Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i Linux Magazine

Dear Reader, The business universe changed a little during the pandemic, and the fact is, it hasn’t fully changed back. We’re in unfamiliar spaces – the working world is clearly not like it was in the past, but did we actually choose these spaces we’re in, or are we just here by default? Business leaders are considering these questions now as they contemplate a return from the work-from-home policies initiated during the pandemic years. According to a recent report in Business Insider [1], Amazon’s sweeping return to office mandate didn’t go as planned. Employees reported full parking lots and not enough desks, with employees working out of lunchrooms and needing to tie up meeting spaces for private phone calls. It is almost as if they had never done a head…

There Are Standards and Standards One of the most bizarre areas of kernel development lies in the relationship between the kernel and the compiler. Since the creation of Linux at the start of the 1990s, there have been wars fought between the developers of these two projects. In one such case, Linus Torvalds refused to recognize any GNU C Compiler (GCC) version after a certain date, on the grounds that later versions produced bad machine code. Relationships have become a lot less strained between the two projects since then. However, the question of mending fences does sometimes arise. And it’s not always clear whether a problem in the Linux kernel would be best solved by changing the kernel source code or changing the compiler source code. Sometimes the best answer…

The Raspberry Pi AI Kit [1] consists of two components: a generic M.2 HAT+, an adaptor board that lets you connect any two M.2 modules (e.g., for NVMe storage) to the Raspberry Pi 5 and therefore directly to the PCI bus, and a Hailo-8L AI accelerator, which could also be installed on any other computer with an M.2 interface. This entry-level AI chip achieves a performance of 13 TOPS, which is half the number of tera-operations per second that you’d get with the standard Hailo-8 model. As a first step, you need to assemble the system. Fit the four spacers, a GPIO extension connector, and a PCIe extension cable on the Raspberry Pi. Then slot the M.2 HAT+ onto the spacers and plug the ribbon cable into the connector on…

The gift of free software This column was inspired during the Christmas season. That season will have passed when this column reaches you, but the sentiment of gift giving lasts the whole year through. Over the course of 2024, there was a lot of focus given to income differences, with some people having a lot of money and some people having very little. One gift that can be given that is the same for both the mega rich and the not-so-wealthy is the gift of your time. More or less, people are granted a fixed length of time on this planet, and when that time is up we die. So every hour is a gift to give to someone which cannot be given again no matter how much money you…

#291/February 2025 Optimizing Linux All the classic Linux distros are optimized for some abstract “general purpose” use case that no one matches exactly. If you want to get better performance out of your system, you’ll need to tune it yourself. This month we study some steps for tweaking system and network performance. On the DVD: Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon Edition and EndeavourOS Neo #290/January 2025 LibreOffice Alternatives LibreOffice is the reigning king of the Linux desktop, but some users would rather explore the other offerings before opting for the perennial default office suite. We explore some of the leading contenders. On the DVD: Fedora 41 Live Workstation and Manjaro Xfce 24.1.1 #289/December 2024 Coding with AI Futurists predict a day when computers will write the computer programs. Are we there…

Linux Magazine is looking for authors to write articles on Linux and the tools of the Linux environment. We like articles on useful solutions that solve practical problems. The topic could be a desktop tool, a commandline utility, a network monitoring application, a homegrown script, or anything else with the potential to save a Linux user trouble and time. Our goal is to tell our readers stories they haven’t already heard, so we’re especially interested in original fixes and hacks, new tools, and useful applications that our readers might not know about. We also love articles on advanced uses for tools our readers do know about – stories that take a traditional application and put it to work in a novel or creative way. We are currently seeking articles on…

There are some great components for showing tables, gauges, and charts on Internet of Things (IoT) dashboards. For many applications these data widgets are all that you need – however, for industrial or process monitoring projects, it can be extremely helpful to add dynamic visual layouts of the equipment. Figure 1 is an example of a process automation screen that could be used for an industrial control system. Node-RED [1] is a powerful open source graphical programming tool that you can use for creating IoT logic scenarios and user dashboards. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and it’s an excellent tool for prototyping or building small system solutions. Typical Node-RED projects use the standard dashboard components, but it’s also possible to install an SVG widget that lets you show…

