Inhoudsopgave van December 2024 - Linux Format

Jonni Bidwell Well, Fedora does exactly what a distro should do, so that’s novel. Beyond that, I think more people should try Arch. Or if you’re worried about the cold, Gentoo or even Linux From Scratch. You can keep your study warm with all that exothermic compilation work. Michael Reed It’s not an exotic, unheard-of distro, but I fancy giving Arch Linux a try. Maybe I’m a control freak and I like the idea of being able to decide on system components. Valve’s renewed commitment to it on the Steam Deck is another factor that’s got me interested. Nate Drake I’ve switched my daily driver from Lubuntu to the community-maintained Ubuntu Cinnamon. The desktop is not too jarring for Windows veterans, plus there’s a number of available ‘spices’. These are…

Readers who can remember October 2004 will know it was a very different time. The number one hit UK song was Eric Prydz’s ‘Call on Me’, and on 20th October that year, developer Canonical issued the very first stable release of Ubuntu. Although code-named Warty Warthog, the official version number was 4.10. This reflected the year and month of release. Since 2004, with one exception, Ubuntu has followed this cycle of releasing successive versions every six months. The original release was based on Debian and updates were supported for 18 months. Version 4.10 shipped with the Gnome 2.08 desktop environment and also bundled software such as Firefox and OpenOffice. As high-speed broadband was far less readily available 20 years ago, you could request a free physical install CD via Canonical’s…

On 24th September, Winamp’s owner the Llama Group released the Legacy Player source code on GitHub. Less than a month later, the repository was removed. This spectacular volte face was due to a series of blunders. First, the initial Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) forbade coders from forking or modifying the project. It later transpired that the code contained proprietary elements from SHOUTcast server software, Intel and Microsoft. The debacle highlights the challenges of open-sourcing legacy software.…

You’re no editor As a new Windows escapee, I’m finding the switch to be a little confusing, though easier than I expected. I was digging around my Debian desktop and couldn’t seem to find anything like the Windows Registry editor. I came across the dconf editor – is that the same thing? It seems to offer the same features. Rodger Hemmingway Neil says… The advantage Microsoft has with Windows is that it’s the sole arbitrator over development, so it can say, “Hey, this is the central store for all configuration data,” and – boom – it happens. So, a single Registry editor is possible for Windows. The open source Linux ecosystem is far more tricky. The dconf editor is, in fact, the Gnome desktop’s configuration editor. It lets you tweak…

Wi-Fi 7 client devices pale in comparison to their Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6 counterparts, and Wi-Fi 7 routers can cost hundreds of dollars, with high-end mesh systems easily surpassing £500. Some router manufacturers are combating the pricing issue by taking the unorthodox approach of excluding one of the pillars of the Wi-Fi 7 standard, such as the 6GHz band, to appeal to more value-conscious buyers. The TP-Link Archer BE3600 has four antennas, clustered around the rear corners of the router. The business end of the BE3600 features one 2.5Gb/s port for WAN and one 2.5Gb/s port for LAN. There are three 1Gb/s LAN ports to round out the wired networking portfolio. There’s also a USB 3.0 port for connecting a printer or storage device. This is a 2x2 Wi-Fi…

As most Linux users know, the introduction of systemd divided the community. On one hand it can provide faster boot times and better service management, not to mention consistency across distros. Nevertheless when it was integrated into Debian 8, a group of developers felt systemd went against the Unix philosophy of “doing one thing well’. In 2014, they announced the creation of their own fork, Devuan. This is systemd-less, instead relying on components such as init, eudev and elogind. This latest version of Expirion is itself a fork of Devuan 5 (Daedalus) SysVInit. The developer admits he kept the code as close to the original Devuan as possible, as well as retaining the default desktop environment, Xfce. There’s also a spin that ships with Gnome, as well as one based…

Sooner or later, you’re going to want to install some extra software. You can do this from the command line, but it’s much easier to use the app. Which is called Software. There’s a shortcut to it on the Dash (it’s the white briefcase emblazoned with some shapes). Open it up and you’ll see some featured applications. Scroll down to see more, or explore some of the categories at the top. We like to keep some files on our venerable Nextcloud server up in the clouds, so we can access them from anywhere, so we’ll walk you through installing the desktop client; feel free to install something else. Search for Nextcloud from the top-left of the Software app and click the Nextcloud Desktop Client entry. If you enabled third-party repositories…

