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Full Circle THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE COMMUNITY

ISSUE #166 - February 2021

UUBBUUNNTTUU WWEEBB 2200..0044..11 A REPLACEMENT FOR CHROME OS? full circle magazine #166 contents ^ Full Circle Magazine is neither affiliated with,1 nor endorsed by, Ltd. HowTo Full Circle THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY Python p.25 Linux News p.04

Podcast Production p.29 Command & Conquer p.23 Linux Loopback p.XX Everyday Ubuntu p.41

Make a Budget p.32 Ubuntu Devices p.XX The Daily Waddle p.39 My Opinion p.48

p.XX My Story p.XX Letters p.51 Review p.51

Inkscape p.35 Q&A p.58 Review p.55 Ubuntu Games p.61 Graphics

The articles contained in this magazine are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. This means you can adapt, copy, distribute and transmit the articles but only under the following conditions: you must attribute the work to the original author in some way (at least a name, email or URL) and to this magazine by name ('Full Circle Magazine') and the URL www.fullcirclemagazine.org (but not attribute the article(s) in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you must distribute the resulting work under the same, similar or a compatible license. Full Circle magazine is entirely independent of Canonical, the sponsor of the Ubuntu projects, and the views and opinions in the magazine should in no way be assumed to have Canonical endorsement. full circle magazine #166 2 contents ^ EEDDIITTOORRIIAALL

This magazine was created using :

WELCOME TO THE LATEST ISSUE OF FULL CIRCLE

ithin this new issue we have yet more Python, the final part of the Podcast production series, W more , and an article on making a simple budgeting spreadsheet.

Elsewhere, Richard is going back to some retro gaming with Everyday Ubuntu. What's your opinion on light and dark themes? We have an opinion piece on that. And a review of Ubuntu Web. Ubuntu who? Yes, there's a web based Ubuntu that's trying to move into the turf belonging to ChromeOS. And if you need to put said distro onto a USB stick, then we have an article about using Unetbootin. Which I can heartily recommend as I've used it many a time in the past to make a bootable USB stick. Find Full Circle on: If you're looking for some help, advice, or just a chit chat: remember, we have a Telegram group. facebook.com/ I mention this as I've been giving out the wrong link in a couple of emails. The link is: fullcirclemagazine https://t.me/joinchat/PujkVNIY2PO9xxCf. I hope to see you there. Come and say hello. twitter.com/#!/fullcirclemag Last thing for this month is that this issue is coming at you from my new PC. Gone is my old http://issuu.com/ tower. God only knows how many years ago I bought that PC. It's been given retirement and in fullcirclemagazine comes the new Entroware Ares all in one (with Ubuntu 20.04). I'll write a review of it soon. https://mastodon.social/ @fullcirclemagazine Anyway, stay safe, and all the best for 2021! Ronnie [email protected] Weekly News: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/ feed/podcast http://www.stitcher.com/s? fid=85347&refid=stpr http://tunein.com/radio/Full- FCM PATREON : https://www.patreon.com/fullcirclemagazine Circle-Weekly-News-p855064/

full circle magazine #166 3 contents ^ NNEEWWSS Submitted by ErikTheUnready

ZENTYAL 7.0 SERVER release 5.0 to support IMAP, managers, private browsing mode, recently, which have been Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, end-to-end encrypted sync, tab identified as issues blocking the RELEASED : CalDAV, and CardDAV. MySQL 8 is grouping mode, sidebar, transition to Wayland. For example, 27.01.2021 used to store SOGo data. The DNS configurator with many settings, it is now possible to share your server implementation has been horizontal tab display mode, and desktop using the ‘Pipewire’ media entyal 7.0 is available, built on moved to BIND 9.16.1. The default test mode built-in email client, rss server. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Z size of RSA keys has been increased reader and calendar. (Whew!) specializing in creating servers for to 4096 bits. The base package https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ servicing the local network of small includes the bridge-utils and libvirt- https://vivaldi.com/blog/desktop/ trying-wayland-by-default-again/ and medium businesses. The clients packages. releases/ 20575 distribution is positioned as an alternative to Windows Server and https://zentyal.com/news/zentyal- includes components to replace 7-0-announcement/ Microsoft Active Directory and WAYLAND AS THE DEFAULT DNF Microsoft Exchange Server ON UBUNTU 21.04? RELEASED: services. The size of the iso image is 28.01.2021 29.01.2021 1.1 GB. VIVALDI 3.6 BROWSER RELEASED: he Ubuntu developers have he package manager DNF 4.6 is All aspects of the distribution 28.01.2021 T made the decision to migrate to T available, which is the default are managed through a web Ubuntu 21.04 using the GNOME for Fedora Linux and RHEL 8. DNF is interface, about 40 different ivaldi Technologies has user environment, which by default a fork from 3.4, adapted to modules are combined to manage V announced the release of the runs on the Wayland protocol. work with Python 3 and uses the the network, network services, final version of the proprietary Using proprietary NVIDIA drivers hawkey as a backend to office server and enterprise Vivaldi 3.6 browser, based on the will continue to offer an X server resolve dependencies. Compared to infrastructure components. Chromium engine. The browser is based session by default. For the Yum, DNF has noticeably faster being developed by the former rest of the configurations, the X- performance, lower memory The new release includes the developers of Opera Presto and based session will be listed as an consumption, and better transition to the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS aims to create a customizable and option. dependency management. base. Domain controller and Active functional browser that preserves Directory implementation has been the privacy of user data. Key They note that many of the The new version adds support updated to Samba 4.11 . The SOGo features include a tracking and ad GNOME session restrictions on for " comps ", a file with metadata Team Pack has been updated to blocker, note, history and bookmark Wayland have been removed for dividing packages into

full circle magazine #166 4 contents ^ NEWS functional groups, in the operations development of LibreOffice to https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ the NX is also of rolling back the history of receive a badge confirming the ubuntu-core-20/20487 distinguished, which allows you to changes (redo, rollback and undo) . contribution of the participant to control network access at the level An option has been added to the the development and including of individual applications. Basic filter_modules directive to filter information about the NITRUX 1.3.7 DISTRIBUTION applications include Index file out obsolete versions based on the achievements. manager ( can also be module_obsoletes parameter. The WITH NX DESKTOP: used), Kate text editor, Ark archiver, log .log provides reflection of https:// 31.01.2021 Konsole terminal emulator, packages installed or removed via blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/ Chromium browser, VVave music DNF API. Added functions to the 2021/01/29/announcing-libreoffice- he release of the distribution kit player, VLC video player, API to load the repository cache. new-generation/ T Nitrux 1.3.7 , built on the LibreOffice office suite and Pix Ubuntu package base, KDE image viewer. https://github.com/rpm-software- technologies and the OpenRC system has been published . The management/dnf/releases/tag/ UBUNTU CORE 20 https://nxos.org/changelog/ 4.6.0 distribution develops its own NX changelog-nitrux-1-3-7/ MONOLITHIC DISTRIBUTION Desktop , which is an add-on over AVAILABLE: the user's KDE Plasma 01/29/2021 environment. The self- LIBREOFFICE NEW contained package system and its RELEASE OF OPNSENSE GENERATION INTRODUCED anonical has released Ubuntu own NX Software Center are being "MARVELOUS MEERKAT": TO ATTRACT YOUTH TO THE Core 20 , a compact Ubuntu promoted to install additional 31.01.2021 distribution adapted for use on applications. The boot image is 4.3 PROJECT: GB in size. The developments of the new release of the OPNsense 01/29/2021 of Things (IoT) devices, containers, consumer and industrial project are distributed under free A 21.1 firewall distribution is licenses. presented , which is a fork of the he Document Foundation has equipment. Ubuntu Core comes in the form of an indivisible, pfSense project, created with the T unveiled a new project, NX Desktop offers a different goal of forming a completely open LibreOffice New Generation, which monolithic base system image that does not split into separate style, its own implementation of distribution that could have focuses on engaging young people the system tray, notification center functionality at the level of in LibreOffice development and packages. Ubuntu Core 20 images, which are synchronized with the and various plasmoids, such as a commercial solutions for deploying related tasks such as translation, network configurator and a firewalls and network gateways. documentation, design, testing, Ubuntu 20.04 package base, are prepared for x86_64, ARMv7 and multimedia applet for volume Unlike pfSense, the project is marketing and infrastructure control and playback control of positioned as not controlled by one maintenance. The project provides ARMv8 systems. The release maintenance time is 10 years. multimedia content. Among the company, developed with the direct an opportunity for schoolchildren applications developed by the participation of the community and and students participating in the project, an interface for configuring has a completely transparent full circle magazine #166 5 contents ^ NEWS development process, as well as carried out by the Blink engine and for tracking error information has providing the opportunity to use the library. ublished the first beta release already been put into operation. any of its developments in third- P of the AlmaLinux distribution , party products, including The browser supports a tab created in response to the https://blog.almalinux.org/ commercial ones. The source code system, download manager, private premature withdrawal of support introducing--beta-a- of the distribution's components, as browsing mode, built-in PDF viewer for CentOS 8 by (it was community-driven-replacement-for- well as the tools used for building, (pdf.js), ad blocking system, decided to discontinue the release / are distributed under the BSD interface for viewing browsing of updates for CentOS 8 at the end license. Assembliesprepared in the history. To watch videos on of 2021, and not in 2029, as users form of a LiveCD and a system YouTube, you can set up to call up expected). Development of A NEW INSTALLER IS BEING image for writing to Flash-drives an external video player. Moving AlmaLinux is carried out under the (421 MB). around the page is carried out using auspices of CloudLinux, which DEVELOPED FOR UBUNTU the "hjkl" keys, to open a new page, provided resources and developers DESKTOP: https://opnsense.org/opnsense-21- you can press "o", switching (a million dollars a year were 02.02.2021 1-marvelous-meerkat-released/ between tabs is done using the "J" allocated for the development of and "K" keys or "Alt-tab number". the project). Test builds are artin Wimpress, director of Pressing ":" displays a command line prepared for x86_64 architecture in M desktop development at QUTEBROWSER 2.0 WEB prompt where you can search the the form of a boot image (680 MB), Canonical, announced the page and execute typical a minimum image (1.8 GB), and a development of a new installer for BROWSER RELEASED: commands, like in vim, for example, full image (8.7 GB). Ubuntu, which they plan to offer 02/01/2021 ": q" to exit and ": w" to write the users for testing in the autumn page. A system of "hints" is offered The build was based on the Red release of Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 he release of the web browser to quickly navigate to page Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 release and may be used by default in qutebrowser 2.0 is presented, T elements. and is completely identical to it in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. The old providing a minimal graphical functionality, except for changes installer will be kept in the interface that does not distract https://lists.schokokeks.org/ related to rebranding and removal repository and will remain available from viewing the content, and a pipermail/qutebrowser-announce/ of RHEL-specific packages such as for use in Ubuntu editions and navigation system in the style of 2021-January/000090.html redhat- *, insights-client and derivative distributions. the text editor Vim, built entirely subscription-manager-migration *. on keyboard shortcuts. The code is All developments will be published The Ubiquity installer was written in Python using PyQt5 and under free licenses, but at the developed in 2006 and has not QtWebEngine. The source code is ALMALINUX BETA TESTING, moment the public repository has been developed for the past few distributed under the GPLv3 (FORK OF CENTOS) HAS not yet been launched (they years. In the server edition of license. The use of Python does not BEGUN: promise to launch it after the Ubuntu, starting with the 18.04 affect performance, since 02.02.2021 revised source code is ready). At release, a new installer, Subiquity , rendering and parsing of content is the same time, the infrastructure is delivered , which is an add-on full circle magazine #166 6 contents ^ NEWS over the low-level installer curtin , https://blog.lighttpd.net/articles/ retains the ability to use both full- In the new release, the which is responsible for the final 2021/02/02/lighttpd-1.4.59- fledged and lightweight themes. developers returned to the idea of partitioning of the disk, released/ Pale Moon is built on the UXP dividing them into a community downloading packages and (Unified XUL Platform) platform, edition ("LibreOffice Community") installing the system based on the within which the and a family of products for given configuration. PALE MOON 29.0 BROWSER components are forked from the enterprises ("LibreOffice Mozilla Central repository, free of Enterprise"). This release of https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ RELEASED: bindings to the Rust code and not LibreOffice 7.1 is tagged refreshing-the-ubuntu-desktop- 02.02.2021 including the work of the Quantum "Community", will be supported by installer/20659 project. enthusiasts, and is not intended for release of the Pale Moon 29.0 enterprise use. For enterprises, it is A web browser is now available , https://forum.palemoon.org/ proposed to use the products of a fork of the Firefox codebase to LIGHTTPD HTTP SERVER viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26110 the LibreOffice Enterprise family , provide better performance, for which partner companies will 1.4.59 RELEASED: preserve the classic interface, provide full support and the ability 02.02.2021 minimize memory consumption and LIBREOFFICE 7.1 OFFICE to receive long-term updates (LTS). provide additional customization LibreOffice Enterprise will also here was a release of a options. Pale Moon assemblies are SUITE DIVIDED INTO include additional features such as T lightweight of http-server the built for Windows and Linux ( COMMUNITY AND SLA (Service Level Agreements). lighttpd 04.01.59 . The new version and x86_64). The project code is ENTERPRISE FAMILIES: contains 84 changes , mainly distributed under the MPLv2 https:// 02/03/2021 related to the elimination of errors. (Mozilla Public License) license. blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/ A key innovation in the release was 2021/02/03/libreoffice-7-1- he Document Foundation has the default inclusion of support for The project adheres to the community/ the HTTP / 2 protocol , which was classic organization of the T released the LibreOffice 7.1 previously offered as an option. interface, without switching to the office suite . Ready-made Australis interface integrated in installation packages are prepared Other improvements include the Firefox 29, and providing ample for various Linux, Windows and 4.1 MUSIC addition of support for the zstd customization options. Remote macOS distributions. In preparation PLAYER RELEASED: compression algorithm to components include DRM, Social for the release, 73% of the changes 02/04/2021 mod_deflate and the inclusion of a API, WebRTC, PDF viewer, Crash were made by people in charge of new module mod_ajp13 with the Reporter, code for collecting the project, such as Collabora, Red resented the release of the implementation of a connector to statistics, parental controls, and Hat, and CIB, and 27% of the P lightweight music player Apache Tomcat that supports the people with disabilities. Compared changes were contributed by Audacious 4.1 , a fork of the Beep AJPv13 protocol. to Firefox, the browser retains independent enthusiasts. Media Player (BMP), a fork of the support for XUL technology and classic XMMS player. The release full circle magazine #166 7 contents ^ NEWS comes with two user interfaces: 4.2 RELEASED: distribution develops using a rolling database of information about one based on GTK and one based 02/04/2021 model of package updates. vulnerabilities in open source on Qt. The assemblies are prepared software. The service provides an for various Linux distributions and he Solus 4.2 is To manage packages, the eopkg API that allows you to automate the for Windows. T released , which is not based on package manager (a fork of PiSi formation of requests to obtain packages from other distributions from Pardus Linux ) is used, which information about vulnerabilities, https://audacious-media-player.org/ and develops its own Budgie provides the usual tools for with reference to the state of the news/51-audacious-4-1-released desktop , installer, package installing / removing packages, repository with the code. manager and configurator. The searching the repository and Vulnerabilities are assigned project's development code is managing repositories. separate OSV identifiers that CLAMAV 0.103.1 FREE distributed under the GPLv2 supplement the CVE with extended license, C and Vala languages are https://getsol.us/2021/02/03/solus- information . In particular, the OSV ANTIVIRUS UPDATE : used for development. In addition, 4-2-released/ database reflects the status of the 02/04/2021 assemblies with the GNOME, KDE problem fix, indicates the commits Plasma and MATE desktops are with the appearance and fixing of he release of the free antivirus provided. The size of iso images is the vulnerability, the range of package ClamAV 0.103.1 has T 1.8-2.1 GB (x86_64). GOOGLE LAUNCHED OSV vulnerable versions, links to the been formed , in which, in addition project repository with the code to fixing errors, several changes are PEN OURCE The distribution adheres to a (O S and notification of the problem. proposed. hybrid development model, in VULNERABILITIES) SERVICE: accordance with which significant 02/06/2021 The main goal of creating OSV is https://blog.clamav.net/2021/02/ releases are periodically released, to simplify the process of informing clamav-01031-patch-release.html which offer new technologies and oogle has launched a new package maintainers about significant improvements, and in G service OSV (Open Source vulnerabilities by accurately between significant releases, the Vulnerabilities), offering access to a identifying the versions and commits that are affected by the problem.

