Table of contents for August 2023 in Linux Format

SPECS Build volume: 165x89x 143mm LCD screen: 6.6-inch monochrome Light source: Parallel matrix XY axis resolution: 34 microns Normal exposure time: 2.5 seconds Interface: 2.8- inch touch panel Connectivity: USB Type A 2.0 Machine footprint: 390x 229x235mm Weight: 4kg Made specifically with first-time resin users in mind, the Anycubic Photon Mono 2 delivers quality 4K prints with a smaller-sized vat and a petite footprint that requires minimal space. Retailing at a rock bottom price, we’ve noticed serious cutbacks in the machine’s base unit and cover, both of which are plastic rather than metal or acrylic, but the print quality is crisp, speed is good, and the machine is very easy to use, making it one of the best resin 3D printers around. Everything you need to get started is included,…

IN BRIEF Does the world need another RHEL-based distro? In the case of EuroLinux, the answer is a resounding yes. It’s easy to set up, visually stunning and supported through to 2032. SPECS CPU: 1GHz Mem: 4GB (1.5GB per CPU recommended) HDD: 10GB (20GB recommended) Builds: x86_64, AArch64 (ARM64), i686 EuroLinux belongs to a select group, as it’s one of the six major Linux distros developed in Poland. It is built upon the foundation of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) source code. The EuroLinux team claims this guarantees compatibility with RHEL, Oracle Linux, CentOS, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. From reciting this shopping list of distros, it seems the team is aware there’s no shortage of options if RHEL-based Linux is your jam. Rocky Linux, for instance, is also based on…

HOW WE TESTED… For this assignment, we installed each distribution and began playing around with them, trying to picture how they would look to both newcomers and people who already have some Linux experience. We carried out some basic tasks and loaded up most of the important apps. We updated the systems and tried installing some software using the GUI package management tools on offer. This time around, we’re not searching for a low-end solution, but we did make some notes about how efficient each distribution is. As usual, we used the df -h command to display the disk usage of an updated fresh installation and free -h to find out how much memory was in use upon a fresh boot to a desktop with a terminal window open. It’s…

We’re not focusing on performance on low-end machines in this Roundup, but all of these  distributions should be way ahead of Microsoft Windows on such hardware. We’ve reached a point where even a comprehensive Linux desktop doesn’t require a huge chunk of the memory in a computer with only 8GB or even 4GB of RAM at a push. If you were working with an extremely resourceconstrained machine, Lubuntu would be our first choice of distro from this selection. On a fresh boot, only 560MB of RAM is in use. Lubuntu was also the least disk-space-hungry of the flavours on test, only requiring 7.3GB of space on an updated fresh installation. Kubuntu offers a state-of-the art Linux desktop that looks great, and it proves our point as it only uses 833MB…

Ubuntu Studio has some unique advantages in this area thanks to its vast selection of installed and configured media applications and plugins. The task switcher at the top of the screen should be fairly easy for Windows users to figure out on first use, and the launcher is fairly standard. We could say some of the same things about Edubuntu. A newcomer to Linux would be amazed with what it offers out of the box, particularly if they are interested in classroom use or a computer setup for a child. However, beyond launching the favourite apps located on the sidebar dock, searching for apps and navigating categories would need some explanation. The standard KDE employed by Kubuntu offers a fairly hightech Linux desktop, but in actual fact, the layout elements…

In this section, the translation environment I will be run in its native form. LibreTranslate also provides a Docker container under https://registry.hub. docker.com/r/libretranslate/ libretranslate. Its use, however, is not necessarily recommended – keep in mind that exposing CUDA acceleration to Docker, as outlined at https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/cloud-native/ container-toolkit/install-guide.html, is an involved and finicky process. Deployment of the underlying library can be handled via Pip, because the product is considered stable enough by the Python community. For reasons of comfort, we first create a virtual environment (the current environment is in parentheses) by entering the following commands: (base) ~$ conda create -n aitranslator (base) ~$ conda activate aitranslator (aitranslator) ~$ The actual download is then accomplished via Pip 3: (aitranslator) ~$ pip3 install argostranslate Given that our virtual environment is completely virginal, about…

