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OpenSSF Membership Growth Signals Technical Communities ...  PR Newswire

In addition to Intel's Linux patches in recent days working on broad performance optimizations that can benefit all hardware there has also been some Intel-specific kernel improvements being worked on like the Sapphire Rapids C0.2 idle state support that was published for review on Monday. Also coming out from the covers on Monday was a new patch series for the "iaa_crypto" driver to improve the Linux support for Intel's In-Memory..

Flathub’s Got Big Plans for 2023  OMG! Ubuntu!

Dota 2 removes OpenGL support, new hero Muerta now live, big ...  GamingOnLinux

The GNOME Shell and Mutter release candidates ahead of this month's GNOME 44 desktop update are now available for testing...

With the Linux 6.3-rc1 kernel now out and that closing the Linux 6.3 merge window, the open-source Linux graphics driver developers are turning their attention to feature work they want to accomplish for Linux 6.4 this summer. Already the first drm-misc-next pull request has been submitted to DRM-Next with some of those early changes that will target the v6.4 kernel...

AMD's Suballocator Helper Gets Ready To Help Intel's New Xe ...  Phoronix

How to Use cat Command in Linux (with Examples)  Beebom

For those that happen to have an ASRock B75M-ITX in their collection or have just been looking for an old Intel Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge era system that can run the open-source Coreboot firmware, this mini-ITX desktop motherboard can run upstream Coreboot with the latest changes made this week...

Linux Operating System Market 2023 Highlights, Recent Trends ...  Digital Journal

Open Source Career Day at SCaLE 20x lufthans Tue, 03/07/2023 - 06:00

Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) has been a great place for careers in Open Source, and the Open Source Career Day (OSCD) is returning for SCaLE 20x on Sunday, March 12th.

For many years, SCaLE had a career and jobs Birds of a Feather (BoF) meeting one evening during SCaLE, and a physical job board throughout the conference. But in 2020, RaiseMe created its first Open Source Career Day.

This year at SCaLE, the career BoF team and RaiseMe are working together again to bring a full day of career activities for the Sunday schedule. There will also be a career BoF on Saturday evening. I'm the OSCD co-chair this year, but I'm not just a chair. I'm also a client. I found my current employer through the SCaLE job board.

Speed pitching

At the BoF, we plan to have Speed Pitching. Everyone gets a chance to practice their interview response to "tell us about yourself" several times during the BoF. It's an elevator pitch for you.

Sunday, we have 30-minute career consulting sessions from 11:30 to 14:30. Participants can ask for resumé review, recareering assistance, or career guidance. Signups are open now through SCaLE 20x. When signing up, please check all the times you can be available.

More open source career advice Open source cheat sheets Linux starter kit for developers 7 questions sysadmins should ask a potential employer before taking a job Resources for IT artchitects Cheat sheet: IT job interviews This year's career schedule

For presentations, we start the day with a recareering and resume writing clinic. Bryna is bringing us a follow up to a success story bridging OSCD for SCaLE 18x to this year.

Next, Miguel leads a panel on diversity successes in FLOSS projects and how we can learn from them for future successes in FLOSS and the workplace.

After lunch, Fatima is in from Canada to give us excellent strategies for early career success. There are lots of resources for getting that first job, and Fatima wants to help us have a good start once we get the early career job.

We’ll wrap up the presentations with a panel on hiring manager insights. The panel will discuss what hiring managers are looking for in job applicants and give career advancement advice.

Thanks to the diligence of the SCaLE organizers, we're getting headshots on Sunday as well. The photographer is available from 11:00 to 13:00.

OSCD's Sunday schedule wraps up before SCaLE 20x’s closing keynote from Ken Thompson.

Pasadena-bound

When registering for SCaLE, use code JOBS to get 50% off registration. See you in Pasadena!

Get help in finding employment in open source at SCaLE.

