Table of Contents

From The Chief Editor's Desk

1. Firejail, Easy Sandbox On PCLinuxOS

2. Short Topix: Linux Is Changing The Face Of End-User Computing

3. GIMP Tutorial: How To Apply A Sepia Tone

4. ms_meme's Nook: Booting From Both Sides

5. PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Martin Goose

6. Microsoft Open Sources Over 60,000 Patents To Help Linux

7. PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

8. ANGRYsearch

9. The Death Bell Tolls For Google+

10. ms_meme's Nook: I Just Care For PCLinuxOS

11. PCLinuxOS Bonus Recipe Corner

12. PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

13. Screenshot Showcase

From The Chief Editor's Desk

Since I've never had the opportunity to travel outside of the U.S., I haven't experienced the world outside of the U.S. bubble, so to speak. But, I do know that for the past two decades here in the U.S., there has been a war waged. It's a cultural war, of sorts. It's a war of words. And ... it's exhausting!

It's called "political correctness," PC for short. There are an awful lot of people who want to see it go away. A recent poll (PDF, 160 pages), called "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape," shows that 80% of Americans are tired of political correctness, and wish that it would go away. Young, old, liberal, conservative, rich, poor ... there seems to be agreement on at least this.

It didn't take me very long to discover that this "phenomenon" has tentacles that reach far and wide, across international borders. I found one article from the Daily Mail in the U.K. (it didn't require too much searching) that talks about the PC madness. Ironically, most of the examples cited seemed to be from the U.S., where the PC madness has turned into PC insanity.

Around my part of the world, it will wear you down. And quick. I started noticing it not long after it reared its ugly head. I was working night shift at the hospital then, and we had victims of a motor vehicle accident coming in by ambulance to the emergency room. I made the "mistake" of calling it a motor vehicle accident. I was quickly corrected by one of the PC police. "It's a motor vehicle collision, not a motor vehicle accident," the PC minded person stated. "By calling it an accident, it sounds like you're trying to place blame."

Say WHAT?

That was my reaction then, and it remains my reaction now. An accident is an accident. It is what it is. It doesn't help that I've never really been good at "sugar coating" things. I tend more to just state things the way they are. Facts are facts. You can sugar coat any kind of excrement you want all you want, but it will still taste like excrement when or if you take a bite.

The PC movement has gone to extremes. It's insane and impossible. There's hardly anything you can say that doesn't offend someone, somewhere, no matter how careful you are. It's like walking on eggshells through a minefield littered with unexploded ordnance.

I appreciate when someone is direct and honest about things with me. But then again, that's how things were when I grew up. You were expected to deal with the truth, however raw it may be or regardless of how bad it made you feel. But in today's PC world, we're more concerned about someone's feelings than with being truthful. Back then, learning to deal with one's shortcomings and human frailties built character. It taught you perseverance, and allowed for personal introspection on how you might be able to improve on those shortcomings to become a better person.

But today, people don't seem to be interested in becoming a better person. Each little camp wants all the other camps to bend to their will and way of thinking. Tolerance is nonexistent. For each, it's either their way or the highway. It's little to no wonder why we can't come together on even the simplest, most basic challenges facing us. Division has become the new norm, and that division is firmly rooted in the PC culture.

**************

This month's cover image is by Randi Hausken of Bærum, Norway, and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. The image was found on Wikimedia Commons.

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity and prosperity. And please ... be kind to one another. Or at least agree to disagree ... and move along to more productive endeavors.

Firejail, Easy Sandbox On PCLinuxOS

by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith)

Protecting environments on Linux is one of the most notable features of the operating system. One of the best known techniques is the Chroot, a virtual environment created to run applications safely. But Chroot is quite complicated to set up, and its use is not that easy. But let's say you need features like the ones Chroot can offer, as a security solution for your desktop. How to achieve it? Have all the trouble setting up Chroot for everyday situations? In fact, there is already an easy solution to security problems in Linux, which is called Firejail.

What does Firejail do?

Firejail uses the implementation of namespaces and sec-comp-bpf on Linux to create isolation between applications, the file system, and the operating system's resources, creating a sandbox that effectively isolates applications from the operating system. It allows a process and all its spawns to have their own particular view of the kernel resources, shared globally, such as the network stack, the process table, and the assembly table.

Written in C with virtually no dependencies, the software runs on any Linux computer with a version of the 3.x kernel or later. The sandbox is lightweight, the overhead is low. There are no complicated configuration files to edit, no open socket connection, no daemon running in the background. All security features are implemented directly in the Linux kernel and are available on any Linux computer. The program is released under GPL v2 license.

To understand how it works we have to analyze what are the namespaces and what is sec-comp-bpf.

Namespaces

Much is said about containers. In fact, it is one of today's hot technologies, since it allows the creation of extremely simple virtual machines. The abstract purpose of containers is actually to provide a group of processes with the illusion that they are the only processes in the system. When deployed, this feature has the potential to deliver many practical benefits, such as light virtualization and checkpoint/restore.

To give processes in a container the illusion that there are no other processes in the system, several global system resources must be involved in abstractions that make it appear that each container has its own resource instance. This has been achieved with the addition of "namespaces" to various global resources. Each namespace provides an isolated view of a specific global resource for the set of processes that are members of this namespace. The namespaces began to be implemented in the kernel 2.6.23 and have reached maturity in the 3.8 kernel.

Currently, Linux implements six different types of namespaces: pid, user, uts, ipc, mnt, and net.

Thus, each of these namespaces acts in a way to create a capsule, where an application can be encapsulated and have the illusion that only it has all the resources of the system.

I will not dwell too much on each one of the namespaces components, since it is not the scope of this text, but, to speak about Firejail. If you are interested in delving into the namespaces, I suggest reading this article.

Seccomp-bpf

Seccomp-bpf stands for secure computing mode. It is a simple but effective sandbox simulation tool introduced in the Linux 3.5 kernel. It allows the user to connect a system call filter (syscall) to a process and all its descendants, thus reducing the attack surface of the kernel. Seccomp filters are expressed in the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) format.

Resources

- Linux namespaces: The main technology behind FireJail is Linux Namespaces. This lightweight technology is the first step to isolate the application.

- Filesystem container: The application containers are created automatically when the sandbox is started and destroyed when the sandbox is closed.

- Security filters: The following security filters are currently implemented - seccomp-bpf, protocol, noroot user namespace, Linux capabilities, X11 sandboxing

- Networking support: Firejail can attach a new TCP/IP network interface to the sandbox, with virtual network cards, own routing table and own firewall.

- Security profiles: Located in the /etc/firejail directory, the profile files describe the file system container, security filters, and network configuration.

- Resource allocation: Allows allocating resources such as CPU time, system memory, and network bandwidth, using Linux control groups and Linux boundaries.

- Universal packaging formats: Firejail supports the AppImage packaging format natively. Just add the -appimage command-line option and the package is mounted and executed inside the sandbox. Firejail also supports Ubuntu Snap packages using a regular security profile.