IN BRIEF An RP2040- based board, but instead of writing code, this board helps debug our code. Aimed more at advanced users, typically C/C++ coders, Debug Probe is a useful tool for those who need it. The bonus USB serial adaptor makes it useful for serial consoles on Raspberry Pi and other SBCs. T he latest RP2040 device from Raspberry Pi isn’t a Pico, rather it is something we can use to debug a Pico. The Raspberry Pi Debug Probe is an RP2040-powered board designed for use with debugging tools. With it, we can interactively step through and identify issues with code running on a Pico (or other compatible device). The probe is used to observe data from a running program and provides a bridge between the Serial Wire Debug…

W hat if you could mix the friendliness of Ubuntu, the cutting edge of Arch and the stability of Fedora? Would that be the ultimate distro? Welcome to BlendOS! This is an Arch-based distribution that contains many modern features and allows for applications to be run from three different distros (Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch). It sounded so interesting we decided to have an in-depth look, get you up and running and interview the project’s founding developer. Let’s begin with a discussion about Arch. When we started using Linux, there was a mantra along the lines of: if you want to use a different operating system, use Linux, and if you want to learn about the depths of Linux, use Arch. Arch now provides a text-based installer tool that walks new…

SPECS Family: Raptor Lake Socket: V LGA1700 Process: Intel 7 10nm Cores (P+E): 4+0 Threads: 8 P-cache: 320KB L1, 5MB L2, 12MB L3 (shared) P-core: 3.4GHz (4.5GHz boost) Mem max: 128GB, no ECC, two-channel Mem speed: DDR5 4,800MT/s, DDR4 3,200MT/s PCIe: v5 and v4 20 lanes Unlocked: No GPU: N/A Processor base power: 60W Maximum turbo power: 89W The Intel Core i3-13100F comes to market with big shoes to fill; its predecessor, the Core i3-12100F, built a reputation as the best budget CPU. Intel is obviously looking to repeat that success, but perhaps the Core i3-13100F follows in the footsteps of its predecessor too closely — the company repurposed the previous-gen design for the Core i3-13100, so it has the same four P-cores paired with an ever-so-slightly-improved 200MHz-higher boost clock…

IN BRIEF Peropesis has a tiny footprint and loads into RAM in seconds. Next, master the Linux command line and compile your own programs – if you have the time and patience. SPECS CPU: 1GHz Mem: 256MB HDD: N/A (Live only) Builds: x86_64 Not to be confused with the capital of the First Persian Empire (that’s Persepolis), the developers of Peropesis (‘personal operating system’) say it is “small-scale, minimalist, command-line-based Linux”. How small scale? This distro’s ISO weighs in at just 205MB and is designed to be run entirely in live mode. The helpful introductory manual on the Peropesis website says the distro is a good way to familiarise yourself with the command line, as well as programs commonly used in Linux. It also points out that this system can…

Ubuntu Studio and Kubuntu are both KDE-based distros, and KDE now groups all of the configuration into a single application, which is searchable. Having a central location for the settings doesn’t come with any real disadvantages. The configuration tools cover all the common areas of the interface along with system settings in areas such as network setup. The various settings show up in the launcher’s search results as well. LXQt-based Lubuntu groups the settings together in the LXQt Settings app, but there are settings applets that exist outside of this, meaning that the entire collection isn’t searchable. One way or another, it should be possible to alter any system or appearance settings that you need to, even if the tools are neither fully integrated nor consistent in appearance like the…

All of these desktops can be customised, but we’re A evaluating the default desktop experience. Evaluating the user interface of a distribution, we expect something that looks good and is easy to understand and use. At this point, we expect the application launcher to be a searchable one, and we appreciate a smooth, mouse-free workflow, from summoning the launcher to locating the correct application to, finally, launching it. User interface looks aren’t just about prettiness. We like something that’s consistent and clear. Most machines that are in use today have a few pixels to spare, so some use of space is welcome. For example, some Linux window managers seem to like to impose tiny window controls and a layout with insufficient visual indication of where a user interface area starts…