Are you a budding YouTuber and want to keep an eye on your subscriber numbers? We’ve got just the thing. We’re making a Pi Pico W-powered subscriber counter using a low-cost LCD screen. It updates every hour with the latest subscriber numbers. We’re also learning about the YouTube API. First log in to the Google Cloud Console (https://console.cloud.google.com/welcome), then click on the project selector drop-down. In the new window, click on New Project. In the next window, give the project a name, we chose LXF Subs Project. Now click Create. Next we need to enable API access for the project. In the left-hand menu, click on APIs & Services > Library. In the search bar, search for YouTube Data API v3. When the result pops up, click on it, then…

AMD has moved forward from its 600-series chipsets for Ryzen 7000 to the 800-series for Ryzen 9000, but the new chipsets still leverage the AM5 LGA1718 socket. The 800-series motherboard models are arriving in 2024 into 2025. The Ryzen 9000 chips are fully compatible with existing AM5 motherboards (after the requisite BIOS update), so there are plenty of options for early adopters. The staggered launch is obviously not ideal, but at least support for future chips will be around for the long haul – AMD plans to support the AM5 socket until 2027-plus. The upper-tier X870 and X870E chipsets come with welcome improvements, but those advances stem from new mandatory feature requirements instead of expanded chip connectivity. For instance, the PCIe 5.0 interface is now standard on the X870 lineup…

AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X comes with 16 cores and 32 threads, slotting in as the flagship model for the company’s new Granite Ridge family of processors sporting the Zen 5 architecture. AMD has infused its innovative thread-targeting technology, previously reserved for the gaming-optimised 3D V-Cache models, into the upper-tier Ryzen 9000 models. However, the improvements in gaming performance aren’t enough to take the crown from Intel’s competing Core i9-14900K flagship, let alone AMD’s own X3D processors Unlike Intel’s competing Raptor Lake processors, Ryzen 9000 also has full native AVX-512 support, a boon for productivity work. The 9950X also delivers a notable gain in single-threaded performance, significantly reducing the gap with the 14900K. AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X takes the lead in our suite of multi-threaded application tests. While it delivers some…

We are going to investigate how we can use VPNs to keep our home networks safe, while being able to access resources when we are away from home. We are also considering how to use a VPN to provide remote support while not opening up all the devices to which we have access to all users. Before getting into specifics, let’s talk about what a VPN (virtual private network) is. A VPN allows us to expand our networks, while providing a virtual network layer. It is often used to bridge two networks at remote locations together or allow access to resources in a more secure manner than opening ports on a firewall. There is a large number options available (OpenVPN, SSL VPN, ZeroTier and many others) and these operate at…

According to a 2023 study by Forbes, four out of 10 people surveyed said they’d had their information compromised when using public Wi-Fi. Still, no one can deny the attraction of free, unlimited internet. The same survey found that the most common reasons people connect are to cut down on their mobile data usage. The main risk you run when connecting to public Wi-Fi, even as a Linux user, is that your device will fall victim to a MITM (man in the middle) attack. One common attack is to send fake ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) messages to impersonate another device, such as the network gateway. This technique, known as ARP spoofing, can be used to intercept and even manipulate your network traffic. Many public hotspot users fancy that they’re immune…

Whether you’re shopping for the best RAM for gaming to upgrade a PC that’s struggling or building a new PC from the ground up, the best RAM kit for your money depends on the platform you pick and the workloads you plan to run. The hard part is evaluating whether faster memory improves performance. For example, if you’re running an Intel system with one of the best graphics cards, most programs won’t respond meaningfully to faster or slower system memory. On the other hand, some workloads scale well with higher data rates. For example, file compression programs love fast memory. AMD’s Zen CPUs benefit more from higher memory frequencies. Increased memory speeds on AMD Ryzen and Threadripper often translate to real-world gains. In games, that means higher frame rates at…