- Sandbox auditing: The auditing feature allows the user to point out gaps in the security profiles. The implementation replaces the program being sandboxed with a test program. A generic audit program is distributed, but you can also use custom programs.

- Statistics and monitoring: Firejail provides a large number of options for tracking all aspects of applications in the sandbox. This includes monitoring CPU / memory / bandwidth usage, system call tracking, exec and fork event monitoring, and blacklist logging of files and directories.

- Graphical user interface: A GUI application, Firetools, is available as a separate software package.

Installation

To install it in PCLinuxOS, in a terminal, as root, type apt-get install firejail firetools, or use Synaptic.

Usage

To run an application using the default firejail protections for this application (the default profile), run the following:

$ firejail

To use Firejail with a specific profile (Firejail has profiles for more than 400 applications on Linux ):

firejail -profile = filename.profile

Other than the profiles that already come with the program, you can create your own profiles and save them in ~/.config/firejail

The profiles saved in this folder take precedence to the profiles that come with the program.

If you want to use all your programs with Firejail, just type as root, # firecfg

This creates symbolic links in /usr/local/bin pointing to /usr/bin/firejail, for all programs firejail has profiles.

Below is the generic Firejail profile:

################################

# Generic GUI application profile

##### ###########################

include /etc/firejail/disable-mgmt.inc

include /etc/firejail/disable-secret.inc

include /etc/firejail/disable-common.inc

blacklist $ {HOME} /. pki / nssdb

blacklist $ {HOME} /. LastPass

blacklist $ {HOME} /. keepassx

blacklist $ {HOME} /. password-store

caps.drop all

seccomp

protocol unix, inet, inet6

netfilter

noroot

Let's say, for example, that you want to prevent the application from accessing the user's document directory. To do this, you would add the following line to the newly created profile:

blacklist $ {HOME} / Documents

Thus, the program that runs with this profile will not be able to access the /Documents folder in your /home.

You can make specific folders read only, like this:

read-only ${HOME}/Documents

The configuration possibilities with the profiles are very wide, having great granularity. In order to delve into the profile configuration commands, you can access this Wiki here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Firejail, which is quite complete.

Using Firetools

Let's take a look at how the FireJail GUI works, Firetools. From a terminal window, issue the firetools command and start the tool. You should see two things: The Firetools window and a prompt for the application running in the system tray.

Pre-configured applications in Firetools

You'll find some applications already included in Firetools. To start one, you can either double-click the application launcher or right-click the launcher and select Run. Firetools includes a monitor that you can run to see which applications are running on a firejail. To open this, untar the Firetool, right-click anywhere in the GUI and select Tools. When the monitor opens, you will see all sandboxed applications listed.

Apps Running in the Firejail Sandbox

Final Thoughts

Now, why would we use Firejail in PCLinuxOS?

Well, some usage scenarios come to mind. Firejail can strengthen the security of a variety of applications, whether desktop or small server applications, perhaps small businesses or schools, offices and administration.

Create kiosk machines, and limit user access. Do not allow it to exit the /home folder and shut down the system.

And, most importantly, create a security layer with applications packed in appimage format, which are becoming very popular, and which can become vectors for infection and propagation of malware.

I hope you can enjoy Firejail, one more security resource for PCLinuxOS. (Appimages were begging for a tool like that).

Short Topix: Linux Is Changing The Face Of End-User Computing

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Apple "Lock In" Extends To Third Party Repairs

There is no question. Apple makes and sells some pretty amazing hardware. Apple hardware comes at a premium price. You definitely pay for it, but the old adage "you get what you pay for" has been interpreted literally by Apple. It is pricey.

Despite the quality that Apple is typically known for, there are many potential users who simply cannot afford to use their products. There are even more potential users who are turned off by the Apple-specific accessories that must be used with Apple hardware. Many refer to it as a closed and controlled ecosystem. Buy an iPhone, for example, and you can ONLY use Apple's proprietary Lightning port to charge your phone and add accessories. Contrast that with most other Android phones, where the port generally used is either a Micro USB or USB-C. Many PC users have/can/do perform(ed) many of their own repairs on their laptops. Doing so with an Apple Mac laptop isn't for the faint of heart, since Apple even goes so far as to use proprietary screws and specially designed tools to prevent users from doing self repairs. The net effect is to herd users into the overpriced official Apple repair centers.

Capitalism and competition being what they are, there is a whole sub-industry of repair shops that have attempted to offer much more competitive repair prices, without the usually long wait to get hardware back, than those that plagues Apple's "official" repair centers.

Apple is fighting back against those entrepreneurial repair shops in a vicious and unique way, at least when it comes to the repairs of 2018 MacBook Pros and iMac Pros, according to an internal document distributed to Apple's Authorized Service Providers in late September. The 2018 MacBook Pros and iMac Pros feature Apple's T2 security chip. If any "unauthorized" person or company attempts an "unauthorized" repair to the display, logic board, Touch ID, and top case, which includes the keyboard, battery, trackpad, and speakers of a MacBook Pro, or the logic boards and flash storage on the iMac Pro, the repair is rendered incomplete if Apple's proprietary software diagnostic tools are not used. The result is an inoperable system for the customer until an official Apple repair center is able to run the proprietary software diagnostic tools.

Of course, Apple doesn't make the software available to just anyone. According to an article at Motherboard:

The AST 2 System Configuration suite is a diagnostic software that Apple uses to ensure that the computer is functioning properly. It includes the Mac Resource Inspector, which does a "quick health check of hardware and software," as well as tools that check the system's memory, display, power adapters, cooling system, and other aspects of the computer. It functions only if connected to Apple's Global Service Exchange (GSX), a Cloud-based server that Apple uses to handle repairs and service. It requires a login from Apple to access.

Apple has not yet activated this hardware lock on unauthorized repairs, but it appears that such action is not only possible, but imminent. Count on the fact that it WILL happen at some point. Repair experts at iFixIt managed to successfully swap out both the display and logic board from the teardown model of the MacBook Pro that they purchased earlier this summer with the display and logic board of a brand new one they went out and purchased. Everything remained fully operational, despite diagnostics software not having been run. For what it's worth, iFixIt is NOT an authorized Apple repair agent, and as such, does not have access to the proprietary diagnostics software that is only available through official Apple repair channels.

The Motherboard article explores this topic rather deeply and completely. At issue is the whole debate over "right to repair." Apple joins John Deere and a handful of other manufacturers in trying to limit repairs to its products to be available ONLY at authorized repair centers. The video (only 11:23 in length) in the Motherboard article, while dealing primarily with the right to repair issue with John Deere, sheds a lot of light on what's at stake for end users, regardless of the vendor or industry.

Even more disturbing is the potential for planned obsolescence of perfectly good hardware. Whenever Apple decides to stop supporting a particular model or platform, then repairs to those aging hardware platforms will not be possible. Thus, the whole of the device will have to be discarded, unless a way can be found to circumvent the Apple T2 security chip and its mandatory, proprietary software diagnostics software tie-in.

Who Is The Largest Contributor To Open Source?

