Índex per April 2024 a Linux Format

For anyone looking to learn the basics of hacking, we hopefully have the right issue for you. Open source was always the home of hacking, and by that we mean trying to get things to work in ways for which they were never designed. A lot of that meaning has been lost over the years, however, and it’s something of a shame. Hacking can be a great learning experience, helping you to gain a greater understanding of how your systems work. So, while we might be looking at Kali Linux, the world’s best-known hacking collection, we’re using it to play around with Python, understand the kernel, do some code compilation, examine our networks, and perhaps crack a few admin passwords on the way. It’s that heady combination of fun and…

Q A sign of the times I have a number of PDF forms that I need to complete and sign. The completing part is not a problem– Okular handles that. My issue is that the forms’ fields only accept text input, and typing my name in the field is not acceptable; I need an actual signature. I know I could print out each form, sign it manually, then scan it back to a PDF, but that is a lot of time and a not insignificant number of trees lost for the number I have to deal with each month. Is there a way I can add a scanned image of my signature to the field of each? I’d prefer a command-line option so I can batch process the PDFs. Peter…

It’s that time again when our perennial hacking feature, always a favourite, comes to light [that time was supposed to be two weeks ago – ed]. This isn’t all dark glasses and hoodies, though; we don’t enforce any kind of dress code. But we do have a comprehensive guide that will get you started with Kali Linux, the ultimate distro for security newbies and penetration-testing professionals alike. We’ll get you using coding with Python and using the RapidScan script to automate scans, so you can defend your network. Hacking in its purest sense means using tools (hardware or software) to do things that they weren’t initially supposed to do. The term and culture (along with the word ‘foo’ that proliferates across programming textbooks) originated at a model railway club at…

OUR EXPERT Mats Tage Axelsson can be counted on to find new ways to simplify your Linux usage in complex ways. Anything to seem as cool as he thinks he is. Whenever your computer starts, it uses the filesystem on your disk. Nothing runs without W it. This makes everything dependent on this part of your experience. Filesystem access is most obvious on boot and when you start applications – opening new files, saving them and keeping them safe through hard times and failures. Throughout the history of Linux, the filesystem has evolved from a simple thing to a marvel of precision. Support for the size of disks increased over the decades since the first version. In the early ’90s, most computers would risk a total disk crash if…

OUR EXPERT Nate Drake considers himself a Rust programming expert. Or did he say he’s rusty at programming…? Rust is in the kernel. Since the 2020 Linux Plumbers conference, developers have been R mulling the subject over. With Linus Torvalds’s blessing and after a flurry of pull requests, it’s now possible to write kernel modules like device drivers and filesystems entirely in Rust. Three years later, and there’s been major progress with the support of big players like Samsung, Cisco and Canonical. You can follow recent developments at the Rust for Linux project (https://rust-for-linux.com). As Alex Gaynor and Geoffrey Thomas explained at the 2019 Linux Security Summit, almost two thirds of Linux kernel security holes come from memory safety issues. With all due deference to the old vanguard of…

We’re hacking things this month – but the old-school way! So, what’s your favourite hack to make Linux or normal life a little easier? Jonni Bidwell Kali Linux’s Nethunter edition is for mobile devices, but the less-discussed securityfocused GrapheneOS is ideal if you have an old(ish) Pixel device you want to deGoogle. If you have another Android device, porting and building GrapheneOS would be an excellent side project. Nate Drake My dad always asked why I never lost my toothbrush. It’s because I place keys on dedicated hooks, clothing in marked drawers, and unused cables and USB sticks in a special bag. I never lose anything, particularly my tendency to be anally retentive! Nick Peers It has to be Podman. I’ve just built a new server and I’ve realised that…

HOW WE TESTED… We are primarily interested in distros that work on a desktop PC or a laptop, but we also like to see setups that work on single-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi. Our test machines are a mid-level desktop PC with an Nvidia graphics card and a Raspberry Pi 400. It’s also a point in a distribution’s favour if it works on handheld devices. We used a fairly generic USB game controller for navigation around the user interface and to actually play the games. We also tested with a TV-style remote control with a small QWERTY keyboard on the back, along with the keyboards of both the Raspberry Pi 400 and the desktop PC. We could have relied on an Ethernet cable, but we wanted to make…

OUR EXPERT Les Pounder is associate editor at Tom’s Hardware and a freelance maker for hire. He blogs about his adventures and projects at http://bigl.es. YOU NEED Pi Pico or Pico W OEP3W amplifier Speaker Half breadboard PIR sensor 10K pot 9x M2M jumper wires Code: https://bit.ly/lxf313pitut1 The Raspberry Pi Pico is an exceptionally cheap and resourceful little board. For T £4, we get a powerful microcontroller and plenty of GPIO pins. With a few extra components, we can build all manner of fun projects. In this tutorial, we’re using CircuitPython, a version of Python for microcontrollers, to play MP3 files. We need an amplifier, and the OEP3W at £2 from AliExpress, will do the job. But we’re not making a music player. Instead, we are using a sensor to…

OUR EXPERT Shashank Sharma is a trial lawyer in Delhi, India. He’s been writing about open source software for 20 years, and lawyering for 10. Compressing files is one of the most mundane C activities, and frequently performed without much thought. For most Linux users, irrespective of distro, Gzip is the tool of choice. But it’s quite slow, especially with large files running into hundreds of megabytes or more. On modern multi-core machines, you can easily speed up compression with parallel processing. Cue Pigz. Pigz achieves far faster compression because it puts the power of multi-core machines to proper use when compressing data. Released under the permissive zib licence, Pigz is the brainchild of Mark Adler, who apart from his work with NASA on the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover,…

