Linux Format

When work was insisting on twofactor authentication for workmonitored devices – of course, they insisted on you using your personal device instead of providing one – rather than buying a new Android phone, I used an old HTC One and brought it back to life with LineageOS 17.1, aka Android 10, when HTC dropped support back with Android 5. It’s not exactly what people consider when talking about the right to repair, but the idea that you can’t update or upgrade the software on a device is just as key. Because we’ve been spoilt with the relative openness of the PC platform for both installing software and upgrading the hardware, it’s a shock when you encounter something entirely locked down. Thankfully, with the Android OSP, the ill-fated CyanogenMod and its…

Newsdesk THIS ISSUE: Valve champions open source»Rival to Google Maps»Cooler Master API»Debian dumps Python 2»Google takes a RISC Eight years ago, Linus Torvalds said that Valve may save the Linux desktop. It seems his words were prophetic, as Valve’s handheld gaming computer, the Steam Deck, comes with its own distro, SteamOS. Being Linux-based, Windows games on the Steam Deck have to run through Steam’s own Proton compatibility layer. In theory, this saves developers the trouble of creating a Linux port – and, indeed, many titles do work out of the box. Still, Valve’s realised the value of the open source community in helping to keep on top of the patches and updates needed. In an interview with The Verge, Steam Deck designer Pierre-Loup Griffais revealed that Valve has hired over…

“Everywhere you look, people are discussing the AI chatbot ChatGPT. It’s been applied to write email campaigns, code and articles. It’s been banned in some schools as students use it to write essays. Singer Nick Cave called ChatGPT’s output in the style of one of his songs “a grotesque mockery” and “a travesty”, so safe to say he is not a fan. AI based on deep learning takes huge sets of training data, creates models based on that data, then applies this model to real-life scenarios. Using this data to predict what might happen next, AI can recommend options for decisions based on what it has previously seen. AI can also be used for areas like database management. We can encode years of expertise around databases and share it with…

Cooler Master offers a range of air and liquid CPU coolers, so is very popular with gamers. To date, though, in order to fine-tune cooling options, you had use CoolerMaster’s proprietary Windows-only MasterPlus+ software suite. But there is hope. At CES 2023, Cooler Master announced it would redesign the suite to be open source, as well as include an API. Still, a fully-featured Linux version of MasterPlus+ won’t be available immediately. When pressed by CES attendee Albert of www.boringtextreviews.com, Cooler Master admitted that by switching to open source, the suite may work with other coolers besides its own. However, currently this would mean you won’t be able to use CM-specific features such as TMS (Thermal Management System). Cooler Master has also announced support for running software in the cloud. Time will…

Google Maps comes installed on almost all Android phones, so the tech giant’s app dominates the navigation scene. In 2022 alone, it was downloaded over 13 million times. It’s unsurprising, then, that a number of tech firms have banded together against the Google Goliath. In December 2022, the nonprofit Linux Foundation announced the creation of the Overture Maps Foundation. The foundation will be an open source programme for curating and collating map data across the world. TomTom, which has struggled against Google’s market dominance, is one of the key players. Other backers include Meta, Microsoft and Amazon – so no small fry. You may note that those other three don’t make a point of selling navigation software, but Facebook (as it was) did buy Mapillary in 2020, which specialises…

While Debian is praised for its stability, users know this comes at the price of using older programs. While Python 2 was officially retired in January 2020, for the sake of continuity, Debian 11 (Bullseye) came with it bundled. Debian has now virtually removed Python 2 altogether from the ‘testing’ and ‘unstable’ releases. The python package is now gone, as is /usr/bin/python. Users of legacy Python 2 apps can still manually install the python-is-python2 package to get them running. This change does only apply to the ‘testing’ and ‘unstable’ versions of Debian. The ‘stable’ branch of Bullseye still has it but developers are working on removing it from Debian 12 (Bookworm) altogether. The Python project also has a detailed web page on how to use Lib2to3 and Python tools such…