The Samsung DDR5-4800 C40 kit targets those who want to stick to the JEDEC baseline speed. The modules don’t look pretty but have excellent overclocking headroom. There’s a good potential to hit breakneck speeds with tight timings. The B-die ICs will help you push the modules. Our sample got to DDR5-5800 C36 easily, but there is no guaranteed overclock, so this kit belongs to the high-risk, high-reward category. Samsung’s memory conforms to JEDEC’s baseline for DDR5. There’s no need for XMP 3.0 profiles as the modules default to DDR5-4800. The timings are 40-39-39-76. The memory requires 1.1V to operate, so putting a heat spreader on it is a waste unless you’re overclocking it. For those enthusiasts that don’t want to push the frequency envelope, there’s also headroom for tighter timings.…

Intel’s H370 and B360 chipsets instruct its Core i5 (and above) processors to lock out any memory settings above DDR4-2666, which is particularly unfortunate in a market that’s moved way past that setting. DDR4-3200 is now mainstream within the enthusiast PC market and is often treated as such by the memory sellers that cater to enthusiasts and gamers. Thus, the best way to get a top-performing brand-new DDR4-2666 kit would be to dial the way-back machine to 2016 and get the high-performing equipment from that time. Barring that, Corsair has a workaround. Timings of 16-18-18-35 seem painfully slow compared to modern parts, but the dual-rank advantage is so great that we expect a rout with this kit. Unless you know where to find old high-end DDR4-2666, the only way we…

Version: 5.2.8 Web: https://pdfsam.org For those who frequently work with a large number of PDF files, there’s a number of operations that we need to perform on a regular basis. This includes rotating and extracting pages from a PDF file, splitting a large file into smaller chunks, or merging several PDF files into a single one. PDFSam is a fast and featureful utility that offers these functionalities in an easy-to-use and intuitive interface. The project only supports 64-bit machines, and needs at least 256MB RAM to operate – although we know from experience that having more RAM is always a plus for merge or split operations. Many popular desktop distributions carry PDFSam in their repositories, but Ubuntu and Debian users will appreciate the availability of the DEB package, which can…

Version: 0.8.1 Web: https://codeberg.org/edestcroix/Recordbox Just as good music is a matter of taste, and one that’s quite subjective, music players are designed to cater to different needs as well. Unlike most other desktop music players, Recordbox is designed with playing albums in mind, rather than tracks or playlists. In a stark departure from most other desktop apps, the only way to install Recordbox is via the Flatpak package. You won’t find the app in the software repository of your desktop distro, and the project doesn’t provide binaries to build it from source. From the terminal, run the flatpak install flathub ca.edestcroix.Recordbox command to install Recordbox and then run the flatpak run ca. edestcroix.Recordbox command to launch it. When you first run the app, you’re asked to point it to the…

Version: 1.7.0 Web: https://linrunner.de/tlp TLP is a battery optimising utility that you only think you don’t need. However, you’ll quickly change your opinion when you see how much it improves the battery life on your notebooks and laptops. You’ll find TLP in the software repositories of most popular desktop distros, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE and so on. There are distro-specific installation instructions on the project’s website, which essentially boil down to using the distro’s package management utility to install TLP. If your distro doesn’t offer the latest iteration, you can fetch the source tarball from the project’s GitHub page (https://github.com/linrunner/TLP/releases), extract the files with tar zxvf TLP-1.7.0.tar.gz and run the sudo make install and sudo make install-man commands to install it. You can now start TLP with the tlp…

Financial services company Zerodha has announced a $1 million annual fund to support Free/Libre and Open Source Software projects around the world. The initiative, named the FLOSS/fund, will provide $10,000 to $100,000 per project annually. Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh acknowledged the company had built a commercially successful business “on top of FOSS”, so it was time to “shut up or put up”. The fund will have a dedicated team to operate in a non-ad-hoc manner. There will also be a standardised funding.json manifest file, enabling projects to signal their financial needs in a clear and searchable way. In the official announcement, Nadh also revealed his motivations: “It makes perfect logical sense for a business that relies on FOSS to support it.” At a time when the sustainability of open source…

Twenty years ago, in October 2004, the very first stable release of Ubuntu (4.10) was made available to the public. It represented the fruits of the labour of Mark Shuttleworth and a small team of Debian developers. Since that time, with one exception, new releases of Ubuntu have been issued every six months. Version numbers correspond to the current year and month of release. This has culminated in the latest version (24.10). In true Ubuntu tradition, it bears the alliterative code name of an animal (this time, it’s Oracular Oriole). As one of the most popular Linux distros, Ubuntu supports a wide range of architectures. The AMD64 ISO is a rather weighty 6.7GB. This is around a 1GB increase over Ubuntu 24.10, which was roughly the same size as a…

