Orange hero

You either die a hero or live long

Microsoft engineer spots Linux back door

In late March, Microsoft software engineer Andres Freund noticed a tiny delay when logging in via SSH, and uncovered a mysterious back door.

Nvidia Rusty RedHat driver

Red Hat has started work on a Rust-based GSP-only driver for Nvidia GPUs.

Oh, Snap! Crypto malware ahoy!

More malware is discovered in Ubuntu Snap Store.

SQL AT FIFTY

Dave Stokes is a technology evangelist at Percona.

ACCESS ALL AREAS

Italo Vignoli is a founder of LibreOffice and

FlyOS offers Linux subsystem on Android

The FlyOS project claims to transform a phone into a pocket-sized computer.

Turkey bans Distrowatch

Website is banned, supposedly for offering dangerous software.

Redis licence drama

In-memory database vendor switches to more restrictive dual licence.

Distro watch

What’s behind the free software sofa?

NVK IS GO!

Faith Ekstrand is an engineering fellow at Collabora.

THE X TO Z OF EXPLOIT

Jon Masters is a kernel hacker who’s been

Kernel Watch

Jon Masters keeps up with all the latest happenings in the Linux kernel, so you don’t have to.

Answers

Got a burning question about open source or the kernel? Whatever your level, email it to answers@linuxformat.com

Mailserver

WRITE TO US Do you have a burning

HotPicks

Darktable GPU Screen Recorder Ksnip Koodo Reader Ghostery WeekToDo Kodi Tanks of Freedom II Granatier Czkawka Encrypt0r

ULTIMATE DESKTOP UPGRADE!

KDE Plasma 6 is out. We take a look at the latest and greatest desktop upgrade and what it can do for you.

Lichee Console 4A

Les Pounder finds a fun, if flawed, tiny laptop that caters to RISC-V fans.

Regata OS 24

Let’s hope Neil Mohr doesn’t make any gags he’ll regata. Damn it!

Cachy OS 240401

Nate Drake peers underneath the hood to find Arch-based Cachy is flashy – but is it also a solid distro to use?

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Nate Drake goes comfortably numb at the vast number of improvements introduced in Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat.

Hacker distros

Kali Linux Parrot OS BackBox Linux BlackArch Linux Pentoo Linux

Installation and setup options

How easy is it to get the distribution installed and running?

Platform support and editions

Multiple editions for different scenarios and a variety of platforms.

The desktop experience

How does it look and feel in use?

The reading stuff!

Instructions to get the distribution up and running and to use it.

Forums and other support

Vitally important when learning the system or if you run into trouble.

Specialist tool organisation

With hundreds of tools, it helps if you can find the one you need.

Suitability for beginners

If you are beginning your compsec career, can you get started?

Hacker distros

Kali has it all if you want a

Upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

The latest Ubuntu is here. Jonni Bidwell has come out of hibernation just to celebrate and (in between beverages) tell you all about it.

Make way for nobility

Prepare yourself, mentally and digitally, for Ubuntu’s latest and greatest outing, Noble Numbat.

CREATE AND BOOT INSTALL ATION MEDIA

You can download the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO image

Install Ubuntu 24.04

Get Ubuntu loaded on to your machine, without messing with any incumbent operating system.

INSTALL SOF TWARE

Besides the lack of Start menu, one of

Explore Ubuntu

Get to grips with your new favourite operating system and diagnose any hardware or software issues.

Add some customisation

Make Ubuntu your own by installing the applications you need and tweaking some pertinent settings.

Ubuntu at 20

A decade on from celebrating a decade of Ubuntu, Neil Mohr wonders where all the time has gone.

Raspberry Pi OS 5.2 has plenty on offer

Interface speed improvements arrive alongside plenty of software updates.

Diet Pi v9.1

Feeling bloated, Les Pounder tries another Diet, but this is no fad – he is sticking with Diet Pi this time.

Original Prusa XL

The race for colour is on and Denise Bertacchi with her colourful personality is certainly leading the pack on testing.

Build your own Pi Pico based oscilloscope

Discover how to build an oscilloscope with a Raspberry Pi Pico, an old Android device and a spare Les Pounder.

Live-stream audio

Shashank Sharma often finds himself with song lyrics stuck in his head. After all, no one ever got in trouble for going gaga for radio.

Enhance the Gnome desktop

Fond of standing in the garden wearing a pointy hat, Nick Peers is the perfect person to explain how to set up and use the Gnome desktop.

Enhance email with a better Thunderbird

Avian aficionado Nick Peers takes a deep dive into this soft fork of Thunderbird to reveal why you might want to give it a spin.

Using Krita for basic photo manipulation

Amateur photographer extraordinaire Neil Mohr finally puts down his GIMP and picks up a Krita for the first time.

TAP up your old C64 cassettes

Christian Cawley archives some old Commodore 64 cassettes using a handy USB adaptor and popular open source audio software.

Enhance your system audio with USB power

Whether it’s for podcasting, music production or simple day-to-day use, Michael Reed says a USB audio adaptor can greatly improve your sound.

Some Ansible advice for around the home!

Take work home? Not Stuart Burns – he applies home projects to work.

Top AI helper tips for OnlyOffice

AI-based assistants can help create amazing office documents. The very real Kseniya Fedoruk guides you on using OnlyOffice’s ChatGPT plugin.

The Epochalypse

It’s Y2K all over again, as Nate Drake finds time to grapple with the impending Year 2038 problem.

Let’s code some demos like it’s 1990!

Never let it be said that Ferenc Deák has his head in the clouds; more like in the past, as he explains how to recreate classic demo effects.

How to compile Ccode on the C64

David Bolton takes you back to the 1980s and helps you develop Commodore 64 games faster by coding in C instead of 6502.