Open-source News

CentOS Stream Begins Seeing RHEL 8.3 Bits, Real-Time Repository

Phoronix - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 19:00
Introduced alongside CentOS 8 last year was CentOS Stream as a developer-focused, rolling-release of CentOS/RHEL. With those processes getting squared away and CentOS recently debuting its RHEL 8.2 rebuild, CentOS Stream is beginning to see new and interesting material...

GNU Guix Begins Publishing System Images Based On Hurd

Phoronix - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 18:55
Earlier this year was news of GNU Guix wanting to replace their Linux kernel usage with the Hurd microkernel. For those interested, the project recently began producing system images with indeed Hurd wired up for this software distribution...

Glibc-HWCAPS To Help With AMD Zen Optimizations, Other Per-CPU Performance Bits

Phoronix - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 16:00
Experimental patches under discussion for the GNU C Library (glibc) would make it easier to dynamically load optimized libraries (shared objects) on systems depending upon the CPU in use and its hardware capabilities. This glibc-hwcaps work stems from the desired work on being able to better leverage Linux performance optimizations on AMD Zen-based systems but the hardware capabilities patches themselves can help any CPU microarchitecture family in more easily shipping optimized support...

How to Secure and Harden OpenSSH Server

Tecmint - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 15:38
When it comes to accessing remote devices such as servers, routers, and switches, SSH protocol comes highly recommended given its ability to encrypt traffic and ward off anyone who might try to eavesdrop on

VR hits a new milestone, Mozilla's growing open source voice library, change in Redis maintainers, and more open source news

opensource.com - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 15:03

In this week’s edition of our open source news roundup, Mozilla updates its open source voice stack, a tool to tame VR cybersickness, and more open source news.

A new open source toolkit to prevent VR cybersickness

Researchers at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) announced the release of GingerVR last month. A UTSA blog post announcing the news called GingerVR the first open-source Unity software toolkit using proven techniques to help virtual reality (VR) users fight cybersickness. 


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Use systemd timers instead of cronjobs

opensource.com - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 15:02

I am in the process of converting my cron jobs to systemd timers. I have used timers for a few years, but usually, I learned just enough to perform the task I was working on. While doing research for this systemd series, I learned that systemd timers have some very interesting capabilities.


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Why I stick with xterm

opensource.com - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 15:01

What's my terminal of choice?

I use xterm. That's right, xterm. It may seem like an old school choice, and I do use GNOME 3 now as well, but after many years of trying some and ignoring others, then going back to old standbys, I find I don't need (or like) newer stuff like GNOME Terminal.

My philosophy: Start simple, improve over time, and aim for productivity.

Background and foreground

I start up xterm with this script:


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What you need to know about hash functions

opensource.com - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 15:00

There is a tool in the security practitioner's repertoire that's helpful for everyone to understand, regardless of what they do with computers: cryptographic hash functions. That may sound mysterious, technical, and maybe even boring, but I have a concise explanation of what hashes are and why they matter to you.


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Better Mouse Reporting For The Linux Virtual Terminal Is Being Worked On

Phoronix - Tue, 07/07/2020 - 12:02
The mouse reporting functionality offered by the Linux VT console is rather basic and seemingly seldom used by text-based, mouse-aware programs. However, a series of patches was sent out this week for improving the implementation to provide for more xterm-like mouse reporting...

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