Open-source News

AMD Has A Bit More RDNA3 Graphics Driver Code Ready For Linux 5.20

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 21:00
While the cutoff of new feature work to queue in DRM-Next for the next kernel cycle usually ends around the "-rc6" time of the current cycle, AMD has submitted a few last minute items for Linux 5.20 ahead of its merge window opening next week...

Mesa 22.2 Is Ready With Broader Support For Intel Arc Graphics GPUs

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 18:20
Mesa 22.2 is about to be branched and enter its feature freeze while fortunately expanded Intel Arc Graphics DG2/Alchemist support has made it in time! Remaining DG2/Alchemist PCI IDs are now enabled for Mesa 22.2 and intended to function with Linux 5.20+ for Intel's forthcoming desktop graphics cards...

Increased Use Of Windows BitLocker Is Causing Headaches For Linux Dual Booting

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 18:00
Increase use of Windows BitLocker for full-disk encryption on Windows 10 and Windows 11 is causing more challenges by Linux distributions for supporting convenient dual boot functionality for those wishing to keep both Windows and Linux on the same systems...

Linux 5.20 To Help Ensure Intel CPUs With AMX Can Hit Their Lowest Power Idle States

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 17:43
In addition to new kernel code and updated firmware fixing a power management issue for Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" where C1 and C1E power states were mutually exclusive, another important Sapphire Rapids power management improvement is on the way with the upcoming Linux 5.20 kernel cycle...

Open-Source NVIDIA "Nouveau" Driver Refactors Some Display Code For Linux 5.20

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 17:12
While AMD and Intel are busy with big graphics driver changes for each new version of the Linux kernel, the open-source NVIDIA "Novueau" kernel driver that is largely just worked on by Red Hat employees is just stumbling along. NVIDIA in May announced they are transitioning to an open-source kernel driver approach, but that current kernel driver is not in shape for upstreaming and due to the heavy use of the GPU System Processor (GSP) that source release hasn't been a huge help yet for the reverse-engineered Nouveau driver. With the upcoming Linux 5.20, Nouveau has some display patches...

LLVM 15 Branched, Ends Feature Work Ahead Of September Release With AMD RDNA3 + MI300 Bits

Phoronix - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 17:00
LLVM 15.0 and its sub-projects like the Clang compiler are now under a feature freeze and branched from the main code-base ahead of the stable 15.0 release in September...

How I manage files from the Linux command line

opensource.com - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 15:00
How I manage files from the Linux command line Jim Hall Wed, 07/27/2022 - 03:00 1 reader likes this 1 reader likes this

Managing files in a graphical desktop like GNOME or KDE is an exercise in point-and-click. To move a file into a folder, you click and drag the icon to its new home. To remove a file, you drag it into the “Trash” icon. The graphical interface makes desktop computing easy to use.

But we don't always interact with Linux systems with a graphical interface. If you work on a server, you likely need to use the command line to get around. Even desktop users like me might prefer to interact with their system through a terminal and command line. I tend to rely on a few commands to manage my files from the command line:

List files with Linux ls

For anyone who uses the command line, you can't get far without seeing what's there. The ls command lists the contents of a directory. For example, to look at what's in a web server's document root in /var/www/html, you can type:

ls /var/www/html

Most of the time, I use ls to look at the directory I'm in. To do that, just type ls to list everything. For example, when I'm in the root directory of my web project, I might see this:

$ ls about fontawesome fonts index.php styles docs fontawesome.zip images prism

The ls command has about 60 command line options that can list files and directories in all kinds of ways. One useful option is -l to provide a long or detailed listing, including permissions, file size, and owner:

$ ls -l total 6252 drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 22 16:18 about drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 25 16:35 docs drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 7 00:00 fontawesome -rw-r--r--. 1 jhall jhall 6365962 Jun 2 16:26 fontawesome.zip drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 22 16:17 fonts drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 25 13:03 images -rw-rw-r--. 1 jhall jhall 327 Jun 22 16:38 index.php drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 22 16:18 prism drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4096 Jun 22 16:17 styles

