simosx

You can also use software to count birds, https://blog.simos.info/how-to-count-the-population-of-flock...

(disclaimer: I wrote the tutorial from a post I found on the Internet. That source post is now gone)

Allwinner has done mistakes in the past and posted tarballs of the Linux kernel source with object files for drivers they did not have the right (from others) to post the source. They called these "SDKs" and distributed them to those that asked.

There are ways to get around such issues like distributing those blobs or the object files separately, but they were not savvy in free software. They started getting savvy by posting on github sanitized Linux sources and sources of the bootloader, https://github.com/allwinner-zh

So what do you do if a fabless manufacturer violates the GPL out of cluelessness? Do you follow the path of the core kernel develolpers (https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/) or do you go for the nuclear option?

Well, a certain person on linux-sunxi went for the nuclear option. You can see the `GPL violation` edits on the linux-sunxi Wiki on these obsolete tarballs with object files. You can see the same person on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology writing about 'GPL violations'.

I admit that the `nuclear option` is a strategy. If it works, it would transform the company by force to become friendly to open-source (/sarcasm). But it is a shitty strategy.

The article actually asks for input of the collection of diagnostic data.

The title by Santosh83 says instead "Ubuntu will collect data about your system by default, starting with 18.04".

It has been mentioned already above.

We are talking here about anonymized diagnostic data, not private indentifiable information.

" Quick. May fade to white. "

Compared to Scaleway, Scaleway gives you two vCPUs (not one) and 50GB storage (not 20GB) for their entry level cloud server, at around 3€/month.

URL: https://www.scaleway.com/pricing/

The problem with Scaleway is that they are working at capacity and are almost always out of stock.

They are expanding now (and are hiring!), https://blog.online.net/2017/11/13/scaleway-enters-a-new-gro...

The big difference between Hetzner and all the rest of the cloud servers, is that they start with 2GB RAM for their entry level packages.

When you create a new cloud server, there is a tab called CEPH (for the Ceph network filesystem).

It does not have any options and it looks like it is not active yet. It would be great if they offered network storage through Ceph.

Had some fun trying out these new cloud servers,

https://blog.simos.info/a-closer-look-at-the-new-hetzner-clo...

(not affiliated with Hetzner)

This should be for Skylake or newer CPUs only, that support USB DCI.

The PLEASESTOPNAMINGVULNERABILITIES vulnerabilities are surely of a different type than the KRACK attack.

The article says that only WPA2-TKIP is vulnerable to the downgrade, therefore running WPA2 with only AES should be fine.

I wrote a similar guide that uses unprivileged LXD containers, https://blog.simos.info/how-to-run-graphics-accelerated-gui-...

I think that with LXD containers it is easier to set up. I am looking forward to see a guide for this so that I can compare the steps.

Both Dell and System76 sell laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed.

Are you looking into some sort of certification of the sort "Ubuntu Verified"?

For me, "vim-full" would be a hard requirement.

The minimal vim is so bad in terms of usability that makes it a pain to use even for advanced users. Especially, when you complete the installation and then need to do some text editing before you manage to get the network up ;-'(.

+2

Is that for Ubuntu Core or Ubuntu Desktop?

It would make sense as soon as the default filesystem becomes btrfs or ZFS. As it is now, it would need to be a feature that only appears if it finds that you have the proper filesystem.

This one would be useful.

There are several things to test, and things that may break. It is possible to get corner cases.

I would suggest to get purge-old-kernels on 17.10 in order to test it, and decide whether to put on 18.04 LTS later on.

The AMD engineers have decided to only support the open-source amdgpu driver and diverted all resources from fglrx to amdgpu.

Due to this, 16.04 does not have fglrx because the X11 server in 16.04 is not compatible any more with fglrx.

Around this time (end 2016/early 2017) it was supposed for amdgpu to get parity in features with fglrx. I have not checked, are there issues missing from amdgpu? You would need to test, and preferably test with the AMDGPU PRO driver distribution from AMD (has the very latest support that may take a bit of time to make it to the upstream projects).

If it is a Linux kernel update, then it's either Livepatch or you reboot.

If it is a system library, then for the apps to use the newly installed library, they need to be restarted (sometimes logging out and logging in again should be enough).

If that library is the system "libc" library or something similar, then it has to be reboot (not relogin). The only way that I can think for reboot-free updates, is to save the full state of the system, then silently restart everything to the previous state.

The first two examples relate to codecs that are not installed by default. Most probably they should not be available for installation at all, but then it's the way that packages are available in the "universe" repository.

The third example is a valid issue, and got fixed. Apport is important to receive feedback from crashes. It is not enabled by default if you use the final versions of the installation ISOs. It is enabled only in the dev versions of Ubuntu.

Bug bounties would be interesting. Should they be monetary or should be something else (nice t-shirt). The issue with monetary bug bounties is that they make sense to money-making software and services.

This offers a way to create lightweight machine containers and expose them to the Web as web-based terminals.

I can see a few opportunities to build projects on such a set up.

I think it is too early to have such a verdict.

This is probably the very first video showing off Ubuntu Personal on the Aquaris M10 and the interest is to see how it will progress in the following weeks.

This is work in progress, like pre-alpha. I suppose that as soon as it works reliably (no library crashes, etc), then it would be time for optimizations.

There is a big shift in Ubuntu towards a GNU/Linux distribution that uses snap installation packages instead of the traditional .deb packages. The video shows an early preview of that future distribution and I think it is the first such video.

These snaps are a big thing (see https://snapcraft.io/). Universal packages, with confinement, offering transactional updates.

For your case of this Core 2 Duo laptop, you can disable some of the fancy graphics effects in order to gain some extra speed. See how to do this at http://sourcedigit.com/21432-2-ways-enable-unity-low-graphic...

There is supposed to be such an option in the Ubuntu Settings but I did not find it yet. See https://ufuntu.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/enable-the-new-faste...

edit: I wonder why the downvotes...

The https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack page has the appropriate upgrade command in order to upgrade the kernel to the newer and supported version.

According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack#Kernel.2FS... you are now at the Linux kernel 4.4 and it will remain the same until the EOL of Ubuntu 14.04 (in 2019).

This would be really funny if it was not that depressing.. :'(

Here is the corrected table:

4.10: System V (in 2004), first release, adopted from Debian

6.10: Upstart (in 2006), see http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html

16.04: systemd (in 2016) and it was gradual.

This is part of the natural evolution of software. There are new requirements and new software is needed to implement them.

Here is a summary of what is said in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack regarding the 16.04.x versions

1. If you are happy with how Ubuntu 16.04 works for you, you get to keep it and you receive support until 2021.

2. With Ubuntu 16.04.2, you get the option to switch to a new path of updated Linux kernels. If you do so, your Linux kernel will get updated every six months, until 2021.

For the first update with Ubuntu 16.04.2, you can enable to get the 4.8 kernel that was used/tested in development version of Ubuntu 16.10.

In the subsequent update with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (around July 2017), you will be updated to that Linux kernel that was used/tested in Ubuntu 17.04 (to be released in April 2017). And so on.

The command to switch you to the new path of updated kernels (updated every six months), is

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04

If you use LXD in Ubuntu, you can (and should) have your containers stored in the ZFS filesystem.

I have be doing that, and did not notice any problems.

About LXD: https://stgraber.org/2016/03/11/lxd-2-0-blog-post-series-012...