Table of contents for February 2023 in Linux Format

IN BRIEF With hundreds of templates, support for over two dozen languages, and hundreds of widgets for integrating third-party sites and services on to your website, Wix is one of the most thorough website builders you’re likely to find. Wix is a giant in the website builder industry. Browse its site and clues to its success appear right away. While some services give you only a few templates, Wix has more than 500. Its built-in image editor has 40 Instagram-style filters. The blog supports 26 languages. The App Market has more than 200 widgets to enhance your site and integrate third-party sites and services. Beginners can sample much of this for free, but experts can go much further, with features like Wix Code, enabling them to manage database collections, generate…

IN BRIEF Kali Linux is a mature and stylish distro, which has all the tools you need to pursue a career in cybersecurity, ethical hacking or penetration testing. New and updated tools add to already impressive capabilities, and it runs on practically everything – including the Raspberry Pi and specific smart phone builds. SPECS CPU: 2GHz Mem: 512MB HDD: 2GB Builds: i386, x86_64, armhf, armel, arm64 Kali Linux is an evil distro for hackers, ne’er-do-wells and other undesirables who want to overthrow the state and sow chaos. You can tell because of the menacing wallpapers that feature evil-looking dragons, who are doubtless up to no good. There’s also the vast array of tools designed for network analysis, penetration, password cracking and other such things, which we’ll get to shortly. They’re…

In many ways, you can use Matrix as a social media alternative. You have options to join groups and chat about your favourite topics, and talk directly with friends. One big difference is that on the Big Tech services, you are set to public by default and you can choose subjects as you go. With Matrix, you choose your subject by joining a group. Another big difference is that if you want to have private conversations, you must take action yourself. You need to create a group where you alone can invite people. For it to be truly secure, you must also create encryption keys. The strength of this is that you are responsible for your own security. You need to know how to verify any people who join your…

Before you see the full potential of Matrix, the clients probably look like any old chat box. But when you discover the more intricate details, you’ll see the power of encryption and private rooms. The specification (https://spec. matrix.org) is open, clear of patent licensing and mostly uses HTTP. Importantly, it has vast support for encryption and is built for environments that anyone can join – so-called federations. Any user should be able to create their own rooms and servers, making it vital that you know how to handle your encryption keys. Fortunately, all clients that support it have simple ways of doing this. In this case, Mirage is disappointing because it does not support encrypted rooms or client verification. That said, Fractal and NeoChat also lack these essential features so…

YOU NEED » Raspberry Pi Pico W » Code: https:// github.com/ lesp/LXF-Pi-Special/ archive/refs/ heads/main. zip QUICK TIP JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is convenient and easy to use, but large objects can become jumbles of noise. Use an online viewer (http:// jsonviewer. stack.hu) to explore the data and find the correct keys. In this project, we’re creating a simple app to get the latest exchange rates for the euro and US dollar against the UK pound. The Raspberry Pi Pico W comes with MicroPython, a version of Python 3 for microcontrollers. It is regularly updated and new versions can be found at https://bit. ly/lxf298upython. It’s a good idea to update MicroPython and ensure you get the version for the Pico W, as it has extra modules for Wi-Fi connectivity. Download and…

A lthough we’re big fans of OpenStreetMap (OSM), its coverage isn’t as extensive as the proprietary map app from Google. No worries; being a crowd-sourced project, it doesn’t take much to become a cartographer and extend its scope. JOSM, or the Java OpenStreetMap Editor, is a feature-rich, Java-based offline desktop map editor for OSM that can help you plot GPS traces. JOSM is available in the repos of several distros, but you can use the official distro-agnostic Flatpak to make sure you have the latest version. Head to the terminal and type flatpak install flathub org. openstreetmap.josm to install the app. It anchors itself in the distro’s Applications menu and can also be launched with flatpak run org.openstreetmap.josm . You can upload your own GPS track data into JOSM, though…

