Inhoudsopgave van May 2022 - Linux Magazine

A study of power consumption in IT would not be complete without a look at one of the biggest offenders – and at a problem that has grown exponentially in recent years: cryptocurrencies. To the user, cryptocurrencies are an efficient, decentralized way to send money around the world, but behind the scenes, the infrastructure that supports crypto mining is consuming power at an alarming rate. Bitcoin mining alone consumes approximately 91 terawatt hours of electricity per year [1]. A single US home uses approximately 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year, which means that bitcoin mining consumes as much energy as 8 million homes – more than seven times the total amount of used by Google – and that number is growing every year as Bitcoin gains popularity. According to a recent study…

Hundreds of security products vie for the favor of users on the Internet, promising the highest levels of protection. Along with the numerous commercial offerings available for a monthly rate are some free open-source products that aim to expand the basic protection that might already be in place. Maltrail [1] is an open source tool that lays in wait on the network and sounds the alarm if a package appears suspicious. It reports its findings but does not intervene. The way Maltrail works is somewhere between an intrusion detection system and a malware scanner. Maltrail uses public blacklists to examine the packages. In Maltrail jargon, the description of a suspicious IP address, web URL, or domain is known as a trail. Feeds are lists of known trails that the Maltrail…

Ports are a core feature of modern computing. I’m not talking about transferring versions of applications to another architecture or operating system. Instead, I mean the kind of port that is an address for a virtual connection point to or from a computer and another device or server, including the Internet. Ports direct external traffic to the correct application, and this function makes them important for troubleshooting and security. How do you find which ports are open or listening (i.e., currently in use) when there is no need for them to be? What ports are associated with which application or server? How do you know whether any ports are hidden and being used by an intruder? Even if you are working on a standalone computer, knowing how to answer these…

Use a general purpose input/output interface on Linux computers and laptops. Iam impressed and intrigued by the GPIO (general purpose input/output) capability of the Raspberry Pi. The GPIO makes it easy for a Raspberry Pi user to control real-world electronic gadgets like lights and servomotors. Wouldn’t it be great if you could do the same thing with an everyday Linux PC? You can. The Future Technology Devices International Ltd. (FTDI) FT232H device [1] provides GPIO capabilities (as well as various serial protocols) to regular, non-Raspberry Pi Linux desktops and laptops through a USB port. You can buy the FT232H device from Adafruit for $15. In a previous issue of this magazine, I developed a simple application for the Pi that used the GPIO [2]. In this article, I rewrite my…

On forums and in discussion groups, you increasingly find people claiming that using the command line is an anachronism. They say that it should be possible to handle any task with graphical tools. This kind of statement shows that whoever posted the comments has never seriously tried to work with a terminal. Anyone who is aware of the speed and elegance of working at the command line would never agree that graphical tools alone would be preferable. I admit to using a hybrid of command line and graphical tools on the Plasma desktop. I have increasingly used both, equally, in combination for many years, and there is no way I would want to do without the command line given this very satisfying division of labor. Complex Man Pages There are…

Papercraft is an old form of crafting. It requires nothing more than scissors, paper, and a little glue. Architects use the technique to visualize models quickly and inexpensively, despite digital developments such as virtual reality. Driven by trends such as low-poly modeling and Minecraft, the technique is also experiencing a revival in the hobby sector. In some areas of the world – such as Japan, which has traditionally cultivated origami, another papercraft – there are now many creative people posting their work on the various social media platforms. In Japan, this form is called pepakura, and there is also a software tool of the same name for it. Unfolding objects and displaying the individual sides as faces is also the basis for other crafts – they usually just require a…

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Manjaro 21.2 Qonos 64-bit Sometimes called the Ubuntu of Arch Linux derivatives, Manjaro has made Arch Linux accessible for general users much like Ubuntu did for Debian. While Manjaro has replaced Arch Linux’s arcane installation process with an adaptation of the graphical Calamares installer, it does support rolling installations like Arch Linux and bases its repositories on those of Arch Linux. In addition, Manjaro continues the traditions of Arch, initially installing a minimum of applications and emphasizing a user’s choice rather than installing a curated array of applications. Codenamed Qonos, Manjaro 21.2 is a minor release, and its visible changes consist mostly of updates to stock applications. Worth noting, however, are some improvements to the Calamares installer and an increase in speed that has been noted by several reviewers. Also…

The digital transformation has taken hold in all the corners of our culture, from business to our personal lives. Virtually nothing works without digital technologies, and for that reason, it is clear that we won’t achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set out by the United Nations unless we rethink our approach to our digital life. The amount of energy required to operate the world’s countless devices, networks, applications, and data centers is immense. Numerous studies have shined light on the increasing appetite for energy in the IT industry, and experts point to a need to massively improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of IT systems. The problem with the increasing CO2 footprint in IT has been known for some time and has led to various initiatives that fall under…

