Table of contents for August 2024 in Linux Format

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite has received favourable reviews for its performance in Windows running on Arm PCs. In mid-May, the company’s developer blog also posted an announcement related to upstreaming Linux kernel support for its latest Snapdragon system on chip (SoC.) The blog correctly states that this is nothing new. In the past, the company has cooperated with Lenovo, Arm and Linaro on the AArch64 laptops GitHub project, which provides Linux support for a number of its ‘premium’ SoCs. The website also rightly states that Qualcomm is quick off the mark when it comes to Linux support; the initial patchset for Linux kernel support for the Snapdragon X Elite was announced on 24th October, just one day after the SoC itself was revealed to the world. Qualcomm claims that the…

Debian Developer Julian Klode is in the spotlight once again through making use of build options for the OS’s implementation of KeePassXC. Despite its dated-looking interface, this powerful password manager can create local encrypted databases to store user credentials. Given the breaches of online password managers like LastPass and Dashlane recently, KeePassXC can offer a far more secure option. The software itself does have online features like browser integration and password sharing, but these can be disabled. Klode chose to do so when uploading KeePassXC to Debian unstable for the upcoming Debian 13 (Trixie) release. He justified his decision by pointing out the XZ backdoor, which was only uncovered by chance by a skilled developer. Given optional features are less likely to be reviewed, he explained that there’s a greater…

Quantum Leap Seeing as Linus Torvalds wrote programs and games (including Pac-Man clone Cool Man) for the Sinclair QL, perhaps Linux Format should do an article about the QL, celebrating 40 years since its release, and maybe include an interview with Linus about how the QL influenced his computing journey. This website is an excellent source of information: https://dilwyn.qlforum.co.uk. Alan Neil says… It does look as though the Sinclair QL slipped through the net when we ran our classic emulation series. I believe Les found that it was supported by the ZX Spectrum emulator he covered, and because he had no personal experience with the QL, he decided to skip over it. We’re a shambles! Free stuff You spend a lot of time talking about Linux – I guess the…

LibreELEC has been in active development since 2016, when a number of OpenELEC programmers decided to fork the project. According to the main website, its purpose is to provide “just enough operating system” to run the Kodi media player, which is reflected in the fact that it runs happily on single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. This said, the project wiki advises against trying to run LibreELEC on legacy hardware, as “just enough” doesn’t always stretch to older device drivers. There’s no bootable ISO but interested parties can download a disk image to write to a bootable USB. Although LibreELEC isn’t really designed to be run via a hypervisor, there’s a virtual machine (OVA) image available for testing purposes, which we used. Given how lightweight the…

The Garuda is a large, mythical eagle that features in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The name seems fitting for this rolling Arch-based distro, given its rich plumage. By this we mean Garuda’s flagship Dr460nized edition (code name Bird of Prey), which ships with Plasma 6. The developers have put their own spin on this, with neon icons and an awe-inspiring dragon-themed wallpaper. If this isn’t to your taste, Garuda offers 47 alternative backgrounds. In the developers’ own words, this edition offers “a dark, blurry and fully immersive Plasma experience”. This dark theme is consistent throughout the system; even the OS’s custom Firefox-based FireDragon web browser comes with the dark reader extension. The Naturally, such visual splendour comes at a cost, which is why Garuda is also available as a…

Generally, most of these tools were out of date in the Linux Mint repositories. For Hyper, we downloaded the DEB archive from the website. This worked fine, and there is also an RPM. Manually installing architecture-specific packages like this can present a problem due to updating, but once it’s installed, Hyper monitors for updates and automatically installs the latest version for you. This behaviour can be toggled off. There is an AppImage file, but that format, which does not install itself, is a different prospect for a system tool such as a terminal emulator. Hyper has an option that creates a symlink so it is in the current path, completing the initial setup. Terminator’s main website and documentation don’t seem to contain directions for obtaining an up-to-date version. In all…