https:// opensource.googleblog.com/ 2021/02/launching-osv-better- vulnerability.html

full circle magazine #166 8 contents ^ NEWS 10.8 UPDATE: Magic II. The project code is written distribution is aimed at live use, but Sailfish uses a graphical stack 06.02.2021 in C ++ and is distributed under the it also supports installation on a based on Wayland and the Qt5 GPLv2 license. To start the game, hard drive. Prepared for library, the system environment is he eighth corrective update for you need files with game resources, downloading are boot images with built on the basis of Mer, which has T the Debian 10 distribution has which can be obtained, for KDE (full 3.5 GB and reduced 1.5 been developing since April 2019 as been published , which includes the example, from the demo version of GB), MATE (2.4 GB) and (2.2 a part of Sailfish, and the packages accumulated package updates and Heroes of Might and Magic II. GB) desktops. Separately, the of the Mer distribution . The fixes the bugs in the installer. The community developed builds based user , basic mobile release includes 56 updates to fix Over the past year of on the Trinity, and LXQt applications, QML components for stability issues and 45 updates to development, the game has desktops. building the Silica GUI, a layer for fix vulnerabilities. Of the changes in become much closer to the original, launching Android applications, a Debian 10.8, an upgrade to the and in some places it even offers https://www.pclinuxos.com/? smart text input engine and a data latest stable versions of the dpdk, wider possibilities p=4611 synchronization system are intel-microcode, nvidia-graphics- proprietary, but their code was drivers, postgresql-11 and https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/ planned to be opened back in 2017. packages is highlighted. The releases/tag/0.9 SAILFISH 4 MOBILE OS compactheader package has been https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/ RELEASED: removed from the repositories, as release-notes-koli-4-0-1/4542 09.02.2021 it is incompatible with the supplied RELEASE OF PCLINUXOS version of the Thunderbird mail 2021.02: olla has released the Sailfish client. 2.8 VIDEO 08.02.2021 J 4.0.1 , which was the first release in the new 4.x DITOR ELEASED https://www.debian.org/News/ E R : he release of the custom branch. The assemblies are 09.02.2021 2021/20210206 T PCLinuxOS 2021.02 distribution prepared for devices Jolla C, Jolla is presented . The distribution was Tablet, Sony Xperia X, Xperia XA2 he release of the multitrack founded in 2003 based on and Sony Xperia 10, but are T nonlinear video editing system FREE HEROES OF MIGHT Mandrake Linux, but later branched supplied for the time being only for Flowblade 2.8 , which allows you to AND MAGIC II 0.9 ENGINE off into a standalone project. The registered members of the early compose films and videos from a peak in popularity of PCLinuxOS access program for firmware (for all set of separate videos, sound files RELEASE : came in 2010, in which, according to others, access will be open in the and images. The editor provides 02/07/2021 a poll of readers of the Linux coming days). Formation of tools for trimming clips with Journal magazine, PCLinuxOS was assemblies for the Jolla 1 precision to individual frames, release of project fheroes2 0.9 second only to Ubuntu in popularity smartphone was discontinued after processing them using filters and is available , trying to recreate A (in the 2013 ranking, PCLinuxOS 7 years of support. multi-level image composition for the game Heroes of Might and already took 10th place). The embedding in video. You can freely full circle magazine #166 9 contents ^ NEWS define the order in which the tools https://blog.finnix.org/2021/02/09/ developing new distribution servicing the local network of small are used and adjust the behavior of finnix-122-released/ helloSystem, based on FreeBSD and and medium businesses. The the timeline. equipped with an interface distribution is positioned as an reminiscent of MacOS. The alternative to Windows Server and The project code is written in PUBLISHES OPEN development of the system has not includes components to replace Python and is distributed under the been completed yet, but boot Microsoft Active Directory and GPLv3 license. Assemblies are LAUNCH KEYBOARD: images of 1.7 GB are already being Microsoft Exchange Server services. prepared in deb format. To 11.02.2021 formed for testing . The size of the iso image is 1.1 GB. organize video editing, the MLT framework is used . The FFmpeg ystem76, a company specializing The distribution is being All aspects of the distribution library is used to process various S in notebooks, PCs and servers developed in accordance with the are managed through a web video, sound and image formats. that ships with Linux, has published principle of "less but better" and is interface, about 40 different The interface is built using PyGTK. a new open source project, Launch positioned as a system for ordinary modules are combined to manage Configurable Keyboard , which users, which can be switched to the network, network services, https://github.com/jliljebl/ develops a fully customizable amateurs of macOS, dissatisfied office server and enterprise flowblade/releases/tag/v2.8 keyboard. Opened mechanical and with Apple policies, imposing infrastructure components. electrical circuits, as well as solutions and being tied to one firmware and software used for manufacturer. The system is devoid The new release includes the control. FreeCAD design of the complications inherent in transition to the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS documentation and CAD models RELEASE OF 122, A modern Linux distributions, is base. Domain controller and Active are licensed under CC BY-SA-4.0 . under complete user control and Directory implementation has been LIVE DISTRIBUTION FOR Schematics and PCB pinouts are allows former macOS users to feel updated to Samba 4.11 . The SOGo SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS: available in pcb format for KiCad comfortable. Team Pack has been updated to 02/10/2021 and are supplied under the GPLv3 release 5.0 to support IMAP, license. https://github.com/helloSystem/ Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, he Finnix 122 Live distribution , ISO/releases/ CalDAV, and CardDAV. MySQL 8 is T based on the Debian package https://github.com/system76/ used to store SOGo data. The DNS base, has been released. The launch server implementation has been distribution kit only supports work ZENTYAL 7.0 SERVER moved to BIND 9.16.1. The default in the console, but contains a good size of RSA keys has been increased selection of utilities for the HELLOSYSTEM: RELEASED: to 4096 bits. The base package administrator's needs. The 02/11/2021 27.01.2021 includes the bridge-utils and libvirt- structure includes 585 packages clients packages. with all kinds of utilities. The size of imon Peter ( Simon by Peter ), entyal 7.0 is available, built on the iso image is 411 MB. S the creator of the format of Z Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and https://zentyal.com/news/zentyal- self-contained packages AppImage , specializing in creating servers for 7-0-announcement/ full circle magazine #166 10 contents ^ NEWS he Ubuntu developers have end to resolve dependencies. LibreOffice New Generation, which T made the decision to migrate to Compared to Yum, DNF has focuses on engaging young people Ubuntu 21.04 using the GNOME noticeably faster performance, in LibreOffice development and VIVALDI 3.6 BROWSER user environment, which by default lower memory consumption, and related tasks such as translation, RELEASED: runs on the Wayland protocol. Using better dependency management. documentation, design, testing, 28.01.2021 proprietary NVIDIA drivers will marketing and infrastructure continue to offer an X server based The new version adds support maintenance. The project provides ivaldi Technologies has session by default. For the rest of for " comps ", a file with metadata an opportunity for schoolchildren V announced the final version of the configurations, the X-based for dividing packages into and students participating in the the proprietary Vivaldi 3.6 browser, session will be listed as an option. functional groups, in the operations development of LibreOffice to based on the Chromium engine. of rolling back the history of receive a badge confirming the The browser is being developed by They note that many of the changes (redo, rollback and undo). contribution of the participant to the former developers of Opera GNOME session restrictions on An option has been added to the the development and including Presto and aims to create a Wayland have been removed filter_modules directive to filter information about the customizable and functional recently, which have been out obsolete versions based on the achievements. browser that preserves the privacy identified as issues blocking the module_obsoletes parameter. The of user data. Key features include a transition to Wayland. For example, log dnf.log provides reflection of https:// tracking and ad blocker, notes, it is now possible to share your packages installed or removed via blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/ history and bookmark managers, desktop using the ‘Pipewire’ media DNF API. Added functions to the 2021/01/29/announcing-libreoffice- private browsing mode, end-to-end server. API to load the repository cache. new-generation/ encrypted sync, tab grouping mode, sidebar, configuration with https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ https://github.com/rpm-software- many settings, horizontal tab trying-wayland-by-default-again/ management/dnf/releases/tag/ UBUNTU CORE 20 display mode, and test mode built- 20575 4.6.0 in email client, rss reader and MONOLITHIC DISTRIBUTION calendar. (Whew!) AVAILABLE: DNF PACKAGE MANAGER LIBREOFFICE NEW 01/29/2021 https://vivaldi.com/blog/desktop/ releases/ RELEASED: GENERATION INTRODUCED anonical has released Ubuntu 29.01.2021 TO ATTRACT YOUTH TO THE C Core 20, a compact Ubuntu distribution adapted for use on NF 4.6 is available, which is the PROJECT: WAYLAND AS THE DEFAULT 01/29/2021 Internet of Things (IoT) devices, default for Fedora Linux and containers, consumer and industrial ON UBUNTU 21.04? RHEL 8. DNF is a fork from Yum 3.4, equipment. Ubuntu Core comes in 28.01.2021 adapted to work with Python 3 and he Document Foundation has unveiled a new project, the form of an indivisible, uses the hawkey library as a back- T monolithic base system image that full circle magazine #166 11 contents ^ NEWS does not split into separate ‘.deb’ multimedia applet for volume Unlike pfSense, the project is Python does not affect packages. Ubuntu Core 20 images, control and playback control of positioned as not controlled by one performance, since rendering and which are synchronized with the multimedia content. Among the company, developed with the direct parsing of content is carried out by Ubuntu 20.04 package base, are applications developed by the participation of the community and the Blink engine and the Qt library. prepared for x86_64, ARMv7 and project, an interface for configuring has a completely transparent ARMv8 systems. The release the NX Firewall is also highlighted, development process, as well as The browser supports a tab maintenance time is 10 years. which allows you to control providing the opportunity to use system, download manager, private network access at the level of any of its code in third-party browsing mode, built-in PDF viewer https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ individual applications. Basic products, including commercial (pdf.js), ad blocking system, ubuntu-core-20/20487 applications include Index file ones. The source code of the interface for viewing browsing manager (Dolphin can also be used), distribution's components, as well history. To watch videos on Kate text editor, Ark archiver, as the tools used for building, are YouTube, you can set up to call up NITRUX 1.3.7 WITH THE NX Konsole terminal emulator, distributed under the BSD license. an external video player. Moving Chromium browser, VVave music The LiveCD is available and a around the page is carried out using DESKTOP: player, VLC video player, system image for writing to Flash the "hjkl" keys, to open a new page, 31.01.2021 LibreOffice office suite and Pix drives (421 MB). you can press "o", switching image viewer. between tabs is done using the "J" he release of Nitrux 1.3.7, built https://opnsense.org/opnsense-21- and "K" keys or "Alt-tab number". T on Ubuntu base, KDE https://nxos.org/changelog/ 1-marvelous-meerkat-released/ Pressing ":" displays a command technologies and the OpenRC init changelog-nitrux-1-3-7/ line prompt where you can search system is out. The distribution the page and execute typical develops its own NX Desktop, commands, like in vim, for example, which is an add-on over the user's QUTEBROWSER 2.0 WEB RELEASE OF OPNSENSE ": q" to exit and ": w" to write the KDE Plasma environment. BROWSER RELEASED: page. A system of "hints" is offered AppImages and its own NX "MARVELOUS MEERKAT": 02/01/2021 to quickly navigate to page Software Center are being 31.01.2021 elements. promoted to install additional he web browser ‘qutebrowser applications. The boot image is 4.3 new release of the OPNsense T 2.0’ is available, providing a https://lists.schokokeks.org/ GB in size. The project is A 21.1 firewall distribution is out, minimal graphical interface that pipermail/qutebrowser-announce/ distributed under free licenses. which is a fork of the pfSense does not distract from viewing the 2021-January/000090.html project, created with the goal of content, and a navigation system is NX Desktop offers a different forming a completely open in the style of the text editor, Vim. style, its own implementation of distribution that could have The code is written in Python using the system tray, notification centre functionality at the level of PyQt5 and QtWebEngine. The and various plasmoids, such as commercial solutions for deploying source code is distributed under network configuration and a firewalls and network gateways. the GPLv3 license. The use of full circle magazine #166 12 contents ^ NEWS ALMALINUX BETA TESTING, promise to launch it after the Ubuntu, starting with the 18.04 Apache Tomcat that supports the revised source code is ready). At release, a new installer, ubiquity, is AJPv13 protocol. (FORK OF CENTOS) HAS the same time, the infrastructure delivered, which is an add-on over BEGUN: for bug tracking information has the low-level installer curtin, which https://blog.lighttpd.net/articles/ 02.02.2021 already been put into operation. is responsible for the final 2021/02/02/lighttpd-1.4.59- partitioning of the disk, released/ lmaLinux, was created in https://blog.almalinux.org/ downloading packages and A response to the premature introducing-almalinux-beta-a- installing the system based on the withdrawal of support for CentOS 8 community-driven-replacement-for- given configuration. PALE MOON 29.0 BROWSER by Red Hat (it was decided to centos/ discontinue the release of updates https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ RELEASED: for CentOS 8 at the end of 2021, refreshing-the-ubuntu-desktop- 02.02.2021 and not in 2029, as users expected). A NEW INSTALLER IS BEING installer/20659 Development of AlmaLinux is ale Moon 29.0 web browser is carried out under the auspices of DEVELOPED FOR UBUNTU P now available, a fork of the Firefox code base to provide better CloudLinux, which provided DESKTOP: LIGHTTPD HTTP SERVER resources and developers (a million 02.02.2021 performance, preserve the classic dollars a year were allocated for 1.4.59 RELEASED: interface, minimize memory the development of the project). artin Wimpress, director of 02.02.2021 consumption and provide Test builds are prepared for x86_64 M desktop development at additional customization options. architecture in the form of a boot Canonical, announced the he http-server lighttpd Pale Moon binaries are built for image (680 MB), a minimum image development of a new installer for T 04.01.59, is out. The new Windows and Linux (x86 and (1.8 GB), and a full image (8.7 GB). Ubuntu, which they plan to offer version contains 84 changes, mainly x86_64). The project code is users for testing in the autumn related to the elimination of errors. distributed under the MPLv2 The build was based on the Red release of Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 A key innovation in the release was (Mozilla Public License) license. Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 release and may be used by default in the default inclusion of support for and is completely identical to it in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. The old Ubiquity the HTTP / 2 protocol, which was The project adheres to the functionality, except for changes installer will be kept in the previously only offered as an classic organization of the related to rebranding and removal repository and will remain available option. interface, without switching to the of RHEL-specific packages such as for use in Ubuntu editions and Australis interface integrated in redhat- *, insights-client and derivative distributions. Other improvements include the Firefox 29, and providing ample subscription-manager-migration *. addition of support for the zstd customization options. Remote All development will be published The Ubiquity installer was compression algorithm to components include DRM, Social under free licenses, but at the developed in 2006 and has not mod_deflate and the inclusion of a API, WebRTC, PDF viewer, Crash moment the public repository has been developed for the last few new module mod_ajp13 with the Reporter, code for collecting not yet been launched (they years. In the server edition of implementation of a connector to statistics, parental controls, and full circle magazine #166 13 contents ^ NEWS people with disabilities. Compared changes were contributed by the classic XMMS player is available languages are used for to Firefox, the browser retains independent enthusiasts. for download. The release comes development. Downloadable support for XUL technology and with two user interfaces: one based images with GNOME, KDE Plasma retains the ability to use both full- In the new release, the on GTK and one based on Qt. The and MATE desktops are provided. fledged and lightweight themes. developers returned to the idea of binaries are prepared for various Pale Moon is built on the UXP dividing them into a community Linux distributions and for The distribution adheres to a (Unified XUL Platform) platform, edition ("LibreOffice Community") Windows. hybrid development model, in within which the Firefox and a family of products for accordance with which major components are forked from the enterprises ("LibreOffice https://audacious-media-player.org/ releases are periodically available, Mozilla Central repository, free of Enterprise"). This release of news/51-audacious-4-1-released which offer new technologies and bindings to the Rust code and not LibreOffice 7.1 is tagged significant improvements, and in including the work of the Quantum "Community", will be supported by between major releases, the project. enthusiasts, and is not intended for CLAMAV 0.103.1 FREE distribution uses a rolling update enterprise use. For enterprises, it is model. https://forum.palemoon.org/ proposed to use the LibreOffice ANTIVIRUS UPDATE: viewtopic.?f=1&t=26110 Enterprise family, for which partner 02/04/2021 The eopkg package manager (a companies will provide full support fork of PiSi from Pardus Linux ) is and the ability to receive long-term ClamAV 0.103.1 has been released , used as package manager, which in which, in addition to bugfixes, LIBREOFFICE 7.1 OFFICE updates (LTS). LibreOffice provides the usual tools for Enterprise will also include several changes are proposed. You installing / removing packages, SUITE DIVIDED INTO additional features such as SLA can see the list of changes at the searching the repository and COMMUNITY AND (Service Level Agreements). website below. managing repositories. ENTERPRISE FAMILIES: https:// https://blog.clamav.net/2021/02/ https://getsol.us/2021/02/03/solus- 02/03/2021 blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/ clamav-01031-patch-release.html 4-2-released/ 2021/02/03/libreoffice-7-1- he Document Foundation has community/ T released theLibreOffice 7.1 office suite. Ready-made SOLUS 4.2 RELEASED: GOOGLE LAUNCHED OSV 02/04/2021 installation packages are available AUDACIOUS 4.1 MUSIC (OPEN SOURCE for various Linux, Windows and PLAYER RELEASED: olus 4.2 is released, which VULNERABILITIES) SERVICE: macOS distributions. In preparation 02/04/2021 for the release, 73% of the changes S develops its own Budgie 02/06/2021 were made by people in charge of desktop, installer, package manager he lightweight music player and configuration. The project's oogle has launched a new the project, such as Collabora, Red T Audacious 4.1, a fork of the Hat, and CIB, and 27% of the development code is distributed G service OSV (Open Source Beep Media Player (BMP), a fork of under the GPLv2 license. C and Vala Vulnerabilities), offering access to a full circle magazine #166 14 contents ^ NEWS database of information about DEBIAN 10.8 UPDATE: and Magic II’. The project code is distribution is aimed at live use, but vulnerabilities in open source 06.02.2021 written in C++ and is distributed it also supports installation on a software. The service provides an under the GPLv2 license. To start hard drive. Downloadable boot API that allows you to automate he eighth corrective update for the game, you need files with game images with KDE (full 3.5 GB and requests to obtain information T the Debian 10 distribution has resources, which can be obtained, reduced 1.5 GB), MATE (2.4 GB) and about vulnerabilities, with been published, which includes the for example, from the demo Xfce (2.2 GB) desktops are reference to the state of the accumulated package updates and version of Heroes of Might and available. Therea are also repository with the code. fixes the bugs in the installer. The Magic II. community developed builds based Vulnerabilities are assigned release includes 56 updates to fix on the Trinity, Openbox and LXQt separate OSV identifiers that stability issues and 45 updates to Over the past year of desktops. supplement the CVE with extended fix vulnerabilities. Debian 10.8, an development, the game has information. In particular, the OSV upgrade to the latest stable become much closer to the original, https://www.pclinuxos.com/? database reflects the status of the versions of the dpdk, intel- and in some places it even offers p=4611 problem fix, indicates the commits microcode, nvidia-graphics-drivers, more options. with the appearance and fixing of postgresql-11 and steam packages the vulnerability, the range of are highlighted. The compact https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/ SAILFISH 4 MOBILE OS vulnerable versions, links to the header package has been removed releases/tag/0.9 RELEASED: project repository with the code from the repositories, as it is 09.02.2021 and notification of the problem. incompatible with the supplied version of the Thunderbird mail RELEASE OF PCLINUXOS olla has released the Sailfish The main goal of creating OSV is client. to simplify the process of informing 2021.02: J 4.0.1 operating system, which 08.02.2021 was the first release in the new 4.x package maintainers about https://www.debian.org/News/ branch. Updates are available for vulnerabilities by accurately 2021/20210206 identifying the versions and CLinuxOS 2021.02 distribution the following devices: Jolla C, Jolla commits that are affected by the P is out. The distribution was Tablet, Sony Xperia X, Xperia XA2 problem. founded in 2003 based on and Sony Xperia 10, but are FREE HEROES OF MIGHT AND Mandrake Linux, but later branched supplied for the time being only for https:// MAGIC II 0.9 ENGINE off into a standalone project. The registered members of the early peak in popularity of PCLinuxOS access program for firmware (for all opensource.googleblog.com/ RELEASE : came in 2010, in which, according to others, access will be open in the 2021/02/launching-osv-better- 02/07/2021 vulnerability.html a poll of readers of the Linux coming days). Updates for the Jolla Journal magazine, PCLinuxOS was 1 smartphone was discontinued release of project - fheroes2 second only to Ubuntu in popularity after 7 years of support. 0.9 is available, trying to A (in the 2013 ranking, PCLinuxOS recreate the game ‘Heroes of Might dropped to 10th place). The Sailfish uses a graphical stack