We wish we’d kept track of how often we exclaimed “What the heck is that?” while playing Core Keeper. It must have happened a dozen times in the first dozen hours alone, such as when coming across a conch shell the size of a school bus, or stumbling upon a subterranean castle 20 times the size of our base. And let’s not forget when a caterpillar as big as a passenger train came stampeding through the tunnel that was being explored. What the heck!? Core Keeper’s got a lot in common with survival games such as Valheim, plus plenty of Minecraft DNA, and even a smidge of Stardew Valley. Bizarre sights, unexpected encounters, and delightful (though dangerous) surprises are just a few things we want from a procedurally generated co-op…

Fedora Linux has always been something of a trailblazer. In one sense it guides CentOS Stream, which in turn sets the road map for the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). From a desktop point of view, it’s often the first (ahem, Arch BTW) to adopt new features (such as Wayland, Btrfs, Vulkan). Thanks to its (roughly) six-month release cadence, it equals the interim Ubuntu releases, and is way ahead of Ubuntu’s two-yearly Long Term Support (LTS) offerings as concerns new software. Updating your OS twice yearly sounds like a pain, and indeed it used to be. Partly for that reason, partly due to the extra hoops required to install proprietary software, and partly because earlier Fedora releases didn’t quite have Ubuntu’s level of user-friendliness, Fedora has often been put…

We’ve shown you the Gnome basics, so now let’s look at customising it properly (and – see box – circumventing it altogether). We said we were going to show you some extensions and we are people of our word. So, install Extension Manager from the Software application. Ubuntu made a reasonable concession to its users when it switched (back) to the Gnome desktop in 2018. It gave them a mouse-accessible dock, which is provided by a Gnome extension. Many users, no matter how they try, can’t live without a dock. So, let’s look at installing one. You’ll find Ubuntu Dock at http://extensions.gnome.org along with an entry saying not to use it. Because that’s not the real dock, it’s just a mock extension to reserve the name. Instead, we’ll install Dash to…

Formerly known as Screenly OSE, Anthias is a digital signage OS for the Raspberry Pi and low-power x86 NUCs. The new name distinguishes the free version (Anthias) from the paid-for Screenly service. We’ve used Screenly OSE for conferences to deliver digital advertising and talk schedules across many Pis. Unlike the older Screenly releases, Anthias is aimed at Raspberry Pi 2 and newer. You need the extra horsepower to play the myriad of media files. The team is working on fixing the installer for the Pi 1 and Zero, but we also can’t see an installation candidate for the Pi 5. With that in mind, we tested on a Pi 4 8GB. Installation was via Raspberry Pi Imager but you can also install via a Bash script in Raspberry Pi OS…

Infrared is commonly thought of as heat, but that’s only true of far infrared. Closer to visible light – in fact, immediately adjacent to the red end of the visible spectrum – is so-called near infrared. And while far infrared can only be photographed using special cameras, near infrared can be photographed with ordinary cameras, more or less. So, near infrared photography, which we will refer to as simply infrared photography, is much more accessible. You could use most phones or ordinary cameras for infrared photography (see LXF248) but here we’re using Raspberry Pi NoIR cameras. For reasons we’ll see, these offer several benefits, including the ability to create attractive false colour infrared images. After providing a quick overview of infrared itself and infrared photography, we’ll move on to a…

We asked AMD about how the Ryzen 7 7800X3D compares to the Ryzen 7 9700X. The answer given was that the 9700X should squeak ahead on average, though cache-loving games will favour the 7800X3D. On a related note, AMD pointed out that the 9700X is on average 13% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. This will give AM4 gamers a little incentive to make the switch, though 9000X3D chips will be worth waiting for if you are on the fence about switching to AM5. Of course, AMD gave an entirely expected “no comment” when asked about 9000X3D chips, but you can be sure such chips are coming. AMD will be hoping to take some wind out of the sails of Intel and its upcoming Arrow Lake processors, which. We picked…