Veteran technology columnist Matt Asay wrote an interesting article in September that took a look at who is the largest contributor to the open source community.

By sheer numbers of contributors, the casual observer may get the impression that Microsoft is the largest contributor to the open source community. They have more than 4,000 employees contributing to open source projects on GitHub. Keep in mind that Microsoft recently purchased GitHub, too. In second place -- by sheer numbers -- is Google (1,850), followed by Red Hat in third place (1,549).

But, Asay makes the argument that the sheer numbers don't necessarily tell the entire story. He changes the yardstick, so to speak, to compare the number of contributors to the number of employees a company employs. Now, when you look at the percentages, the ranking of open source contributors changes dramatically. Now look at the rankings (below):

1. Mozilla (39.9%)

2. Pivotal (18.27%)

3. SUSE (17.64%)

4. Red Hat (12.68%)

5. Unity Technologies (12.9%)

6. Square (11.25%)

7. Thoughtworks (8.28%)

8. Shopify (7.67%)

9. ESRI (6.87%)

10. Microsoft (3.1%)

Microsoft, with over 130,000 employees (many of whom have next to nothing to do with software development), now dips from first place, all the way to tenth. Google doesn't even place in the top ten. Red Hat moves from third place to fourth place.

It should come as no surprise that Mozilla tops the list, with nearly 40% of its employees actively contributing to open source projects. Mozilla outpaces the second place finisher Pivotal (the makers of VMware) by having over twice the percentage of employees contributing to open source projects.

Linux Is Changing The Face Of End-User Computing

As Linux users, we all know the appeal of Linux. But it seems that the rest of the world is learning what we already know and love. Linux is everywhere. Android. Linux Automotive. The desktop. The cloud. Running the OS on your TV, DVD and Blu Ray players. Providing the backbone for IoT. Running supercomputers. Ebook readers. Look around. Linux literally is EVERYWHERE.

Jed Ayres, President and CEO of IGEL North America and Global CMO, recently wrote an article for Forbes detailing how Linux is changing the face of end-user computing. IGEL, a technology partner with Microsoft and Intel, paid for the report, which comprised a recent IDC InfoBrief (PDF).

In the article, he discusses the rapid and broad use of Linux on endpoint devices. Use of Windows, the stalwart of endpoint devices for years, remains flat with a 39% market share in 2015 and 2017. Linux, however, increased its market share for endpoint devices from 30% in 2015 to 35% in 2017. Linux's growth doesn't seem to be slowing. In fact, if anything, the growth in the use of Linux on endpoint devices appears to be accelerating.

The qualities that appear to be contributing to Linux's growth include its being open source (and thus, easily modified to better fit needs), lower cost, increased security, platform flexibility, a high level of performance, and well supported.

Now, how do you feel to have been using Linux before the rest of the world thought Linux was cool?

Limiting Children's "Screen Time" To Two Hours Or Less May Improve Cognition

It's no secret that my "regular job" is working in the U.S. healthcare industry. Specifically, I am a respiratory therapist working at the bedside to help improve the outcomes for, and provide treatment for, those suffering from lung health issues. On any given workday, I may work with up to 20 different patients suffering with breathing problems. So, it should be no surprise that I also get a lot of healthcare related emails daily. The only way to survive nearly 32 years in this profession is to stay current, and the emails certainly are one way to do that. Couple that with being the parent of a two year old and a five year old, and you'll see why this next bit caught my attention.

One of those emails that I receive regularly is from MedPage Today. By far, it is the most prolific, with me receiving several emails a day from their mailing list. MedPage Today offers up medical news from all across the healthcare spectrum. The MedPage article that caught my eye appeared on September 26, 2018.

A newly published report in The Lancet Children & Adolescent Health journal suggests that the three largest factors contributing to a child's cognitive development are getting proper amounts of sleep, limiting "recreational screen time" to two hours or less, and adequate amounts of physical activity. According to the report, sleep and screen time are the largest contributor to cognitive ability. Recreational screen time includes recreational time spent on a cell phone, tablet, computer, or in front of the TV.

The aforementioned link to the report will get you access to the summary of the report; you will have to pay to view the entire report, however. I'll never understand why studies completed with public funding through a public agency, that potentially have so much impact on society, continue to appear behind restrictive paywalls. Knowledge should be freely shared, and shouldn't bear a price that makes accessible only to those who can afford it can access it. But then, I stray from the topic at hand.

This study's results appeared to validate and mirror the Canadian guidelines, which recommend nine to 11 hours of sleep, less than 2 hours of recreational screen time, and at least 60 minutes per day of physical activity for children 5-13 years old. The Canadian guidelines mirror the recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Sleep Foundation with regards to the amount of sleep a child should receive and the amount of physical activity a child should receive. Neither of the latter two agencies, nor the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), make recommendations about screen time for children over the age of five. The AAP, through its Council on Communications and Media, has made a statement called Media Use in School-Aged Children and Adolescents, and it regards media use for children 5-18 years of age.

I guess our parents were right all along when they told us to shut off the TV and go outside to play.

Apple Finally Lets You Download All Your Data

Thanks to the EU's GDPR, American users can now download all of the data collected and retained by Apple on its customers. Ever since the GDPR went into effect this last May, demand has been relatively high for Apple to give its American customers access to the same tools that those in the EU have for accessing their data.

To access your data, go to the Apple privacy portal, here. Once there, sign into your account. Find and click on "Obtain a copy of your data." While you can choose which services to request information from, it makes sense to request all of it. Then, you'll have to wait. It can take up to seven days to compile all of your information, which will be sent to you in a ZIP file to your email address.

Historically, Apple hasn't been a massive collector of information. So, don't be surprised if the amount of data is relatively small and benign. It most likely won't be anything like the amount of data that New York Times reporter Brian X. Chen found that Facebook and Google had collected on him. Just the Google data was over 8GB! Still, don't get too cozy with Apple. They are not your friend, either.

Forty-Four New Organizations Join The Linux Foundation in September, Continuing Trend of More Than a Member a Day on Average in 2018

SAN FRANCISCO -- October 23, 2018 -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the addition of 33 Silver members and 11 Associate members in the month of September. Linux Foundation members help support development of the shared technology resources, while accelerating their own innovation through open source leadership and participation. Linux Foundation member contributions help provide the infrastructure and resources that enable the world's largest open collaboration communities.

Since the start of 2018, a new organization has joined The Linux Foundation every day and we are honored to be their partners in open source.

"We are thrilled to welcome forty-four new members to The Linux Foundation this month," said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. "These organizations, which represent industries including technology, education, energy, the service industry and more, are working to create a more collaborative community in order to promote further innovation; we look forward to working with them to help make that happen."

In addition to joining the Foundation, many of the new members have joined Linux Foundation projects such as the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Hyperledger and LF Networking. For a full list of members, visit https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/.

Linux Foundation Silver members are organizations that contribute to or otherwise support open source communities and projects. The new Linux Foundation Silver members who joined in the month of September are:

- Ambedded Technology is specialized in the solution of professional ARM Micro Server and integration of ARM platform into different vertical markets.