If you want to create music with free software on Linux, you can choose from a few digital audio workstations (DAWs). If you play live music, Ardour is usually a good choice. However, if you primarily compose music in MIDI notation with virtual or hardware synthesizers, you may want to consider MusE 4. Of the free DAWs for Linux, MusE 4 puts the most emphasis on full support for the many methods and standards that have found their way into MIDI technology over the past 50 years. Where to Get It A few years ago, MusE was in the standard feature set of popular distributions related to music production, which is true of Ubuntu Studio (used to test MusE in our lab). Today, the major distributions often only have an…

No-code platforms are all the rage nowadays, and it’s not that hard to see why. They make it possible for anyone to create applications for their specific needs in no time and save serious money in the process. Even if you have coding chops, you may find a no-code solution useful for whipping up a quick prototype or a simple application instead of building it from the ground up. While there are several open source no-code platforms to choose from, NocoDB [1] strikes a perfect balance between functionality and user-friendliness. It’s also supremely easy to deploy, which makes it a perfect platform for building simple and more advanced applications. Deploying NocoDB The easiest way to deploy NocoDB on a local machine is by using the NocoDB Docker container image. The…

Many readers associate the terms “manga” and “anime” respectively with Japanese comics and animated series, such as Dragon Ball or Pokemon, but today, manga and anime are global phenomena, and artists all over the world devote their attention and effort to the forms. If you want to experiment with animation yourself, there is no need to stick to pen and paper. OpenToonz [1] is an open source tool that meets the highest animation standards. The program was partly developed in cooperation with famous animation companies such as Studio Ghibli [2], the creative minds behind classic anime films such as Princess Mono noke, Chihiro’s Spirited Away, and How the Wind Rises. OpenToonz is available in the package sources of most popular Linux distributions, so installing should be easy. To test the…

Industrial operations such as chemical refineries, power plants, and mineral processing operations have different network communications requirements than most IT installations. Some of the key industrial communication requirements include security, multivendor connectivity, time stamping of data, and alarm or quality indicators. To meet industrial requirements, a communications standard called OLE for Process Control (OPC) [1] was created. The original OPC design was based on Microsoft’s Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology, and it quickly became the standard for communications between control system consoles, historians (data storage devices), and third-party applications (Figure 1). The original OPC standard worked well, but it had major limitations in the areas of Linux and embedded systems, routing across wide-area networks (WANs), and new security concerns. To better address new industrial requirements, the Open Platform Communications…

Back in 2013, during a forensic investigation, the Advanced Cyber Security Research team from Pangu Lab discovered a rather elusive piece of malware. Between 2016 and 2017, the hacker collective, The Shadow Brokers, leaked a large amount of data that was allegedly stolen from the Equation Group (with links to the NSA) that contained a number of hacking tools and exploits. Around the same time, the group leaked another data dump that contained a list of servers that had been hacked by the Equation Group. According to the Advanced Cyber Security Research team, Bvp47 was used to target the telecom, military, higher-education, economic, and science sectors and hit more than 287 organizations in 47 countries. These attacks lasted over a decade as the malicious code was created so the hackers…

It is one of those annoying things that I hope consumers will never get used to, nor should they accept it. A device that costs a large amount of money is suddenly no longer of use simply because the required security update is not available. Or perhaps the new application software needs more powerful components or the interfaces are incompatible with other devices? In all these cases, consumers have no option but to replace devices that are actually still working. In other words, the software forces an unnecessary upgrade to the hardware. This common scenario can lead to significant waste of energy and raw materials. The greatest environmental impact from information and communications technology products happens during the manufacturing process. A rumor still persists that replacing existing technology with more…

It’s easy to forget that Linux is only one member of a whole family of Unix-like systems, especially the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Among the many BSDs, one of the most interesting is DragonFly BSD (featured on this month’s DVD). DragonFly BSD has a history of rethinking Unix-like subsystems and processes in a never-ending effort to make them more efficient. Matthew Dillon, the founder of DragonFly BSD, learned his craft in AmigaOS and remains active today in the Dragonfly project. Dillon offers an expert’s view of not only BSD but of Linux and open source as well. Linux Magazine: Tell us a bit about how you became involved in BSD. Matthew Dillon: In the early days (and now I’m talking about the 1980s), open source was far more personal, and…

Most home users, and I dare say some system administrators, lack a backup policy. Their family pictures, music collections, and customer data files live on their hard drives and are never backed up to offline storage, only to be lost when the hard drive eventually crashes. A few users know to keep backups and regularly copy their files over to a safe storage medium. But even these conscientious people may find their strategy lacking when the time comes to recover from a system crash and they discover corrupted backup data. A successful backup strategy must involve checking for corrupted data. Silent Data Corruption The small number of users who keep copies of their important files only keep a single backup. Often, they use an external storage system, such as Tarsnap…