OUR EXPERT Nate Drake is a tech journalist specialising in cybersecurity and retro games. The first thing he did when discovering Linux in 2004 was play Beneath a Steel Sky. Be vigilant. QUICK TIP Get the full project from Nate’s repository: https://github.com/azuregate/ pointand clicklxf If you’ve been following this series, you now have the makings of an interactive room. I You’ve also created objects that can be picked up and used to interact with the environment. You’ve made the NPC Robbie the Robot, too, who can have conversations with the player and give your character items if you follow the correct conversation tree. Create your next room Having completed all available actions in this room, it’s time to configure the game to allow your character to move into another. The…

Recently, I have spent a not insignificant amount of time R remediating Linux systems with some poor design choices regards disk layout and management on Linux. I thought of it as something worthwhile sharing with the community at large. ETTU UBUNTU Ubuntu is the easy go-to for people new to Linux. It’s made a few contentious moves but nothing that blew it up in a ‘RedHat II’ way. It is widely acknowledged that Ubuntu was going to IPO at some point. That means that everything that can generate revenue is getting squeezed. To end users or small shops, this comes in the form of Ubuntu Pro. It never bothered me as it was optional until now. Last week, I did the desktop GUI update and apart from the standard items,…

Index QDirStat VokoscreenNG Atop Sleek SimpleX Chat RustDesk UnCiv Naikari Nyxt Pin It! Index FILE MANAGER Version: 3.0.2 Web: https://mauikit.org/apps/index/ File managers are an integral part of any desktop, and although your distro ships with one, it might not be suited for your workflow. In case you’re on the hunt for alternatives, MAUI’s Index is a very capable option. The MAUI project churns out stunning-looking apps that are designed to work across desktop and mobile devices. It isn’t the first project to attempt a convergent user interface, although it is one of the first to actually make it work. Index is available as an AppImage, so all you need to do is download it from the official website and turn it into an executable, either from your existing file…

OUR EXPERT Ferenc Deák sees no way back from the C++ mayhem he brought upon readers with this quick and dirty shell, so you just have to accept it. C++. QUICK TIP The code for the shell can still be found at https://github. com/fritzone/lxf-shell. In the first three parts of our mini series, the basic operational aspect of our shell was I solidly established, showcasing its proficiency in executing programs. Now our focus shifts towards integrating advanced features. We are happy to call in the heavy cavalry to extend the shell’s repertoire by a modular plugin architecture. With these refinements we not only broaden the range of tasks the shell can perform but also contribute to a more versatile and open environment, and provide a framework for anyone willing to…

Credit: https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502 OUR EXPERT David Bolton used to write Commodore 64 games for a living back in the mists of time, and taught himself Z80 by writing a 6502 assembler in Z80. Last month, we looked at the 6502 assembly language and wrote a short program to sort numbers and run it on a web-based emulator. This time, the code will run on the Vice emulator, which is exactly like if you’re running it on a real CBM-64. To write programs for it, we have to do the following. 1. Write the 6502 source code. 2. Assemble it into a binary file. 3. Load the file into the Vice emulator and run it. Writing 6502 code is easy enough [steady on now – ed] and you can use your…

OPENVPN Credit: https://openvpn.net OUR EXPERT Christian Cawley has been breeding Raspberry Pis since 2012, and following the successful introduction of a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB, has recently welcomed a Raspberry Pi 5 into the family. It’s fair to say that there is never enough tinkering to be done with a Raspberry Pi. You can upgrade the SD card, add external storage, buy a case, and with the latest models, add a cooling solution. You also have the option of a multitude of operating systems, from Raspberry Pi OS to media centres, cloud storage solutions, home servers, retrogaming platforms and pretty much anything else you can think of. A few of these uses might lend themselves to employing a VPN. Encrypted connections via a secure server hosted by a reputable name…

OUR EXPERT Nick Peers has been playing with virtual machines for as long as he can remember. He’s tried most of them, but keeps circling back to VirtualBox. QUICK TIP Look out for possible UBSAN errors on Ubuntu machines related to VirtualBox.Visit https://forums. virtualbox. org/viewtopic. php?t=110315 for a discussion – on our test machine (Ryzen 7 5700x, Nvidia GTX 1660 Super graphics), the errors (non-critical) appear on a system running VirtualBox 7.0.14. Let’s lay our cards on the table. We’re not here to L show you how to use VirtualBox for the first time – we assume you’re already using it for whatever needs you have, from enabling you to give alternative distros an extended test to keeping an old Windows install on the side for apps you can’t…

Part One! Don’t miss next issue, subscribe on page 16! OUR EXPERT Tam Hanna’s creativity can be compared to the amount of humour found in a stone or the communication capability of popped balloon. In short, he is the ideal candidate to explain how to design cool things using OpenSCAD. This tutorial and the one that will follow next month use a series of natural 3D objects to T introduce how OpenSCAD works. While a complete discussion of the software’s programming language is impossible due to the system’s power, we will attempt to give an overview of the capabilities provided by this open source app to get you up and exploring this incredibly useful design tool. OpenSCAD, which started life in a (since run-down) Austrian government research facility, has established…

LXF314 will be on sale Tuesday 2nd April 2024 What’s in Wine 9? Enjoy a host of performance increases from Valve’s Proton and Vulkan graphics driver updates to Wayland support. Improve your timing Why work harder when you can work smarter? We test the time tracking and management tools to ease your busy life. Collision detected Get to grips with high-speed collision detection in C that's fast enough to run on the Pi at 60 frames per second. Build a shared virtual library Want to help everyone read more? Of course! We set up a shared home ebook server so you can share your books. Content of future issues subject to change. We might be whisked off to a dungeon in Redmond……