Linux Magazine April 2024

Dear Reader, For some reason, I came across several stories this month on AI Girlfriend apps [1]. OK, I guess I know the reason: Valentine’s Day. (FYI: I write this column 1-2 months before you read it.) Programs that attempt to simulate an emotional connection with the user have been around for years, starting with the ELIZA mock therapist app, which was developed in the mid-1960s. But as you can imagine, these romantic chatbots have gotten much more realistic with the recent breakthroughs in generative AI. It is important to write about this new industry without appearing to judge. I personally prefer humans – and the fact that this statement sounds vaguely sardonic is not due to my intention but is merely a reflection of how strange this topic is.…

elementary OS 7.1 64-bit Elementary OS is one of the leading distributions focused on improving the user experience. It bills itself as “The thoughtful, capable, and ethical replacement for Windows and macOS” and release 7.1 is no exception. Specifically, one focus of elementary OS 7.1 is personalizing the graphical interface and making it more accessible. The Housekeeping app has added the option of deleting screenshots that are more than 30 days old, while the installer makes options for the vision-impaired more prominent. Similarly, the settings for Guest accounts have been made clearer, and Guest accounts are erased as soon as a guest logs out. Another focus in elementary OS 7.1 is security and privacy. The 7.1 release introduces the Background & Autostart Portal, which lists apps running in the background…

Fedora Unleashes Atomic Desktops With Silverblue continuing to rise in popularity, Fedora saw that the rpm-ostree had become a viable option. For those who don’t know, rpm-ostree is a hybrid image/package system that bundles all of the necessary components for a system configuration into a single commit that can be deployed across numerous devices. Atomic desktops solve a problem that will most likely become an issue in the future, as more spins arrive. Currently, Fedora Atomic Desktops is comprised of four atomic spins: Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, Fedora Sway Atomic, and Fedora Budgie Atomic. The problem is, as more and more spins come into being, it becomes more challenging to include other desktops without introducing more complexities and confusion. By adopting an atomic approach to these spins, it makes it…

How the Sausage Is Made During a power outage, if your Linux system is fed directly from the wall, it’s going to shut down right then and there. Normally the kernel goes through a sophisticated power-down operation whenever you turn it off to make sure all of your delicate hardware is handled properly. So, is it actually OK to simply cut the power like that? Not really. Oleksij Rempel recently pointed out that some hardware (such as disk drives) can experience data corruption when unceremoniously shut down, or in some cases break completely. He posted a patch to rank hardware in order of priority so that in the event of a sudden power loss, certain hardware (such as multimedia devices) might use those few fractions of a second to get…

Like other modern operating systems, Linux is multitasking, meaning that it can manage multiple running processes at the same time. With that great capability, though, comes great responsibility. Linux must ensure that no process can meddle with the memory used by another process. Historically, a vast number of security vulnerabilities were caused by malicious code being executed from a memory area that was intended for ordinary data storage only and not for executable code. The operating system also must ensure that enough memory is available for the needs of all running processes and must take steps to make memory available if there is not enough. All these responsibilities must be fulfilled as quickly as possible, or otherwise performance will suffer. Fortunately, Linux provides a way to manage the memory resources…

The increasing number of large nonprofit and commercial installations in the last couple of decades has made long term support (LTS) releases a fixture in Linux. Debian, often seen as one of the more community-based distributions, is not an exception to this trend. Debian LTS [1] – funded by Freexian, a service company founded by long-time Debian developer Raphaël Hertzog [2] – has become a large subproject, cooperating with the main Debian distribution but remaining semi-independent. Despite a number of Debian LTS contributors blogging regularly about their work, this project within a project has flown under the radar for years. Out of curiosity, I contacted Debian LTS to learn more. Answers to my questions were collected by Roberto C. Sánchez, the coordinator of the Debian LTS team, and Christopher Huhn…