full circle magazine #166 15 contents ^ NEWS based on Wayland and the Qt5 define the order in which the tools interface reminiscent of MacOS. library, the system environment is are used and adjust the behaviour The development of the system has built on Mer, which has beenin of the timeline. not been completed yet, but boot SYSTEM76 PUBLISHES OPEN development since April 2019, as a images of 1.7 GB are already part of Sailfish, and the packages of The project code is written in LAUNCH KEYBOARD: available for testing. the Mer distribution Nemo. The Python and is distributed under the 02/11/2021 user shell, basic mobile GPLv3 license. Debian .deb The distribution is being applications, QML components for packages are available. The MLT System76, a company developed in accordance with the building the Silica GUI, a layer for framework is used to organize specializing in notebooks, PCs and principle of "less is more" and is launching Android applications, a video editing. The FFmpeg library is servers that ships with Linux, has positioned as a system for ordinary smart text input engine and a data used to process various video, published a new open source users, which can be switched to synchronization system are still sound and image formats. The project, Launch Configurable amateurs of macOS, dissatisfied proprietary, but their code was interface is built using PyGTK. Keyboard. (a fully customizable with Apple policies, imposing planned to be opened back in 2017. keyboard.) Open mechanical and solutions and being tied to one https://github.com/jliljebl/ electrical circuits, as well as manufacturer. The system is devoid https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/ flowblade/releases/tag/v2.8 firmware and software is used for of the complications inherent in release-notes-koli-4-0-1/4542 control. FreeCAD design modern Linux distributions, is documentation and CAD models under complete user control and are licensed under CC BY-SA-4.0. FINNIX 122, A LIVE DISTRO allows former macOS users to feel Schematics and PCB pin-outs are FLOWBLADE 2.8 VIDEO at home. FOR SYSTEM ADMINS: available in .pcb format for KiCad EDITOR RELEASED: 02/10/2021 and are supplied under the GPLv3 https://github.com/helloSystem/ 09.02.2021 license. ISO/releases/ he Finnix 122 Live distribution, he release of the multitrack T based on Debian, has been https://github.com/system76/ T nonlinear video editing system released. The distribution only launch Flowblade 2.8, which allows you to supports work in the console, but RUST 1.50 RELEASED: compose films and videos from a contains a good selection of 02/12/2021 set of separate videos, sound files utilities for the administrator's HELLOSYSTEM: and images, is available for needs. The distribution includes he latest releaseof the 02/11/2021 download. The editor provides 585 packages with all kinds of T programming language Rust, tools for trimming clips with utilities. The size of the iso image is 1.50 has been published. Founded imon Peter, the creator of precision to individual frames, 411 MB. by the Mozilla project, but now AppImage, is developing new processing them using filters and S being developed under the distribution helloSystem, based on multi-level image composition for https://blog.finnix.org/2021/02/09/ auspices of the independent non- FreeBSD and equipped with an embedding in video. You can freely finnix-122-released/ profit organization Rust full circle magazine #166 16 contents ^ NEWS Foundation. The language focuses 5.11 over the network saned, and a on safe memory management, library with SANE-API https://www.openmandriva.org/en/ RELEASED: provides automatic memory news/article/openmandriva-lx-4-2- implementation. The package 02/15/2021 management, and provides the is-out-now supports 1652 scanner models, of means to achieve high parallelism which 737 have the status of full fter two months of of job execution, while avoiding the support for all functions, for 766 development, use of a garbage collector and A the level of support is assessed as HAXE 4.2 PROGRAMMING has released the Linux 5.11 kernel. runtime (runtime is reduced to good, for 126 - acceptable, and for Among the most notable changes: basic initialization and maintenance LANGUAGE RELEASED: 23 - minimal. Additionally, there is support for Intel SGX enclaves, a of the standard library). 02/14/2021 an incompletely tested driver new mechanism for intercepting implementation for 464 devices. system calls, a virtual auxiliary bus, https://blog.rust-lang.org/ release of the Haxe 4.2 toolkit prohibiting the assembly of 2021/02/11/Rust-1.50.0.html A is available. It includes a multi- https://alioth-lists.debian.net/ modules without paradigm high-level strongly typed pipermail/sane-devel/2021- MODULE_LICENSE (), fast filtering programming language of the same February/038754.html name, a cross-compiler and a of system calls in , RELEASE OF standard library of functions. The discontinuing maintenance of the SIDUCTION 2021.1: OPENMANDRIVA LX 4.2: project supports translation to C ia64 architecture, moving WiMAX 02/15/2021 02/13/2021 ++, HashLink / C, JavaScript, C #, technology to the "staging" branch, Java, PHP, Python and Lua, as well the ability to encapsulate SCTP in hree years since the last fter a year of development, the as compilation to JVM, HashLink / UDP. update, the release of the release of OpenMandriva Lx JIT, Flash and Neko bytecode, with T A Siduction 2021.1 project is 4.2 is out. The project is being access to the native capabilities of https://lkml.org/lkml/ available. They develop a desktop- developed by the community after each target platform. The compiler 2021/2/14/244 oriented Linux distribution, built on Mandriva SA handed over the code is distributed under the GPLv2 the Debian Sid (unstable). management of the project to the license, and the standard library RELEASED SANE 1.0.32 Remember that Alf Gaida went non-profit organization and HashLink and Neko virtual WITH SUPPORT FOR NEW awol and nobody has heard "OpenMandriva Association". For machines developed for Haxe are anything since. Nevertheless, the download, they offer a 2.4 GB Live licensed under the MIT license. SCANNER MODELS: iso (x86_64), an "znver1" optimized 02/15/2021 team managed to gather strength and continue development with the for AMD Ryzen, ThreadRipper and https://community.haxe.org/t/ remaining forces. EPYC processors, as well as images haxe-4-2-0-is-released he release of the sane-backend for use on ARM devices Pinebook T 1.0.32 package is available, Pro, Rock Pi 4 (A / B / C) , Raspberry which includes a set of drivers, a https://news.siduction.org/2021/02/ Pi 400, Raspberry Pi 4B and command line utility scanimage, a release-notes-for-siduction-2021-1- Raspberry Pi 3B +. daemon for organizing scanning 0-c-blues/ full circle magazine #166 17 contents ^ NEWS proposed in the update, simply run 3.1 - A DEBIAN the 'pkg update' command. KDE PLASMA 5.21 FORK WITHOUT : MONADO 21.0.0 OPEN 02/15/2021 DESKTOP: https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/ VIRTUAL REALITY PLATFORM 16.02.2021 announcing-oracle-solaris-114- evuan 3.1 "Beowulf", a fork of RELEASED: sru30 D Debian GNU / Linux that does 02/15/2021 he custom KDE Plasma 5.21 T shell is available, built using the not ship with systemd, is out. KDE Frameworks 5 platform and Devuan 3.1 is an interim release ollabora has released Monado RELEASE OF Q4OS 3.14: the Qt 5 library using OpenGL / continuing the development of the C 21.0.0, an open source 02/17/2021 Devuan 3.x branch built on the implementation of the OpenXR OpenGL ES to accelerate rendering. You can evaluate the new version Debian 10 "Buster". Live images standard. The OpenXR standard he Q4OS 3.14 distribution, through the Live build from the and installation iso images for was prepared by the Khronos based on Debian and supplied openSUSE project and the build T AMD64 and architectures are consortium and defines a universal with the KDE Plasma 5 and Trinity from the KDE Neon User Edition availabled for download. API for creating virtual and desktops, has been released. The project. Packages for various augmented reality applications, as distribution is positioned distributions can be found on this The project has forked about well as a set of interlayers for aslightweight and offering a classic page: https://community.kde.org/ 400 Debian packages that have interacting with equipment that desktop design. It includes several Plasma/Packages been modified to remove systemd abstracts the features of specific proprietary applications, including a bindings, rebrand or adapt to the devices. Monado provides a fully 'Desktop profiler' for quick https://kde.org/ru/announcements/ Devuan infrastructure. OpenXR-compliant runtime that installation of thematic software plasma/5/5.21.0/ can be used to run virtual and sets, a 'Setup utility' for installing https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/ augmented reality on smartphones, third-party applications, a 'Welcome message/ tablets, PCs and any other device. Screen' for simplifying initial setup, 20210215.013356.76e080b5.en.ht The project code is written in C and SOLARIS 11.4 SRU30 scripts for installing alternative ml is distributed under the free Boost AVAILABLE: LXQT, Xfce and LXDE environments. 1.0, compatible 02/17/2021 The size of the boot image is 731 with the GPL. MB (x86_64). 12 racle has published the Solaris https://www.collabora.com/news- O 11.4 SRU 30 (Support https://www.q4os.org/blog.html MINIMALISTIC DISTRIBUTION and-blog/news-and-events/ Repository Update) operating RELEASED: monado-2100-officially- system update, which offers a 02/17/2021 conformant-openxr- series of new fixes and implementation.html improvements for the Solaris 11.4 iny Core Linux 12.0 has been branch. To install the fixes T released, which can run on full circle magazine #166 18 contents ^ NEWS systems with 48 MB of RAM. The download. released. The program is written in The kernel is available for x86_64 graphical environment of the C++, uses the FFmpeg, MkvToolNix and ARM64 (aarch64) architectures. distribution is built on the Tiny X X The distribution is managed via a and MediaInfo utilities and is The kernel sources, including the server, the FLTK toolkit and the web interface. Captive Portal, NAT, distributed under the GPLv3 breakdown into individual patches, FLWM manager. The VPN (IPsec, OpenVPN) and PPPoE license. There are packages for the are published in the Oracle public distribution is loaded entirely into can be used to organize user exit in main distributions: Debian, Ubuntu, Git repository. RAM and runs from memory. The wired and wireless networks. A Fedora, . new release updates system wide range of capabilities are Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 5 components including Linux kernel supported for limiting bandwidth, The new version has improved is based on Linux 4.14 (UEK R4 was 5.10.3, busybox 1.33.0, Glibc 2.32, limiting the number of concurrent the design of the program and based on 4.1, and UEK R6 on 5.4), GCC 10.2.0, binutils 2.35.1, connections, filtering traffic and added Drag & Drop function. The which has been updated with new e2fsprogs 1.45.6 and util-linux creating fault-tolerant program can be used to change features, optimizations and fixes, as 2.36.1. configurations based on CARP. HDR metadata such as Master well as tested for compatibility with Work statistics are displayed in the Display, maxLum, minLum, and most applications running in RHEL, The bootable iso is only 16 MB in form of graphs or in tabular form. other parameters. The following and specially optimized to work size. User authorization is supported by encoding formats are available: with industrial software and a local user base, as well as through H265, VP9, AV1, H264, DNxHR HQX, hardware Oracle. Installation and http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/ RADIUS and LDAP. ProRes HQ, ProRes 4444. src packages with the UEK R5U5 index.php/topic,24798.0.html kernel are prepared for Oracle https://www.netgate.com/blog/ https://github.com/CineEncoder/ Linux 7 (there are no obstacles to -plus-21-02-release-and- cine-encoder/releases/tag/3.1 using this kernel in similar versions THE DISTRIBUTION FOR pfsense-ce-2-5-0-release-now- of RHEL, CentOS and Scientific available.html Linux). CREATING FIREWALLS - ORACLE HAS RELEASED PFSENSE 2.5.0: https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/ UNBREAKABLE ENTERPRISE 02/17/2021 CINE ENCODER 3.1, A VIDEO announcing-the-unbreakable- KERNEL R5U5: enterprise-kernel-release-5-update- compact distribution for CONVERTER FOR WORKING 02/18/2021 5-for-oracle-linux A creating firewalls and network WITH HDR VIDEO IN LINUX gateways pfSense 2.5.0 has been OS: racle has released the fifth released. The distribution is based 02/18/2021 O functional update for the on the FreeBSD codebase with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R5, use of the m0n0wall project and new version of Cine Encoder positioned for use in the Oracle the active use of and ALTQ. A 360 A 3.1 video converter for working Linux distribution as an alternative MB iso image for amd64 with HDR video in Linux has been to the standard package with the architecture is available for kernel. full circle magazine #166 19 contents ^ NEWS WAYLAND DRIVER UPDATE developed under the name XBMC.) https://blog.jak-linux.org/ releases) have released new builds. Pre-packaged installation files are 2021/02/18/-2.2/ Past builds were posted in 2019. In FOR INE W : available for Linux, FreeBSD, addition to the appearance of up- 02/19/2021 Raspberry Pi, Android, Windows, to-date boot images based on a macOS, tvOS, and iOS. A PPA more recent cut of the system, ollabora has released an NETWORKMANAGER 1.30.0 repository has been created for updating images does not carry updated version of the Wayland C Ubuntu. The project code is RELEASED: functional changes and their use driver that allows you to run distributed under the GPLv2 + 02/21/2021 only makes sense for new applications using GDI and license. installations (in already installed OpenGL / DirectX through stable release of the interface systems, package updates are directly in a Wayland-based https://kodi.tv/article/kodi-190- A is available, to simplify the delivered as soon as they are environment, without using the matrix-release configuration of network ready). XWayland layer and getting rid of parameters - NetworkManager Wine's binding to the X11 protocol. 1.30.0. Please note that plugins to https://voidlinux.org/news/2021/02/ They are discussing with the Wine support VPN, OpenConnect, PPTP, new-images.html developers the inclusion of PACKAGE MANAGER APT OpenVPN, and OpenSWAN are Wayland support in the Wine 2.2: evolving in their own development Staging branch with the 21.02.2021 cycles. subsequent transfer to the main RELEASE OF SYSVINIT INIT Wine composition. he toolkit for managing https://mail.gnome.org/archives/ SYSTEM 2.99: T packages APT 2.2 (Advanced -list/2021- 02/22/2021 https://www.collabora.com/news- Package Tool) is out, which February/msg00016.html and-blog/news-and-events/ incorporates the changes he classic sysvinit 2.99 init wayland-on-wine-an-exciting-first- accumulated in the experimental T system, which was widely used update.html branch 2.1. In addition to Debian NEW INSTALL in Linux distributions before and its derivatives, the APT-RPM systemd and , and now fork is also used in some BUILDS AVAILABLE: continues to be used in 02/22/2021 KODI 19.0 OPEN MEDIA distributions based on the rpm distributions such as Devuan, package manager, such as Debian GNU / Hurd and antiX, has a ENTER RELEASED C : PCLinuxOS and ALT Linux. The new oid Linux, which is a separate new release. A release of the 20.02.2021 release will soon be integrated into V project that does not use the insserv 1.23.0 utility, used in the Debian Unstable branch and the work of other distro’s, and conjunction with sysvinit, is also out wo years since the publication Ubuntu package base (Ubuntu developed with the use of a (the version of the startpar utility of the last major thread, the T 20.10 used the experimental 2.1 continuous cycle of software has not changed). The insserv utility Kodi 19.0 open media center has branch). upgrades (rolling-update is designed to organize the boot been released. (Previously distribution without separate process, taking into account the