A udiophiles take note. To get the most oomph from your expensive audio gear, you can use the Easy Effects audio manipulation tool. As its name suggests, the tool helps you apply audio effects to apps managed by PipeWire, with little effort. It includes dozens of effects, such as an equaliser, exciter, limiter, compressor, reverb tool and lots more. To complement these it also features a built-in spectrum analyser. With its latest version, you can use the app to not just include multiple effects to a stream, but also change their order as per your audio pleasure. The tool is included in the repos of several distros but to make sure you have the latest version, just use the Flatpak with flatpak install flathub com.github. wwmm.easyeffects . Once it’s installed,…

G abut Download Manager is a feature-rich allin-one download manager that can grab files using direct URLs, as well as from Metallinks, Magnetlinks and Torrents. The icing on the cake is its built-in web service, which not only remote-controls the manager but also share files over the local network. Gabut isn’t available in distro repos but you can grab it from the Snap store or Flathub. To install the Flatpak version, head to the terminal and type flatpak install flathub com.github.gabutakut.gabutdm . When done, you can launch it from the distro’s application menu or with flatpak run com.github.gabutakut.gabutdm . The app actively monitors your clipboard and automatically catches hold of any downloadable URLs and opens the download dialog box. Its interface resembles that of any download manager, and gives all the…

T here’s no shortage of Doom 2 mods, but Total Chaos is such a brilliant remaster that you wouldn’t have guessed its Doom 2 roots if we hadn’t spilled the beans. The first-person shooter has six levels and does a stellar job of transforming Doom 2 into a horrorthemed survival bloodfest. It relies on GZDoom, which is a 3D-accelerated Doom port that makes best use of the current hardware to add support for things such as dynamic lighting, sloped floors and other things that modernise the game’s visuals and make the gameplay more engaging overall. You can grab the game from Flathub with flatpak install flathub com.moddb.TotalChaos . When it’s installed, you can run it from the distro’s application menu or by using the flatpak run com.moddb. TotalChaos command. Total…

A slong-time readers can probably tell, we’re suckers for privacy here at LXF Towers. One of the sloppiest ways to leak privacy information is through metadata in files posted in public forums. Metadata is sensitive information that, with the right context, can reveal a lot about you. Cameras record data about when and where a picture was taken and which camera was used. Similarly, many office apps automatically add author and other details to all documents. With Metadata Cleaner, you can easily view the metadata embedded in a file and remove it without much effort. The app recommends installing it via Flathub. Pull up a terminal and type flatpak install flathub fr. romainvigier.MetadataCleaner to install it. When it’s done, you can launch it from the distro’s Applications menu or from…

DISTRO OpenSUSE to drop early 64-bit CPUs Tumbleweed moves to x86-64-v2 – do you even know which version you have? Tumbleweed is SUSE’s rolling release distro and is constantly updated with the latest stable software; development is handled by OpenSUSE Factory. Tumbleweed’s Dominique Leuenberger has sent an email to the Factory mailing list saying the Factory is “repurposed to move forward with x86-64-v2”. This leaves the first generation of 64-bit chips dead when implemented. A new repository will be created for legacy systems but will require volunteers to keep it running as, after setting it up, Leuenberger says he won’t touch it. SUSE Linux Enterprise is already due to move to x86-64-v2 (it had considered moving to v3, but this was dropped as a step too far). Given that Leap…

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. You helped! I watched a lot of YouTube videos about different distros, agonised over what OS to install... I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Then I spotted your mag with Pop!_OS on its DVD. Best tenner I remember spending. Mick Neil says… Thanks for the kinds words. Look everyone, we’re helping, too! Mainframe man I’ve been receiving the magazine since some time in the early noughties I think, my first exposure to Linux being while I was doing a part-time MSc at De Montfort University in Leicester, 1999-2001. We had coursework that needed to…

