Late Night Linux

Rooting Amazon Echo devices to use with your own open source software, a remote desktop solution to watch for the future, the state of tech magazines and why Linux ones are among the last remaining, another Pocket alternative, making shell scripts look prettier, a novel approach to IT training, and more.   Discoveries Echo Root Kyber The End of Computer Magazines in America   Feedback li...

Rare praise for Mozilla as more extensions come to Firefox on Android, Fedora is coming to Arm Macs, a rolling version of “Ubuntu” appears, an unwise solution to the problem of funding open source, SUSE might be the baddies, LXD is forked, and more. With guest host popey from Linux Matters .   News 2.5 Admins is now part of the Late Night Linux Family. Support us on Patreon Rest i...

Great news for Linux on RISC-V and open source Nvidia drivers, communicating with devices over serial the easy way, emulating an old calculator, a fully open source flight combat game, a new approach to caching files on your LAN, and an RSS reader for the terminal.   News riscv64 is now an official Debian architecture Building Debian For RISC-V Currently Relies Upon Nine HiFive Unmatched Boar...

We celebrate Slackware’s 30th birthday by trying it out and basking in its classic glory. Plus the BBC joins Mastodon, Google has dystopian plans for the web, the LXD drama rumbles on, and KDE takes a leaf out of GNOME’s book.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes.   News Slackware turns 30 The BBC on Mastodon: experimenting with di...

A simple GUI for browsing SQLite databases, a terminal IRC client, some great Python resources, a clone of Task Manager for Linux, decoding data from random satellites, and a slick Mastodon client.   Discoveries SQLite Browser WeeChat 4 David Beazley’s Python Courses Dive Into Systems Mission Center SatDump Decoding BW-3 Scott Tilley on Twitter Ebou Ebou GitHub         Kol...

Canonical takes control of LXD and it’s a little bit messy, Fedora might implement opt-out telemetry, and Félim sneaks in a mini KDE Korner. Plus more fallout from the RHEL source code restriction drama including surprising moves from SUSE and Oracle, and a sensible submissive solution from Alma.   News Monica Madon’s Mastodon and LinkedIn Ubuntu Maker Canonical Pulls In Control O...

Will finds a domain registrar with a terrible name, Graham baffles us with 3D graphics, Félim discovers hidden python tools, and Joe does some maths to reveal how many Linux users there are on Steam. Plus bulletin boards, free hot water, music from /dev/urandom, and more.   Discoveries Python tools hidden in the Std Lib Blender 3.6 LTS Accurate dinosaurs edited with blender Qodem Telnet BBS G...

There’s only one news story this week, and it’s a big one. Red Hat dropped a bombshell on the RHEL rebuild communities by announcing that they will restrict source code releases to paying customers only.   Furthering the evolution of CentOS Stream Red Hat’s commitment to open source: A response to the git.centos.org changes Keeping Open Source Open Red Hat’s new source code policy...

The pros and cons of working on open source software, streaming your Android screen to desktop Linux, a Hacker News alternative, stabilizing video, an ESP32-based open hardware watch, a ludicrously expensive router, quickly cropping and rotating videos, Joe and Félim troll each other, and more.   Discoveries  Scrcpy lobste.rs Watchy  Turris Omnia Footage chatGPT-shell-cli      ...

A victory against the dystopian nightmare of facial recognition, Reddit drama might be good news long term, Google kills yet another service so muckyjpegs.com needs a new home, great KDE news, and more.   News Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: May 2023 Progress Report What Reddi...

A great way to access documentation offline, moving Windows installations to new disks without breaking them, streaming VR games from a PC, replacing Pocket with a proper open source solution, living with Google’s flagship phone for a few months, and more.   Discoveries Zeal Clonezilla Wallabag ALVR: Stream VR games from your PC to your headset via Wi-Fi       TrueNAS fro...

The future of containerised applications and immutable desktops looks more and more like the present, what looks like the Steam Deck moment for audio production, open source voice assistants suddenly seem possible, and more.   News Check out Ask The Hosts . Episode 1 is available on Patreon . Ubuntu Plans to Switch CUPS Printing Stack to Snap All-Snap Ubuntu Desktop Will Be Available Next Yea...

What we’re excited about in the Linux and FOSS world, what we’re worried about, and what we can do about it. From the upcoming Plasma release to getting more young people involved. Plus what a long-standing bug with Snaps shows us about the open source ecosystem.         Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhe...