full circle magazine #166 20 contents ^ NEWS dependencies between init-scripts, and startpar is used to ensure the THE OFFICIAL FULL CIRCLE APP FOR - UPDATED! parallel launch of several scripts during the system boot process. rian Douglass has updated his B FCM app for Ubports Touch https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/ devices that will allow you to view html/sysvinit-devel/2021-02/ current issues, and back issues, and msg00000.html to download and view them on your Ubuntu Touch phone/tablet.

NEW VERSION OF WINE INSTALL LAUNCHER 1.4.46: 02/23/2021 Either search for 'full circle' in the Open Store and click install, or view new release of the Wine the URL below on your device and A Launcher project is available. click install to be taken to the store They develop a Sandbox page: environment for running Windows https://uappexplorer.com/app/ games. Among the main features: fullcircle.bhdouglass isolation from the system, separate Wine and Prefix for each game, HUGE thanks to Brian for this. compression into SquashFS images to save space, modern style launcher, automatic committing of changes in the Prefix directory and generation of patches from this. The project code is distributed under the GPLv3 license. https://github.com/hitman249/ wine-launcher/releases/tag/v1.4.46

full circle magazine #166 21 contents ^ The VirtualBox Networking Primer Connecting and Configuring Virtual Machines

The VirtualBox Networking Primer is a no-nonsense guide for the VirtualBox user taking their next steps into virtual networks.

While Oracle VM VirtualBox is a great free tool, the real power of virtualisation comes when you start connecting virtual machines to each other and to the wider world. Software development, sales, education and training are just some of the areas in which network access to virtual machines offers endless opportunities. But the world of computer networks is filled with complex technical jargon.

Complete with principles, practice, examples and glossary, The VirtualBox Networking Primer takes the frustration and confusion out of connecting real-world projects.

Author: Robin Catling Publisher: Proactivity Press ISBN13 : 9781916119482

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Amazon UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/VirtualBox-Networking-Primer- Connecting-Configuring/dp/1916119484/ref=sr_1_1? dchild=1&keywords=virtualbox+networking+primer&qid=16002536 99&s=books&sr=1-1

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-virtualbox-networking- primer full circle magazine #166 22 contents ^ CCOOMMMMAANNDD && CCOONNQQUUEERR LMMS Pt.2 Written by Erik LMMS Pt.2

o - last time we ended up just All the other Grandpas – I want S under three minutes to get a you to put in those hearing aids and basic tune. A tune is not a club track fire up LMMS. If you still have it, though. This is the piano roll of our open the project from the last “tune” when we ended the tutorial issue. Let us make a building ‘intro’ last time. However, we can cheat by by using automation. On your repeating our tune, shifting the beat+bassline editor, click add and window. When you created the track. Please click on that now. (the tune, etc, but we cannot cheat an the text should change from second beat+bassline, it one in the “song” window.) You intro, or “build up” to our track. On beat+bassline0 to beat+bassline1. automatically added it to your song should see this: the bright side, we have seven Now we open our samples and drag window. It should be empty. Shift minutes left of our ten minute time over (or double-click) the first your beat+bassline0 two blocks You can paint in the first block trial. The reason for this is that I hihatclosed01. Color in every over to the right, which should give of the beat+bassline1 now, and want you to imagine the second or third block to get a basic you two counts of silence. We are stretch it over the first two blocks. possibilities of what you can do in tap going. We will automate this. going to fill that silence with the an hour, if we can do all this in ten hihat, on its own track. Do you see The automation track is just a minutes! Most of all, I want you to Though there is an automation how the tune is layered? You may white elephant at the moment, we have fun – LMMS is a lot of fun. button here, we want to add the realise that the constant tapping need to connect something to it to automation track to our main song from the start may be a bit automate. The way you do this is by annoying. Enter our automation holding down the CTRL key and

full circle magazine #166 23 contents ^ COMMAND & CONQUER clicking on the control you want to the steps. Paint some steps erm, I mean LMMS. Here is another have to be club music. Send us your automate. In our case, it is the ascending or descending, it does picture if you had any trouble disco tune, grandpa, we don’t master volume. Hold down the not matter. I want you to following along: judge. CTRL key, click and hold the master understand the concept and see it volume slider in your FX-Mixer, and in action. The steps or blocks are So for your ‘outtro’, you are Need inspiration? Look here: drag it over the automation block. the most dramatic and that is why I going to do this again. Now your https://lmms.io/lsp/ - you can You will see it has a red circle with a chose them. If you were making a song has a build-up, a tune and a download these tunes and dissect line through until it moves over the “real” tune, you would probably wind down. All under ten minutes! them at your leisure. automation block, where it will turn consider the other two. I want you Yes with three minutes to spare... into a green plus. The volume is to play your tune and keep your eye I hope you learned something. now connected to the automation on that master volume slider. The difficult part is how creative Should we continue with this? Let track, now what? Notice it stays where you left it last. you get in the middle. Will there be us know on Now a word about the “length”. a ‘drop’? How often will you repeat [email protected] Well, we double-click on the first Just like the sounds, your your melody? How many open block and a “piano roll” automation track works in bars. So instruments will you choose? without keys will open up. if you have three bars worth of automation, but the automation I have given you the basic There are three types of track only goes over two bars, it will building blocks to build a song. Will Erik has been in IT for 30+ years. He automation, the first blocky one, do only the first two bars worth of you make one? has seen technology come and go. then the linear one, then the automation. So be sure to match From repairing washing machine sized curved one. You can use whichever these up. So? Is your tune club worthy? hard drives with multimeters and oscilloscopes, laying cable, to scaling one pleases you, but for this Send us your tunes if you made any. 3G towers, he's done it. demonstration, we will stick with Now please play with your food, The genre is up to you, it does not

full circle magazine #166 24 contents ^ HHOOWW--TTOO Written by Greg Walters PPyytthhoonn IInn TThhee RREEAALL WWoorrlldd PPtt..111144

don’t know if you have heard, but • Low power. All GPIOs use 3.3VDC out this link. https:// I on January 21, 2021, the folks at (NOT 5V) You can find more on the www.raspberrypi.org/blog/ Raspberry Pi announced another • And more Raspberry Pi Pico at https:// raspberry-pi-silicon-pico-now-on- new board. It’s called the Raspberry www.raspberrypi.org/ sale/. Scroll down until you see the Pi Pico. It’s their first Now, some of these specs might documentation/pico/getting- section marked Partners. You’ll see Microcontroller-classed product, not get your blood pumping faster, started/ . information about new products and it’s priced at just $4.00 USD but consider the 2 I2c ports, 2 SPI coming from Adafruit, Arduino, (£3.60 GBP). They even created ports and 2 UARTS, that’s a lot of In addition to all of that, the Pimoroni, and Sparkfun – all based their own chip called the RP2040 interface possibilities, and then add very next day (January 22, 2021), on the RP2040 chip. In fact, for it. I won’t give you all the specs, the 3 12-bit Analogue-to-Digital the Arduino group announced they Adafruit has their own version of but I will point out a few: converters, and you’ve got a pretty also will be releasing a new board MicroPython called CircuitPython, • A Dual-core ARM Cortex M0+ powerful little board. Add to that, it based on the 2040 chipset along and they’ve ported it to run on the processor running up to 133 MHz is designed to work with Micro- with some extras like WIFI and RPi Pico. There are also a number of • 264KB of SRAM and 2MB on- Python, and I think it’s a winner! Bluetooth as well as 9-axis IMU projects that they are working on board sensor and microphone. They have that will use the RP2040 chip. If you • Drag-and-drop programming The board itself is only stated that they will be updating do an Internet search for “RP2040”, using mass storage over USB 51x21mm (that’s just about 2x0.8 their IDE to support the new board. you’ll see a huge number of hits • 26 multi-function GPIO pins inches in American thinking)! It’s expected to be called the that include the partners listed • 2 x I2c, 2 x SPI, 2 x UARTs and 3 x Arduino Nano RP2040. Very little is above along with images, videos 12-bit ADC ports Of course, I went on the Internet known at this point beyond these and other announcements. • 16 controllable PWM pins to try to buy one the very first day. I details. You can see the • 3-pin ARM Serial Debug was extremely lucky to find an announcement at https:// Now that the announcements (SWD) port online retailer that still had some www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/ are over, we’ll get back to Python • Temperature sensor on board left. It hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t arduino-rp2040. I am looking things. Most of you readers have • 8 programmable I/O (PIO) state give you any information on how forward to evaluating the new been with me for a while, and you machines the board performs quite yet. In Nano RP2040 as soon as it becomes might remember back to late 2015 • Micro-USB B port for power, data, addition, I had to find a Micro-USB available. and early 2016 where I started and reprogramming the Flash type B cable before I could use it. talking about the Raspberry Pi and memory Luckily, I have some header pins If you are interested in the Python programming. I’ve been • Development for the board from an old project that are left Raspberry Pi Pico or the new having to do some small-board supports both a C/C++ SDK, and an over, so I should be good to go as Arduino Nano RP2040, or if you are computer programming official MicroPython port soon as it comes in. still on the fence about it all, check development lately and one project full circle magazine #166 25 contents ^ HOWTO - PYTHON specifically had me creating a be able to create and test Python this: prototype test program on the RPi GPIO programs on your main Remember that LEDs have a for GPIO use. I am somewhat proud development machine, and then sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER positive and negative leg. The of the fact that I have at least one simply copy the code over to your Anode is the longer leg and should of every RPi board model – from target RPi, make the connections to The reason for this, just in case be connected to the positive the original version 1 to the latest your sensor, and, with (possibly) you are interested, is that the voltage, the Cathode is the version 4, and a RPi zero. There are one change to the code, be running connection to the RTK.GPIO board negative (shorter) leg. three boards that are in constant on the RPi immediately. Are you not only powers the board, but In our circuit (next page, top use, one as a media center, one as a thinking “If it sounds too good to communicates via one of the serial left), we’ll be setting the GPIO pin network server, and one that is for be true, it has to be?” We’ll find out. ports on the Linux box. to a low level in order to turn the “current” RPi type projects. I ordered one just about the same time that I ordered the RPi PICO Next, we need to make sure that One of the downsides of and it came in just last night. some software exists on our main working with the Raspberry Pi is machine. You probably already have that they are slow. Even the RPi 4 Check out https://uk.pi- these packages on your machine, with 8 Gig of Ram is somewhat slow supply.com/products/ryanteck-rtk- but just in case, we’ll enter the compared to my “big boy” Linux gpio-pc-gpio-interface, and you’ll following command into the box. But, as they say, needs must. see the product. It’s a tiny little terminal: When you need to deal with GPIO board (5.5cm by 5 cm) that is less programming and sensors, there than $17 USD (shipping extra). We’ll sudo apt-get install python3- are very few options out there that go back to FCM 104 and recreate a python3- python3-wheel don’t include the RPi. IOT (Internet very simple project for our first LED on, so we’ll connect the 220 Of Things) and sensors pretty much test. But there are some things that ohm resistor directly between the They suggest that you reboot require either the RPi or an Arduino have to be done (not including 3.3 volt pin and the Anode of the your machine at this point. Finally (which is another story all purchasing and receiving the board) LED, then connect the Cathode to we need to install the Python together). before we can get started. our GPIO pin to complete the library. circuit. For the switch, we’ll connect However, some of that Following the instructions at sudo -H pip3 install RTk one side of the switch directly to frustration might be gone. I https://learn.pi-supply.com/make/ ground and the other directly to a getting-started-with-the-rtk-gpio- recently found a small device that Now that that is all done, we can different GPIO pin board/#getting-started-with-the- allows us to do GPIO programming start adding the components to our rtk-gpio-board, we need to make directly on a Linux box, Windows protoboard. Of course, you’ll need Now for the code. I’m using the sure that our user account on our machine, or Mac, without the use of a protoboard, a few jumpers, an same code that we did in the Linux box is part of the dialout the remote GPIO and a RPi in the LED, a resistor (220 ohm), and a original FCM# 104 article, with a group. So in a terminal, we need to mix. (We’ll talk about remote GPIO momentary switch. few modifications where needed. another time). In theory, you should use the following command to do full circle magazine #166 26 contents ^ HOWTO - PYTHON

# It looks like the RTK library only supports # the BCM GPIO pin numbers # If you are using the BCM GPIO pin numbers... LedPin = 18 BtnPin = 17 # Otherwise the physical board numbers... # LedPin = 12 # BtnPin = 11

def setup(): GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) # GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD) GPIO.setup(LedPin, GPIO.OUT) GPIO.setup(BtnPin, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_UP)

yet to verify this, but for the sake of When we see that, we’ll drive the time, we’ll stick with the BCM LED pin to a low state, turning on numbering scheme. Luckily, the the LED. RTK board has the pin numbers silk screened directly on the board Next, we will create a destroy right next to the GPIO pins. In the function that will reset the LED pin original code, I opted to use the and properly release the GPIO the RTk library. board numbers, so I’ve just library code. # import RPi.GPIO as GPIO commented out those commands In the original code, we had the and uncommented the code that def destroy(): import RTk.GPIO as GPIO option to use either the BCM GPIO deals with the BCM numbering (top GPIO.output(LedPin, pin numbers or the physical board right). GPIO.HIGH) First, of course, we need to numbers. At this point, it looks like import the GPIO library. On the RPi, GPIO.cleanup() the RTK board supports only the So we have our LED connected we used the RPi.GPIO library, but BCM pin numbering scheme. I have to GPIO pin 18 and the button for our RTK board, we need to use connected to GPIO pin 17. Now we Finally, we’ll create the entry def loop(): can create a function to do all the while True: point code to get things started if GPIO.input(BtnPin) == GPIO.LOW: setup commands (above). (next page, top right). print("...LED On") GPIO.output(LedPin, GPIO.LOW) Next, we’ll create a loop else: When you run the program, print("...LED Off") function (bottom left) to constantly you’ll see the LED turn on as long as GPIO.output(LedPin, GPIO.HIGH) look for the button to be pressed. the button is pressed.

full circle magazine #166 27 contents ^ HOWTO - PYTHON 28th or 29th as well as the micro B if __name__ == "__main__": So, at this point, I can say that, USB cable that powers and setup() for simple GPIO work, the communicates with the device. My try: loop() RTK.GPIO board works well for plan is to talk about hookup, except KeyboardInterrupt: development of RPi programs that installing MicroPython and Circuit destroy() access the GPIO pins. Will it work Python on the board, and a few test with other sensors and modules programs. designed for the RPi? Well, that’s yet to be seen, since my RTK.GPIO As always, until next time; stay board just came last night. I’ll be safe, healthy, positive and creative! spending some of my self-imposed quarantine time working with this new board. I do know from the board website, that there is some question about working with SOME i2c devices, and I haven’t heard anything about the support of SPI devices. So my testing will include both of those along with some other simple modules like relays and trying some other “normal” components. I will keep you advised.