- BetaBlocks transforms blockchain ideas into successful companies.

- Blockchain Educators LLC is developing and cultivating concepts, partnerships, and businesses backed by blockchain technology.

- Cardstack Syndicate Inc is an open-source framework and consensus protocol that makes blockchains usable and scalable for the mass market.

- CenCon Blockchain Group Inc. is the first group company registered and approved by the Canadian government, whose core business is to improve the production relations by blockchain technologies.

- CloudYuga provides training in Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos Marathon, Container Security, GO Language, Advance Linux Administration, and more.

- Constellation Labs addresses the limitations inherent in current blockchain technology.

- Dotscience snapshots every detail of every run of a model and enables you to visualize model behavior and optimise performance.

- ENC Digital Technology Co., Ltd. provides marine tourism transportation and travel services in China.

- EOS SOFTWARE, S.A. DE C.V: provides software to manage your EOS Tools.

- The Foundry Visionmongers Limited designs creative software technologies used to deliver award-winning visual effects and 3D content for the design, visualization and entertainment industries.

- Garden.io's platform is designed from the ground up to make developing, managing and testing multiple services dramatically faster and easier.

- Honeywell International invents and manufactures technologies that address some of the world's most critical challenges around energy, safety, productivity and global urbanization.

- Hortonworks, Inc. delivers 100 percent open-source global data management platforms and services so customers can manage the full lifecycle of their data.

- Infinidat focuses on eliminating the compromises between performance, availability, and cost at multi-petabyte scale for enterprise storage.

- Intelligent Systems Services design and install fire alarm and life safety systems for a wide range of customers.

- KoreConX investor relations sets the standard for transparency, compliance and investor confidence.

- Mobilise offers consultancy services to MVNOs and others looking to enter the telecoms industry, including strategy, business casing, feasibility study, project management, solution architecture and service operations.

- MSys Technologies engineers the entire product development cycle-from POCs to development to testing and support.

- New Relic allows you to easily view and analyze massive amounts of data, and gain actionable insights in real time.

- Noris Network AG delivers individual and high-quality single-source IT services to you.

- Omnigate offers advanced transaction management tools to a broader customer base and allows more more participants to participate in decentralized trading networks.

- Open Cloud Foundation brings together diverse stakeholders to promote and build a more open, strong, secure and standardised cloud.

- Pragma is a channel focused distribution company designed to support resellers and Ericsson-LG in bringing iPECS unified communications technology to the UK market.

- Rift.IO automates the complex processes required to design, deploy, and scale virtualized network functions and services.

- Rookout technology decouples the data visibility layer from the app, so you can review parts of the live code on demand.

- SoftIron provides software defined storage for high performance applications enabling enterprise level IT infrastructure for business demands.

- Solo.io helps enterprises migrate and gradually transform legacy applications to new architectures.

- State Farm insurance helps people manage the risks of everyday life and recover from the unexpected.

- Teuto.net Netzdienste GmbH specializes in providing hosting, cloud and web development services based on open source technologies.

- Wallarm automates real-time application protection and security testing for websites, microservices and APIs across public and private clouds.

- Wanchain is the world's first and only interoperable blockchain with secure multi-party computing.

- XSKY adds on enterprise-ready interfaces and 24/7 maintenance capability to generic Ceph, helps customers reduce total cost of ownership and solve the dilemma of data expansion versus budget restriction.

Associate members of The Linux Foundation include government agencies and not-for-profit organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to building, sustaining, and using open source technologies. The following organizations are new Linux Foundation Associate members:

- Blender Foundation is an independent nonprofit public benefit corporation that establishes services for active users and developers of Blender.

- CERTH (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas) is one of the leading research centers in Greece with important scientific and technological achievements.

- Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is the industry's first global standards organization to deliver an open, standards-based architecture and specification to accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Ethereum.

- FIWARE is a curated framework of open source platform components to accelerate the development of smart solutions.

- Government of Bermuda

- Ministry of Citizens Services provides a wide range of services to British Columbians across the province.

- Monash University is one of Australia's leading universities and helps change lives through research and education.

- SARAO (South African Radio Astronomy Observatory) spearheads South Africa's activities in Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope in engineering, science and construction.

- University of Kassel is a vibrant university characterized by its openness to new ideas in every single area of its work.

- Visual Effects Society is a global professional honorary society representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including (but not limited to) artists, technologists, model makers, educators, and producers.

- Washington State University has inspired the next generation of problem solvers since 1890.

With the support of its members, The Linux Foundation hosts open source projects across technologies including networking, security, cloud, blockchain, and more. This collaborative development model is helping technology advance at a rapid pace in a way that benefits individuals and organizations around the world.

IBM To Acquire Red Hat, Completely Changing The Cloud Landscape And Becoming World's #1 Hybrid Cloud Provider

Armonk, NY and Raleigh, NC -- October 28, 2018 -- via Red Hat press release

- Most significant tech acquisition of 2018 will unlock true value of cloud for business

- IBM and Red Hat to provide open approach to cloud, featuring unprecedented security and portability across multiple clouds

- Deal accelerates IBM's high-value business model, making IBM the #1 hybrid cloud provider in an emerging $1 trillion growth market

- Acquisition will be free cash flow and gross margin accretive within 12 months, accelerate revenue growth and support a solid and growing dividend

- IBM to maintain Red Hat's open source innovation legacy, scaling its vast technology portfolio and empowering its widespread developer community

- Red Hat to operate as a distinct unit within IBM's Hybrid Cloud team

"Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience -- all while preserving our unique culture and unwavering commitment to open source innovation."     Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO, Red Hat

IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source cloud software, announced today that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion.

"The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market," said Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "IBM will become the world's #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.

"Most companies today are only 20 percent along their cloud journey, renting compute power to cut costs," she said. "The next 80 percent is about unlocking real business value and driving growth. This is the next chapter of the cloud. It requires shifting business applications to hybrid cloud, extracting more data and optimizing every part of the business, from supply chains to sales."

"Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions, and I'm incredibly proud of the role Red Hat has played in making that a reality in the enterprise," said Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO, Red Hat. "Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience -- all while preserving our unique culture and unwavering commitment to open source innovation."

This acquisition brings together the best-in-class hybrid cloud providers and will enable companies to securely move all business applications to the cloud. Companies today are already using multiple clouds. However, research shows that 80 percent of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today's cloud market. This prevents portability of data and applications across multiple clouds, data security in a multi-cloud environment and consistent cloud management.

IBM and Red Hat will be strongly positioned to address this issue and accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption. Together, they will help clients create cloud-native business applications faster, drive greater portability and security of data and applications across multiple public and private clouds, all with consistent cloud management. In doing so, they will draw on their shared leadership in key technologies, such as Linux, containers, Kubernetes, multi-cloud management, and cloud management and automation.

IBM's and Red Hat's partnership has spanned 20 years, with IBM serving as an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers. These innovations have become core technologies within IBM's $19 billion hybrid cloud business. Between them, IBM and Red Hat have contributed more to the open source community than any other organization.