SPECS Socket: AM5 Process: 5nm TSMC Cores: 6 Threads: 12 Clock: 4.7GHz (5.3GHz boost) Cache: 384KB L1, 6MB L2, 32MB L3 Unlocked: Yes GPU: AMD Radeon twocore RDNA 2, 400MHz Mem max: 128GB DDR5- 5200, ECC support, twochannel PCIe: v5 24 lanes TDP: 105W AMD isn’t messing around this time; Intel’s nifty Alder Lake core architecture put Team Blue in front in the current generation, and with 13th-gen Raptor Lake chips on the way, AMD clearly knew it had to swing for the fences. AMD is giving us a similar generational upgrade, but without resorting to ‘efficiency’ cores to save power; the result is a chip that dominates in single-core workloads, and still performs reasonably well when firing on all cores. The new 5nm manufacturing process used by TSMC to…

IN BRIEF Targeting beginner Linux users, Nitrux does a splendid job of simplifying software discovery and offering a slick KDE-based interface, but perhaps leans too much into the minimal design aspect. SPECS CPU: 2.5GHz dual-core 64-bit Mem: 2GB HDD: 5GB GPU: 32MB VRAM, OpenGL 2.1 Builds: x86_64 If you are just taking your first steps in Linux, you should begin your journey with Nitrux. It leverages some of the most stable and well-respected open source projects and builds on them to create a distro that suits the sensibilities of new Linux users. For instance, instead of building a custom desktop environment from scratch, Nitrux relies on KDE Plasma’s malleability along with some redesigned components to simplify workflow for new users. It offers a couple of layouts for the desktop to…

Being chat applications, Matrix clients often come as web services. An example of this is Cinny’s web page, which has a link to the online version of the application. You have to actively seek out the Flatpak edition. This is the same for Element, although installing it on your smartphone is actively encouraged. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible to install these on Linux, it’s merely a quirk of their web pages. When you start looking around, you will find that downloading the desktop application is second choice for several of these clients. But that makes it more interesting to have them on your desktop – you are a rebel, right? The ones that don’t do this are Fractal and NeoChat; the teams behind these are part of the KDE and…

You want to communicate with someone about a particular subject using Matrix. Whatever topic you are looking for is probably available elsewhere, but with Matrix you can have direct conversations. For these packages, you can do what you always do: scour question sites where the answers have been waiting for a long time. This works, but some things are difficult to find; if you enter a chat interface, you can get hints where to go next. Before choosing a specific client, you should go and see what is happening with the project. It is useful to know whether there has been any work done on the project over the past year before getting used to it. There are many ways to check this – one is to look through the…

Here we’re considering whether the client you pick will keep going for a reasonable time. If not, you should think twice before using it because you may end up with an unsupported product. To make a decision in this regard, you need to see how much development is going on and whether there are groups of people making it popular in different ways. You can see on sites like GitHub whether any updates have happened lately and how much activity of other kinds is going on. If you look for support requests, you can also see how many people are using it. The more users, the bigger the incentive to continue developing the application. It is not always obvious by looking at just one of these indicators but combine them…

YOU NEED » Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (2GB) » 16GB or 32GB microSD card » 5V PSU » ADS-B receiver Realtek RTL2832U + R820T2 » USB extension cable Over the last few years, there has been much talk of software-defined radio (SDR – see LXF273). This is a way for a generic piece of receiver hardware to be repurposed to scan different frequencies or be used for a whole variety of purposes. One example of this is the Realtek RTL2832U+R820T2-based USB stick (around £35), which was originally intended to be used as a TV receiver. For this project, we will briefly introduce how this receiver can be used to receive ADS-B signals from passing aircraft and how this information can be fed into a web service that aggregates signals…

It takes a village to run an open source project, or so the saying goes. Or would, if software were a thing back when that saying came to be. It nevertheless still applies to open source, which moves forward thanks to the efforts of contributors around the world. Specifically, thousands of developers write millions of lines of code to create all the components that make up our favourite operating system. From the kernel to base utilities to desktops and applications, many of these contributors volunteer their time to improve and grow the FOSS ecosystem. But even more people use the software, but aren’t developers. If you, like the author, are among this group, how do you go about lending a hand? In this article, we’ll explore a variety of ways…