I have placed the code on my github repository, as I often do. You Greg Walters is a retired can find it at: living in Central Texas, USA. He has been a programmer https://github.com/gregwa1953/ since 1972 and in his spare time, he is FCM166 an author, amateur photographer, luthier, fair musician and a pretty With any luck, next month I will darn good cook. He still is the owner of RainyDaySolutions a consulting be looking deeply into the RPi Pico, company and he spends most of his MicroPython and possibly time writing articles for FCM and CircuitPython as well. My Pico tutorials. His website is should be here either on January www.thedesignatedgeek.xyz .

full circle magazine #166 28 contents ^ HHOOWW--TTOO Written by Tony Hughes PPooddccaasstt PPrroodduuccttiioonn iinn LLiinnuuxx -- PPtt..88

o, to recap, last month we navigate to the toolbar and select S looked at the starting of the Now we can remove any audio the Scissor icon, click on this and edit. Compression of the audio, that will not be needed in the final the selected audio is removed. noise reduction, and lining up the edit without affecting the audio individual audacity tracks from each sync; in picture 001 you will see I of the hosts. In this month's article, have highlighted the audio before I will go through the editing of the Leo starts his intro to the show, this show audio to cut out the bits not was the part where we recorded But if we need to keep that needed and remove/shift audio our silence for noise reduction and audio and maintain the sync where we may have talked over where we used 3,2,1, Zero to line up integrity, it is a little more complex. each other. Merging to one track, the tracks so it is no longer needed. If I want to move that same audio adding the show bumpers, and To highlight this area, I placed the Now there are times when we to a point after Leo stops talking, I truncating silence – so all our just before the start of Leo’s talk over one another, and need to first copy the audio using talking flows as naturally as intro, and left-clicked the mouse sometimes we need to remove this, the copy tool. possible. holding it down while dragging and sometimes what has been said back to the start of the track and just needs re-positioning so the So before we start removing down to include all 5 tracks. listener can hear it clearly. In the chunks of the audio, we need to With the audio selected you can first case, it is fairly simple to ensure that the tracks will remain silence that unwanted audio by synced, so we navigate to the selecting the area of audio to tracks menu and go to the bottom remove and as we do not wish to of the menu and ensure that the alter the other tracks, we can use sync-lock box is checked. the silence tool to remove that Then I place the cursor in the audio without affecting any of the track where I want it to move to, other tracks. and using the paste tool, copy the audio segment after Leo has stopped talking, and, as the tracks are sync-locked, it will add a little space to all the other tracks keeping them in sync.

Then you can just go back and full circle magazine #166 29 contents ^ HOWTO - PODCAST PRODUCTION separate tracks if you find you need to go back later. You do not have to, but, at this point, I will copy this track and

silence the unneeded audio that you just moved into its new place in the track. selecting, file-new in the menu top- These processes are repeated left. Navigate to the new audacity which will be in your taskbar, and paste the audio here. At this point, I save the old project and close it down, I can reopen it again if needed. I also save the new project as ‘mintCast Ep340 transition edit.aup’

I’m now ready to add the intro music and transitions. The processes for this are similar but with the transitions you need to within the audio in any place it is make space for the audio to fit. needed, and once this is done the First, adding the music before the track is mixed down before adding intro starts is a case of importing in the front and end bumpers, and the music needed into audacity. any transition music between Navigate to the menu, File-import- sections. So, first let's mix down the audio; this brings up a file tracks menu and this time untick audio to one track. Using Ctrl+A to navigation box, navigate to where the sync-lock tracks so you can select all the tracks, navigate to the the audio is stored and select it and move them around independently. tracks menu, select Mix, and choose paste it into a new Audacity file as open, and it will be imported into Then, using the move tool circled in ‘mix and render new track’. The it makes the next stage less the audacity you have open. the next image, drag the main track reason for rendering to a new track cluttered. This is simply a matter of so it is just about at the end of the is that you can then copy this and selecting the new track, copying it, Now, as you need to move the intro music as it is fading, there will start a new edit without losing the and opening a new audacity by tracks about, you need to go to the still be a little background music as full circle magazine #166 30 contents ^ HOWTO - PODCAST PRODUCTION Leo starts to introduce the episode. it to go. you can see the results in the final choice to use or not, then save. You Then I navigate to the end of This process is repeated in all picture here. have now completed your audio Leo’s intro and put in the first of the areas where transition music And we are done, all that is left edit. the transition music sections. Place needs to be inserted. Then at the is to export the audio as a file you So this brings us to the end of can upload to Archive.org for your this short series of articles about podcasting and editing your show

the cursor here, and in the menu, go to Edit - Clip boundaries - Split, end of the audio we import the this creates a gap in the audio and outgoing credits section. Then this you are able to move the large audio is merged down to a single section of the track on the right to track incorporating these additional allow the transition music to be sections of music. placed between the sections. Import this audio as before, but The final task is to remove any now copy it and paste into the area gaps in the audio where we were feed to pick up. Menu – file – export of the lower track where you need not talking or we have silenced – , , or if you select export some of the audio, to make the talk audio you can save as .Flac (your in Audacity. I hope you have flow at a natural pace we do this choice), choose where to save, then enjoyed it. with the Tunicate silence tool in the press save; you are presented with effects menu; when this is done a meta data box to fill in, your If you wish to contact me for more information you can get me at: [email protected] or [email protected]

full circle magazine #166 31 contents ^ HHOOWW--TTOO Written by Erik MMaakkee AA BBuuddggeett

or household expenses, a good, but sometimes one needs 50 rows (3-53). This will be our Rename your columns to: date, F spreadsheet can work wonders. more, so, before you start, think “Table”. Once highlighted, select category, item, recipient, amount, Creating a template is a good idea. about what you would like to get “All borders”. Now would be a good notes. You can put as much as you You really don’t need a large out of this. Now, a spreadsheet is time to save your file as an open like here, but remember that the dedicated program to get an not a database, but if you plan it spreadsheet template. more there is, the more you have to overview of your finances. Grisby, out properly, you can get a lot of fill in, but on the flip side, it can give HomeBank, Gnu Cash, etc, are all information and insights from it. you better insights. To make things great programs, but there is Think about your columns, would look well, select row 3 and click on something to be said for making you like to filter by ‘Utility’ or ‘align center’. something your own. This tutorial is ‘Food’? Do you just care about the twofold, it teaches you a bit about bottom line? If you draw a blank, using OnlyOffice and gives those of steal with your eyes, look at the you who are not accountants, an LibreOffice weekly or monthly end product that you can use. If you budget forms; after all, it will be are an old hand at Office programs, *your* custom form when you are this may be below you, but you are done. Grabbing a form from the Whilst you have it selected, why not the target demographic. This LibreOffice website is all fine and not make it nice looking? Select quick introduction follows a dandy, but you may not have a car, “Format table as template” and pick discussion we had regarding so the whole section dealing with your poison. bookkeeping software on motor vehicle expenses may be Now click on the A in the first Telegram; when the dust settled, it dead weight to you. Deleting the seems all Mr_Reboot needed was sections you do not need, may mess an expense report for his up the built-in formulas. So what to household. I thought we should do? share it with the rest of the FCM readers. @Mr_Reboot - here is the We make our own! Do you have “nice” version. five minutes to spare? Fire up an OnlyOffice spreadsheet. Take a row There are many LibreOffice to add the month or week at the tutorials out there, so that is why top. we use OnlyOffice this time. Having an expense sheet is all well and Select 6 columns (A-F) and say,

full circle magazine #166 32 contents ^ HOWTO - MAKE A BUDGET column. This will highlight the calculating. One simply highlights lot of open lines and my total is not much money on fast food, or whole column. We know that this the part you need totalled (E4-E54), on my page. gasoline, or whatever. column will contain dates, so, right- and press the ‘sum’ button. click said A, and navigate down to However, in OnlyOffice, this We can hide and ‘unhide’ rows Feel free to experiment with number format. It will expand, so appears at the top instead of the we do not use. In our case, I will columns that you can filter to get step one over, and choose ‘date’. bottom. I have no idea why anyone select lucky number 13 to 53, right- insights into your spending habits. We are going to repeat these steps would want to sum up.... (okay, I’ll click, and click hide. The total jumps You can even add an income column for column E, but the format choice see myself out). Anyway, you can up to my viewing window. Neat! and get a total of that too, the will be ‘currency’. reverse select the column, from The arrows next to our headings possibilities are endless – but I E54-E4 and press the ugly E. That are also not just for show. Want to suggest keeping it limited by what Our very last row in our amount said, the OnlyOffice ribbon has a know how many times you visited you need. The nice thing about a column, will be our total, so it is “formula” tab, where you can find McDonalds? Click the arrow. It will template is that you can use it over only fitting to add the word Total to more options. Here again, is where bring up a filter list. Select only and over, so January to December the notes column next to it, in our OnlyOffice differs. Adding E4-E54 McDonalds and it will filter it so. should all look the same. case, F54. If you click on line 54 and in the sum brackets, will net you an This goes for any of the headings, it highlights, click on the bold icon, error. A quick fix is to add a 1 to the Want to know how much you blew Another suggestion is to use the or press ctrl+b. This will make your first row (E4) and a 1 to the last row on entertainment or take-aways (or “protection” tab in your OnlyOffice total stand out. You can also add (E53), then highlight to E54 and if you are in Ireland, bring-backs, ribbon and encrypt your finances; the word TOTAL to the dates press the Ugly E. You can now yes, I know where the door is...) this you do not want others to have column, this will prevent you from remove those two 1’s you entered. month? These filters can be an eye access to that information. adding anything on that line. opener! This is where the planning This whole exercise took us less comes in – that we spoke about in Did we make a mistake? Are we We know that the amount than 5 minutes. Let’s populate the the beginning. I stole mine from wrong? Did we help you? Let us column needs to be totalled. If you fields to see if it works? another sheet. Don’t be shy to get know at: have ever used a spreadsheet your categories from another [email protected] before, you will know that the ugly So I populated my sheet with source. This allows me to get those E, some say ‘Epsilon’, is used for some bogus data, but now I have a insights, like, I am spending too

full circle magazine #166 33 contents ^ full circle magazine #166 34 contents ^ HHOOWW--TTOO Written by Mark Crutch IInnkkssccaappee -- PPaarrtt 110055

et again, last month’s News and 1.0.1. At the time of writing, when the user clicks the middle trigger this is to hold Ctrl-Shift and Y section of Full Circle Magazine there doesn’t appear to be a 1.0.2 mouse button on the canvas (and move the mouse wheel, however managed to sneak in some Inkscape package available, but there is zooming out when doing the same that will rotate in steps (15° per announcements that arrived after a PPA, as well as AppImage and with Shift): ‘click’ of the wheel, by default). For the deadline for this column, so versions available from the I can’t say I’ve ever triggered this an unconstrained rotation you also apologies for parroting information Download section of the Inkscape behaviour by accident, despite have the option of holding Ctrl you probably already know. website. If you wish to use Inkscape whilst click-dragging with the wheel on a non-Linux system, there are, of or middle mouse button. The First, Inkscape 1.1 alpha is course, builds for Windows and middle mouse button is often available for testing. This is the MacOS. Since FCM is primarily a exposed on the stylus of a graphics initial alpha release, but there may Ubuntu-oriented publication, I will tablet, where it’s useful for panning be others – not to mention betas mention that I had problems using the canvas, but many users of such and release candidates – before the AppImage version on Ubuntu devices found they were version 1.1 sees an official build. If Mate 18.04. Although it initially accidentally triggering the canvas you want to help make that release appeared to work, any operation rotation by mistake, due to sloppy as stable as possible, then please that opens the file picker – such as timing when releasing the Ctrl key consider downloading the alpha loading and saving files – caused from a previous operation. As a version, testing it with your typical the application to immediately being a frequent user of middle- result the Inkscape forum has seen workflow, and reporting any issues. crash. As usual, I had the best click-drag to pan the canvas, but if a flurry of requests for the ability Rather than provide a link directly results with the PPA. you are plagued by this problem,\ to turn off the canvas rotation to this alpha, which may be you can now disable the feature feature. outdated by the time this magazine There are only a couple of new entirely. It may well be that this hits the wires, I suggest visiting the features in 1.0.2, but they’re ones problem occurs more for frequent If you wish to disable this News section of the Inkscape that a lot of users have been users of graphics tablets; certainly feature, there’s a new option for it website (https://inkscape.org/ clamouring for. Both are actually that’s the case with the issue that in the Interface panel of the news/). and following the links in new preferences, so to find them has given rise to the second new Preferences . This doesn’t, the latest relevant article. you’ll of course have to install 1.0.2, option. however, remove the “R:” field then open the Edit > Preferences from the bottom right of the Alongside 1.1 alpha we also saw dialog. The first new option can be You may recall that one of the Inkscape window, so you can still the release of version 1.0.2. This is found in the Behaviour > Steps headline features for 1.0 was the force rotation by changing the another bugfix release, addressing panel, and allows you to turn off ability to rotate the canvas. For value in there, by typing, rolling the several issues that appeared in 1.0 the default behaviour of zooming in mouse users the best way to mouse wheel over the field, or

full circle magazine #166 35 contents ^ HOWTO - INKSCAPE variety of ways. You could no longer alignment now take up less than trivially apply an inset, outset, the width of two buttons. The old dynamic offset, or linked offset to a discrete buttons and their new text object. combined drop-down replacements are shown in the table below. With 1.0.2, normality is restored. Path > Union once again creates a The tool bar has also lost a single path, and the various offset functions work once more. In my opinion, this fix alone makes it worth upgrading to 1.0.2 if you’ve already made the leap to the 1.x series, and removes one of the biggest reasons for sticking with 0.92.x for any readers who have been reticent to move on. right-clicking to bring up the > Object to Path, when applied to a couple of icons completely. The context menu. text object, was to create a single All this talk of text objects leads confusing “Show style of outermost complex path. This was nicely into the next topic for this text” button has been relegated to That’s it for the new features in subsequently changed to create a series. We’re returning to the new the waste bin. The existence of this 1.0.2, with everything else being group of paths, one for each letter and updated features that arrived toggle was the result of an attempt bug fixes, mainly for issues that the – yet internally the ability to with version 1.0, of which to better represent the underlying majority of users won’t ever convert text to a single path Inkscape’s text support received complexities of SVG text. In encounter. But there is one class of remained. It was even exposed via more than its fair share of changes. practice very few people fixes that definitely warrants a the UI, whether by accident or We’ll start with the most obvious of understood the implications of mention: this release fixes the text- design: using Path > Union on a text the user-facing changes: the using this button, and most users to-path regressions that were object would convert it to a single revamped Text tool control bar. would either ignore it entirely, or introduced with version 1.0. For the path. randomly turn it on and off while full rundown on these problems, There’s no doubt that the Text trying to reset the other controls see part 100 of this series, or the A rewrite of the path operations tool control bar in version 0.92 was on the bar. Also gone is the “?” subsequent YouTube video I code for 1.0 broke this internal a little unwieldy, featuring many, button which was only relevant in created (http://www.youtube.com/ ability. Path > Union now behaved many buttons. The new version the relatively rare case of the user watch?v=lx5nRCu7AKk), but here’s the same way as Object to Path. simplifies this by collapsing mixing different line spacings a brief reminder. Furthermore, other features which several sets of radio buttons into within a single block of text (more required an implicit conversion to a drop-down menus. For example, on this later). Good riddance to Originally the behaviour of Path single path stopped working in a the four buttons used for text them; anyone who really needs the full circle magazine #166 36 contents ^ HOWTO - INKSCAPE control they offered probably has is due to the general trend towards for the Text toolbar is presented in same amount. the technical skills to make their big, chunky UI widgets that are the version 1.0 release notes under changes via the XML editor, or by “touch friendly” for use on tablets the heading of “More Compact Tool If, rather than just clicking within editing the raw text of the SVG file. and phones. In the case of the Text Controls Bar”. Clearly the Inkscape the text, you select part of a line so toolbar, this change is particularly developers use a different that at least one character is With two buttons removed, and exacerbated due to the number of definition of “compact” than the highlighted, changing the line several others reduced to drop- spinbox widgets it holds. Here’s a one I’m familiar with! height value will affect that whole downs you might expect the comparison of how spinboxes look line. This also works with a toolbar in 1.0 to be more compact on Inkscape 0.92 compared with As mentioned earlier, the selection that spans multiple lines. than its predecessor. Unfortunately 1.0: removal of the “?” button was one This ability to mix your line heights the opposite is true. Despite having This is a definite case of “you of the changes implemented to within a block is exactly the same as fewer controls, the new toolbar can’t please all the people all the make the toolbar more “compact”. in 0.92, all that’s been removed is a occupies even more horizontal time”. As a mouse user, I never In earlier releases, this button one-click method to revert all the space than the old one, barely would be enabled if you created a lines back to a single value, which is fitting onto the width of an HD multi-line text object, but then no great loss. monitor. Anyone trying to run changed the line spacing for a Inkscape on a narrower screen, or subset of the lines in the block (e.g. FLOWED TEXT just with a reduced window size, by dragging to select a single line will find that the controls inevitably before changing the value in the Flowed text has long been a overflow into a horrible pop-up spinbox). Toggling the button back source of consternation for veteran menu, with unnecessary to its off state would remove the Inkscape users. Support was added abbreviations and inconsistent experienced any problems with the line-specific override, returning the many years ago, based on a colons. smaller buttons of the old widgets, whole block to the same default proposed implementation for SVG and much preferred being able to line spacing. 1.2 which looked like it would The reason that the toolbar get to the justification options with become part of the official spec. takes up so much additional space a single click. A tablet user might Without this button, it’s still That proposal was not accepted as disagree, considering the extra step possible to reset all the lines back part of the SVG specification, of opening a drop-down to be a to a single value. It’s as simple as however, leaving Inkscape with a small price to pay for spinboxes clicking in the text to place the flowed text implementation that with large, easy to hit buttons. I’d caret (without selecting anything), was not supported by the vast love to see a future release of and then changing the value in the majority of other programs, Inkscape address this by offering a spinbox. If you just want to reset it including web browsers. preference to switch between the to the existing value, press the plus two styles. button immediately followed by the With the advent of SVG 2.0, minus button to nudge the line however, flowed text has seen Ironically, this change of style height up and then down by the full circle magazine #166 37 contents ^ HOWTO - INKSCAPE something of a renewal. In part this implementation in earlier versions option and the flowed text you is due to the SVG Working Group’s of Inkscape. For most users, this create will once again be decision to defer to the CSS isn’t something to worry about, but compatible with Inkscape 0.92… standard for many parts of the if you do need to create files that and almost no other programs. language, rather than trying to re- will be edited in 0.92, you can implement their own variations. switch back to the older approach There’s yet more to describe Inkscape 1.0 revamps the existing by turning off an option in the about Inkscape’s new flowed text flowed text support completely, in Inkscape preferences. The quick implementation, as well as other order to produce something that is way to find it is to double-click on text features that are new to compatible with SVG 2.0. the Text tool, which will open the version 1.0, so next month’s article Preferences dialog with the correct will continue to explore this The downside is that it’s no panel already selected. Un-check subject. longer compatible with the the “Use SVG2 auto-flowed text”