"Today's announcement is the evolution of our long-standing partnership," said Rometty. "This includes our joint Hybrid Cloud collaboration announcement in May, a key precursor in our journey to this day."

With this acquisition, IBM will remain committed to Red Hat's open governance, open source contributions, participation in the open source community and development model, and fostering its widespread developer ecosystem. In addition, IBM and Red Hat will remain committed to the continued freedom of open source, via such efforts as Patent Promise, GPL Cooperation Commitment, the Open Invention Network and the LOT Network.

IBM and Red Hat also will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud. At the same time, Red Hat will benefit from IBM's hybrid cloud and enterprise IT scale in helping expand their open source technology portfolio to businesses globally.

"IBM is committed to being an authentic multi-cloud provider, and we will prioritize the use of Red Hat technology across multiple clouds" said Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President, IBM Hybrid Cloud. "In doing so, IBM will support open source technology wherever it runs, allowing it to scale significantly within commercial settings around the world."

Upon closing of the acquisition, Red Hat will join IBM's Hybrid Cloud team as a distinct unit, preserving the independence and neutrality of Red Hat's open source development heritage and commitment, current product portfolio and go-to-market strategy, and unique development culture. Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat's current management team. Jim Whitehurst also will join IBM's senior management team and report to Ginni Rometty. IBM intends to maintain Red Hat's headquarters, facilities, brands and practices.

"IBM's commitment to keeping the things that have made Red Hat successful - always thinking about the customer and the open source community first -- make this a tremendous opportunity for not only Red Hat but also open source more broadly," said Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies, Red Hat. "Since the day we decided to bring open source to the enterprise, our mission has remained unchanged. And now, one of the biggest enterprise technology companies on the planet has agreed to partner with us to scale and accelerate our efforts, bringing open source innovation to an even greater swath of the enterprise."

Financial Details

The acquisition of Red Hat reinforces IBM's high-value model. It will accelerate IBM's revenue growth, gross margin and free cash flow within 12 months of closing. It also will support a solid and growing dividend.

The company will continue with a disciplined financial policy and is committed to maintaining strong investment grade credit ratings. The company will target a leverage profile consistent with a mid to high single A credit rating. The company intends to suspend its share repurchase program in 2020 and 2021.

At signing, the company has ample cash, credit and bridge lines to secure the transaction financing. The company intends to close the transaction through a combination of cash and debt.

The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both IBM and Red Hat. It is subject to Red Hat shareholder approval. It also is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in the latter half of 2019.

GIMP Tutorial: How To Apply A Sepia Tone

by Meemaw

With photography what it is today, and photo manipulation programs being so easy to use, it is great to take a digital photo of something and then see how you can manipulate your photo for the best image possible.

Most of the time, the photo is awesome just the way it is, but sometimes, a black & white or sepia image really pops as well. Google defines sepia as a reddish-brown color associated particularly with monochrome photographs of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since we've explored image enhancing, changing a photo to sepia is just another enhancement.

In an earlier magazine article, parnote discussed tutorials for Photoshop & GIMP, which got us discussing the tutorials, and which Photoshop tutorials could be used in GIMP. At one of the links he provided, I came across a Photoshop tutorial for changing a photograph to sepia. It was a very simple tutorial, and is shown below.

Here is a step-by-step for Photoshopping a photo to get a sepia tone.

1. Open the image in Photoshop.

2. If the image is color, go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate and skip to step 4.

3. If the image is in grayscale go to Image > Mode > RGB Color.

4. Go to Image > Adjustments > Variations.

5. Move the FineCoarse slider down one notch less than the middle.

6. Click on More Yellow once.

7. Click on More Red once.

8. Click OK.

While I'm sure this is very simple (I have never used Photoshop), this can be done in GIMP, and with fewer steps.

Open the photo in GIMP (of course). I'm using a cute animal photo I found.

Click on Colors > Desaturate > Sepia.

It should happen immediately.

Wow! That was fast! However, what if you don't like the way it looks? Go click on Edit > Undo Sepia. Now, you can do it a bit differently to allow yourself to control the color. Go back to the Colors menu and choose Desaturate > Desaturate. You will get a photo in grayscale.

You can now go back to the Colors menu and choose Colorize, just a bit farther down in the main Colors menu. Don't be shocked if your photo turns a blue color, as that is just how the window comes up. In the center of the Colorize window there is a color button which should be the same color as your photo is now. Click on that, and the Color window will appear, and let you change the color to a sepia (brownish) color. Feel free to play with the color in the Color window before clicking OK.

If it looks the way you think it should, you are free to quit adjusting and export your photo. If you think it could use a bit more red or yellow, you can also click on Colors > Color and experiment there. To add more of the colors on the right, click the up arrow on the right end of each scale. To add more of the colors on the left, click the down arrow.

Feel free to experiment all you want to get your perfect color.

ms_meme's Nook: Booting From Both Sides

OGG                                                                                           MP3

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Martin Goose

As told to YouCanToo

What is your name/username?

My name is Martin Goose, and I also use that as my forum username.

How old are you?

I am 67 years old this year.

Are you married, single?

I have been married for 44 years this year to Sheila.

How about Kids, Grandkids (names and ages)?

I have one daughter Jennifer who is 37 years old this year. She has our two grandchildren, Ella, who will be 10 years old this year, and Harry, who will be seven years old this year.

Do you have pets, what is your favorite?

We do not have any pets in the house these days. I grew up in a family with cats. Sheila grew up in a family with dogs. We have agreed to an amnesty on pets!

Where did you go to school and what is your education level?

I went to school in Southend-on-Sea in the SE of England on the North bank of the river Thames that flows through London. My primary school education was at a local school a short walk from my house. My secondary education was at one of the two selective grammar schools in the area. After taking my examinations at 'O' and 'A' level in science subjects, I studied Chemical Engineering at Loughborough University of Technology about 100 miles away from my home.

Are you retired, still working and if working, what do you do?

I was lucky enough to apply for, and get, early retirement in 2007 on reasonable financial terms.

This opportunity came because my employer was downsizing, so I rushed to get to the front of the queue to apply to leave! I tell people that I adjusted my 'work/life balance' in favour of life.

My education in Chemical Engineering initially took me to work at a UK Government factory which manufactured explosives for the military. They had sponsored me to attend University and obtain my degree, and I worked there for a couple of years afterwards.

I then moved to work for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Government regulator who is similar to OSHA in the US. I spent the rest of my working career with the HSE working initially in field offices, but mostly in the HQ in London, and subsequently near Liverpool in the NW of England.

Liverpool Waterfront featuring the iconic Liver Building

In the years immediately prior to retirement, I was responsible for all the chemical process safety inspectors in the HSE who inspected chemical works, refineries, etc., that stored and processed large quantities of flammable and toxic substances.

Where do you call home? What is it like? IE: weather, scenery

I live in the NW of England and have done so for over 30 years. The place I call home is a small town called Heswall.

Aerial view of my home. I am in the front garden mowing the grass.