There are two main sources of documentation for Terminology. The long, single page of the official website is worth a read, as it gives an overview of the features. This is helpful as many parts of this system are unconventional in how they work. The GitHub page gives information on building Terminology, in addition to an overview of basic controls. There is also documentation within the GitHub page covering areas such as customising colour scheme files. Overall, the documentation covers most areas adequately for a project that is orientated towards users who want a good-looking terminal emulator rather than those who want to customise every aspect of how it works. Terminator uses https://readthedocs.com for documentation. It is written in a nice chatty style and has the feel of a user…

Many people turn to Linux to breathe new life into their old systems. Consigning ageing machines to the scrap heap (or preferably an ewaste service) may be cathartic, but if it works, it seems a shame not to use it. A machine that is not capable of running Windows 10 (see box), or running it in a usable manner, can in all likelihood run some form of Linux. We’ll be clear about this, though: there are some limits, some which depend on how much effort you’re willing to invest. Modern Linux can’t run on your dusty old 386, for example. Such support was removed in kernel 3.8 over a decade ago. If you really want to build your own Linux distro based on an older kernel, you could, but it’s…

Having got LMDE installed on our woefully underpowered EeePC, it became apparent that the machine wasn’t going to be very useful. Except for pandering to our sense of nostalgia. According to Systemd-analyze, it took a minute to boot (as far as the login screen), a far cry from the sub-20s boot times we’ve come to expect. Initial memory usage (as gauged by the free -h command) was 500MB or so. Following the welcome screen’s recommendations, we let it chug through a handful of updates. The simple act of starting Firefox brought the machine to its knees (kneees? – ed), and even our beloved linuxformat.com took ages to render. And then began the swapping. Our install set up a 1GB swap partition (which is used as memory when actual memory runs…

Credit: www.flatpak.org Flatpak is an application distribution (aka packaging) system for Linux that can retrieve and install software from an online repository or from downloadable package description files. This might make it sound like the standard packaging systems that are central to every Linux distribution, but it has a number of advantages over those traditional systems. First off, built-in packaging archives can be just a snapshot archive of software, so distribution packages can often be out of date. Flatpaks were built to enable time-poor developers to easily knock out the latest builds of their software. When a developer packages their application with Flatpak, they make a single package that can run on all of the major Linux distributions. It’s also appealing because the developer can include all needed dependencies and…

Credit: https://fyne.io Over the past decade, we have seen great improvements in the graphical software user experience and corresponding advancements in the tools that are used to create compelling apps for our phones and tablets. Unfortunately, building graphical applications for the Linux desktop seems not to have benefited quite as much from these developments. With this in mind, several recent projects have been created, aiming to serve all platforms, so none are left behind. The Fyne project is a popular toolkit that was started with this purpose in mind. This cross-platform GUI toolkit for Go enables you to create a single codebase from which graphical apps can be built for Linux, BSD, Android, iOS, Mac OS and Windows. Fyne aims to make it easy for developers to build compelling graphical…

In late May, Framework announced the latest Laptop 13 series of laptops, which offers an optional 13.5-inch 2,880x1,920 120Hz display on both Intel and AMD systems. The new 2.8k display option at 256ppi has led the company to claim that pixels will be effectively “invisible from a normal viewing distance”. While we will leave such judgments to LXF’s hardware reviewers (who?–Ed), there’s no doubt that this new resolution will allow for a more streamlined experience in Linux through 2:1 display scaling. You can read more at https://bit.ly/framework13linux.…

AlmaLinux was released in 2021 in the wake of Red Hat’s announcement that it would discontinue downstream development of CentOS. Like CentOS, AlmaLinux is community-supported and aims for binary compatibility with RHEL. New versions such as the latest (code-named Seafoam Ocelot) match the release and software versions of RHEL itself. This is done using freely available open source code via the AlmaLinux Build System. This is worthy of an article in its own right; the AlmaLinux Foundation has a 23 minute YouTube video on it works. Like Red Hat, there’s a number of AlmaLinux images available. We chose from one of the many download mirrors and saw there were three main ISOs available: a boot image of around 1GB, a minimal image of around 2GB, and a 10GB DVD image.…