Mark uses Inkscape to create three webcomics, 'The Greys', 'Monsters, Inked' and 'Elvie', which can all be found at http://www.peppertop.com/

full circle magazine #166 38 contents ^ full circle magazine #166 39 contents ^ LLIINNUUXX LLOOOOPPBBAACCKK Written by S. J. Webb

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SJ Webb is a researcher coordinator. When he is not working, he enjoys time with his wife and kids. He thanks Mike Ferarri for his mentorship.

full circle magazine #166 40 contents ^ EEVVEERRYYDDAAYY UUBBUUNNTTUU Written by Richard Adams RReettrrooCCoommppuuttiinngg:: TTRRSS--8800 PPtt11

he Way back at the dawn of I enjoyed studying the manuals computing that served as the basis and Color Computer Magazine, and T time, around late 1982, a young to learn BASIC, typing in and for most of my career, and still that’s not even to mention that it man walked into a Radio Shack modifying programs from Creative keeps me captivated to this day. also had magazines on tape every store at Town East Mall in Computing Magazine and its ilk, month, like Chromasette, and Mesquite, Texas and was talked and just generally noodling around The Rainbow was a Color significant coverage in other non- into getting his very first credit on it, even adapting a character Computer magazine that had dedicated magazines like Byte and card, a Radio Shack branded one, in generation program for Dungeons already been going for 3 or 4 years 6809 Micro Journal. Ingenious order to purchase a personal and Dragons that I had originally before I discovered it. It had started and hardware computer. With a whopping 16K of written for the aforementioned out as a single page newsletter, designers like Steve Bjork, Frank memory, Extended Color Basic for Timex Sinclair TS-1000. Really, written by Lonnie Falk and Hogg, Dennis Lewandowski, Todd added power (especially increased though, I had a small handful of photocopied for its distribution of and Brett Keeton, Dennis Bathory graphics capability), and even a game cartridges from Radio Shack just a few copies to Lonnie’s Kitsz, Bill Barden, John Fraysse, and CCR-81 dedicated and specialized (some of which were reasonably friends and acquaintances. Within many others were doing computer tape deck,along with a fun), the tape adventure games that extremely short time span of astounding work to show what this pair of joysticks, this machine was Pyramid and Bedlam, and the few 3-4 years, The Rainbow grew to a little home computer could do. truly … a typical 8-bit computer of BASIC resource management 300+ page magazine on glossy the time. And you’ve no doubt games and simple simulation paper, with a great deal of COCO GAMES guessed, that young man was me. games I had typed in, and not much advertising and a lot of really The package’s $500 price tag at the else. Nothing I had on the system fantastic editorial content, I dove into that first Rainbow time was steep for someone like was all that useful or interesting, including programs, tutorials, with relish and astonishment, me who made just about $5 per except maybe the word processing reviews, and more. That 300 or so particularly once I saw that there hour, but I felt it would be a good cartridge Color Scripsit, which I pages showed me some of the little was an amazing virtual cornucopia investment. And I really wanted to used to do college papers for machine’s truly impressive of knock-offs of well-known arcade replace the Timex Sinclair TS-1000, printout on my gigantic Centronics capabilities, driven by the genuinely games advertised within its pages. my first personal computer, that I tractor-feed dot matrix printer. The excellent Motorola MC-6809E There were never more than a had recently returned to K-Mart machine was fun, sure, but nothing microprocessor at its heart. small handful of licensed arcade after it belly-upped on me after just impressive or all that compelling. games on the CoCo, but there was a couple of weeks of usage (and it Until May of 1983. That was when The CoCo, as it was an absolutely staggering number of was my second faulty Timex The Rainbow entered my life, and I affectionately nicknamed, actually unofficial clones of games like machine, at that – takes a licking truly had no idea what a seminal had FOUR monthly print magazines Space Invaders, Galaxian, and keeps on ticking, not so much). moment it was going to be for me. around that time, Hot CoCo, The Centipede, Robotron, Defender, It would truly accelerate my love of Rainbow, Color Computer News, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, full circle magazine #166 41 contents ^ EVERYDAY UBUNTU Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Mr. Do, Qix, inspired to find a way to run them software installation process in https://launchpad.net/~sixxie/ Super Cobra, Moon Patrol, Missile on Linux. As is often the case, this is Linux, Ubuntu uses something +archive/ubuntu/ppa. You can see Command, Q-Bert, Galaga, turning out to be a real Ubuntu called a repository. Repositories are on this page the proper repository Tutankham, Monaco GP, Donkey computing adventure. on the ‘back-end’ of the software for XROAR: ppa:sixxie/ppa. We can Kong Jr., Popeye, Berzerk, and even installation process, meaning when add it via the command line by pretty obscure arcade titles like A Google search revealed that you tell Ubuntu that you want to invoking a terminal (for more on Tapper, Avalanche, Bagman, my best bet on Linux was probably install a piece of software, the how to get to a command line/ Bosconian, Bump ‘n’ Jump, Crystal going to be XROAR, an emulator for information to do so, including the terminal window, see Everyday Castles, Lady Bug, Xevious, Omega the (almost identical) CoCo 1 and 2 necessary files to download, is Ubuntu in Full Circle Magazine issue Race, and Quantum. Many of these (there was a CoCo 3, but XROAR stored in a (typically online) virtual # 160, page 40). Once we’re in the had multiple copycats, and the doesn’t emulate it), and the Tano location where your system can go terminal, we can type in the competitiveness of that Dragon 32/64 line of CoCo clones and retrieve those files and following: marketplace clearly elevated the popular in Europe back in the information. level of effort by the publishers, so CoCo’s heyday. I have installed the sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sixxie/ppa that many of these clone games Mac OS X version of XROAR on Ubuntu has a pretty significant were genuinely exceptional some of my older Mac iBooks, so I selection of software in its standard then hit , provide your duplicates of their arcade have at least heard of it. However, default repositories, but they superuser credentials (for more on forebears. it’s not in the default software certainly can’t cover absolutely this, see Everyday Ubuntu # 160, repositories for Ubuntu, so we can’t everything. Since XROAR is not in page 40 again), hit again, install it using the normal install the default Ubuntu repositories COCO EMULATION followed by: process (see Everyday Ubuntu on (meaning it can’t just be installed Given my history with the CoCo, pages 29-30 of Full Circle Magazine using the normal install procedure sudo apt-get update I still occasionally load up the great #164 month before last for more in , or even Windows Emulator VCC (Virtual general information on installing Package Manager, a really again hitting . Once this is Color Computer), and pull up some software). We’re going to need to good secondary software done, we issue the command: of my old games to play, an activity explore some extended software installation manager), we have to I enjoy enough to make me wonder management procedures for find a repository for XROAR and sudo apt-get install xroar why I don’t do it more often. Well, installing XROAR, but it still add that repository to the ones one reason is obvious: I don’t have a shouldn’t be overly difficult (he used by our Ubuntu software hit one last time, and CoCo emulator on my Ubuntu said, with no idea what he was in management system. the system will install XROAR for machines, and I barely ever boot up for). us. We can now run XROAR by any of my Windows machines any ADDING A NEW REPOSITORY going to the applications drawer at more. Having recently located a UBUNTU REPOSITORIES the bottom left of our screen. cache of Color Computer games in A Google search revealed this then scroll down using the dots virtualized format, I am now feeling As an integral part of the support webpage for XROAR: on the right side, clicking on the full circle magazine #166 42 contents ^ EVERYDAY UBUNTU bottom-most to take us to our last software, a version of Microsoft Interestingly, one of the more page of installed software, where Now, does that appear like even Basic, on a pair of chips inside the sophisticated offerings direct from we will undoubtedly find XROAR. the most rudimentary functional computer, a ROM (Read Only The Shack was an Audio Spectrum You can also hit the magnifying computer? No, it clearly doesn’t, Memory) chip for Color Basic, and Analyzer for use with your stereo, glass icon at the top to invoke the and indeed it isn’t. We’re missing another ROM chip for Extended something I never saw on other search function and search for something important here: the Color Basic, which mostly added machines of the same era, and a XROAR, but it’s almost certain to be firmware. But first: graphics and sound commands. The good reason many serious on the last page, considering the machine did not have a DOS, or Disk audiophiles selected the CoCo as alphabetical order of the software Operating System, by default, as their machine of choice. BASICS OF HOW TO LOAD listings. Click on XROAR and it will disk systems at that time were a indeed launch. HUZZAH! But, SOFTWARE ON A COCO VERY expensive add-on that many Other software was frequently there’s clearly a problem. Look at computer owners did not have. loaded from cassette tapes, via a this screen: The CoCo had its operating Instead, software often came in cable running from a cassette deck solid state cartridges or on cassette to the computer. Cassettes were tapes. slow and cumbersome, but were much cheaper than diskettes. I The cartridges were plastic myself purchased dozens upon boxes containing a printed circuit dozens of cassette programs board and a ROM chip, or chips, before I ever even considered that plugged into a slot in the getting a floppy drive, and I also computer (in the CoCo’s case, on had a fair number of CoCo the right side), and basically turned cartridges into the bargain. the machine temporarily into a dedicated game console for a The CoCo did have a floppy specific game (or rarely, a small diskette system that had a handful of games on one cartridge), controller, in the form of a large or an Editor/Assembler/Monitor (for cartridge, and the disk drive itself. those who wanted to program in These days, floppy disks are rarely- the difficult but VERY speedy sighted dinosaurs even in the more Assembly Programming Language), utile and sophisticated form they or a word processor (e.g., Color eventually took on in the case of Scripsit), a database manager, a MS-DOS compatible and Windows telecommunications terminal, a computers. Many of them graphics , a music undoubtedly eventually wound up , a spreadsheet, or other in landfills. When I bought my first dedicated computing function. ever computer floppy drive, for my full circle magazine #166 43 contents ^ EVERYDAY UBUNTU CoCo 1, it cost $500. For reference, advocate or recommend it. In my again, I made less than $5 an hour personal case, I still own a Color at my full-time job at the time, so it Computer 2, so it’s conceivable that was a BIG investment. The floppy I thereby have a legitimate license drive controller also had a ROM to use the ROMs for it, even in chipset, that stored a very basic digitized format in an emulator. DOS (Disk Operating System) for the CoCo, to manage and catalog Consequently, I did a Google the contents of your floppy search and readily found the three diskettes. needed system ROMs, even finding them in versions specifically labeled FINDING THE (OR for use in XROAR. I downloaded them and saved them to my ROMS) Downloads directory under Home. into the desired firmware ROM had the same experience when They were in ZIP format, so I format of *.rom. perusing the readme files that were In order to get XROAR to work unzipped them after downloading installed by the Linux-specific correctly, we’re going to have to was complete. (The screenshots show me version to my local drive. Now find and install all three of the unzipping a particular piece of CoCo what? system ROMs, particularly since the There was a time when software, not a ROM file, but the DOS ROM required Extended Color unzipping files was something of a procedure is the same.) WHERE TO PUT THE Basic as a prerequisite. Without the chore in Linux, but these days, on FIRMWARE FILES ROMs, XROAR, or even a hardware modern distributions, you can just However, when unzipping the CoCo, does not know how to do double-click to get the Extract system ROM files, I now faced a Well, I hate to end on a anything at all. utility to open up: new challenge: after spending a not insubstantial amount of time cliffhanger, but it looks like I’m almost out of space this time... There is a caveat here, the Click the Extract button in the searching for and reading legality of using virtualized copies upper left, then navigate to the documentation on XROAR, I could of the system ROMs in an emulator desired location to unzip the files find absolutely NOTHING indicating may be questionable, so we can’t where to put the system ROMs so that XROAR could find and load them. I found documentation Richard 'Flash' Adams spent about online that was supposed to be 20 years in corporate IT. He in specifically for the Linux version of rural northwest Georgia, USA, with XROAR, but it invariably only had his adopted 'son', a cockatiel named Baby who now has a little brother, a firmware file location information dusky-headed conure named Skittles. for Windows or MacOS versions. I full circle magazine #166 44 contents ^ full circle magazine #166 45 contents ^ UUBBPPOORRTTSS DDEEVVIICCEESS Written by UBports Team

full circle magazine #166 46 contents ^ full circle magazine #166 47 contents ^ MMYY OOPPIINNIIOONN Written by Alan Ward LLiigghhtt && DDaarrkk TThheemmeess

hinking back, it seems quite dark themes on Apple’s hardware long hours of screen time can be menu bar better with the darker T strange to remember a time and software, both on the iPad and easier on the eyes. background color. However, when all computer screens I used a laptop. In all cases, I have run into document page and text colors do had light letters on a dark an issue with coherence. When Fine, so this problem can be need to be altered manually. The background. These include an using a dark theme, all menu solved by preferring dark themes -- end result is that with some work Apple ][, a Sinclair Spectrum+, and options and window decorations for web pages that offer the choice on the user’s part, the whole several versions of Microsoft OSes. usually are dark, as are window -- and by setting up your word “screen experience” converts fairly Most used shades of a green or backgrounds such as in a file processor to suit. Most can do so easily under most desktop amber in the foreground, with navigator. However, many web nowadays, and the likes of managers available under Ubuntu some very fancy equipment using pages come out with a white or LibreOffice offer to use a “System and its variants. This is an example shades of grey. On the front, light background, as do many word theme” that changes with the main with ’s Cinnamon. Note various versions of BSD, AIX and processors. The end result is large screen appearance. Loading that the only jarring note is our very System V all came with similarly areas of glaring white, which alternative application icons (try own FullCircle Magazine’s website, looking consoles, though with the defeats the main stated purpose of package libreoffice-style-breeze, which does not offer a dark mode. very first X-Windows terminals using a dark theme, which is that for instance) helps integrate the However, is it at all reasonable to came the lighter-colored demand it of each and every backgrounds, which continued over website? the next thirty years with Windows, Mac OS-X, and just about all Linux So, coming back to why I have desktop managers at some point or not been convinced by the recent another. So, as a user, I have trend towards dark themes, there become very used to running are two main reasons, both graphical applications with lighter- admittedly subjective in part. The colored backgrounds and widgets. first is that I find that light letters on a dark background work less This is not about to change. well for my eyes. This has to do with the fact that very fine lines in many This is not to say I have not fonts of the Serif family are less played around with the many visible in such conditions than when choices of dark theme for my usual using dark text on a light desktop managers, i.e. Plasma and background. The phenomenon is Cinnamon. I have even tried the well known by designers: when