Ubuntu Studio and Edubuntu are the stars of this section as they offer lots of features on top of a standard distro. To get the best out of using Linux for media creation (music apps in particular) often requires manual configuration, but Ubuntu Studio has these customisations in place right from the start. For example, Ubuntu Studio uses the low-latency kernel rather than the standard kernel, and various tweaks have been applied to make sure that the default user is in the Music group and that music apps can lock the memory they need, and there are extra features concerning the swap file setup. Ubuntu Studio Installer can be run at any time. From here, you can change individual settings such as selecting the standard, generic kernel rather than the…

Image classification is difficult not so much because of the algorithm, but because of I the need of a dedicated training set. Many if not most academic papers use packages such as the CIFAR image set found at www.cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/ cifar.html – it takes one look at its contents (as seen in the image on the right), to appreciate that the number of detection categories in this data set is highly limited. Face huggers… If we’d written this six months ago, the next step would involve parametrising a specific model. Fortunately, advances in AI tech have led to the rise of the Hugging Face company. One of its most interesting products is shown below. For reasons of posterity, we will reuse the virtual environment created before. The next step involves downloading…

SPECS Pi: Compute Module 4/4 Lite Storage: M.2 NVMe up to 22110, microSD Comms: Gigabit Ethernet (Wi-Fi on CM4) GPIO: 2x UART, 5x user GPIO and I2C, fan, user button, 2x RGB LEDs Power: USB C, Power over Ethernet (PoE) Ports: HDMI (4K60), USB A Extra: TPM 2.0, hardware switchable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and EEPROM write-protection Size: 42.5x255x 17.5mm This is no mere IO carrier board. The Compute Blade is T designed for rack-mounted use, with PoE providing the power and networking for a high-density cluster of Pi CM4 boards. The long, slender blade design lends itself beautifully to this, and clever component positioning means we have a densely packed board full of features. Underneath a snazzy red anodised heatsink, we have a connector for any variant of Raspberry Pi Compute…

No one would have believed in the last years of the 20th century that the processor world was being watched keenly and N closely by intelligences greater than Intel’s. Yet across the gulf of the Atlantic in a country called the UK, intellects vast and cool regarded the processor market with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against Intel… History is a funny old thing, when IBM was partpicking to build the first PC, it could have gone with its own IBM 801 RISC processor, but the budget insisted on the Intel 8088 and history was set: every PC would be running an x86-compatible processor. Technically, anyone could design and manufacture an x86-compatible processor, but legally (we’re looking at you China), Intel owns the patents to the instruction…

DISTRIBUTION All Snaps – no Apt! Canonical is cooking up a desktop version of its immutable Ubuntu Core OS with package management handled only by Snaps. Will it catch on? On 31st May, Canonical product manager Oliver Smith raised the possibility on the Ubuntu blog of an all-Snap immutable desktop version of Ubuntu Core. Canonical even has a testing version of its popular Ubuntu Core incorporating the GDM display manager on GitHub (https://github.com/ canonical/ubuntu-core-desktop) . Ubuntu Core dates back to 2014 and was designed to create a fully containerised platform for IoT, using the same kernel container tech as Docker and LXC. The advantage is that every system component is sandboxed and follows a defined upgrade and rollback procedure. Updates for IoT devices are automated and the OS itself is…

WRITE TO US Do you have a burning Linuxrelated issue that you want to discuss? Write to us at Linux Format, Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA or email letters@ linuxformat.com. Suggestion box You should have a column for what Linux users would like to see added to Linux distros and programs. It could feature a user’s wish (with some details) and expert comment or analysis of the wish (why it can or can’t be). You can perhaps give out prizes for the selected submissions of maybe a subscription or some trinkets, such as a Linux Format mug, pens and so on. T Smith Neil says… I’d quite like a Linux Format mug… It’s not a bad idea, but I’m not sure the amount of correspondence we…

