LWDW 334: Giving up on GitHub

GNOME Web is getting extensions! Dropping X11 for GTK5, Raspberry Pi introduces a $6 Pico, and is it time to give up on Github?


Listen:


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:52 Giving up on GitHub
10:32 GNOME browser extensions
14:32 GTK5 dropping X11
17:32 X11 desktops in Wayland
26:47 $6 Pico Pi
29:27 RISC V from Pine


Give up Github

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jun/30/give-up-github-launch/

  • GitHub is the best social network I know of.
  • That said, I have my concerns with copilot. 
  • The copilot saga hasn’t even played out yet.
  • How many of you remember Sourceforge and how that imploded? 
  • But this, this is an opinion piece. 
  • And, it’s a mess.
  • Anyone using github 
  • GitLab has a licensed FOSS version and a proprietary version. 
  • The gitlab.com website uses the proprietary version.
  • Convince me this article is not a temper tantrum about copilot indeed. 
  • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31935766
  • The Software Freedom Conservancy, with this article, will create waves of awareness in the FOSS community about GitHub dwindling away the rights of open source projects. 
  • Microsoft is doing what Microsoft does best.
  • Remember the mass migration of open source projects from GitHub to GitLab when Microsoft took over? 
  • The SF Conservancy launched a website, GiveUpGitHub.org, where they provide tips, ideas, methods, tools and support to those that wish to leave GitHub.

Gnome web extensions 

https://news.itsfoss.com/gnome-web-extensions-dev/

  • based on the GTK port of Apple’s WebKit rendering engine, called WebKitGTK.
  • GNOME Web, also known as Epiphany, is one of my favorite web browsers, and one that many Linux users overlook. 
  • GNOME Web is finally adding support for WebExtensions,  which is something I have been waiting for for quite some time. 
  • Now you will be able to use your favorite add-ons and extensions with this nimble and powerful, yet minimal web browser! 
  • And it will help it to compete with the likes of Mozilla Firefox and Google’s Chrome web browsers for Linux users.
  • GNOME WebExtensions is part of the GNOME 43 feature set, and is modeled after Firefox’s ManifestV2 API, which includes compatibility with Chrome extensions where possible.
  • For now, this is experimental support for the Epiphany 43.alpha version.
  • Epiphany originally had, and still has, the minimal feel of a browser for reading the web and documentation.
  • At its surface it looks like that, but when you dig into it, it is fully featured, and even has Firefox Sync.

No X for GTK5

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/5004

  • GTK is a long way out. 
  • GTK3 was released in 2011.
  • GTK4 was released in 2020.
  • If XFCE is on GTK4 by 2031 I will be a little surprised. 
  • I think we need Wayland compatibility working 100% for this to even be a suggestion. 

Wayland compatibility 

https://twitter.com/kernellogger/status/1542857186585501697

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests/901

  • So running complete desktop environments within Xwayland is now possible thanks to some patches merged to the master.
  • This will allow Linux distros to drop the Xorg server, but still ship X11-only desktops, like Xfce and Mate.
  • Oooh, I was so excited when I first read this Tweet, and was hoping it would happen real soon! 
  • Now I can run all my favorite X window managers in Wayland, including Window Maker, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, Afterstep, IceWM, and Xfce!
  • To achieve this, there were several new merge requests to Xwayland including:
    • A new command line option -fullscreen to run Xwayland rootful fullscreen. Coupled with -geometry and -host-grab, this allows to run a full X11 desktop in Xwayland on a dedicated monitor with XRandr modes emulated (including resolutions higher than the actual output resolution)
  • A lot of this has to do with improving Xwayland’s ability to run in a rootful mode
    • faking device/cursor grab for fullscreen applications like desktops
    • Desktop integration for setting arbitrary resolutions
    • The ability to specify fixed geometry instead of having a surface equal to the area of all monitors
    • Host grab support (shift-alt to release)
    • The ability for the compositor to kill the main wayland window in rootful mode
  • This will be good for distros that want to ship Wayland without waiting and you know, that’s a good thing. 
  • Wayland support for Enlightenment is underway. 
  • MATE has Wayland support as of 1.26. 
  • Looking at the XFCE Wayland roadmap, they are still in the “brainstorming” phase of development. 

Slice of Pi

$6 Pi

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-w-your-6-iot-platform/

  • The original $4 Pico launched In a world of hardware shortages in January 2021 with almost 2 million boards sold, and now we have Pico x 3!
  • Pico H $5
  • Pico WH $7
  • Pico WH will follow in August.
  • Two 133MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ cores, 264kB of on-chip SRAM.

RISC V

https://liliputing.com/2022/06/pine64-is-working-on-a-risc-v-single-board-computer.html

  • Speedy Pine!
  • Pine64 has announced it is working on a RISC-V single-board computer.
  • We don’t have detailed specs yet about the hardware, but we do know:
    • The RISC-V board will be available with 4GB or 8GB of RAM, features support for USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and a PCIe slot!
  • Pine64 has released RISC-V hardware before, including the Pinecil smart soldering iron which has a RISC-V chip and the Pinecone IoT dev board.
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