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Nitrux 2.7 Debuts a New ISO for Maui Shell and KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS Upgrade  It's FOSS News

Switch from iCloud to Nextcloud hej Tue, 03/07/2023 - 03:00

If you're wary of committing your data to cloud services controlled by a corporation but love the convenience of remote storage and easy web-based access, you're not alone. The cloud is popular because of what it can do. But the cloud doesn't have to be closed. Luckily, the open source Nextcloud project provides a personal and private cloud application suite.

It's easy to install and import data—including contacts, calendars, and photos. The real trick is getting your data from cloud providers like iCloud. In this article, I demonstrate the steps you need to take to migrate your digital life to Nextcloud.

Migrate your data to Nextcloud

As with Android devices, first you must transfer existing data from Apple's iCloud to Nextcloud. Then you can set up two new accounts for your Apple devices to fully automatically synchronize address books and appointments. Apple supports CalDAV for calendars and CardDAV for contacts, so you don't even need to install an extra app.

To export your address book, you can either open the Contacts app on your iPhone/iPad or log into iCloud in your web browser:

1. Select all address book entries you want to transfer to Nextcloud and choose File > Export > Export vCard to save a .vcf file on your local disk.

2. Import the .vcf file into Nextcloud. To do this, select the Contacts app, click Settings at the bottom left and select the Import contacts button. In the following dialogue window, click Select local file, and open the previously saved vCard.

To set up a CardDAV account on your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Contacts > Accounts > Add Account:

1. Select Other and then Add CardDAV account. In the Server field, enter the URL of Nextcloud (for example, https://nextcloudpi.local). Below this is space for the username and password of the Nextcloud account. Open the Advanced Settings for the new account.

2. Ensure the Use SSL option is enabled. The account URL is usually set correctly. It contains, amongst other things, the host name of your Nextcloud and your user name.

To create a new account on macOS for synchronizing address books, open the Contacts app and select Add Account from the Contacts menu. Activate the checkbox Other Contacts Account and click on Continue. You can accept the CardDAV entry. In the Account Type drop-down menu, select Manual entry.

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(Heike Jurzik, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Enter your Nextcloud user name, password, and server address. The current macOS version requires you to specify port 443 (for SSL) in the server address. For example, if the address of your Nextcloud is https://nextcloudpi.local and the username is hej, then enter the following in the field:

https://nextcloudpi.local:443/remote.php/dav/principals/users/hej

Syncing your calendars

Exporting your calendars works similarly. Through the Calendar app, you can do this with iCloud in the browser, on your smartphone/tablet, or the macOS desktop.

First, set the calendar to public. This doesn't mean that everyone can access your calendar. It's only used to generate a link for the calendar subscription. Copy the URL to the clipboard. It's not yet possible to import the calendar directly into Nextcloud because you don't need a link for this, but an .ics file (iCalendar). Here is how to generate such a file from the link:

1. Copy the link to the clipboard

2. Paste the link into the address bar of a web browser

3. Change the beginning of the URL and replace webcal with http

4. Press Enter and save the .ics file on your disk

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(Heike Jurzik, CC BY-SA 4.0)

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You can now import the .ics file. To do this, open the Calendar app in Nextcloud, click Calendar settings at the bottom left and then Import calendar. Select the .ics file you saved in the file manager.

Repeat this process for all iCloud calendars. After that, it's time to replace the old iCloud synchronization service.

Synchronizing events

To synchronize new events with Nextcloud, set up a new account on your client devices (smartphone, tablet, desktop):

• iPhone/iPad: Settings / Calendar / Accounts / Add Account, select Other and then choose Add CalDAV Account. In the Server field, enter your local Nextcloud URL, which is https://nextcloudpi.local. You can see a space for the username and password of the Nextcloud account.

• macOS: Open the Calendar app and select Add Account from the Calendar menu. Activate the checkbox Other CalDAV Account and click Continue. From the Account Type drop-down menu, select Manual entry. Enter your Nextcloud username and password as well as the Nextcloud server address. Don't forget to specify the port 443 (for SSL) in the server address; otherwise the account setup will fail.

