Linus talks AMD, Ubuntu 18.04 enters beta, Amarok likes Brainz and building your own UPS for fun and profit. All this, plus your emails!
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Colour key – Venn Pedro
News:
Linus on AMD
https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/PeFp4zYWY46
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-security-vulnerability-%E2%80%93-the-day-after-seems-financially-motivated.html
https://www.gamersnexus.net/industry/3260-assassination-attempt-on-amd-by-viceroy-research-cts-labs
- “yes, it looks more like stock manipulation than a security advisory to me. -Linus”
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- I think that has been the general takeaway.
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- “Finally, because we’ve seen the conspiracy theories, we have asked Intel if the company has any comment on this whole thing. Intel responded to GamersNexus with a statement:”
- “Intel had no involvement in the CTS Labs security advisory.” – Intel statement to GamersNexus”
- Exploits require elevated administrator access, with MasterKey going as far as a BIOS reflash.
- Is ryzen 2000 that much of a threat?
LTS Beta
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2018-March/001238.html
- 18.04 MATE works pretty good.
- Alright, what is the purpose of all these “spins” in 2018?
- On that note, where is the stock image?
Simple mode
https://solus-project.com/2018/03/09/software-center-redesign/
- A proper queue that lets you keep adding stuff to install, instead of locking you out of whole thing while it does something, is certainly a very good idea.
- One which is long overdue, if we ever want to bring that mass appeal to Linux.
- “Responsive UI”
- Nice.
- Ability to “stack” operations
- Neat.
- Dynamic backend support
- Giggty
The horror
http://blog.broulik.de/2018/03/gtk-global-menu/
- If you like the OSX look, this will get you there.
- If, for some reason, you liked the Unity DE, this will scratch that itch.
- Global menus both anger and confuse me.
- Yeah, I joke about other things doing that but they genuinely do.
- Need to install some extra bits for Libreoffice, GIMP, and Inkscape.
Speaking of horror
https://github.com/HarveyHunt/howm
- I like me some complicated, buggy, and downright experimental, desktop environments *cough*Plasma*cough*
- But if I’m going to have to futz with the config files and basically set the session up from scratch by hand. Openbox+XFCE4 panel+Compton is still my go to.
- XKCD #963
- Sorry kids, I’m old and ever more frightening… busy.
- My days of futzing /w Desktop config files ended with Afterstep.
Remember me?
https://amarok.kde.org/en/node/888
- Adding musicbrainz no longer crashes it
- Amarok always looked a little too much like iTunes for my taste.
- And it always used about as much RAM as iTunes, too.
- 20+ bug fixes from 18 contributors.
- Qt 5 port is progressing nicely in the kf5 branch.
Speaking of classics
https://bitbucket.org/pidgin/www/src/tip/htdocs/ChangeLog?fileviewer=file-view-default
- I started using pidgin again on the X230 work laptop.
- With the sipe plugin it can do video/voice calls to/from Skype for Business.
- I tried using Pidgin again when Google noped hangouts from G+.
- It was serviceable but the integration (if you could call it that) was janky.
- It also works with Discord… join our Discord!
- Yearly bugfix release.
Hold my beer
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/03/11/0349235/esrs-newest-project-an-open-hardwareopen-source-ups
https://gitlab.com/esr/upside
- This is no fun!
- They’re actually going at this documentation/collaboration first.
- Instead of bullheadedly zapping themselves unconscious and doing things the best way.
- He wants the UPS to provide text-based alarm messages (rather than flashing lamps), and to provide decent monitoring information over USB.
- Others have joined the project:
- Eric Baskin is leading hardware engineering for Upside,
- Jay Maynard is developing firmware,
- Jeremy Mitts is copy-editing the documents
- And they plan on using lithium iron phosphate batteriBLAM!!11!.
- I knew this was a thing but didn’t know it was so wicked-easy.
- Slap on a USB MIC and we could do live remotes.
BOO!
https://www.cnet.com/news/ghostery-tool-for-web-privacy-goes-open-source/
https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension
- It’s nice that they now allow everyone to see what’s under the hood.
- That said, I would wager most people listening to this show use privacy Badger from the EFF.
Flicker free
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/131853/en-us
- Occasional?
- Does it sort the DP timeout from resume?
- Blank login screen /w XFCE?
- Am I the only one who wants an automagic build utility for the *.run packages?
- You know, for Ubuntu.
Slice of Pi
New Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/
https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/raspberry-pi-specs-benchmarks/
- Besides the hardware improvements you expect, it now supports pxe network booting
- Network imaging all the things!
- Improved compatibility for network booting
- New support for Power over Ethernet
- Processor speed has increased from 1.2Ghz on Pi 3 to 1.4Ghz
- New dual band wireless LAN chip, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz with embedded antenna
- Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy
- Faster onboard Ethernet, up to 300mbps speed
- The Gigabit Ethernet is a nice upgrade.
- However, the storage and network share the same bus. So you will not get full Gigabit speed.
- Almost hits 6W under load so you better order a Hyper 212.
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