File sizes are shown in bytes, which may not be useful if you are looking at very large files. To see file sizes in a format that is helpful to humans, add the -h or --human-readable option to print sizes with G for Gigabyte, M for Megabyte, and K for Kilobyte:

$ ls -l --human-readable total 6.2M drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 22 16:18 about drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 25 16:35 docs drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 7 00:00 fontawesome -rw-r--r--. 1 jhall jhall 6.1M Jun 2 16:26 fontawesome.zip drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 22 16:17 fonts drwxr-xr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 25 13:03 images -rw-rw-r--. 1 jhall jhall 327 Jun 22 16:38 index.php drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 22 16:18 prism drwxrwxr-x. 2 jhall jhall 4.0K Jun 22 16:17 styles

Rather than 6365962 for the file size, ls now displays the zip file as 6.1M or just over 6 MB in size.

View files with Linux cat, head, and tail

The next step after listing files is examining what each file contains. For that, I use a few commands. Starting with the docs directory on my web server:

$ ls docs chapter1.tex chapter4.tex chapter7.tex lorem.txt chapter2.tex chapter5.tex chapter8.tex readme.txt chapter3.tex chapter6.tex chapter9.tex workbook.tex

What are these files? Fortunately, this directory has a readme.txt file, which I might assume contains a description of the files in this project directory. If the file is not too long, I can view it using the cat command:

$ cat docs/readme.txt This is the workbook for the C programming self-paced video series. The main file is the workbook.tex file, which includes the other chapters.

If a file is very long, I can look at just the first few lines using the head command. This displays a certain number of lines from the file, usually the first 10 lines unless you tell head otherwise with the -n or --lines option. For example, these two versions of the head command examine the first three lines of the lorem.txt file:

$ head -n 3 docs/lorem.txt Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam at ligula eget nunc feugiat pharetra. Nullam nec vulputate augue. Suspendisse tincidunt aliquet $ head --lines=3 docs/lorem.txt Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam at ligula eget nunc feugiat pharetra. Nullam nec vulputate augue. Suspendisse tincidunt aliquet

If I instead wanted to see the last few lines of a file, I can use the tail command in the same way. Again, these two tail commands each show the last three lines of the lorem.txt file:

$ tail -n 3 docs/lorem.txt egestas sodales. Vivamus tincidunt ex sed tellus tincidunt varius. Nunc commodo volutpat risus, vitae luctus lacus malesuada tempor. Nulla facilisi. $ tail --lines=3 docs/lorem.txt egestas sodales. Vivamus tincidunt ex sed tellus tincidunt varius. Nunc commodo volutpat risus, vitae luctus lacus malesuada tempor. Nulla facilisi.

Using head and tail are also useful when examining log files on a server. I have a small web server I run on my at-home network to test websites before I make them live. I recently discovered that the web server's log is quite long, and I wondered how old it was. Using head, I printed just the first line to see that the log file was created in December 2020:

$ ls -l --human-readable /var/log/httpd total 13M -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 13M Jun 25 16:23 access_log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 45K Jun 2 00:00 error_log $ sudo head -n 1 /var/log/httpd/access_log 10.0.0.177 - - [05/Dec/2020:14:58:35 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 403 5564 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.88 Safari/537.36"

More Linux resources Linux commands cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Free online course: RHEL technical overview Linux networking cheat sheet SELinux cheat sheet Linux common commands cheat sheet What are Linux containers? Our latest Linux articles

[ Related read: Getting started with the Linux cat command ]

Delete files with Linux rm

In my directory with the sample text files, the lorem.txt file contains Lorem Ipsum text. This is just dummy text used in the printing industry, so the lorem.txt file doesn't really belong in this project. Let's delete it. The rm command removes a file like this:

$ ls docs chapter1.tex chapter4.tex chapter7.tex lorem.txt chapter2.tex chapter5.tex chapter8.tex readme.txt chapter3.tex chapter6.tex chapter9.tex workbook.tex $ rm docs/lorem.txt $ ls docs chapter1.tex chapter4.tex chapter7.tex readme.txt chapter2.tex chapter5.tex chapter8.tex workbook.tex chapter3.tex chapter6.tex chapter9.tex

