-native technologies as a component of enterprise digital transformation remains a key focus area for Red Hat, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 addressing this through Red Hat’s lightweight container toolkit. Built with enterprise-grade security in mind, the toolkit is comprised of Buildah, Skopeo, CRI-O and now Podman. Each of these tools are built on fully open source, community-backed technologies and based on open standards like the Open Container Initiative (OCI) format.

Complementing Buildah and Skopeo and sharing the same foundations as CRI-O, the introduction of Podman enables users to run containers and groups of containers (pods) from a familiar command-line interface without requiring a daemon to do so. This helps to reduce the complexity around container creation and makes it easier for developers to build containers on workstations, in continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) systems and even within high-performance computing (HPC) or big data scheduling systems.

Availability

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 is available today to Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers with active subscriptions.

About Red Hat, Inc.

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Wyrmsun, the free and open source retro-looking RTS just had a sizeable update with some great new stuff included. The game uses a modified version of the old Stratagus engine which has itself been in development since sometime in 1998.

A little more about it:

Wyrmsun is an open-source real-time strategy game which features elements of mythology, history and fiction.

In the Wyrmsun universe a myriad of inhabited planets exist. Humans dwell on Earth, while dwarves inhabit Nidavellir and elves nourish the world of Alfheim. These peoples struggle to carve a place for themselves with their tools of stone, bronze and iron. And perhaps one day they will meet one another, beyond the stars…

It’s a very retro RTS, with it feeling familiar to old Warcraft titles and other RTS games released around that time. With that in mind, it won’t be for everyone but I think it’s great. There’s multiple races, story-based scenarios, units earn experience and level up, a persistent hero feature and much more.

Release highlights for 3.4.0:

• Playable Norse civilization
• Addition of Mason’s Shop buildings for non-dwarven civilizations
• Inclusion of Ballista/Catapult Tower buildings
• New experience upgrades for some dwarven units

Find it on Steam, GitHub. While it’s free and open for everyone, you can support development by picking up DLC on Steam which are cosmetic or donating via the official site.

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