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In 2019, is there anything that the mighty, $35, credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computer can't do?

If you work with Git as your version control system, you've likely already resigned yourself to the fact that Git is a complicated beast. It is a fantastic tool, but it can be cumbersome to navigate Git repositories. That's where a tool like Tig comes in.

From the Tig man page:

While I'm of two minds when it comes to smartphones and tablets, I have to admit they can be useful. Not just for keeping in touch with people or using the web but also to do some work when I'm away from my computer.

For me, that work is writing—articles, blog posts, essays for my weekly letter, e-book chapters, and more. I've tried many (probably too many!) writing apps for Android over the years. Some of them were good. Others fell flat.

Last year, I decided to try out Endless OS, a lightweight, Linux-based operating system developed to power inexpensive computers for developing markets. I wrote about installing and setting it up. Endless OS is unique because it uses a read-only root file system managed by OSTree and Flatpak, but the Endless company is unique for its approach to education.

A new season of the podcast Command Line Heroes launched today. I've grown to enjoy this series for both its deep storytelling and its excellent host, Saron Yitbarek. They also dive into fantastic themes, and this year is all about programming languages. 

There are plenty of Linux distributions out there to choose from when you're deciding what to run on a daily basis, yet some are so small that they get little notice. But tiny Linux distributions are powerful innovations: having an entire operating system drive a computer with less than 1GB of storage and half as much RAM is the ultimate software hack.

Tiny distros have many uses, such as:

If traditional planning is dead, then why do so many organizations still invest in planning techniques optimized for the Industrial Revolution?

One reason might be that we trick ourselves into thinking innovation is the kind of thing we can accomplish with a structured, linear process. When we do this, I think we're confusing our stories about innovation with the process of innovation itself—and the two are very different.

Password security involves a broad set of practices, and not all of them are appropriate or possible for everyone. Therefore, the best strategy is to develop a threat model by thinking through your most significant risks—who and what you are protecting against—then model your security approach on the activities that are most effective against those specific threats. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a great series on threat modeling that I encourage everyone to read.

Do you have a summer goal? Do longer days allow you to finally carve out time to work on a certain passion project? Will you be spending time AFK (away from keyboard) to enjoy no-code hobbies or volunteer? Are you traveling to any conferences or taking a family vacation? If you're still looking for inspiration, read what our writers had to say:

"Getting some sleep. :-)" —Mike Bursell

"Learning Python and coming up with cool ways I can use it to support ChickTech Austin." —Nicole Baratta

"Finishing up an electric motorcycle conversion." —DJ Delorie

The latest version of the Raspberry Pi—Raspberry Pi 4—was released today, earlier than anticipated, featuring a new 1.5GHz Arm chip and VideoCore GPU with some brand new additions: dual-HDMI 4K display output; USB3 ports; Gigabit Ethernet; and multiple RAM options up to 4GB.

In this edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look Cloudflare's open source random number generator, more open source robotics data, new npm functionality, and more!

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I wrote recently that "GogglesMM has been one of my favorite players for quite some time now." So, when I was thinking about interviewing developers who build and maintain open source music players, Sander Jansen came quickly to mind.

Sysadmins, site reliability engineers (SREs), and cloud operators all too often struggle to feel confident in their infrastructure as it scales up. Also too often, they think the only way to solve their challenges is to write a tool for in-house use. Fortunately, there are options. There are many open source tools available to test an infrastructure's performance. Here are my favorites.

In the world of free software, many people speak English: It is the one language. English helps us cross borders to meet others. However, this language is also a barrier for the majority of people.

Some master it while others don't. Complex English terms are, in general, a barrier to the understanding and propagation of knowledge. Whenever you use an uncommon English word, ask yourself about your real mastery of what you are explaining, and the unintentional barriers you build in the process.

Containers have shifted the way we think about virtualization. You may remember the days (or you may still be living them) when a virtual machine was the full stack, from virtualized BIOS, operating system, and kernel up to each virtualized network interface controller (NIC). You logged into the virtual box just as you would your own workstation. It was a very direct and simple analogy.

The first article in this series introduced hashes, encryption/decryption, digital signatures, and digital certificates through the OpenSSL libraries and command-line utilities. This second article drills down into the details. Let’s begin with hashes, which are ubiquitous in computing, and consider what makes a hash function cryptographic.

Here at Codethink, we’ve recently focused our energy into enhancing the onboarding process we use for all new starters at the company. As we grow steadily in size, it’s important that we have a well-defined approach to both welcoming new employees into the company, and introducing them to the organization’s culture.

This article is the first of two on cryptography basics using OpenSSL, a production-grade library and toolkit popular on Linux and other systems. (To install the most recent version of OpenSSL, see here.) OpenSSL utilities are available at the command line, and programs can call functions from the OpenSSL libraries. The sample program for this article is in C, the source language for the OpenSSL libraries.

Like many other leaders in the open source software world, Naomi Ceder, board chair of the Python Software Foundation (PSF), took a non-traditional path into the Python world. As the title of her 2017 keynote at PyCon España explains, she came for the language and stayed for the community.