The rm command is dangerous, because it removes a file without the intervention of a trash or recycle bin. It's much safer to install a trash command, such as trashy or trash-cli. Then you can send files to a staging area before deleting them forever:

$ rm docs/lorem.txt

Managing files on the command line requires only a few commands. The ls command lists the contents of a directory, and cat, head and tail show the contents of files. Use rm or a safe "trash" command to remove files you don't need. These five commands will help you manage your files on any Linux system. To learn more, including the options available, use the --help option to see a summary of how to use each command, such as ls --help to see how to use the ls command.

If you prefer to interact with your system through the terminal, check out my favorite Linux commands for managing files.

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My honest review of the HP Dev One

opensource.com - Wed, 07/27/2022 - 15:00
My honest review of the HP Dev One Anderson Silva Wed, 07/27/2022 - 03:00 1 reader likes this 1 reader likes this

A few weeks ago, HP joined the bandwagon of major laptop manufacturers releasing a Linux-based laptop, the HP Dev One. The brand joins others such as Lenovo and Dell, offering a laptop with a pre-installed distribution of Linux in the US market. HP joined forces with smaller Linux-based laptop brand System76 to pre-install Pop!_OS as their distribution of choice on the device. Pop!_OS is a Ubuntu-based distribution, which System76 started (and is currently the primary maintainer) to maximize the features of its own laptops sold on its website.

This article is a quick look at the HP Dev One, including first impressions of the hardware itself and running the pre-installed Pop!_OS and then Fedora on it after a few days. It is not about comparing them, just a few notes on how well they did on the HP Dev One.

HP Dev One hardware

I haven’t owned an HP laptop in over a decade. I don’t even remember why I distanced myself from the brand, but somehow it just happened. So, when I read about the HP Dev One, several things sparked my interest. Here’s a list of them. Some may be silly or nit-picking, but they still carried some weight in my decision:

  • The most obvious reason was it came with Linux and not Windows.
  • I have never used Pop!_OS, so the fact that HP chose Pop!_OS made me curious to use it.
  • I have never owned an AMD-based laptop. The HP Dev One comes with an AMD RYZEN™ 7 PRO 5850U Processor with eight cores and 16 threads.
  • The specs versus price seemed good. The price is $1099 USD, which is very reasonable compared to other brands with similar specs.
  • No Windows key on the keyboard. Instead, it says “super,” which I think is cool.
  • Upgradeable RAM. The laptop comes with 16 GB of RAM, but unlike so many laptops nowadays, it is not soldered on the board, so you can upgrade it (more on upgrading below).
  • The laptop was in stock with a commitment for fast shipping.
  • Reviews were favorable.

For all of the reasons above, I ordered it, and two days later, I had the HP Dev One on my doorstep.

Image by:

(Anderson Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0)

By the time the laptop arrived, the extra 64 GB of RAM I had ordered had also arrived, so the first thing I wanted to do was upgrade the RAM. It turned out that the bottom plate of the HP Dev One has very small, special (yet not proprietary) screws, so I had to run to the hardware store to get the proper screwdriver.

Image by:

(Anderson Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0)

I agree with other online reviews regarding the quality of the laptop. It does feel sturdy. The trackpad feel is good enough, and I had no issue with it. I found the keyboard not to be as good as some other reviewers claim. To me, the keys are a little heavy, and they feel almost a bit like silicone or rubber. I didn't find it terribly comfortable. In fact, I am typing this article in the HP Dev One, and I almost feel like I need to take a break here and there to let my fingertips rest.

The 1080p screen is bright, but also very reflective. If you are a Thinkpad trackpoint fan, you will definitely enjoy this feature on the HP Dev One. The backlit keyboard is nice, and the built-in camera cover is something more laptops should adopt.

Image by:

(Anderson Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0)

One question or possible issue I have with the HP Dev One is the fact that their website talks about the one-year customer service and warranty on the machine, but I haven’t been able to find a way to extend that warranty or even upgrade to something more premium like an onsite or next day part replacement in case I were ever to need it.