When it comes to ebooks, in some ways Linux users are spoilt for choice. There’s any number of excellent apps, such as Bookworm and Foliate, for opening EPUB and MOBI formats. The mighty Calibre is also incredibly useful for converting between formats, as well as downloading metadata. Given the open source approach to OS design, however, Linux doesn’t always play well with DRM (digital rights management) protected content. This may be why there’s no native Amazon Kindle desktop client. Naturally, there are some workarounds. You can still use Linux versions of web browsers to manage Kindle content in your account. The desktop client can also be run through a compatibility player like Wine or PlayOnLinux, but this can cause performance issues. In this guide, you’ll discover how to download, manage…

It’s hard to find reasons not to like the Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 C30. The memory kit works immaculately out of the box and offers solid performance. That alone is enough to win the majority of buyers over. Looks, as usual, are subjective, but you can’t dispute the Trident Z5 Neo RGB’s premium exterior. Like its competition, G.Skill uses SK Hynix M-die ICS for the memory kit, so some tweaking headroom remains in memory modules. By default, the memory runs at DDR5-4800 with timings toned down to 40-40-40-77. G.Skill has embedded one EXPO profile into the Trident Z5 Neo RGB. Once enabled, the memory jumps to DDR5-6000, with timings and DRAM voltage fixed at 30-38-38-96 and 1.35V, respectively. G.Skill’s memory kit has some of the tightest timings on the…

TeamGroup did a great job with the Xtreem ARGB DDR4-3600 C14 memory kit – it certainly ticks all the right boxes. The kit looks fantastic and performs equally well when lit up or powered down. And it’s the fastest DDR4-3600 C14 memory kit we’ve tested. By default, the Xtreem ARGB memory modules post at DDR4-2400 with 16-16-16-39 timings. The memory modules have one XMP profile, and flipping the appropriate switch in your BIOS will get them to run at DDR4-3600 with 14-15-15-35 timings and a DRAM voltage of 1.45V. Although the memory kits use the same ingredients, some are better binned than others. Unlike the competing memory kits in our tests, the Xtreem ARGB could run at DDR4-3600 with much tighter timings. With a DRAM voltage of 1.46V, we got…

Version: 1.3.0 Web: https://github.com/kamgurgul/cpu-info You won’t find this system monitor in the software repositories, but thankfully installation is straightforward with the Flatpak package. Run the flatpak install flathub com. kgurgul.cpuinfo command first, and then flatpak run com.kgurgul.cpuinfo to launch it. When you launch CPU Info, you’re presented with information about the hardware, and the interface features a series of tabs at the top such as CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage, OS, Hardware and so on You can click on each to find pertinent details. For instance, the RAM tab lists the total and available memory. You can find details about the manufacturer, model, firmware and motherboard, as well as info about the soundcard, network interface and so on under the Hardware tab. Not all parts of the app work as advertised,…

Version: 2.37 Web: https://newsboat.org There are two types of internet users: those who get their information from podcasts, and those who prefer the written word. Newsboat is an RSS/Atom feed reader for the terminal. Forked from Newsbeuter, the MIT-licensed project is available in the software repositories of most Linux distros, such as Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, Debian and others. If your distro doesn’t carry the latest version, you can compile it manually, but you have to first satisfy all its dependencies, such as make, Rust, Cargo, SQLite3, libcurl, pkg-config and so on. Refer to the project’s website for the complete list of dependencies. If you don’t want to go through all that trouble, you can take advantage of the Snap package and run the sudo snap install newsboat command to install…

Version: 2.1.1 Web: https://hurrycurry.metamuffin.org We’ve come across many games where the objective is to build cities or empires, but never one that involved preparing meals. If you know who Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson are, you’re the target audience for Hurry Curry! Released under the AGPLv3 licence, the quickest way to install the game is with the Flatpak package. Run the flatpak install flathub org.metamuffin. hurrycurry.client command to install the game, and the flatpak run org.metamuffin.hurrycurry.client command to run it. At first launch, you have to sign the employment contract, which provides the hairstyle you must adhere to, your position, and other pertinent details, such as duties and compensation. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that your duty is to serve customers the meal or item they request, and…

