Open-Source Collaboration Tackles COVID-19 Testing

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March 11, 2020

When you think of open source, your mind likely jumps to projects such as Linux, Firefox, and other now-mainstream software. The ideals of the movement are applicable to other areas, too, however – and a group have come together to pool resources to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group has formed around Just One Giant Lab, a non-profit organisation operating out of Paris, France. They aim to create an open platform for scientific collaboration on a broad range of issues facing humanity. The current project aims to create an open-source method for safely testing for COVID-19 infection, in an attempt to help better manage cases popping up around the world.

[Source: Hackaday]

Linux Has This Awesome Benchmarking Tool You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 11, 2020

Fellow benchmarking junkies, gather ‘round and listen to this truth bomb: we know Linux is incredible, and we know Linux gaming is incredible. But benchmarking those games without a “canned” benchmark like those found in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5 and others? Well, that’s not so incredible. Fortunately, a developer known as FlightlessMango has answered the call with a fantastic tool called MangoHUD… Read more at Forbes.

[Source: Forbes]

Top Six Open Source Tools for Monitoring Kubernetes and Docker

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 11, 2020

Kubernetes and Docker are two of the most commonly heard buzzwords in modern DevOps conversations. Docker is a tool that enables you to containerize and run your applications, and Kubernetes provides you with a platform to orchestrate or manage these containers—since managing thousands of containers manually using the Docker CLI would be a practical nightmare.

However, simply running thousands of containers and managing them through Kubernetes is not enough. You have to observe and analyze them properly to ensure that your services are up and running optimally. This process is called Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), a term initiated and popularized by Google. Observability and analysis are a major element of SRE.

[Source: DevOps.com]

Linux and open-source conferences: List of what’s canceled or going virtual

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 11, 2020

Things can change quickly as the COVID-19 coronavirus infection numbers keep growing. It’s the same for security conferences and pretty much all other technology shows.

Here’s the current status of Linux and open-source conferences:

Linux Foundation Member Summit: March 10 to March 12, Lake Tahoe, Calif. – Canceled
Netdev 0x14: March 17 to March 20, Vancouver – Virtual.
Automotive Grade Linux: March 18 to March 19, Honolulu – Canceled
SUSECon: March 23 to March 27, Dublin, Ireland – Virtual
March Open Source RTP meetup: March 24, Durham, NC- Still running.
Linaro Connect: March 24-25, Budapest, Hungary – Virtual
KubeCon: March 30 to April 2, Amsterdam – Postponed until July/August
Open Data Science Conference: April 13 to April 18, Boston – Still running
Open Networking & Edge Summit: April 20 to April 21, LA – Postponed to the fall
Red Hat Summit: April 27 to April 29, San Francisco – Virtual

[Source: ZDNet]

Red Hat Accelerates Petabyte-Scale Object Storage for Cloud-Native Workloads

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 10, 2020

Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat Ceph Storage 4 to deliver simplified, petabyte-scale object storage for cloud-native development and data analytics. Red Hat Ceph Storage 4 is based on the Nautilus version of the Ceph open source project.

Red Hat Ceph Storage 4 includes several new features:

A simplified installer experience, which enables standard installations that can be performed in less than 10 minutes.
A new management dashboard for a unified, “heads up” view of operations at all times, helping teams to identify and resolve problems more quickly.
A new quality of service monitoring feature, which helps verify storage Quality of Service for applications in a multi-tenant hosted cloud environment.
Integrated bucket notifications to support Kubernetes-native serverless architectures, which enable automated data pipelines.

[Source: Red Hat]

Debian Linux Was the Most Vulnerable Operating System in the Last 20 Years

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 9, 2020

Many believe Windows is the most vulnerable operating system, which makes users running it sitting ducks in front of attackers trying to hack into their computers.

But according to an analysis published by TheBestVPN based on data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Vulnerability Database, Debian Linux was the operating system with the biggest number of vulnerabilities in the last 20 years. Between 1999 and 2019, researchers discovered a total of 3,067 security flaws in Debian Linux, while Windows Server 2008, which is the Windows version with the biggest number of vulnerabilities, is far behind with just 1,421 security bugs.

[Source: Softpedia News]

New High Quality GPU Compression Codec Going Open-Source In The Coming Days

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 9, 2020

Compression experts Rich Geldreich and Stephanie Hurlburt with their Binomial consulting firm are about to release a high-quality open-source compression codec for GPUs.

Hurlburt began teasing this new open-source project over the weekend. She tweeted out that a high quality open-source codec will be opened up in the coming days for “high quality GPU performant images” and “we’re sending you literally 15+ years ahead in time.” While it may seem like a marketing gimmick and building up hype, we have continued to be amazed at the work done by Geldreich in terms of compression codecs and other software work over the years, so we are genuinely excited and eager to learn more.

[Source: Phoronix]

Basilisk: A Firefox Fork For The Classic Looks and Classic Extensions

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 9, 2020

Even though it is better to stick with the regular web browsers like Firefox or Chromium available for Linux – it doesn’t hurt to know about other browsers. Recently, I stumbled upon a Firefox fork, Basilisk web browser that features the classic Firefox user interface along with legacy add-ons support (just like Waterfox).

If you are in the dire need of using a legacy extensions or miss the classic look and feel of Firefox, the Basilisk web browser can save your day. The web browser is being maintained by the team behind Pale Moon browser.

If you’re looking for open-source Chrome alternatives, you may have a quick look at what Basilisk offers.

[Source: It’s FOSS]

Red Hat Summit Switches to Online-Only Over Coronavirus Concerns

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 9, 2020

Red Hat is the latest organization that decides to cancel one of its physical events, with the upcoming Red Hat Summit 2020 now moving to online-only due to coronavirus concerns. The event was projected to take place April 28-29, and Red Hat says the same content would be provided to those who connect to the live streaming, including keynotes, breakout sessions, and access to Red Hat experts.

Those who have already registered for the physical event will also be registered for the virtual event at no charge, with two options offered going forward: they can either use their passes during the next year’s summit or get a refund.

[Source: Softpedia News]

Zorin OS 15.2 Linux distribution is here, and you should switch from Windows immediately

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Swapnil Bhartiya

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March 9, 2020

Microsoft’s Windows 10 is hardly a new operating system anymore. In fact, it has been available to the public for damn near five years now. And yet, despite existing half a decade, it still feels very incomplete. The Control Panel still hasn’t been merged with Settings, for instance, and the user interface still feels like a work in progress. Hey, at least those terrible Live Tiles are seemingly on their way out.

Ultimately, using Windows 10 feels like you are in a constant state of beta. It shouldn’t be this way — Microsoft’s operating system should be much better than it is. After all, the company essentially has unlimited resources. Thankfully, Linux is here to save the day.

[Source: BetaNews]