Tip: If you want to synchronize other files like documents, photos, videos, and so on, in addition to your contacts and calendars, you can install the Nextcloud app offered in the App Store.

This article has been adapted from Heike Jurzik's book, Nextcloud on the Raspberry Pi.

Nextcloud is your very own open source cloud. Here's how to make the switch.

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10 ways Wikimedia does developer advocacy srish_aka_tux Tue, 03/07/2023 - 03:00

In a previous article, I wrote about Wikipedia’s rich history as a repository of open knowledge. Supporting Wikipedia as a platform ensures that the information it contains is available to everyone, but it’s a big job. In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the vastness of Wikipedia’s technology landscape and the technical community behind it. I’ll examine the role of developer advocacy in supporting the technical community through dedicated open source software mentoring programs and events, awards and ceremonies, grants and partnerships, a developer portal, and more. This helps us engage with volunteer developers using the technology behind Wikipedia and its sister projects. Through this article, you’ll understand what developer advocacy can look like for a nonprofit organization, and gather new ideas for building stronger developer communities.

Advocacy for Wikimedia Developers

Broadly, advocacy for developers means “being the voice of developers”. It’s about advocating for their needs and offering them the necessary support to be successful. This could be in the form of resources, helping build essential technical skills, and sharing ideas for projects and tasks where they can best contribute. Overall, it means enabling a healthy environment where they can be their best productive selves.

It is essentially taking them through the open source contributor funnel (users > contributors > maintainers), and supporting them in every phase. In the case of Wikimedia, developer advocacy is also about liaising between developers and the broader movement (staff and non-staff) and helping build relationships between the two.

A good return on investment (ROI) for developer advocacy in open source organizations like Wikimedia is based on a thriving technical community. We don’t sell or market to our developers. Many “developer-first” for-profit organizations rely on developers consuming their products or services as a primary market. At Wikipedia and in much of open source, a happy new contributor is one who makes contributions that bring significant impact to the technical ecosystem, feels a sense of identity and belonging within the community, and also ends up staying in the community. This is a paramount requirement for open source software projects like Wikipedia, and the project’s life depends on Developers and Developer Advocates working synchronously.

[ Also read 5 qualities of great open source developer advocates ]

This impact feeds into an improved experience for the Wikimedia editors using the software, which ultimately helps them contribute to the organization’s mission of developing free educational content for the world with increased activity and ease of use. Developer advocacy plays a crucial role in Wikimedia, so now I’ll address how that’s expressed through action. These approaches may be an inspiration for your own open source projects, and they may help sustain your project and your community.

Initiatives around developer advocacy

Wikimedia has a dedicated Technical Engagement team of 16 people. It’s heavily focused on advocacy work for developers and supporting the technical community. In addition, several initiatives are ongoing in the community around the world to help local developers and connect them with the global community. Though there are countless initiatives to engage volunteer developers in Wikimedia software projects, primarily in the last decade, this section looks at the ten most popular or currently active initiatives.

Open source outreach and mentoring programs

In the open source world, the Google Summer of Code (run by Google) and Outreachy (run by Software Freedom Conservancy) are two widely known outreach and mentoring programs that introduce open source software development to new contributors. Outreachy in particular encourages participation from individuals belonging to marginalized groups underrepresented in the global tech space, and aims to foster diversity in tech. Both programs have been operating for over fifteen years, in which many open source organizations participate.

Wikimedia participates in both programs every year and has onboarded hundreds of contributors to their projects through these internships. The majority of them are now part of software projects used by the broader community. There are also successful examples of participants turning into long-term contributors, maintainers of projects, and those who continue to make meaningful contributions to not just Wikimedia, but the broader open source communities, as well as playing leading roles in them.

Partnerships

Wikimedia’s community thrives on numerous partnerships with the outside world to unlock free knowledge. While resources and bandwidth of the technical contributors are limited, Wikimedia’s tech community welcomes new partnerships and has collaborated with several initiatives and projects that align with the organization’s mission. Over the years, such collaborations have been instrumental in expanding the contributor base, fostering innovation for a better world, and encouraging and promoting the use of its open source ecosystem.