full circle magazine #166 48 contents ^ MY OPINION drawing on a dark background, you Where I do have a tendency to change individual colors and to personal choice. I happen to find need to increase line width just so prefer dark themes is when using which types of screen element each myself firmly in the camp of white very slightly. In other words, if we older machines, specifically those color is applied. This means that screen, not black. But I am happy to were to exclusively use large Sans- with very bright, glaring screens even if one of the existing themes see that alternatives are available serif or monospaced lettering, a with lighting that is hard to adjust. rather suits a user’s liking, but does in most Ubuntu and derived dark theme with lighter letters On modern hardware, adjusting not quite achieve a perfect fit, distributions, and that people could work quite well. This may screen lighting levels is usually easy individual alterations can be made actually make use of them as each explain why developers that use enough to make a light theme very to fine-tune the theme. individual sees fit. Choosing a light mainly text editors or integrated workable for my (oldish) eyes. theme is fine, choosing a dark one development environments can get To my point: I happen to is fine as well, and choosing on very well with a dark theme, or Along a further line of thought, particularly like the default something completely different indeed prefer it. However, my own it must be said that many desktop theme, with a lighter may be even more interesting. It is workflow tends to combine quite a managers under Linux have plenty background for windows and only when some specific desktop lot of reading documents in PDF of configuration options. A lightish-colored elements, but managers or distributions take format -- where I have no option as distribution that has given me much darker window borders and title away some of the freedom of each to which font face is used -- with joy in this sense is Kubuntu and its bars. However, if I do wish to user to configure his/her desktop -- much text editing, where my own Plasma desktop, where not only can change any of its elements, this is here, I am specifically thinking of preference for long texts goes to the user choose a general theme just a couple of clicks away. elementary OS and Ubuntu Kyrin -- Serif fonts. In other words, I am among a selection of pre-existing that I become rather sad. But, even probably not within the target options (some created by the In a general sense, screen so, I am happy that these demographic for a dark theme. community at large), but can also appearance is mostly a question of distributions are out there, and that users who so prefer can choose The second reason for my them over other, perhaps more preference for light themes is that I flexible, offerings. In that, also, lies try to choose quality screens when user choice. buying hardware. Along with a nice keyboard, it is one of the two main criteria that I find important and am willing to spend money on. Again, this has surely a lot to do with personal preference, and, as such, Alan holds a PhD in Info and the is debatable. However, an objective Knowledge Soc., teaches engineering fact here is that modern computer at Escola Andorrana de Batxillerat, screens have better contrast and given GNU/Linux courses at the Uni have lighting levels that are easier of Andorra and taught systems admin at the OU of Catalonia. to adjust than previous models. full circle magazine #166 49 contents ^ HHOOWW--TTOO Written by Ronnie Tucker WWrriittee FFoorr FFuullll CCiirrccllee MMaaggaazziinnee

GUIDELINES • Images should be JPG, no wider REVIEWS than 800 pixels, and use low he single rule for an article is compression. T that it must somehow be GAMES/APPLICATIONS linked to Ubuntu or one of the • Do not use tables or any type of When reviewing games/applications please state clearly: many derivatives of Ubuntu bold or italic formatting. (Kubuntu, , , etc). • title of the game • who makes the game If you are writing a review, • is it free, or a paid download? ULES R please follow these guidelines : • where to get it from (give download/homepage URL) • is it Linux native, or did you use Wine? • There is no word limit for articles, • your marks out of five but be advised that long articles When you are ready to submit • a summary with positive and negative points may be split across several issues. your article please email it to: [email protected] • For advice, please refer to the HARDWARE Official Full Circle Style Guide: When reviewing hardware please state clearly: http://bit.ly/fcmwriting TRANSLATIONS • make and model of the hardware • Write your article in whichever If you would like to translate Full • what category would you put this hardware into? software you choose, I would Circle into your native language • any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware? recommend LibreOffice, but most please send an email to • easy to get the hardware working in Linux? importantly - PLEASE SPELL AND [email protected] and • did you have to use Windows drivers? GRAMMAR CHECK IT! we will either put you in touch with • marks out of five an existing team, or give you access • a summary with positive and negative points • In your article, please indicate to the raw text to translate from. where you would like a particular With a completed PDF, you will be image to be placed by indicating able to upload your file to the main You don't need to be an expert to write an the image name in a new paragraph Full Circle site. or by embedding the image in the article - write about the games, applications ODT (Open Office) document. and hardware that you use every day.

full circle magazine #166 50 contents ^ RREEVVIIEEWW Written by Adam Hunt UUbbuunnttuu WWeebb 2200..0044..11

udra Saraswat appears to be locations for downloads. R keeping busy during the Right now, there is not a lot of Chromebook users store their COVID-19 pandemic. He has not competition in the same market files on the cloud, using Google GETTING UBUNTU WEB only put out new releases of niche occupied by Chrome OS, but Drive, and get their word Ubuntu and UbuntuEd, but on is there actually a need for a processing, spreadsheet and slide I downloaded Ubuntu Web using 16 November, 2020, he released competitor? Saraswat noted that show presentation software online bit torrent. The file is 2.6 GB, which the first version of a new what sets Ubuntu Web apart from from Google Docs. It all means that is the same size as the regular distribution, Ubuntu Web. The Chrome OS is that it uses open Chromebook users are fairly Ubuntu 20.04.1 download. The India-based Ubuntu developer is source software, and that it is dependent on Google for services. folder comes with the .iso file and also known for the server-focused privacy focused. Chrome OS is an MD5 checksum, which I ran to Krob Linux distribution. Not a bad Linux-based, but uses Google’s Saraswat announced his make sure I had a good download. résumé for a developer who is Chrome browser as its main tool. intention to start a web-focused turning 12 years old in 2021. Chrome is based on the open distro based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS I used UNetbootin to write source Chromium browser project, on 22 July, 2020, and four months the .iso to a 4 GB USB drive, and Ubuntu Web is aimed directly at but it is , later the first release, 20.04.1, came tested it out in a series of live the same market niche as Chrome released under Google’s Terms of out. So far, the distro does not have sessions done over several days, OS, the operating system that ships Service. its own website, just two hosted running on my ten year old on Chromebooks. Like Chrome OS, System76 Pangolin Performance Ubuntu Web is a web-focused Linux laptop. It has 4 GB of RAM and an distribution that uses its browser in Intel Core i5-2410M dual core/four conjunction with cloud services to thread 2.30GHz CPU. get work done.

Chromebooks have been selling TESTING well during the pandemic, with over 30 million shipped in 2020, driven Ubuntu Web booted up from mostly by the need to get laptops the USB just fine and ran well on into the hands of school kids my old hardware. As all Ubuntu studying at home during the flavors now do, it performed an pandemic. automatic integrity check, which found one error. I rewrote the .iso file and the second time there were BACKGROUND full circle magazine #166 51 contents ^ REVIEW no errors, illustrating why it does bar. There is a web app installed for your system. Then search for 'Run a of the dock. This brings up an pay to let the check run, at least the the peer-to-peer DTube video file' in the application launcher, Ubuntu-like menu with two pages first time. service. There are also web apps for select the downloaded file, and of applications: “all” and webmail, a calculator, notes and file click 'OK'. After authentication, the “frequent”. The menu shows that With a good USB write this time, storage, all provided by /e/ cloud app will be successfully installed." there are some local applications it booted to the Ubuntu Web services. To access the latter, users Of course, instead of installing web installed, including Gnome Files desktop, presenting a rather Mac- will need an /e/ account. Saraswat is apps, any of these websites can be (Nautilus), Gparted, Gnome like interface, with a bottom dock planning better integration of accessed from the main Firefox Calculator, Document Scanner and an attractive starry night sky Ubuntu Web with /e/ services in the window and just bookmarked. (Simple Scan), Gnome archive over a dark sand dune wallpaper. As future. manager (File Roller), Run A File, with Saraswat’s other operating Another icon takes you to and the Gnome Screenshot tool. systems, there are lots of wallpaper Another dock icon takes you to Anbox, a system With Gnome Files, you can save and choices, and if you don’t like this the Open Web Store, a place to find that allows for the running of manage files locally, which is useful. one, Ubuntu Web has 36 others. By extra web apps. The offerings are Android apps. This is also a work in Using any of these local default, Ubuntu Web uses the few right now, but are expected to progress and may not work right in applications adds it to the Adapta GTK theme and the Papirus grow. So far, it offers YouTube, live sessions but should be "frequent" menu, so it can be found icon theme. and Opendesktop, operational when installed. quickly. among other options. Saraswat Since the aim is to provide free explains, "to install a wapp from the The main menu is accessed from There is no obvious way to do software, the default browser Open Web Store, download it to the logo button at the bottom left word processing, spreadsheets or supplied is Firefox. It can be opened slide shows, other than Google from the icon on the dock or the Docs, which kind of defeats the main menu, and works just like you purpose of not using Chrome OS. would expect it would. The only Perhaps these will come in the discrepancies noted were in video future, as on-line alternatives to playback. YouTube and Dtube Google Docs can be found. There is worked fine, but most other on-line also no obvious way of editing video was broken due to missing videos, audio files or photos, either , including in the Totem on-line or off. video player. Some applications are installed The dock provides a number of that are not shown on the menu. default “web apps”. In cellphone These include Gnome Text Editor fashion, these are Firefox instances (), Gnome Videos (Totem), and that open one specific web page the Gnome Image Viewer (Eye Of without browser chrome or a URL Gnome). These can be opened only full circle magazine #166 52 contents ^ REVIEW from Nautilus by clicking on an processing, Ubuntu Web 20.04.1 is who will probably view it as a if they get stolen, destroyed or lost, associated file, like a .txt file for really “beta” level software, ready crippled operating system. the user’s data is all in the cloud, so gedit, or from the command-line. for user testing, but not really for the school just gives the student a Yes, it is also good to know that everyday use quite yet. Hopefully Since Ubuntu Web is intended to new Chromebook, they sign into there is a terminal window available future versions will address these compete with Chrome OS, I think Google and they get right back to at ctrl+alt+t. deficiencies and make it work you have to look at who is using work. better. Chromebooks. Right now that There is no software store like seems to be primarily three groups The second group of Gnome Software or Synaptic to WHICH USERS? of people... Chromebook users are employees. install applications, but this can be Chromebooks, provided by their done from the command-line, using While running my tests on The recent Chromebook growth company, are especially useful for apt, of course. The Ubuntu Ubuntu Web, my constant thought is obviously in students who are traveling employees. The same repositories are accessible, which was, “which users would want this?” supplied with Chromebooks by reasons for their popularity in would make it easy to install their schools, supported by the schools apply here, too. It is LibreOffice, GIMP, or other Obviously most Linux desktop school IT department. possible that some small schools or productivity software. In fact, you users are used to fully functioning Chromebooks are attractive for this businesses might have some old could add applications and make it distros where you can edit a video, role because they are inexpensive, laptops that could be repurposed work just like Ubuntu, but that kind or create a spreadsheet or a slide especially when purchased in bulk, for these roles, by erasing their of defeats the whole purpose of a show. Ubuntu Web is not going to they are easy to provide support drives and installing Ubuntu Web web-based operating system. If you appeal to that average Linux user, for, have automatic updates and instead. want a fully-featured operating require minimal user training. Also, system then just install Ubuntu, or The third user case for one of the other Ubuntu flavors. Chromebooks is for people with low technical skills. Chromebooks I did try installing some have proven almost the ideal applications and they install and computer to give your grandmother run fine, although they don’t show so she can surf the quilting up in the menus which seem to be websites, use email and Facebook. restricted to the installed Their high degree of security and applications. They can be quickly malware resistance make them called up from the command-line, ideal for this level of user: they are though. hard to mess up. I think an excellent use for Ubuntu Web might be for Between the broken video users like this. If a tech-savvy codecs, the lack of apps, and lack of relative had an old laptop then it available services like word could have its drive blanked, full circle magazine #166 53 contents ^ REVIEW Ubuntu Web installed and given to Release notes: grandma, safe in the knowledge I don’t foresee many existing https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ that the potential risks are minimal. Linux users switching from their ubuntu-web-remix/19394 current favorite, fully-functioning CONCLUSIONS distro to Ubuntu Web, but it may Download http: have some niche user cases that http://linux.darkpenguin.net/ Ubuntu Web is an interesting make sense for school or work use, distros/ubuntu-unity/ubuntu-web/ project, but definitely not a or for that relative with low 20.04.1 mainstream Linux distro. Version computer skills who just needs a 20.04.1 is not quite ready for prime simple, safe computer for basic on- Download bit torrent: https://fosstorrents.com/ time, but hopefully it will gain line use. EXTERNAL LINKS enough feedback to make the next distributions/ubuntu-web/ version even better.

Adam Hunt started using Ubuntu in 2007 and has used Lubuntu since 2010. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in a house with no Windows.

full circle magazine #166 54 contents ^ RREEVVIIEEWW Written by Adam Hunt UUnneettbboooottiinn

hen I set out to do a review of applications designed to write ISOs Kovacs and released under a GPL which was how most Linux W a new release of an Ubuntu to USBs are available, including version 2 (or later) distributions were installed at that flavor, I download the ISO file, do a BalenaEtcher, Ventoy, and license. time. Back then, the Ubuntu SHA256 check on it, and then write MultibootUSB, but I decided to try couldn’t write it to a USB stick so it can be booted an old favorite, UNetbootin. I first used UNetbootin in Lubuntu (it can today), so up and tested. December 2010 to install Lubuntu UNetbootin was the answer and it BACKGROUND 10.10 on a netbook, one of those did the job perfectly. Normally, I use Ubuntu’s Startup mini-sized laptops that were Disk Creator to write the ISO to the UNetbootin, short for “Universal popular back then. In a way, UNetbootin can be used to USB. Startup Disk Creator comes Netboot Installer”, has been around netbooks were ahead of their time, install a large number of Linux and already installed on all the Ubuntu for a while; its first release was in not only small and light, they came BSD distributions, including rescue flavors, it is easy to use and April 2007. It is developed by Geza without a CD/DVD optical drive disks too. Only a single installation generally works fine on ISOs for can be written on each USB stick, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and though, as it does not support Xubuntu. multiple installations.