Good news, Steam Deck fans: Nvidia is making it a little easier to use its GeForce Now game streaming service on Valve’s Linux-based handheld gaming device. This is important because, until now, getting the game streaming service running on a Steam Deck was possible, but tedious because Nvidia’s GeForce Now Windows 11 app doesn’t play well with Steam Deck’s SteamOS interface. Instead, many Deck owners use GeForce Now by switching to Desktop Mode, firing up a browser window and streaming their GeForce Now games through it – a useful dodge to get Fortnite up and running on the Deck, for example. However, completely out of the blue, Nvidia updated its GeForce Now download page with a new Steam Deck (Beta) download link that, when clicked, downloads an applet that automagically…

Hyper uses a text file configuration, which opens in the system text editor from a menu entry. It monitors the configuration file and gives instant updates on screen. This gives it some of the inherent advantages of a GUI configuration page mixed in with those of a text configuration file system. The configuration file itself is easy to navigate. Ninety per cent of Cool Retro Term’s configuration options control the appearance options. This means that there isn’t a huge amount of fine control over things such as running external scripts and setting up hotkey commands. The Terminator configuration is a multi-tabbed dialog, and some of the sections have their own tabs. There are a lot of options for behaviour and appearance, and they are well organised, but they don’t take…

We’ll choose Terminator as the best all-round option for an enhanced terminal emulator, even though all of the candidates are good enough to recommend if you prefer the way they look and work. Terminator’s most prominent feature is that it can split the main window horizontally and vertically, and save the layouts for regular use. This tiled approach is useful in many situations, but some of the other options also offer splits. It is highly configurable, and if you have an unusual requirement in an area such as a custom keyboard function, Terminator can probably do it. Hyper’s configuration system is text-based, but it can detect any changes to the configuration file without requiring a restart. That said, GUI configuration dialogs do offer a lot, and it lacks niceties such…

Whatever machine you’re trying to resurrect or rejuvenate, it’s always worth getting as much RAM into it as possible. Retailers won’t stock this any more, but you’ll find plenty of DDR1 or SDRAM sticks on auction sites for cheap. Just make sure to check your motherboard’s manual to find which speeds and stick combinations are required and whether you need ECC memory (unlikely). The model number for the motherboard should be visible in the BIOS somewhere, so type that into DuckDuckGo and you’ll find a manual in no time. Later old hardware is much less fussy than old-old hardware about mixing and matching memory capacities. So, if your machine is old-old, aim to put identical sticks in all the slots. Or in a pair of the slots (usually the two…

Credit: https://superfile.netlify.app Although a file manager has little to offer besides the ability to copy, move or delete files and folders, and generally navigate to the directories of your choice to access the files you’re looking for, it is one of the most important and frequently overlooked productivity tools. We’ve already covered a few CLI gems in previous issues, but this month we’re talking about Superfile, a file manager with the right mix of fancy and modern to make it well worth a look. Released under the MIT licence, Superfile is a configurable file manager that’s all about user experience. Unlike most other CLI file managers, Superfile has a distinct appearance, using different panels to display useful information. While some modern TUI utilities have incorporated mouse support into their operations,…

Credit: https://github.com/rricharz/Tek4010 As you head back in time past the ’70s, you enter the minicomputer era. Part of that era, which is still very much embedded in modern Linux/Unix, is the terminal. Back then, the display terminal acted as the user’s interface to the computer. We could even think of it as a first step towards the client-server model of computing. We’re going to take a look at two classic display terminals, one for handling text and another that could also handle graphics. And while we’re going to introduce an emulator for one of these terminals, the bare bones of the other is alive and well and integrated into most Linux terminal software, as we’ll see. Hello VDU Having raised the subject of the progression of mainframes to minicomputers to…

This is the second article in our series about creating play-by-mail games. These are games that are now played over the web (or by email), and we’ll be looking at various aspects of this, including user input, use of JSON, clans, and free versus paid games. Original play-by-mail (PBM) had one advantage compared to modern games: you didn’t have to worry about user input. Game turns were entered on paper or specially printed cards, with an address on one side and a simple form with 10 lines on the other. You just filled in your game number and player number and orders, added a stamp and popped it in the letter box. We played It’s a Crime back in 1986 and filled in orders on a card like as seen…