An ongoing initiative is a partnership with Google.org’s fellowship for their Abstract Wikipedia project. Abstract Wikipedia makes it possible for people to share more knowledge in more languages by helping create language-independent articles with a new platform and a supportive community at a new top level Wikimedia project, Wikifunctions. Through this fellowship, nine Google employees are offering their pro-bono technical services to the project to speed up its development and growth.

In the past, there have also been efforts to foster collaborations with academia through organizations like POSSE. This provides universities and professors with professional development resources to encourage teaching with open source projects and engaging students in contributing to them.

Grants

Historically Wikimedia has funded several grants to its community members to support their work in amplifying the movement’s vision with their communities and mission-aligned organizations worldwide to promote knowledge equity and foster collaboration and cross-cultural exchange. There are different types and sizes of funding available. Typically in the technical landscape, grants are available for people to enhance the existing technology or develop new tools to support the Wikimedia projects, organize and participate in local technology meetups or Hackathons in their communities, and so on. A dedicated accelerator program called Unlock Accelerator also promotes open innovation for technology solutions and provides training throughout the program to help participants achieve their goals.

Community recognition

In open source organizations and projects, community members play a crucial role in shaping them. Volunteers join these communities for intrinsic motivation factors, and there aren’t any tangible benefits that are driving them. Despite this, recognition helps build a culture of appreciation, contributes to the community members’ well-being, gives them a sense of belonging, and can strengthen their commitment to the community’s mission. There are several initiatives in Wikimedia’s broader community, particularly in the technical community. A popular initiative called the Coolest Tool Award selects the top ten tools yearly, developed by volunteers. Nominations come from the community in various categories (newcomer, editor, developer, and so on). The award is unique, and is given in a typical wiki-style: The tool’s wiki page that has received an award is edited live and updated with an award template during the ceremony!

Other forms of recognition are giving swag, posting badges on talk pages, and sending thank you for edits made to a technical article using a wiki feature that community members often use to appreciate one another’s work.

Community capacity building

Wikimedia software developers come from all walks of life with diverse skill sets. Some are working professionals, some are university students, and some are working full-time with different chapters and user groups part of Wikimedia. They have varying learning needs and motivation to grow their skills. The capacity-building programs in the technical spaces focus primarily on volunteer developers at a beginner or intermediate level, regarding skills needed to contribute to specialized areas. They’re interested in contributing to Wikimedia’s core technical projects or improving existing technical workflows on their local wikis to meet specific use cases of the community. For instance, a contributor might be suited for help in administering the site, or dealing with vandalism, or configuring bots or user scripts, or something else.

Small wiki toolkits is a global initiative that focuses on building capacity among community members of smaller language wikis by running technical workshops on various topics, developing toolkits, and building a network of individuals from these communities so they can help each other. These efforts are aimed at enabling learners to gain essential skills and potential trainers to benefit from the resources and ultimately help grow content on their wikis. Several local initiatives operate with the same intention in communities worldwide. For example, developers in India run IndicTechCom, an initiative to address the local needs of editors in their communities by implementing technical solutions.

Technical support

Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem is massive. Every project follows its own set of contribution guidelines, norms, and channels for communication. As many Wikimedia technical projects and communities are decentralized, it can sometimes be overwhelming for people to look for ways to start, to approach fellow community members, and to even ask for technical support. Despite this, there are a few centralized systems that most projects rely on for various forms of collaboration, including:

• Phabricator for issue tracking
• Gerrit for code collaboration
• IRC channels
• Mailing lists and talk pages for project-related discussions
• Wikis for project documentation

These are the venues where staff and community members offer technical support and have co-established communication norms to interact with others and the broader community. For example, we suggest everyone communicate in the open whenever possible, to do prior research before asking a question, to use inclusive language, and to be patient while waiting for code reviews, and so on.