Version: 2.5 Web: www.geeqie.org With professional-looking photos being taken on a near-daily basis thanks to ever-improving smartphone cameras, you need a featureful image viewer and organiser to make sense of all your clicks. Most Linux distros offer several image viewers in their repos, and you might find one installed out of the box. Geeqie is a lightweight image viewer and organiser that prioritises speed and image previewing. Released under the GPLv2 licence, the project started in 1998 as GqView but adopted the new name in 2007. It’s been under constant development since and you’ll appreciate the thorough documentation on offer that discusses its myriad features. Although Geeqie is available in the software repositories of most distros, the version on offer might not always be the latest. While you can build…

Command line completion is like having a butler in the terminal, ready to anticipate your every command and whisk it into action with a few keystrokes. It’s a bit like magic. Type a snippet of a command or file path, press Tab, and voilà! The rest appears as if summoned by a wizard’s incantation. Or by a few lines of code hidden in plain sight, like we will present in this iteration of our shell saga. Command line completion comes in two flavours: Tab completion: The old faithful. Just tap the Tab key, and our shell does its best to complete your command or file path faster than you can say, “Abracadabra.” If there’s more than one possibility, just stress the Tab key a little bit more, and it circles…

THIS ISSUE: WordPress woes Celebrating two decades of Ubuntu uBlock blocked FLOSS funding boost The popular user hub WPShout once stated, “WordPress is a factory that makes webpages.” This reflects the fact that it was originally released in 2003 as a medium for publishing blogs, but it now supports other sites such as forums and online stores. As of 2023, the software is used by over 43% of the top 10 million websites. In recent weeks, a furious debate has been sparked in the community between WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, a major hosting provider for WordPress sites. Mullenweg, who heads up WordPress.org (the open-source project) and WordPress.com (a commercial hosting service), has accused WP Engine of “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” without adequately contributing back to the project.…

According to recent Android Open Source Project commits, Google plans to include a native Terminal utility in Android 16. This will build on the Android Virtualization Framework, introduced in v13. The exact implementation isn’t clear but ferrochrome-dev-option patches have been submitted to AOSP that include a Linux Terminal toggle under Developer options. There’s no confirmation that Terminal will be included in OEM builds of Android but it may feature in Pixel devices.…

Q Notwork booting I have a Dell Inspiron 3583 laptop that came with Windows 10. I didn’t like it and switched to Ubuntu. All went well until I installed 23.10, when my laptop crashed. When I tried to reinstall, all I got was PXE over IPv4. Fortunately, I could run an OS as a live system. I tried several using Ventoy and then tried to install ones that I liked to the internal drive. All the live distros worked but attempts to install just came back with the PXE message. Then I tried Debian 12.5 and it installed without any problem. I tried other distros again but they back came with the PXE message. Of course, I now use Debian 12.5 and I like it, but what is going on?…

As a big thank you for subscribing to Linux Format Print Edition, we’ve always offered digital access to past issues. It seems The Management thought it was a good idea and has rolled out a new system using Pocketmags ! This means there are now two ways of accessing LXF back issues for subscribers. The new Pocketmags service goes back to March 2014, including over 140 full issues, while our older PDF archive goes back to LXF66 (a crazy 8-bit filling 254 issues), though issues before LXF120 have had covers and ads stripped. We’ve outlined how to access both below. Enjoy! * Terms and conditions apply – see page 17 for full details. GET YOUR ACCESS NOW & SUBSCRIBE on page 16 FANCY NEW POCKETMAGS 1 Activate your access Head…

When reviewing the Devuan-based distro Expirion this month (opposite page), we noted the developer had created a spin of the OS based on Kali, minus the usual tools for “those who’ve watched too much Mr Robot”. Although there’s no such a thing as too much Mr Robot, Kali does feature prominently in the series. This is because it isn’t intended as a daily driver but as a convenient way for hackers to make use of multiple pen-testing tools. Kali is based on the latest testing version of Debian (Trixie). According to the release announcement, Kali now supports the Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM845 SoC. Kali’s online support is so comprehensive, it even puts Canonical to shame. The documentation is well written, easy to navigate, and supplemented by official forums and a Discord…