Last month, we introduced some basic movement on to the screen, with the famous stretching-scrolling Star Wars effect, and with it also came the notion of the texture. Intentionally focusing on the educational aspect of the article, we have concocted a very suboptimal texture format, but one that is very easy to understand for beginners, too. First we’re introducing some wondrous concoctions known as fractals, and we will draw and zoom them around the screen. For the second part of this month’s tutorial, we are focusing on some stunning effects in order to demonstrate how clever texture manipulations can create some unexpected results. One of them is the rotozoom effect (an effect that rotates and zooms in and out) and the next one is the famous tunnel effect, which gives…

THIS ISSUE: AI code drummed out of distros » Snapdragon supports Linux » KeePassXC commotion » No more Neofetch Despite the clear advantages of having AI create carefully crafted code, its use in major projects has been problematic. For instance, in March this year Nvidia found itself on the wrong end of a lawsuit. This centres on copyrighted material allegedly being used to train LLMs in the Megatron library for the tech giant’s NeMo generative AI framework. In December 2023, the New York Times launched its own lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, claiming that the newspaper’s articles had been used to train ChatGPT and other models. These legal wrangles likely won’t go away any time soon, so it’s unsurprising that back in February Gentoo Council member Michał Górny proposed a…

On 26th April, Dylan Araps, creator of Neofetch, archived the GitHub repository for the project. This didn’t come as much of a surprise to the community, as the utility has only been updated infrequently in the past few years. Araps updated the Readme file on GitHub to say that he has “taken up farming”. Currently, the utility is available in the repositories of popular distros such as Ubuntu. If you need a futureproof method to display system information in a colourful way, we recommend Hyfetch, a well-maintained direct fork of Neofetch.…

Timeshift takeover Q I am apparently out of space on my SSD, which is odd and shouldn’t be the case. I tried to clear up some space (around 15GB) and nothing seems to free up room. I then noticed that Timeshift is running, because the logo is visible on the bottom-right side of my screen (it usually isn’t there). When I hover over the logo it says, “A Timeshift system snapshot is being created.” It doesn’t let me open Timeshift or any program really. When trying to open Timeshift, it says “Scheduled snapshot in progress…” I went into my recycling bin to try clearing it for space and it doesn’t let me do that either. It says, “Failed to delete this item from trash, do you want to skip it?”…

AMD’s X3D line of processors has taken the gaming world by storm, delivering leading gaming performance at every price point they compete in, and the £220 Ryzen 7 5700X3D steps in to lower the pricing bar for entry. That’s a win for enthusiasts upgrading existing AM4 systems and even for those looking to build a budget gaming rig. The Ryzen 7 5700X3D offers the highest gaming performance in its price bracket, even unseating Intel’s more expensive £310 Core i5-14600K. As with AMD’s other X3D chips for AM4 motherboards, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is based on the previous-gen Zen 3 architecture, so it isn’t quite as performant in productivity applications and won’t rank as high in our CPU benchmark hierarchy – you’ll be better off with the Ryzen 5 7600X if…

SparkyLinux is based on Debian. There are two main flavours, one of which is based on the latest stable release of Debian (in this case Debian 12). The other is based on the unstable branch of Debian and is the focus of this review. The main website describes this version as for “more advanced users, who aren’t afraid of a little less stable version of applications”. As our most unstable writer by far, Nate was well suited to put SparkyLinux through its paces. But he hit a snag when downloading ISOs from the main website, due to his browser blocking the files as insecure. On closer inspection, it seems while sparkylinux.org has a valid SSL certificate, file downloads take place over regular HTTP. So, we recommend using the provided md5/SHA…