IN BRIEF A modular beginner’s robot kit that offers the ability for Scratch-level coding and enhancing the base kit with additional sensors, servos and more advanced coding languages. Quadruped robots aren’t new, but they’re as cool and fascinating today as they were a few decades ago when they first surfaced. Bittle is a programmable robot dog targeted at robotic beginners ages 14 years and up, or anyone who wants to have fun learning and playing with robots. Priced at £310 (assembled), it comes programmed with a few starter tricks, such as walk and trot, that learners can try out to familiarise themselves with what the robot can do, then later expand to more complex types of behaviour. This may seem like an expensive STEM kit, but it’s fairly affordable compared…

Version: 7.3.0 Web: https://github. com/PowerShell/PowerShell F ree and open source software from Microsoft that’s actually good is a rarity. One such gem is PowerShell, which interestingly supports all of the commonly known commands from CMD and Linux’s command-line shell. PowerShell is made up of a command-line shell, a scripting language and a configuration management framework. System admins use it for automating the management of the computers in their realm. One of the differences that’ll strike first-time users when using PowerShell is the semantic clarity. As anyone who has worked with traditional POSIX shells like BASH knows, most commands are heavily abbreviated. For instance, commands such as awk , ps and top don’t make sense to a new user as the names don’t reveal the purpose of the command. In contrast,…

E ar Tag is a small and simple music tag editor, which unlike many of its peers, doesn’t try to manage your entire library. Its developers claim that the application is suitable for editing a handful of files or even a single file, and is particularly useful for people who don’t have a very large library of music files. Ear Tag is available in Arch’s AUR and a couple of other distros. Your best bet, however, is to install it via the official Flatpak package with flatpak install flathub app.drey.EarTag . Once it’s installed, you can fire up it from the distro’s application launcher or from the CLI with flatpak run app.drey.EarTag . Being a GTK4 application, Ear Tag is fairly attractive and looks at home in modern Gnome-based distros…

A sits name suggests 3D-Puzzles is a simulator of 3D combination puzzle games. In addition to the classic Rubik’s Cube, the game also features the Dogic, and Dogic 12 puzzles. To get started, download its official AppImage from the project’s website: $ wget https://github.com/volatilflerovium/3D-Puzzles/raw/main/3D-Puzzles-x86_64.AppImage After grabbing the file, you have to make it executable, which can be done in either of two ways. Firstly, you can use the graphical user interface by right-clicking on the file and selecting Properties from the context menu, then you need to head to the Permissions tab and toggle the Allow Executing File As Program checkbox. Or you can fire up the terminal and switch to the folder where you’ve downloaded the AppImage: $ chmod +x 3D-Puzzles-x86_64.AppImage The game has a simple interface. The main…

S tatic wallpapers are so passé, especially on modern machines with dedicated graphics S hardware. With Hidamari, you can run videos as wallpaper, without taxing your computer. The Python app praises itself for being minimal, and yet offers features such as GPU video decoding. Best of all, it’s fully compatible with Wayland and supports multi-monitor setups as well. Hidamari is available in the Arch’s AUR, but the developers suggest installing it via the distro-agnostic Flatpak. Bring up a terminal and type flatpak install flathub io.github.jeffshee.Hidamari to install the app. It then nests itself in the distro’s Applications menu and can also be launched from the terminal with flatpak run io.github.jeffshee.Hidamari . Besides setting local videos as wallpaper, the app also enables you to use videos from YouTube and other video-sharing…

Laptop drive Over the last few months, the Isle of Wight Linux User Group (www.iwlug.org.uk) has supplied over 80 laptops to guest Ukrainian refugees. It is a joy to equip laptops with 128GB SSDs and bring them back to a new lease of life. We use Linux Mint Cinnamon by default, enabling Ukrainian and Russian languages, and stick on Cyrillic key tops. Most Ukrainian guests are mothers arriving with mobile phones, backpack luggage and children, staying with generous hosts across the Isle of Wight. A mobile phone is never sufficient for children’s online education at home or necessary complex form-filling. We only ever just get by with donated laptops, so more are always welcome. We’d also love to hear of any similar activity on the mainland. Especially in the Linux…