When I did my previous review Other than being able to write of 20.04 LTS, Startup many more Linux distributions than Disk Creator was able to write that the Startup Disk Creator, distribution, but I ran into an UNetbootin also leaves the USB impasse with Ubuntu Unity 20.10. stick in its native FAT32 format (File Startup Disk Creator would not Allocation Table, 32-bit). Startup accept the ISO file for writing. Disk Creator formats it in ISO format, meaning that to use it again My first attempt at a work- for general file use, the user must around was to use “dd” from the reformat the stick with Gparted or command-line. It sort of worked, as similar. it wrote Ubuntu Unity 20.10 to the stick, but it would not boot. I needed something better. GETTING UNETBOOTIN

These days, lots of free software UNetbootin used to be available

full circle magazine #166 55 contents ^ REVIEW in the Ubuntu repositories, making libgcc-s1, libqt4-network, needs to be formatted to FAT32, it very easy to install. Sadly, the libqtcore4, libqtgui4, libstdc++6, which is the way almost all USB UNetbootin gives progress package maintainer, Laszlo mtools, p7zip-full, , syslinux- drives come out-of-the-box. indications while writing, and then Boszormenyi, has not updated the common and . It will retrieve a completion screen when done. package, and the last version these on installation, if not already The Linux or BSD distribution From there, the stick will work the available is for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS there. can be chosen from a list at the top same as if it had been written with Xenial Xerus. of the interface in the Startup Disk Creator, up USING UNETBOOTIN “Distribution” section, and normally to run a live session or The good news is that Kovacs UNetbootin will actually go and used to install the operating has his own Personal Package Opening UNetbootin from the retrieve it. Alternatively, an ISO file system. Archive (PPA) on and system tools menu shows a really already downloaded to the user’s that makes it fairly easy to add the simple interface. It does look a bit local computer and designated To return to using the USB stick PPA and then install the application dated, though, like something from under “Diskimage” can be used. All for storing files, etc, just delete the on any Ubuntu flavor from a Windows 98. that remains is to select the USB files from the USB stick, as it will terminal with: stick, click “OK” and UNetbootin still be in FAT32 format. For writing, the target USB does the rest automatically. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gezakovacs/ppa CONCLUSIONS sudo apt-get update Despite the rather dated- sudo apt-get install looking interface, UNetbootin unetbootin works perfectly, allowing the writing of almost any Linux or BSD There are also installation distribution to a USB stick for packages in the repositories for testing or installation. It is a great several other Linux distributions example of the Unix philosophy: an including Arch, Debian, Fedora, application that does one thing and and SUSE Linux, plus does it well. Windows .exe and Mac .dmg files. There are also 32-bit and 64-bit binaries.bin files available, as well EXTERNAL LINKS as source code for compiling. Official website: For the Ubuntu installation, https://unetbootin.github.io/ UNetbootin is a small package, just 224 kB to download, although it has the following dependencies: libc6, full circle magazine #166 56 contents ^ If you would like to submit a letter for publication, compliment Join us on: or complaint, please email it to: [email protected]. LLEETTTTEERRSS PLEASE NOTE: some letters may be edited for space. facebook.com/ fullcirclemagazine

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full circle magazine #166 57 contents ^ If you have a Linux question, email it to: [email protected], QQ&&AA and Erik will answer them in a future issue. Please include as much Compiled by EriktheUnready information as you can about your query.

elcome back to another very confidently. They ask for a the interviewer. I have four you install “” when you set W edition of Questions and demonstration, and tell me the Wifi username / password up your Ubuntu machine, it allows Answers! In this section, we will name (probably expecting me to combinations. I smile. They do not. I you to recover files. See: https:// endeavour to answer your Ubuntu run up against some IDS). I ask if I did not get a reply from these vitux.com/how-to-recover-deleted- questions. Be sure to add details of can use the telephone. They say people, not even a “you were not files-in-ubuntu-through-testdisk/ the version of your operating yes. The telephone is marked ‘213’ successful”, oh well... This is the system and your hardware. I will try so I dial 201, and the receptionist same when Windows users come to to remove any personally answers. I ask for the extension for Linux. Why can’t I be admin? Why : What is the best way to identifiable strings from questions, finance. I dial finance and say quick can’t I install this program that Q monitor my cron jobs I set up? but it is best not to include things as a flash: “Hi, this is Mike from IT, hasn’t been updated since 2004? Sometimes they just don’t start and like serial numbers, UUID’s or IP whatever you do, DON’T log off!”. Linux has a different mindset when I realize this too late. My VPS is on addresses. If your question does Trying to sound panicky. “Why?” is it comes to security. BUT! Do not Digital Ocean. not appear immediately, it is just the reply. “I think we just stuffed rely on this. Be aware of what you because there is such a lot, and I do up, please tell the others not to log install. Go look at the Github page : Cron itself does not have them, first-come-first-served. off, turn off their computers, or now-and-then, see when last A anything I know of, but I can close their laptop lids”. I hear him someone updated the software. It point you to: https://cronitor.io/ complying - why not, call ID shows takes only one ‘low tech’ attack cron-job-monitoring while ago I applied for a ‘internal call’. “OK I say, let’s see if sometimes to defeat ‘high tech’. A position at a firm that we can restore access”. “Please specializes in IT security. At the spell your username precisely as it : Hei. I am new to Ubuntu. interview, I was told that they is, so I can create you again.” He : Perciv@l, [23.12.20 23:28]. Hi, Q Windows user for 11 years. I prefer a candidate with a university does. “OK. I say, the last password Q So I deleted a bunch of photos. just had enough with windows 10 degree. So I asked, “so you are you used, please, you can change it I think I may have deleted one I disconnecting my network card saying that you discriminate against once we are done.” I get the wanted to keep. How can I see a randomly when I am busiest, so I poor people?” Which in hindsight password. OK, please put me history of deleted files in Ubuntu? switched, but... I can’t drag icons to probably was not the thing to say, through to the next person so I can Perciv@l, [23.12.20 23:31]. How can my desktop? Is this normal? I am the but since I have no filter, it probably restore them too. Process repeats I get it back? only user. Googling this gives needed to be said. After they tell for all four members of Finance, conflicting information. Can you me about their state of the art including the Finance manager. (I : When an item is moved to explain why? systems and brag about their PhDs am wondering if I should repeat A , like other operating working for them, they ask if I think this stunt with marketing, but I systems, you can recover it from : The reason you are getting I can get into their system. I say yes, think it should be enough). I turn to there. Delete is delete. That said, if A conflicting information, is full circle magazine #166 58 contents ^ Q&A because Ubuntu comes in different : I cannot tell you that it is or is I just put it in a VM? something new. The thing with “flavours” - desktop environments – A not, I can only tell you to look if HDMI is that it is assumed that some allow you to do so, and some that card supports Access Point : Yes you can, but that may get when you use it, you will be using do not. I have not checked in with (AP) mode. Some of the really A tedious too, How about you the sound on the TV or monitor. the Gnome3 version in a while, but I cheap Chinese knock offs do not. If use W.I.N.E to run it? See: https:// Simply open your sound settings suspect that is what you have. The it does, it may be a driver issue on www.how2shout.com/linux/how-to- and choose your speakers or Gnome team has their own idea of the WiFi or Ethernet side. Simply install-itunes-on-linux-such-as- headphones as output device. how you should work, but you open a terminal and type: ubuntu-20-04-lts/ should know it is not the only out there. iw list |grep -i "Supported : I am a beginner to Ubuntu. I interface modes:" -A8 You could try Kubuntu, which : I have installed Ubuntu 20.04 Q have tried Fedora Core 2 some should feel more familiar Q on my wife’s old lenovo laptop years ago, but did not like it, so I Then look for “AP” in the output. (Windows-like), or just read up on with 4GB of memory and all went would like to learn more about If you have only one network the Ubuntu flavours and decide on well, but the internet speed seems Ubuntu. Any Ideas where I can go to interface though, you need third one you may like. horrible. What am I to do about it? feed my need? party software, see: https:// github.com/oblique/ : You have given me very little : You can find that information create_ap#internet-sharing-from- : I got a USB wifi adapter, cheap to go on, but I would say, in 2 seconds with a Google the-same-wifi-interface A A Q as chips, so I bought it from proprietary drivers. (You can also search, so I am going to assume you Cash Crusaders. My machine is swap out the network card for a want something more? Let me Ubuntu 20.04 with an Intel mobo more Linux friendly one). know. If I am wrong, just see here: : What would you suggest I use also second-hand, of which the https://itsfoss.com/best-ubuntu- Q to make a bootable Ubuntu USB ethernet port was blown before I books/ stick in windows, that I know will got it. Beggars can’t be choosers, so : OK, don’t shoot the dummy, work? I used it and it served me well. The Q but when I plug my laptop into wifi adapter just worked and it is my HD TV I lose sound. I would like : Balena Etcher. https:// great, but I wanted to use it as a to play my series on my TV while I : This is going to sound weird, www.balena.io/etcher/ hotspot. This is where my problems A work. I am still using Xubuntu 16.04 Q but I keep getting an error started. I have followed every as I am afraid of upgrading. I tried it “Timeout poll on interrupt tutorial I could lay my hands on, but with headphones and speakers, but endpoint” with SUSE and UBUNTU : Sibusiso, [25.01.21 09:04] The I can’t make it happen. Maybe I am the result is the same. Could you on my Raspberry PI 3B. I have Q only thing holding me back at not geeky enough, but I suspect it point me in the right direction searched and there is something the moment from having Ubuntu as may be because the original port please? like that on the BSD side of things. my daily driver is that I can’t use was blown. My error is precisely that -> https:// Itunes, so I dual boot. Swapping the : No you are not a dummy, see lists..org/pipermail/ whole time is getting tedious. Can’t A it as an opportunity to learn freebsd-arm/2018-September/ full circle magazine #166 59 contents ^ Q&A 018913.html, but there is no fix? : ‘tis but a scratch, as the black surface device, after seeing the ad. I A knight (John Cleese) said in am having endless issues with the : Not really, but a solution that : Remove all USB devices and Monty Python. Look at your touchscreen part of it. Now I am A sometimes works is to remove A boot, and put them back in spelling / typing, you just made a pulling my hair out in frustration. the Microsoft Teams folder under “./ once booted. typo. Gamil instead of Gmail. Should I just sell this off again config/Microsoft/” and try again. rather?

: Before I go all crazy, I was : I am trying to write a book in : The surface series is another Q wondering if it is at all possible Q my spare time and I do some A kettle of fish entirely. If I recall to install KDE develop in vanilla research on the internet when I am correctly, you need a special kernel. Ubuntu? Thanks. at McDonalds or other free wifi. I See the compatibility matrix here: find it painful to copy the webpage https://github.com/linux-surface/ : Yes, it is POSSIBLE (I am and paste it into LibreOffice on my linux-surface/wiki/Supported- A assuming you mean Gnome as Ubuntu 1804 laptop (I usually need Devices-and-Features#feature- vanilla), but I would not to read it later). Is there a better matrix recommend, as it will pull in a boat way? I don’t have an internet load of KDE dependencies. Though connection at home unless I use my these days the slowdowns are phone and that data is very : Please. I have this error and minimal, it is still there. Have you expensive. Q google solutions are not checked to see if you can find a helping. I have Ubuntu 18. E: Unable flatpak / Snap / Appimage? : I am not sure, but what I do to correct problems, you have held A when I need to save research, is broken packages (I can't fix it even to use Opera’s save webpage in Synaptic). : I apologize if my question is feature, which saves the whole Q basic, but my knowledge of page, as is, as a .mht file, that you : Before you go ahead and try Linux is limited. I installed Ubuntu can open at home with Opera and it A to fix the broken packages, I studio to mess around with making will look like the online one. You can suggest turning off all other music. I opened Firefox and tried to save them all in one folder as they repositories, except the main ones. go to Gmail, but it said that “You’ve do not have loose files like when Do an update and do a repair. It enabled HTTPS-Only Mode for you save it with other browsers. could be something like a PPA or enhanced security, and a HTTPS typo in a repository too. Erik has been in IT for 30+ years. He version of gamil.com is not has seen technology come and go. available.” Now I am too scared to : I bought a Microsoft Surface From repairing washing machine sized use the internet, have I been Q laptop second-hand and tried to : I tried Microsoft Teams in hard drives with multimeters and Q oscilloscopes, laying cable, to scaling pwned? install Ubuntu on it. It has always Ubuntu, but it keeps freezing. 3G towers, he's done it. been a fantasy of mine to own a Any idea? full circle magazine #166 60 contents ^ UUBBUUNNTTUU GGAAMMEESS Written by Erik CCyybbeerr SShhaaddooww

Website: played it and deleted it. This is consists of you (Shadow) waking up https://yachtclubgames.com/cyber- Don’t get me wrong, the pixel more of the same with more over- to a robot apocalypse. You don’t shadow/ art is great, I just feel that it is the-top “enemies” and “action”. *Le get to care about the characters or capable of more. The characters Sigh.... Some people say this is “one story line. There is nothing to pull Price: 19.99 USD (GOG / Steam), 10 and the background and cut-ins of the best ‘old-school platformers you in. If you are just out for the USD (Developer website) don’t gel. You have a mixture of 8- out there”, and I have to disagree. mayhem or button mashing, sure, bit and 16-bit, and four-color main Whilst the game is a definite throw- this is the game for you. Blurb: “In Cyber-Shadow, the world sprite and 16-color others. It’s the back to the old 8-bit Nintendo has been taken over by synthetic fake retro-visual styling that gets consoles, it feels too much like I have been told the game is like lifeforms. A desperate plea for help on my nerves, as everyone is doing someone decided to remake Ninja Gaiden, but I played that in sets Shadow on a journey to uncover it and doing it badly. (By this, I Metroid with Shinobi as the main the arcade and it does not feel like what started the path to perpetual mean, pick 8-bit, or 16-bit, and stick character. I mean the main that to me. See for yourself: https:// ruin. Slash through the techno to it.) Not even the pseudo- character does not even have a www.youtube.com/watch? hordes, leap past traps, and nimbly scanlines option makes me feel like name, he is simply Shadow, for v=n0OdA3HzW94 navigate the ruins of Mekacity. Only it belongs. Shovel Knight was, as far what it’s worth, my parakeet is you can unlock the secrets to your as I was concerned, mediocre. I named Shadow. The plot line Ok, back to this game. ‘Shadow’ clan’s ancient powers in Cyber Shadow, the quintessential Ninja Action game.”

k, the first thing that comes to O mind here is Shinobi, the arcade game, but on a Nintendo or Sega console back in 1990. How, with all our technology available to us today, could we make it better than the original like 20 years ago? Suppose, now we have our answer. What looks to me to be a blown-up version of a Gameboy advance game, may be just what you were looking for.

full circle magazine #166 61 contents ^ UBUNTU GAMES has a katana that will slice through There are temporary weapons for your special weapons or power-ups. for an action platformer like this. most robots and can run and jump you to use - they also keep the There are also side areas - that you like any other arcade platformer. game interesting. don’t have to play - but have a high The game is short, they say 8 However, he also has his Ninja risk / reward to tempt you with. hours, but you can extend your abilities that you will need to In the top left, you will see your That said, don’t expect a lot of game-play with “feats”, a carry-over complete each level. These are not character HP and SP. You know exploring, there isn’t much. The from shovel knight. available from the outset though, what HP is , but SP is what you use game is pretty linear (which is not a which is good, as it gives you that for specials, so you can’t just willy- BAD thing). The parallax scrolling After all that, I must say that this feeling of progression. On the nilly, say, deploy your shield forever. feels five levels deep and makes for game is definitely a step up from surface, the game-play looks So once you get your Shinobi stars some pretty stunning backgrounds. shovel knight. The developers are simple, but once you have more power-up, you will only have as without a doubt getting better as abilities, it becomes more tricky. many stars as you have SP, until you The soundtrack is good, (listen time goes by, and I will be keeping You run from one side of the screen pick up another monster drop. here: https://www.youtube.com/ my peepers peeled for their next to the other, killing anything that watch?v=9ilgDhgFErA) feeling all release. moves in your path. Where the The old-school throw-back orchestral and chiptune at the same game shines, is level design. Some means that you will probably fail time. Ambient, and moody, and Is it worth full price? No, but I of the levels are so tricky and well your first go at every level. It’s time right on dystopia. The level music is would definitely urge you to get it thought out, with varying obstacle to memorize level layouts and another kettle of fish, being upbeat on sale. types, that it does not get boring enemy patterns. Unlike old school and Yamaha chip-sounding (listen after the tenth minute or try. The games, where you start from the here: https://www.youtube.com/ levels themselves change it up too, beginning of the level, you have watch?v=nDuAj6kobCg) - just right sometimes you have to outrun checkpoints in this game. The something from the bottom or top, checkpoints also serve as mini- like levels filling with water or lava. marts, where you can buy some of

full circle magazine #166 62 contents ^ PPAATTRROONNSS

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HHOOWW TTOO CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTEE Editor - Ronnie Tucker [email protected] FCM#167 Webmaster - FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU! Deadline: [email protected] A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is no Sunday 07th Mar. 2021. exception. We need your opinions, desktops, stories, how-to's, reviews, Release: Editing & Proofreading and anything else you want to tell your fellow *buntu users. Send your Friday 26th Mar. 2021. articles to: [email protected] Mike Kennedy, Gord Campbell, Robert Orsino, Josh Hertel, Bert Jerred, Jim We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For help and advice please Dyer and Emily Gonyer see the Official Full Circle Style Guide: http://bit.ly/fcmwriting Our thanks go to Canonical, the many Send your comments or Linux experiences to: [email protected] translation teams around the world Hardware/software reviews should be sent to: [email protected] and Thorsten Wilms for the FCM logo. Questions for Q&A should go to: [email protected] Desktop screens should be emailed to: [email protected] ... or you can visit our site via: fullcirclemagazine.org Getting Full Circle Magazine: For the Full Circle Weekly News: EPUB Format - Most editions have a link to the epub file on You can keep up to date with the Weekly News using the RSS that issue's download page. If you have any problems with feed: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/feed/podcast the epub file, email: [email protected] Or, if you're out and about, you can get the Weekly News via Issuu - You can read Full Circle online via Issuu: Stitcher Radio (Android/iOS/web): http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine. Please share and rate http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=85347&refid=stpr FCM as it helps to spread the word about FCM and Ubuntu. and via TuneIn at: http://tunein.com/radio/Full-Circle-Weekly- News-p855064/

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full circle magazine #166 64 contents ^