Heswall is located on the SW side of the Wirral peninsular, which is located between the river Mersey and the river Dee, which is the border between England and Wales. From my garden I look out over the river Dee and across to Wales. The river Dee estuary is very wide and mostly marshy on the English side. At some places, the river only comes close to the shore at the very highest tides. The marshes are teeming with wildlife, and the sandbanks at low tide are often a temporary resting place for seals that are looking for a safe place to rest.

The City Walls in Chester and the River Dee

The land is neither completely flat nor mountainous. Poll Hill at 108 metres (approx 355 ft), is the highest point on the Wirral Peninsula, but there are no views as it is mostly wooded. Thurstaston Hill nearby is smaller but has good views towards Wales and the city of Liverpool with its historical buildings and waterfront. The hill is dominated by Thor's Stone, a sandstone outcrop which has Viking connections, as does most of Wirral with some old Norse place-names.

The climate is generally described as temperate. Not too hot in summer (25C approx) and not too cold in winter (rarely much below 0C). Rainfall is quite common but usually light and rarely torrential. We get snow on maybe 5 days per year.

The Wirral peninsula is best known for two attractions. The first is the Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake. This is a historic links course which is on The Open rotation when held in England. The second is Port Sunlight Village. This is a model village built by Lord Lever to house those who worked at his factory making Sunlight Soap. Nearby is the historic city of Chester as well as Liverpool.

What kind of things you like doing? hobbies, travel, fishing, camping?

Hobbies? PCLinuxOS of course, but I do have 5 Raspberry Pis. Three of them are in continual use. One monitors my Internet connection, another runs my VPN server, which I connect to when on my travels. The third one runs LibreElec to turn my high quality but 'dumb' TV into a 'smart' TV that I control, rather than the TV manufacturer.

Sheila and I are now enjoying holidays, having stopped for some time after our daughter would no longer go on holiday with us! We found ourselves paying for her holidays like Tennis Camp in Lanzarote rather than holidaying ourselves. We are now making up for lost time!

Why and when did you start using Linux?

Linux was my retirement project, to remove all Microsoft software from my PCs, so I have been a Linux user for about 11 years. Fortunately, I found PCLinuxOS early on and have not needed to stray too far. The Raspberry Pis run Raspbian, which is a Debian derivative.

What specific equipment do currently use with PCLinuxOS?

I am currently writing this piece on an Acer Ultrabook with a Sandy Bridge core i7 and Intel SSD. My 'daily driver' is an Acer Revo RL80 Nettop PC with a Sandy Bridge core i3 and Samsung SSD. I also have a midi tower PC which I laughingly describe as my 'development and test' PC! This features an Antex case, Asus motherboard, Sandy Bridge core i5 and OCZ SSD. All the disk bays are in use as this PC stores my local backups.

Do you feel that your use of Linux influences the reactions you receive from your computer peers or family? If so, how?

Initially the response was 'Linux what?' Now there seems to be much greater recognition of Linux as an option and some are willing to give it a try to give old hardware a new lease of life.

What would you like to see happen within PCLinuxOS that would make it a better place. What are your feelings?

I can't think of anything that would make the PCLinuxOS community a better place. This may be my lack of imagination or that the community is already 'practically perfect'.

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight is an exclusive, monthly column by YouCanToo, featuring PCLinuxOS forum member. This column will allow "the rest of us" to get to know our forum family members better, and will give those featured an opportunity to share their PCLinuxOS story with the rest of the world.

If you would like to be featured in PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight, please send a private message to youcantoo, parnote or Meemaw in the PCLinuxOS forum expressing your interest.

Microsoft Open Sources Over 60,000 Patents To Help Linux

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

In quite a surprise move, Microsoft open sourced over 60,000 patents as part of its commitment to the open source landscape, and to help protect Linux. It has also joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), which aims to protect Linux from spurious patent claims by administering a pool of patents in a defensive nature. This paragraph from their "About OIN" page states it best:

The Open Invention Network is a shared defensive patent pool with the mission to protect Linux. Launched in 2005, OIN has strong industry support with backing from Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE, and Toyota. Any company, project or developer that is working on Linux, GNU, Android or any other Linux-related software is welcome to join OIN, free of charge or royalties.

Add Microsoft, with its massive pool of patents, to the group of 2,650 members of OIN. All told, Microsoft open sourced about two-thirds of its patent portfolio, exempting patents that are specific to the Windows desktop and desktop application code.

This is quite the turnabout in less than two decades. In the early 2000s, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer decried FOSS (and Linux) as a "cancer" and as an "intellectual property destroyer." Then, in 2007, Microsoft declared war on FOSS by claiming that Linux, OpenOffice and Android infringed hundreds of its patents. Like the neighborhood bully guarding his street corner, Microsoft demanded royalty payments from the makers of Android phones, or be slapped with a legal battle that a) most manufacturers couldn't afford, and b) that would drag out for years and years in various courts across many jurisdictions.

And, Microsoft received those "royalty payments," with many Android phone manufacturers capitulating to the dubious claims of patent infringement, rather than subjecting themselves to a long, drawn out and expensive court battle. But those "royalty payments" may be coming to an end. By becoming a member of OIN, and by signing its agreement, Microsoft may no longer use its massive patent portfolio to seek royalties from OIN community members on Android software. HTC and LG are already members. Meanwhile, Samsung, who in 2013 "owed" more than $1 billion in "royalties" to Microsoft, may want to think about joining OIN.

This article from Yahoo Finance explores the ramifications and history of the issue admirably.

Meanwhile, here is the blog post on Microsoft's Azure cloud, by Erich Andersen, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, making the announcement:

I'm pleased to announce that Microsoft is joining the Open Invention Network ("OIN"), a community dedicated to protecting Linux and other open source software programs from patent risk.

We know Microsoft's decision to join OIN may be viewed as surprising to some; it is no secret that there has been friction in the past between Microsoft and the open source community over the issue of patents. For others who have followed our evolution, we hope this announcement will be viewed as the next logical step for a company that is listening to customers and developers and is firmly committed to Linux and other open source programs.

Since its founding in 2005, OIN has been at the forefront of helping companies manage patent risks. In the years before the founding of OIN, many open source licenses explicitly covered only copyright interests and were silent about patents. OIN was designed to address this concern by creating a voluntary system of patent cross-licenses between member companies covering Linux System technologies. OIN has also been active in acquiring patents at times to help defend the community and to provide education and advice about the intersection of open source and intellectual property. Today, through the stewardship of its CEO Keith Bergelt and its Board of Directors, the organization provides a license platform for roughly 2,650 companies globally. The licensees range from individual developers and startups to some of the biggest technology companies and patent holders on the planet.

Joining OIN reflects Microsoft's patent practice evolving in lock-step with the company's views on Linux and open source more generally. We began this journey over two years ago through programs like Azure IP Advantage, which extended Microsoft's indemnification pledge to open source software powering Azure services. We doubled down on this new approach when we stood with Red Hat and others to apply GPL v. 3 "cure" principles to GPL v. 2 code, and when we recently joined the LOT Network, an organization dedicated to addressing patent abuse by companies in the business of assertion.