Platform and services

Platforms and services within the technical ecosystem act as a fuel for innovation and productivity for the work of thousands of developers. Wikimedia provides cloud services infrastructure at no cost to its developers to host, run, and maintain their tools with dedicated technical support through help of technical teams. This cloud infrastructure is built upon OpenStack and Kubernetes. We’ve had, as of this writing, about 1500 users leveraging these services.

The cloud engineers supporting this essential infrastructure keep the services running, ensure they are up to date with the latest technologies, and provide their best efforts to support the community.

Wikimedia makes its API and datasets available for public use for research and development. Developers can leverage the Wikimedia API to interact with the Wikimedia sites and obtain essential access to features to search, create and modify content. APIs have enabled Wikimedia and its third-party developers to build tools with compelling use cases, such as real-time visualization of edits made to Wikipedia and dashboards exploring gender diversity in Wikimedia projects. Big tech organizations rely heavily on these APIs. Amazon’s Alexa pulls information from Wikipedia. Facebook uses it to fight misinformation. Google uses it to improve search results.

A new project, “Wikimedia Enterprise,” makes commercial-grade APIs available to bigger commercial content users for consuming data at a large scale as a paid service.

Community metrics and health

Community metrics are crucial to understand and communicate developer contributions, the impact of the projects and programs targeted toward community, and its overall health. Wikimedia uses CHAOSS’s GrimoireLab analytics tool to track contributions and activities in various collaboration and communication venues. This gives insights such as how many issues are filed and resolved, how many changesets are submitted and reviewed, which project receives most contributions, which individuals and organizations contribute, and so on.

Often quantitative data gives birth to qualitative information gathering. It’s inspired research studies such as low retention rates of developers to understand their motivations for joining the project, why they choose to stay, what challenges they face, and why they leave. The tool allows writing custom queries to fetch various kinds of data. It is available to anyone in the community to obtain specific project metrics and analyze them as per their needs.

Our favorite resources about open source Git cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Open source alternatives Free online course: RHEL technical overview Check out more cheat sheets Hackathons and events

Though most of the work happens online, Wikimedia’s local and global communities meet through Hackathons and technical events for in-person collaboration, knowledge exchange, and getting to know each other. Global annual Hackathons take place twice a year and several local events throughout the year. During these events, people get together to hack on projects under a specific focus area and get feedback on their work in the form of code reviews from others and brainstorm on new ideas. Newcomers in the geographic area join in to understand how they can get involved. There are sessions and workshops oriented to teaching a specific skill and a final showcase in which they present what they have accomplished during the Hackathon.

For us, Hackathons have been some of the most successful developer advocacy-assisted activities for open source projects.

Developer resources

For a new developer trying to join a Wikimedia project, navigating through this giant and complex technical environment to understand where they might fit best can be quite challenging initially. Wikimedia’s recent developer portal ensures a smooth first interaction and experience with the community and brings all the resources under one roof. New and existing developers can use the portal to understand various technical areas and processes to contribute to numerous projects, browse them by programming languages and explore demo apps, discover and share tools, learn how to develop them, learn about the community, and so on.

Developer advocacy

Developer advocacy has emerged as a key field in tech in the last decade and evolved significantly, despite there being fewer resources around it and more so for open source projects than for-profit tech companies. I hope this article gives you a window into how one of the largest open source communities welcomes and supports its technical volunteers through various initiatives and new ideas to implement in your developer communities.

Are you interested in joining Wikimedia’s technical community? Explore the resources here and learn how to get involved: developer.wikimedia.org.

It's important to grow and nurture your open source community. Find out how Wikimedia does it.

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How to Use scp Command to Securely Transfer Files in Linux  Beebom

The post How to Manage Apache Server Using “Apache GUI” Tool first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .

Apache Web Server is one of the most popular HTTP servers on the Internet today, due to its open-source nature, rich modules, and features, and can run on almost major platforms and operating systems.

The post How to Manage Apache Server Using “Apache GUI” Tool first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides.

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