More Linux resources Linux commands cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Free online course: RHEL technical overview Linux networking cheat sheet SELinux cheat sheet Linux common commands cheat sheet What are Linux containers? Our latest Linux articles Pop!_OS on HP Dev One

As previously mentioned, I’ve never used Pop!_OS. I’ve used Ubuntu and many other distributions, but to me, Pop!_OS was a relatively familiar yet new experience. Here are a few notes:

The good
  • Coming from a Fedora and mostly vanilla GNOME background, the four-finger gesture in Pop!_OS took a little getting used to, but once I got into it, it made navigating their implementation of GNOME borderline fun.
  • The Pop!_OS’s software shop is called Pop!_Shop. It contains a great variety of software without any need to enable special repositories. It is easy to use, and installation is fast.
  • The integration between Pop!_OS and the hardware really is well done. Congratulations to both System76 and HP engineers for putting this machine together.
  • Pop!_OS has a nice built-in feature for backup and restoring your installation w/o destroying your home directory.
  • I installed Steam and a few games, and it worked pretty well.
  • I ran a couple of test containers with podman, and it worked very nicely as well.
  • I installed a virtual machine, and it ran very smoothly, too.
The not so good
  • The default wallpaper that comes with the HP Dev One looks a bit fuzzy to me. For such a nice machine, it feels like the wallpaper is running at the wrong resolution. To be fair, there are other wallpapers to choose from in the Settings.
  • The out-of-the-box fonts for Pop!_OS could be better. I find them hard to read, and in my opinion, it makes the UI too crammed.
  • Adding the USB-C powered 4K monitor worked OK, but my eyes noticed slight flickering in some parts of the screen. Could this be an X11 issue, given that Pop!_OS defaults to X11?
Fedora on HP Dev One

I played around with Pop!_OS for about two days before deciding to boot into Fedora using a live USB media. I did that first to see what type of hardware detection Fedora could do out of the box. To my surprise, everything worked right away. That’s when I decided to wipe the entire 1 TB SSD and install Fedora on the HP Dev One. As promised, this is not a Fedora vs. Pop!_OS comparison article; it is merely a few notes on both distributions running on this Linux-focused hardware.

In case you haven’t read my bio in this article, and for the sake of transparency, I am a Fedora contributor, so it is fair for me to say that I am biased towards the Fedora distribution, but don’t let that make you think I recommend Fedora over Pop!_OS on the HP Dev One. They are both great distributions, and they both run very nicely on it. Take your pick!

I can tell you that Fedora runs smoothly on the HP Dev One, and although there may be some performance tuning to match some of the benchmark numbers against Pop!_OS, I have been very pleased with its performance. Using the three-finger gestures to move between virtual desktops is a lot more natural to me than the four-finger ones in Pop!_OS, and I’ve been able to run Steam and Proton-based games on Fedora just like Pop!_OS.

The only comparison I will make is that when using the secondary USB-C 4K monitor with Fedora, I did not experience any flickering. Was it because of Wayland?

Final thoughts

I’ve had the HP Dev One for a little over four days now, and I’ve run Pop!_OS and Fedora on it so far. I even restored Pop!_OS after a full Fedora installation, which was a very easy process. Somehow, Pop!_OS detected it was an HP Dev One and did all the needed installation, including the HP-based wallpapers, without me having to do any extra steps.

As I finished this article, yet again, I went back to Fedora (force of habit), but I wouldn’t have any issue staying on Pop!_OS on the HP Dev One. Who knows, maybe I might even try different distributions in the future.

At the end of the day, the HP Dev One is a solid Linux laptop without a Windows key and no AMD, Intel, or Windows stickers on it. It is fast, feels well built, and is reasonably priced especially given how quickly it ships to you (US only). I would love to see HP provide more documentation on their website about extending the warranty, and I hope they will be able to make this laptop available in other parts of the world.

Here are my first impressions of the hardware, running the pre-installed Pop!_OS, and running Fedora on HP's new Linux-based laptop.

Image by:

Opensource.com

Hardware Linux What to read next Unboxing the latest Linux laptop from System76 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.

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