IN BRIEF After six years in development limbo WattOS R12 is finally here. Now based on Debian 11, it still focuses on ease of setup and speed, running comfortably on older machines. SPECS CPU: 1GHz 64-bit Mem: 512MB HDD: 10GB Builds: 86_64 Welove lightweight distros. This is why we reviewed some of the best of them in LXF295, but WattOS didn’t make the cut, because a new version hadn’t been released since 2016. This is most likely because WattOS is the creation of just one man: Ronald Ropp, aka Biff Baxter, who started development of the distro in July 2008. Unlike previous versions, WattOS R12 is based on Debian, not Ubuntu, which in theory makes for a much more stable operating system. This is reflected in the bundled apps, such…

SPECS Minimum OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS CPU: Intel Core i3 3250, AMD FX 8370 – AVX required Mem: 8GB GPU: GeForce GTX 660, AMD R7 370, 2GB VRAM HDD: 10GB APU: Intel HD Graphics 630, AMD Radeon Vega 8 Recommended CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K, AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Mem: 16GB GPU: GeForce GTX 1660, AMD RX 590, 6GB VRAM It’s 1836 and the Industrial Revolution’s machines are in high gear. The coming century will change the face of the human world with a population explosion, a second industrial revolution and more. In Victoria 3, you take control of a society attempting to ride this wave of explosive change to its end in 1936. What you do along the way, and how much fun you have, is up to you.…

To withstand the pressure of the next flame war, your interface had better look good. But good looks are subjective. Some people want a lot of colour and a picture-based background, but a more basic issue is whether your text is dark or light. Most of these clients use the dark or light theme, and most have a total of four variants. NeoChat has four colour themes and some other titbits including Bubbles and Compact for the message feed. In Fractal, you can change the theme to match the system’s, other settings seem to be missing. To make your view the best possible, you can change a lot more things in Mirage. Coming from a Qt toolkit, the application’s appearance has been prioritised for the design of this package. Cinny…

With the correct language and framework under the hood, new features can be added when the other projects add support. Having a code base that clearly has high activity ensures an interesting future for a project. It also shows you on which devices you can use it. You may prefer an application that looks the same on all devices, but with the wrong code base, this is unlikely to happen. In this regard, Element sticks out because there are several clients for many platforms. Written mostly in TypeScript and JavaScript, Element easily converts to different platforms. The web page offers clients for Android, iOS and web. Obviously, there is also a Linux desktop client available. The Mirage client, however, comes only as an AppImage and a Flatpak, which are excellent…

If you’re choosing Matrix for your social needs, you are either a geek or you are tired of the flood of messages that have nothing to do with your query. You could be both, of course. In either case, switching takes something of an attitude adjustment. That attitude needs to be that every conversation is on point and does not wander from the subject matter. With Matrix clients, you always create a room for your subject. A new room for each subject – keep it clean and stay civilised. In contrast, anything goes on Twitter and you have to filter out all the nutters. The other difference with Matrix is creating a private room, which is fully end-to-end encrypted, and is the default option. Having your own room and encryption…

To become a maker, you need the right kit, and without a microSD card, the main Raspberry Pi models won’t even boot. So, to kick things off as quickly as possible, we’ve had our friends at Tom’s Hardware do a bit of testing and come up with the fastest microSD cards to power your Pi. Now is an amazing time to buy a fresh microSD card as prices have tumbled and speeds have increased dramatically. Previously, we would have recommended 32GB cards, but it’s getting hard to find a 64GB card that costs much more than £7, while 128GB cards are regularly under £15. Much of this is powered by even larger capacity cards entering the market. Theoretical speeds can top 140MB/s, with many advertising a healthy 100MB/s, as the…

YOU NEED » Raspberry Pi 3, 4 or Zero 2W » 8GB or larger microSD card QUICK TIP Infrared remote controls can be used with the Raspberry Pi – just search for FLIRC. Wireless keyboards with trackpads make excellent controllers. When the Raspberry Pi first arrived in 2012, one of the first projects we saw was a media centre. Even the humble Raspberry Pi 1, with just a single 700MHz CPU and 512MB RAM, was capable of decent 1080p video playback. Fast-forward to today and the Raspberry Pi 4 is many times more powerful and able to perform much better with our growing library of media. In this tutorial, we explain how to install a media centre OS to your Raspberry Pi, and then show you how to play media…