At Microsoft, we take it as a given that developers do not want a binary choice between Windows vs. Linux, or .NET vs Java -- they want cloud platforms to support all technologies. They want to deploy technologies at the edge -- on any device - that meet customer needs. We also learned that collaborative development through the open source process can accelerate innovation. Following over a decade of work to make the company more open (did you know we open sourced parts of ASP.NET back in 2008?), Microsoft has become one of the largest contributors to open source in the world. Our employees contribute to over 2000 projects, we provide first-class support for all major Linux distributions on Azure, and we have open sourced major projects such as .NET Core, TypeScript, VS Code and Powershell.

Now, as we join OIN, we believe Microsoft will be able to do more than ever to help protect Linux and other important open source workloads from patent assertions. We bring a valuable and deep portfolio of over 60,000 issued patents to OIN. We also hope that our decision to join will attract many other companies to OIN, making the license network even stronger for the benefit of the open source community.

We look forward to making our contributions to OIN and its members, and to working with the community to help open source developers and users protect the Linux ecosystem and encourage innovation with open source software.

Even back in 2015, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella proclaimed that "Microsoft Loves Linux." The Windows Server team responded favorably. But, given the history, and after having been called a "cancer" and "intellectual property destroyer," many Linux users weren't so sure. Most approached the "proclamation" as if it was the wolf dressed in a sheep's clothing. At the minimum, Linux users took a "wait-and-see" approach to see if Microsoft had really changed its mind -- and position -- on Linux and FOSS.

Then, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation, even making code contributions to Linux. Their Azure Cloud welcomed Linux users with open arms from day one, when it started in 2013. Then, most recently, they purchased GitHub.

If nothing else, Microsoft's message in the post-Ballmer days has been consistent. It is appearing that Microsoft's "love" for Linux (and FOSS) is real and ongoing. Sure, there are staunch holdouts who still doubt Microsoft's new romantic affair with Linux and FOSS. One is the notable Richard Stallman, who will probably never view anything about Microsoft in a positive light. After all, there is just too much "history" to overcome in that ring. In fact, Richard Stallman claims that Microsoft's "love" for Linux and FOSS will end up hurting free and open source software.

Of course, I can remember back to when I was a small child. I was born in 1960, just 15 years after the end of WWII. I can remember my parents and grandparents proclaiming that there was no way that they would buy anything made in Japan, still holding onto the animosity that defined a significant time in their lives. Just as it was with products "Made in Japan," it takes some people a much longer time to get over that animosity, and to give up the fight that has defined them for so long. Some people never fully get over it. That's just the way things are.

But given the events of the past decade, it's sure looking as if Microsoft is, indeed, changing. It's embracing Linux and FOSS, rather than attacking it. Perhaps part of the reason for that change is that Linux and FOSS have persisted and even flourished in that atmosphere of strife and hate. But probably, and more importantly, Microsoft has finally figured out that you DO catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar. To this end, both Linux (and FOSS) have as much to gain as does Microsoft from a friendlier, kinder, more collaborative co-existence.

At least, I hope this is the case.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

Mini Mozzarella Stuffed Turkey Zucchini Meatball Orechiette

Ingredients

Meatballs

1 cup shredded zucchini (about 1 medium)

1 egg

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated red onion

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 cloves garlic, grated

About 1/2 cup pearl mozzarella

Pasta

1 box (1 lb) orecchiette (tiny disk) pasta

Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 cans (14.5 oz each) organic fire roasted diced tomatoes, un-drained

Salt and pepper to taste

3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400F. Line sheet pan with cooking parchment paper or silicone nonstick baking mat. Sprinkle grated zucchini lightly with salt; toss to coat. Set aside while preparing other ingredients.

2. Squeeze out as much of the zucchini liquid as you can; there will be a few tablespoons. Discard liquid.

3. In large bowl, gently mix all Meatball ingredients except mozzarella cheese until combined. To make each Meatball, scoop 1 teaspoonful mixture into hand; flatten into a patty. Place 1 mozzarella pearl in center of patty; enclose cheese completely inside mixture. With hands, roll into ball; place in pan. Repeat to make remaining meatballs.

4. Bake in center of oven about 20 minutes or until thermometer inserted in center of meatballs reads 165F and cheese is melted.

5. Meanwhile, cook pasta to al dente as directed on box.

6. To make Sauce, in 10-inch skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped onion; cook until translucent. Add chopped garlic; cook 60 seconds longer. Stir in tomatoes with liquid. Simmer until most of liquid has been reduced. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat; stir in basil.

7. Toss cooked pasta, meatballs and sauce. Garnish with additional fresh basil.

Tips:

You can make the meatballs ahead of time and freeze on a sheet pan in a single layer until frozen solid. Move the frozen meatballs to a resealable freezer plastic bag and freeze for up to one month. Bake the meatballs in a 400F oven for about 30 minutes.

If you don't have fresh basil, dried oregano is a great substitution in this pasta dish.

There are many sizes of mozzarella balls available today at most supermarkets. I used the smallest I could find, but use whatever size you like and make meatballs to correspond with your preferred size.

ANGRYsearch

by Meemaw

Tech Republic had an article not long ago about a search program called ANGRYsearch. This article was of interest to me, since there is no search function within Thunar, the default file manager in Xfce. While I'm kind of organized, I don't really need to search often, but do occasionally, especially when I can't remember which folder a particular file is in. In Xfce, Catfish File Search is in File Tools, and it works very well. I hadn't noticed it (which shows how often I search), but I thought I would also look at ANGRYsearch as an alternative.

Going to the PCLinuxOS repo, I discovered that ANGRYsearch is, in fact, in the repo. So, let's look at it.

The first time you open it will be unremarkable, but only because it hasn't searched your filesystem yet. Click on the Update button and you will see this:

You can set an icon theme, and tell it if you don't want to include some directories. Click Update and your file system will be searched. Then, and every time you open ANGRYsearch in the future, your window will look like this:

Now, all you have to do is type the information you are searching for into the search box at the top. The more you type, the more your results are narrowed down. I do several documents for an Earth Day event at work, and sometimes I can't remember whether I moved them all to my work computer, or if I have a copy on my personal computer. I'm searching for a document called "EarthDaySponsors.xls" (yes, it's in MS Word format because it is shared with others). This search is VERY fast, as you can see by the steps below (notice how many items were found in the bottom left corner):

Every letter or word I typed narrowed my search more.

Well, what do you know.... the file is in two different folders. At least if I delete one, I have a backup.

I think ANGRYsearch works very well. If you don't like the search function you have, or want to try a different one, try ANGRYsearch.

The Death Bell Tolls For Google+

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Another month, another Google service dies. On October 12, 2018, Google announced that Google+ will close down at the end of August, 2019. This announcement was in tandem with the report of a bug that exposed Google+ users private information.