Controlling your Android from Linux opens up exciting possibilities. Perhaps you want to browse the Android directories for a file? Maybe you wish to view a video captured on the Android? Linux provides several useful tools for connecting Linux with an Android device. This article rounds up some of the favorites. In order to undertake these exercises, you’ll need: • a Linux box (I’m using Ubuntu 24.04, but any modern distro will do) • an Android device (I’m using my phone) • a USB cable • a fair Internet connection Android Debug Bridge (ADB) The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) connects your computer to an Android device for advanced access and functionality [1]. The debug bridge is a command-line tool you install on your Linux system that lets you install apps,…

Open and Shut Nothing breaks my heart more than to see an open source project go behind closed doors. This was the case for AI Dungeon in 2019. Based on OpenAI’s GPT-2, players can enter simulated worlds and input various text commands to interact with items and NPCs. It isn’t perfect – for instance, the cyberpunk adventure I played made it clear that cowering inside a bathroom wasn’t an option. Still, the game’s runaway success meant the developers decided to turn it into proprietary software. In this sense, AI Dungeon was a victim of its own success. The same can’t be said of the startup Embodied, Inc., who created Moxie, an emotional support robotic toy for children. The company recently announced it’s going out of business, and given that Moxie…

Users, developers, and vendors meet at Linux events around the world. We at Linux Magazine are proud to sponsor the Featured Events shown here. For other events near you, check our extensive events calendar online at https://www.linux-magazine.com/events. If you know of another Linux event you would like us to add to our calendar, please send a message with all the details to info@linux-magazine.com. FOSSASIA Summit 2025 Date: March 13-15, 2025 Location: Bangkok, Thailand Website: https://eventyay.com/e/4c0e0c27?code=linuxmagazine The FOSSASIA Summit is an annual event that has been at the forefront of open technologies for over 15 years, bringing together a global community of developers, innovators, enterprises, and educators. The 2025 edition will be a 3-day hybrid event offering in-person and online experiences CloudFest Date: March 17-20, 2025 Location: Europa-Park, Germany Website: https://registration.cloudfest.com/registration?code=CF25Linux CloudFest is…

Available Starting March 7 The best defense is to think like an attacker. Next month we focus on the methods the miscreants use to embedded malicious code in an everyday application. Also inside: • Embedding Other Languages in Bash• Gaming with Bazzite• Secure DNS with Unbound• Deep Art Effects• And much more! Please note: Articles could change before the next issue. BE THE FIRST TO SEE WHAT’S NEXT The Linux Magazine Preview is a monthly email newsletter that gives you a sneak peek at the next issue, including links to articles posted online. Sign up at: https://bit.ly/Linux-Update…

Plasma 6.3 Ready for Public Beta Testing Plasma 6.3 is ready for beta testing, and it has plenty to offer by way of new fea-tures and improvements over current offerings. According to the official blog post (https://blogs.kde.org/2025/01/11/this-week-in-plasma-final-plasma-6.3-fea-tures/) from the KDE team, there are updates to Bluedevil, Breeze, Breeze-gtk, Discover, DrKonqi, Flatpak permissions, and much more. After picking through the list, some of the more exciting changes include a new UI for cloning panels that could make it considerably easier to create the exact desktop UI you need; improved Do Not Disturb functionality; a new desk-top context menu entry, Show Target; more consistency with close buttons throughout Plasma; an improved look for desktop widgets (with them now being slightly translucent to give them a more modern look); and plenty of bug…

Somewhere down inside, Android is just another Linux, right? And Linux can talk to Linux. Can my smartphone and my Linux desktop make friends? You can imagine the scenarios where it would be useful to control your Android from a Linux computer. Troubleshooting? Screen sharing? File sharing? As with anything else in open source, if there is a need, there is probably a tool. In this month’s Linux Voice, we examine some applications that help you connect your Linux computer with an Android device. Also inside, we show you how to transfer data on a local network with LANDrop, and we introduce you to Piwigo, a tool for creating and organizing online photo galleries. ELVIE…