Graphing pings in the terminal, streaming playstation games to your Linux machine, finding secrets and sensitive information in your repos, keeping your FOSS Android apps bang up to date, whether programming students should be using Linux, and loads more.   Discoveries  gping Chiaki image stabilised Apollo 15 Apollo 11 VR HD on Steam The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide Nosey Parker Joe&...

Thunderbird shows that asking users for money works, Red Hat’s priorities seem to be moving away from the community, Mozilla is set to show the Fediverse how it’s done, Mastodon simplifies its onboarding experience, Linux is better than Windows on handhelds, Roblox stops working for us, a peek at the upcoming Plasma 6 release, and more.   News Thunderbird Is Thriving: Our 2022 Fin...

We come up with tips for new users, and realise how complicated a lot of the things we do with Linux are. Plus emulating a Wii U, a cheeky hack for virtualising Linux on M1 Macs, more on DNS and Yubikeys, and more.   Discoveries CEMU       TrueNAS from iXsystems To learn more about TrueNAS and download it for free, visit truenas.com/lnl   Linode Simplify your cloud infrast...

How and why the Free Software Foundation should be reformed, checking your Python code incredibly quickly, Will’s Telegram bot, FOSS surround sound, upscaling photos, and loads more.   Discussion The Free Software Foundation is dying   Discoveries ruff by Astral LNL Telegram Bot IEM Plugin Suite Graham’s audio demo Upscayl Félim’s Irish landcape photo Félim’s Irish land...

Great new releases of Fedora and Ubuntu, growing pains as Red Hat turns 30, Firefox continues to improve, old drive encryption can be cracked, and KDE Korner.   News Linux Matters has launched Firefox may soon reject Cookie prompts automatically Resist Fingerprinting PSA: upgrade your LUKS key derivation function Red Hat: Biggest Linux company of them all turns 30 More layoffs at Red Hat Fedo...

A tried and tested way to stream your music collection, Silverblue but hot rodded, a GUI to monitor your network traffic, the modern way to do 2FA, KDE Korner, and loads more.   Discoveries Logitech Media Server (LMS) First Universal Blue image Mission – Universal Blue Scope – Universal Blue CLARK sniffnet Yubikey Manager   Feedback ngrep rsyncy   KDE Korner Plasma Mobil...

25 years of Mozilla, Twitter’s token open source efforts make us grateful for Mastodon, 3D printing faces a familiar open source challenge, and two (more) potential ways to help solve the FOSS funding problem.   News A quarter century of Mozilla Making the impossible possible — again A new era of transparency for Twitter Twitter posts the code it claims determines which tweets people se...

Keeping your house plants alive using open hardware, searching for apps in multiple package formats at once, processing and analysing smartwatch data, working out who is using all the bandwidth on your network, and building a minimal Linux ISO to play Doom. Plus a novel way to solve the FOSS funding problem, and Proton as the ultimate Linux gaming platform.   Discoveries chob Chirp plant alar...

Docker damages what little FOSS goodwill it has left, the Internet Archive inevitably loses a legal fight, GitHub’s SSH key snafu, Microsoft fails to read the room regarding crypto, Mozilla’s foray into AI raises an eybrow or two, a national treasure takes the piss out of Félim, and more.   News Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder and creator of Moore’s Law, has died Docker is deleting...

Will is annoyed with calculators, Félim adds GUIs to his ropey Python, Graham attempts to tune a Piano, and Joe dreams of playing darts without the maths. Plus your feedback about robot vacuums, guitar cables, Arch, why we don’t talk about Fedora, KDE wins, and more.   Discoveries  qalculate NiceGUI Entropy Piano Tuner Autodarts ( video of it in action )   Feedback Quinny DustBuild...

Flathub’s grand plans spark a debate the merits of modern packaging, we feel old 20 years on from the SCO lawsuit, great news for un-Googled Android users, a lengthy quest to stream DRM-restricted media on Arm Macs, KDE Korner, and more.   News Flathub in 2023 The SCO lawsuit, 20 years later NewF-Droid  repository format for faster and smaller updates The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linu...

Troubleshooting microcontroller projects, reinstalling Ubuntu the quick and easy way, loads of gaming discoveries, follow-up on backups, playing guitar with Linux, keeping kids safe online, and more.   Discoveries mqttshark device IDs to get steering wheel nim Turrican II AGA Zelda a Link to the Past on Linux   Feedback Timeshift Kopia Grsync Cronopete UrBackup Neon AI OS for the Mycroft...