Opera » Mozilla Firefox » Google Chrome » Microsoft Edge » Brave It sometimes feels as though the web browser is the most important application that we run on our Linux desktop. It’s the conduit that connects us to the web and therefore the outside world. Sometimes, we’re hanging out on social media, and other times we’re looking around online for something specific that we need. Even further, what we do with our web browsers these days has moved beyond simply browsing the web with them, because many stalwarts of the desktop application scene have made their way over to web-based equivalents. Of the five options we’ve looked at here, they are all applications that we could recommend, as these are the cream of the current crop of desktop browsers.…

Onstalling Fedora is a breeze. First, grab the ISO from https://getfedora.org. It’s only a couple of gigabytes, so hopefully won’t take long to fetch. Best make a cup of tea anyway, just in case. Next you’ll need a USB stick (4GB or higher) and a tool for writing to it. We always recommend Etcher (https://etcher.io) because it’s cross-platform and pretty much self-explanatory to use, see the top tip left for more details. Once it’s written, you need to tell your BIOS or UEFI to boot from the USB stick. You might be able to get a pop-up boot menu with F12 or F10, or you may have to hit Del or F2 (or any other key combo) to enter the interface and configure the boot order from there. If you…

If you’re interested in 3D printing gaming miniatures, Elegoo’s Mars 5 Ultra is precisely what the Dungeon Master ordered. You don’t need to be a 3D printing expert to get started with this machine, thanks to its bevy of automatic features. It’s also fast and precise, with an impressive 9K resolution. The Mars 5 Ultra includes a tempered glass LCD screen protector – a huge benefit for those new to resin printing. It also boasts automatic levelling and has a tilt release feature that gently peels each layer off the vat’s bottom film. It has a sensor to detect resin levels and failed prints to save you time and headaches. Everything you need to get started is included, from scrapers to a printed manual and software on a USB stick.…

The AMD Zen 5 CPU architecture will form the backbone of the next generation of Ryzen desktop and laptop processors, and while we got a general idea of the new tech during Computex earlier in 2024, we’ve now been treated to the full architecture monty. Before diving into the finer details, it’s worth revisiting the information revealed back at the start of June. At Computex 2024, AMD announced the Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000-series desktop CPUs and Ryzen AI 300 mobile APUs were set to launch during the month of July. As was expected, Dr Lisa Su’s Computex keynote was full of general details for a general audience, with little meat on the bone regarding the architecture itself. The Ryzen 9000-series is code-named Granite Ridge. And, apart from the architectural improvements,…

The first salvo of AMD’s Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 processors are here. The new chips span from the £269 six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 9600X to the £594 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X, covering the same segments as the prior-gen Zen 4 Ryzen 7000s. The chips have the same core counts as their predecessors, with a new architecture offering significant performance and efficiency improvements. The Ryzen 9000 chips drop into the existing AM5 socket, which AMD will support until at least 2027. The Ryzen 5 9600X replaces the Ryzen 5 7600X in the £300 price bracket. Pricing-wise, the 9600X contends directly with Intel’s Core i5-14600K, a lacklustre Raptor Lake Refresh family member that offers little over its predecessor, the Core i5-13600K. The Ryzen 5 9600X gets a slight 100MHz clock rate…

» USA From $135.49 For 13 issues » REST OF THE WORLD From $135.49 For 13 issues » EUROPE From €119.49 For 13 issues 2 GREAT WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE Print + NEW digital access or digital-only! IT’S EASY TO SUBSCRIBE! Visit www.magazinesdirect.com/linux-format Call +44 0330 333 1113 Lines open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm GMT Or 1-844-779-2822 Lines open Monday-Friday 8.30am-5pm EST *We don’t actually deliver to the Moon. Yet. UK readers turn to p16…

Our upgrade tutorials are a perfect way to learn about how Linux interfaces with your PC’s different subsystems. Memory is oft overlooked for understandable reasons – largely because it’s taken for granted. Even if you’ve built your own PC, for most people it’s just a case of dropping in a couple of DIMMs and letting them self-configure. But we’re hoping we can get you to stop and spare a thought for your poor unloved memory. Let’s take a quick refresh of how you can interrogate memory use (both via a GUI and the terminal) and test for possible corruption that can cause random crashes. While upgrading memory in the sense of swapping out older, slower memory for faster DIMMs is an edge case, adding more DIMMs for expanding total memory…