Hyper » Cool Retro Term » Yakuake » Terminator » Terminology Whenever you access the command line from a desktop environment, you need to use a terminal emulator. Every major desktop environment comes with a basic terminal emulator, but there are other choices if you crave better looks and more features. Yakuake takes inspiration from the terminal in the Quake series of games in that it drops down from the top of the screen when you hit a hotkey – an efficient and useful arrangement. Cool Retro Term cranks up the nostalgia as it can simulate the look of many different types of CRT displays of yore. It looks amazing, but it’s also a perfectly good terminal emulator for serious work. Hyper has a cool-looking minimalist appearance, and it’s based…

Some Linux users like a black box with no adornments whatsoever, but the majority of us appreciate some user interface elements, particularly if they make the less common operations easy to discover. We like customisability in this area of computer use, and this should consist of facilities to alter the broad strokes such as the colour theme and the font size, along with, ideally, the ability to alter at least the foreground and background colours, and being able to redefine every colour from within the configuration interface. An extra point if visual tweaks are immediately reflected within the terminal. The cosmetic aspect of a terminal is largely down to personal preference. Ideally, there should be a mixture of selectable presets and specific options for colour elements. We’ve given higher marks…

If you have the necessary scripting skills, you could just about build your very own terminal emulator program by using Hyper as your base and then adding various features to it – it’s that flexible. Thankfully, the documentation covers every aspect of working with the codebase and configuration files. Hyper also has about 25 ready-made plugins listed on the website. Most of these carry out simple functions, such as answering Y to a yes or no prompt, or altering the way the user interface functions, rather than adding a great deal of extra functionality. They are well documented on the website, with some of the plugins featuring an animated example of what the plugin does, and they could also serve as examples for creating your own plugins. Plugins are the…

We mentioned earlier that Debian is the only major-league distribution still supporting 32-bit x86 hardware. This is an oversimplification, because we are simple journalists, after all. You are no doubt gasping to point out that several 32-bit versions of Ubuntu can have their support window extended well into the future (see box, page 38). Be that as it may, Debian 12 will be supported until 2028 and, thanks to its configurability, it is a fine distro for your dusty old hardware. There’s also a number of lightweight distros based on it, including AntiX, MX Linux and Crunchbangplusplus (aka #!++), a continuation of the popular CrunchBang project. Obviously, there are non-Debian-based distros that still support 32-bit machinery – more on those later. For this section, we want to concentrate on what,…

When it comes to installing software on your new Linux machine, you’re spoiled for choice. And we don’t just mean by the sheer variety of applications, games and tools on offer. In many cases, you have a choice of how you want to install those programs, too. Prepare to be bedazzled (and confuddled) by such terms as ‘Apt’, ‘DEB packages’, ‘Snap’, ‘Flatpak’ and ‘AppImages’, to name but some of the many installation methods available to you. Each of these methods works in a different way, as you’ll see later. But let’s start with the most obvious source for new software: your distro’s package manager. This provides you with an easy way to find and install programs without having to use the terminal, even though last month’s tutorial hopefully revealed that…

Credit: www.gimp.org Think of retro games and you’ll probably think of the pixellated look of titles released on consoles such as the NES. Games such as Bomberman and Kid Icarus worked within the limitations of ’80s technology, yet offered hours of fun and iconic looks. The style faded into obscurity with the development of more powerful game consoles and 3D graphics, but has seen a recent renaissance in indie games such as Pepper Grinder (www.peppergrindergame.com). The art is still drawn pixel by pixel using a limited palette, but is much smoother thanks to careful shading and muted hues not available to ’80s game developers. One of the most popular uses of pixel art is in role-playing games based on an isometric grid. We’re going to create an example character (or…

COLLABORATIVE WHITEBOARD Drawpile Version: 2.2.1 Web: https://drawpile.net Krita offers everything you need to create digital art on the Linux desktop, but what if you need to work with other artists to conjure up your masterpiece? Drawpile is a cross-platform drawing app whose main goal is to let multiple people work on the same whiteboard simultaneously. Drawpile is officially available as both a Flatpak and an AppImage. It’s best to use the AppImage to experience the app’s networking features. Just grab the AppImage file, then make it an executable from the file manager or with chmod +x. The app has everything you would expect from a freehand digital drawing app, including hundreds of brushes, the ability to work with layers, and all kinds of editing tools. However, the best part about…