The bug was discovered in March, 2018, but Google kept it quiet in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook shenanigans, fearful of being drawn into a U.S. Congressional investigation over the matter. Even now, Google is being queried from congressional members about the matter, and may still have to appear before lawmakers to explain the vulnerability. It is estimated that over 500,000 Google+ users were potentially affected.

Ultimately, it was discovered that the bug went all the way back to 2015, by some reports. So, instead of fixing the bug, Google made the decision to close Google+ down. Google's habit of always changing course, screwing with the interface for no apparent or good reason (Google LOVES to do that to most of their services), coupled with a diminishing use and even greater diminished acceptance, had long ago sealed Google+'s fate. Indeed, over the past year or so, Google+ has seemed a bit like a ghost town, save the few determined folks and groups that made the decision to weather the storm. In the interest of disclosure, I have been a Google+ user since its inception, and will probably remain so until the bitter end. The PCLinuxOS Magazine even has its own page on Google+.

From the start, Google+ seemed to have an identity problem. You could also couple that with an acceptance problem, too. Few seemed willing to add a g+ or +1 button to their website. Launched in June 2011, it quickly rose to 10 million users within the first two weeks. By the end of the year, it boasted 90 million users.

When it was originally launched, Google christened it a social network, competing head to head with Facebook. It almost worked, too. Soon after Google+'s launch, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reported to have instituted a company wide lockdown so that employees could bring Facebook's features into line with Google+'s. There's nothing like a little competition to advance technology and features. But one month after Google+'s release, Mark Zuckerberg issued a prophetic prediction about Google+ in an interview with Mashable's Ben Parr, and reported on in a Business Insider article. Later, Google backed away from the "social network" moniker, choosing instead to call it a "social layer across all Google services."

Google+ was Google's fourth attempt at creating a social network. The others were Google Buzz (2010-2011), Google Friend Connect (2008-2012), and Orkut (2004-2014).

The Engadget website did an honorable (albeit early) postmortem article on Google+. In the article, they hit on all the things that Google did wrong with Google+, as well as some of its highlights. In summary:

- Google+ hit 300 million active monthly users by 2013, 70 million more than Twitter.

- People were eager for a "Facebook killer." The masses still are.

- Google+ copied all the core features of Facebook that were popular, except Events.

- Instituted a "real names" policy, forcing the use of "real names." They then went on a mass account purge of any accounts it didn't think used real names. Caught up in the dragnet were well known tech figures, regular folks, people with special or non-English characters in their name, those using stage names or pseudonyms, and many others. Even some former Google employees had their accounts suspended in error. Those not complying with the "real name" policy ended up being locked out of all Google services, such as Gmail, Google Docs and YouTube.

- Google then required anyone using any Google service to create a Google+ profile, which was inextricably linked to all other Google services. Basically, Google forced Google+ down people's throats, forcing them to create a Google+ account whether they wanted one or not.

What Google+ looked like in June 2011, from a TechCrunch article.

I, much more than many people I know, avoided "social networks" like a plague. But Google+ was different. It lacked the immaturity, drama and B.S. that plagued Facebook. I've never had a Facebook account, and I never will. This is only one of a myriad of reasons I'll never belong to Facebook. Google+ felt more mature (certainly its users definitely did), and you certainly had a LOT less of the B.S. and drama that characterizes Facebook. It had way more substance than Twitter. Whenever anyone asked about Google+, I told them it was like Facebook, but for adults. I got it honed to where I could share just about anything from anywhere on Google+. I used it to share pictures and videos of the kids with family and friends -- at least those who still used Google+.

Those of us who remain(ed) at Google+ loved the experience there. We loved the lack of advertising. Even though usership was low, many of us felt a real sense of community with Google+. Back in 2011, when Google+ started, Google was still "cool," as its transgressions -- real or perceived -- had not yet been made public. Back in 2011, Google still (more or less) operated under its unofficial slogan, "Do No Evil."

Google+ never really had a real chance, given Google's missteps, frequent course changes, format changes, changes of direction, userbase purges, lack of acceptance, forced signups, and a whole host of other things that turned off potential users. So, the search for the "Facebook Killer" continues.

R.I.P., Google+. You join a long, long, long list of other Google services that came before you, only to have their proverbial plug pulled prematurely. Google+ will live on only in the enterprise, since it's only the public access to Google+ that is being axed.

ms_meme's Nook: I Just Care For PCLinuxOS

OGG                                                                                 MP3

PCLinuxOS Bonus Recipe Corner

One-Pot Pasta Bolognese

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, diced (about 3 cups)

2 carrots, diced (about 1 cup)

1 teaspoon salt

1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef

1/4 cup tomato paste

1 can (28 oz) fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained

1 carton (32 oz) Beef broth

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

1 lb uncooked spaghetti

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

DIRECTIONS:

1. In Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat until hot. Cook onions, carrots and salt in oil 5 to 8 minutes or until softened. Add beef; cook 5 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently, until browned.

2. Stir in tomato paste and tomatoes. Stir in broth, pepper flakes and Italian seasoning; heat to simmering. Break pasta in half, then thoroughly rinse under cold water. Tuck pasta into simmering liquid, covering completely. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook 13 to 15 minutes or until pasta is soft and sauce is reduced slightly.

3. Top with Parmesan cheese and basil.

TIPS:

Mix up this dish with different shapes of pasta, like penne or fusilli.

For an extra veggie boost, stir in a couple of cups of spinach or baby kale just before serving.

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Scrappler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Crossword

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

WordFind

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Cryptograms

From the computer of ms_meme:

Everyday I work the daily crosswords and cryptograms in the paper. I like the cryptograms as they are wise/silly sayings of famous people.

The magazine article about secure passwords made me think of the cryptograms. We have people in the forum who are always posting famous/wise/silly sayings.

I have made a few into cryptograms, and hope our readers will enjoy them.

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Screenshot Showcase

Posted by tuxlink, October 21, 2018, running KDE

Posted by tbschommer, October 24, 2018, running KDE

Posted by sarthi, October 22, 2018, running KDE

Posted by parnote, October 21, 2018, running Xfce

Posted by Mr. Cranky Pants - YouCanToo, October 1, 2018, running KDE

Posted by Meemaw, October 20, 2018, running Xfce

Posted by OnlyHuman, October 2, 2018, running e22

Posted by daniel, October 21, 2018, running LXQT

Posted by francesco_bat, October 21, 2018, running Trinity

Posted by luikki, October 22, 2018, running KDE

Table of Contents

From The Chief Editor's Desk

Firejail, Easy Sandbox On PCLinuxOS

Short Topix: Linux Is Changing The Face Of End-User Computing

GIMP Tutorial: How To Apply A Sepia Tone

ms_meme's Nook: Booting From Both Sides

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Martin Goose

Microsoft Open Sources Over 60,000 Patents To Help Linux

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

ANGRYsearch

The Death Bell Tolls For Google+

ms_meme's Nook: I Just Care For PCLinuxOS

PCLinuxOS Bonus Recipe Corner

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Screenshot Showcase

Unnamed

Unnamed