The typical compromise when boosting memory levels is speed; timings can’t be as tight or fast when you’re balancing sending bytes to four DIMMs with millisecond precision. So, while not big on speed, the Vengeance DDR5-5200 C38 is the kind of kit that will appease users who require a lot of memory, such as content creators, software developers and data scientists. Current AMD and Intel CPUs embrace DDR5-3600 and DDR5-4400, respectively, in a four-DIMM setup. Therefore, DDR5-5200 is technically overclocking, so your mileage may vary depending on your CPU and mobo. For maximum compatibility, the modules run at DDR5-4800 with the timings toned down to 40-40-40-77. A single XMP 3.0 profile onboard will set the memory to DDR5-5200 and change the memory timings and DRAM voltage to 38-38-38-84 and 1.25V,…

Buyers within the performance PC market have only two excuses to stop at DDR4-3200: either they’re trying to save money or coax a good performance from a system that can’t go much further. For those in either category, but the former in particular, Patriot’s 32GB Viper Steel 3200 kit outshines the competition in terms of price, beating its closest rival by approximately 18%. That’s without any performance penalties beyond having the exact mid-market timings as its competitors. Even though the Patriot Viper Steel’s performance victories are less than 1% overall, its low price puts it well ahead of even the least-expensive competitor in our basic performance-to-price comparison. As a result, value seekers within the performance PC market have just found their new champion. VERDICT DEVELOPER: Patriot WEB: www.patriotmemory.com PRICE: £61.99 Rating…

Version: 0.11.3 Web: https://github.com/claudiodangelis/qrcp Unlike the old days when a single laptop or desktop formed the entirety of one’s work environment, modern workspaces span multiple devices and operating systems. One has to constantly share files and content across these devices. As useful as USB cables are for transferring files, they don’t offer a quick solution when you have to share files from a Linux desktop to an iPad, for instance. What if you could share files across devices, irrespective of the underlying operating system, with nothing more than a QR code? This is the functionality Qrcp provides. You need Go 1.18 or higher on your system to install Qrcp with the go install github.com/claudiodangelis/qrcp@latest command. If that seems like too much work, you’ll appreciate the DEB and RPM packages released…

Version: 2.2.1 Web: http://slgobinath.github.io/SafeEyes/ Too much of a good thing is not an idiom one often associates with computing devices, but it fits. If you spend too much time staring at the computer screen, you’re likely to develop a number of physiological issues, such as poor posture, weak glutes, bad core strength and, worse still (conspiracy theories?–ED) you’ll strain your eyes. Thankfully, there’s an easy fix, at least so far as your eyes are concerned. Safe Eyes is a nifty utility that helps prevent eye strain by periodically forcing you to take a break. It differs from mere reminder utilities because Safe Eyes blacks out and locks your screen, forcing you to rest your eyes, or at least not continue staring at the screen. The Python utility can be found…

Version: 0.20.0 Web: www.hyperplay.xyz Gaming on Linux has gained tremendous traction in recent years, with many excellent treats now on offer. HyperPlay is a game store and launcher with a vast number of games on offer. It also supports the entire library of both the Epic Store and GOG. The cross-platform game store is still in alpha, so you won’t find it in the software repositories of most popular desktop distros. But that’s quite all right as the project publishes a Snap package, and installable binaries for RPM and DEB-based distros, but recommends installation using Flatpak. You can install it with the flatpak install flathub xyz. hyperplay.HyperPlay command, then the flatpak run xyz.hyperplay.HyperPlay command can be used to launch the store. When you start HyperPlay, the first step after choosing…

Version: 1.68.1 Web: https://rclone.org There’s no such thing as being too cautious when it comes to safeguarding data. Although a lot of people stress over using secure passwords and even encryption, not many bother with keeping secure copies of data. Unfortunately, disk troubles don’t announce themselves in advance, and you can’t anticipate a hastily executed dd command, which could deprive you of your precious data, to say nothing of malicious attacks and external threats. Backups are the only sane solution to ensure your data is protected from all threats, known or otherwise. Rclone is a nifty utility that supports dozens of cloud storage services to help you safeguard your important data on remote sites. Most distros carry Rclone in the software repositories, but you can also grab the latest tarball…