IN BRIEF Like Indiana Jones’s hat, Fedora is cool, adventurous and easy to don. There’s a kaleidoscope of spins combined with easy setup, bleeding-edge features and a huge selection of software. SPECS CPU: 2GHz dual-core Mem: 2GB HDD: 15GB Builds: x86_64, AArch64 A part from being the chosen hat of everyone’s favourite adventurer, Indiana Jones, Fedora is the upstream source of the Red Hat Linux Project. This puts it on the bleeding edge of innovation when it comes to software packages, so we were eager to see if Fedora 38 lived up to its predecessors. This latest version was announced on the Fedora blog a week early, which came as rather a surprise to the Linux community, which is used to a more sedentary development cycle. If you’ve already decided…

SPECS Minimum OS: 64-bit CPU: 2.6GHz dual-core 64-bit Mem: 8GB GPU: GeForce GTX 950, Radeon HD 7970 HDD: 1GB Recommended OS: 64-bit CPU: 3GHz Core i5, 3GHz Ryzen 5 Mem: 16GB GPU: GeForce GTX 1060, Radeon RX 580 HDD: 1GB This is an Early Access preview of a game that’s still in active development and updating. Originally released in June 2020, we feel safe casting an eye over where Valheim has been, where it is and where it’s going… Our first trip across the ocean was on a tiny wooden raft, holding a torch nervously, peering through the pitch-black night. It makes you feel intensely vulnerable. Having never left the starter island before, we have no idea what’s waiting out there in Valheim’s massive procedurally generated world. After a…

Alongside the choice of desktop environment, the default application selection is the biggest distinguishing feature when comparing a set of Ubuntu flavours. Indeed, we hope for a good match between the applications and the desktop environment. As Kubuntu is based upon KDE, it’s no surprise that many of the tools are connected with that environment. However, where sensible, generic apps have been favoured. The inclusion of web browser Firefox and office suite LibreOffice are examples of this. We’re always happy to see KDE’s file manager, Dolphin, as it’s one of the best. KDE apps such as text editor Kate, music collection manager Elise and media player Haruna round out the selection, so for most users, Kubuntu won’t need much adding to it to cover basic use. The use of bigger…

Canonical has famously disabled Flatpak support recently, and each of these distributions is affected by that, but you can enable support by manually installing it, as you would on normal Ubuntu. As these flavours are Ubuntu under the hood, you can also use the standard package installation tools such as Apt on the command line along with the Snap packaging system. KDE’s application launcher (as employed by Ubuntu Studio and Kubuntu) is linked to the packaging system, making installation suggestions while you search. Both of those distributions feature a software store called Discover. This features applications from both the Ubuntu and Snap repositories with reviews and ratings. Ubuntu MATE has its own software manager called Software Boutique, but in its current state of development, it’s not the best store app…

Kubuntu has a desktop that looks professional and comes with detailed GUI functionality and all of the basic applications that you’re likely to need. We agree with the decision to stick with generic options where they are superior to KDE alternatives, but we also love using the KDE and Qt programs that make up the bulk of the smaller tools. These smaller tools and the configuration options have a high level of consistency in how they look and work. There’s nothing wrong with the grab-bag approach of a cobbled-together Linux system, if that is what you prefer, but Kubuntu feels like a coherent, professional desktop with a lot of features, in a similar way to either Mac OS or Windows. Edubuntu is the closest of the flavours to standard Ubuntu…

To get started, open Driver Settings from your T distro’s start menu. Select Using Nvidia Driver Metapackage From Nvidia-Driver-525 (Proprietary) to start your distro’s journey to the use of hardware-vendor-accelerated driver. Keep in mind that using such vendor-provided package drivers taints the kernel, and is not allowed in some high-reliability or high-trust computing environments. Updated GPU drivers usually yield significantly better performance. Sadly, package managers tend to take their time reflecting vendor-provided updates, so manual intervention is recommended. Go to https://developer. nvidia.com/cuda-downloads and follow the provided instructions to install a driver of choice. This download and deployment process normally doesn’t update the currently active working environment of your Linux installation, so reboot now. Furthermore, the Nvidia drivers are somewhat tardy. First, even correctly installed and perfectly working drivers often can’t…