YOU NEED » Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico W » A push button » An LED » 330 Ohm resistor (orange-orange-brown-gold » A breadboard » Code: https:// github.com/ lesp/LXF-Pi-Special/ archive/refs/ heads/main. zip »SD card The Pi Pico comes pre-installed with MicroPython, a version of Python 3 for microcontrollers. It is regularly updated and new versions can be found at https://bit.ly/lxf298 upython. It is prudent to update MicroPython before trying this tutorial. Our circuit for this project is a simple LED toggle switch – adetailed circuit diagram is included in the download link. A push button is used to turn the LED on and off. The Pico reads the GPIO pins and reacts to the change. Download and install Thonny for your OS and connect your Pico to the computer. Open…

YOU NEED » Any Pi Pico » Micro USB cable » Thonny Editor » MicroPython firmware » WS2812B LEDs (with suitable power) We’re using MicroPython here to control a small set of LEDs. Known as NeoPixels, they are a string of LEDs that are generally multicoloured and can be addressed individually. NeoPixel is the name given to this style of LED by Adafruit, but the same driver is used for a large number of them (WS2811/WS2812), no matter who the manufacturer or supplier. These models are available with separate RGB channels, so that any colour can be made by mixing the values (think of HTML colours). First, download and install MicroPython from https://bit.ly/lxfupdate. Then hold down the Bootsel button on the Pico board and connect to your PC or laptop.…

Due to the delays of print publishing and extended Christmas deadlines, this news will seem a little late, but we’re doing our best! Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton announced via the official blog that 100,000 units had been secured for singleunit sales (one unit per customer) and that by the second half of 2023, it is expected that there will be a return to prepandemic stock levels. This is good news for those who have felt the bite of the supply shortage that has dogged the Pi for well over a year. The bad news? Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W see a $5 price increase, but the Pi Zero will be available for bulk purchase in 2023. Upton acknowledged the patience of the community and offered 100,000 units, made…

SPECS Build vol: 225x 225x280mm Material:PLA/ PETG/TPU/ABS (up to 260°C) Extruder: Direct drive Nozzle type: 0.4mm MK8 Platform: PEI textured spring steel sheet, heated Levelling: Automatic, inductive probe Runout sensor: Yes Comms: MicroSD card, USB Type A Control: 4.3-inch colour touchscreen, removable Size: 475x445 x515mm, 8.1kg Gone are the days of ‘beginner’ printers that welcome new makers with a trial by fire. The Neptune 3 Pro arrives 90% pre-assembled and goes from box to first print in 30 minutes. Everything we liked from the Neptune 3 has been carried over and improved in the Pro edition. The PEIcoated build plate holds on to prints with the right amount of stick, then releases when cold. Bed levelling is a snap, and the Z height was on target without needing adjustment. The…

Most cloud data providers only encrypt data during transmission. Usually the ones who do M encrypt the data, hold on to the decryption keys, leaving users little option but to trust the cloud providers to take adequate steps to keep the keys from being stolen, copied or misused. If this arrangement has put you off using online data silos, Cryptomator encrypts your data before handing it over to the cloud silo. This ensures only you can decrypt your data, which remains undecipherable for anyone else, be it the cloud provider or a threat actor. Cryptomator works with any cloud data storage service as long as it gives you the ability to synchronise with a local directory in your filesystem. This means it can work with virtually all popular services, including…

I nits most basic form, Logseq is a note-taking application. But there’s got to be more to this software that separates it from the myriad of other apps for jotting down notes, because Logseq counts Google, Meta and MIT amongst its users. You can use Logseq to jot down notes, and also add images and other documents such as PDFs. The app also enables you to organise notes using tags, which makes them easily searchable. Logseq is built with a privacy-first mindset, which means that by default all your notes are stored offline on your computer. That said, you do have the option to synchronise them using GitHub or iCloud. For every release, Logseq puts out an official AppImage, which you can grab yourself and make executable by using the…