Not so private networks

I have no idea what you get up

MEET THE TEAM

This issue we’re exploring VPNs. We asked our experts if they use a specific one, how they hide their online tracks (if at all) and their paranoid online fears!

2022: the year of Linux gaming?

Hold on to your gamepads – there’s some great stuff coming for Linux video gaming

TikTok accused of violating GPL licence

TikTok’s new Live Studio desktop streaming application has been accused of using code from OBS Studio

MY HAPPY PLACE

Matt Yonkovit Head of open source strategy and

PROBLEMS PROBLEMS

Keith Edmunds is MD of Tiger Computing Ltd,

RIP a.out

Archaic file format looks set to disappear from Linux

New ransomware discovered

SFile ransomware has been ported to Linux

Mozilla and Mint join forces

Linux Mint announces that it’s teaming up with the “champion of Open Source”

Distro watch

What’s down the side of the free software sofa?

WINE ON WAYLAND

Alexandros Frantzis is a senior software engineer at

FOCUS ON FIRMWARE

Jon Masters has been involved with Linux for

KERNEL WATCH

Jon Masters summarises the latest happenings in the Linux kernel, because someone has to

Answers

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

Mailserver

WRITE TO US Do you have a burning Linux-related

System Monitor Center

Version: 0.3 Web: https://github.com/ hakandundar34coding/system-monitoring-center

Tesseract

Version: 5.0 Web: https://github.com/ tesseract-ocr/tesseract

Libtree

Version: 3.0.1 Web: https://github.com/ haampie/libtree

Video trimmer

Version: 0.7 Web: https://gitlab.gnome.org/ YaLTeR/video-trimmer

Ntfy

Version: 1.6.1 Web: https://github.com/ binwiederhier/ntfy

Rusty Aquarium

Version: 0.13 Web: https://github.com/ ollej/rusty-aquarium

Caravaggio

Version: 3.6.2 Web: https://github . com/ramiel/caravaggio

FishFight

Version: 0.3 Web: https://fishfight.org

AssaultCube

Version: 1.3 Web: https://assault.cubers.net

Kage Studio

Version: 0.4.2 Web: https://kage.sourceforge.io

System G

Version: 3.0.1 Web: https://github.com/jafl/system-g

Intel NUC 11 Extreme PC

Kizito Katawonga wonders what happened to the NUC of the past?

Kingston XS2000 External SSD

Next-gen external USB 3.2 2x2 storage goes mainstream with Ganesh T S at the testing station

Neptune 7.0

Debian-based KDE distros are a dime a dozen, so Mayank Sharma was keen to see how it stacks up against the competition

Slackel 7.5

Mayank Sharma finds this distribution combines Slackware and USB distros with two use-cases: older computers and portable installations

Siduction 2021.3.0

You probably think Mayank Sharma has a thing for Debian-based KDE distros, but he’ll want you to believe that it’s just coincidence

Pop!_OS 21.10

Keyboard-driven Jonni Bidwell is excited by the prospect of new shortcut keys and swish application launchers. Will his enthusiasm be curbed?

Oxygen Not Included

Management are thrilled with Christopher Livingston’s latest cost-saving suggestion: workers don’t really need to breathe, do they?

GUI text editors

Within the world of Linux, so often we need to invoke a text editor to get the heart of the matter. Michael Reed investigates the best of the current crop

General-purpose text editor

How does it perform when working with configuration and log files?

Licence and installation

What does it take to get hold of this software and install it?

Configurability

To what extent can you make your text editor feel like home?

User interface

We want something efficient and pleasant

Documentation and community

Extensive features aren’t much good if you can’t figure out how to use them

Additional plugins

Improve your enjoyment of using an editor and increase productivity too

Suitable for programmers?

Editing and creating source code is a common task for a text editor

The Verdict

GUI text editors

SECURE YOUR VPN

The ever-sceptical Jonni Bidwell is here to cast doubt on the highly profitable VPN business, and show you how you can do better…

The why and wherefore of VPNs

It’s not VPNs that are bad, rather people’s unrealistic expectations of privacy. And, in a pay-per-click age, honesty

Run a WireGuard VPN

WireGuard is the newest, leanest, meanest VPN protocol on the scene. Let’s get those wires guarded!

Tor and other VPN alternatives

Tor has long been regarded as the gold standard for privacy and anonymity. See how easy it is to go dark

Extra measures

See what VPNs don’t and can’t protect against, and bolster your privacy with a layered approach

Celebrating the Raspberry Pi at 10

The Raspberry Pi has achieved so much more than just material success, as Neil Mohr reveals…

Raspberry Pi OS

Les Pounder takes the latest Raspberry Pi OS, otherwise known as Bullseye, for a ride… but does it miss the target?

How to easily create multi-HAT Pi projects

PHAT STACK

LINUX FROM SCRATCH

Aaron Peters examines building a distro from the ground up with Linux From Scratch, because why take the easy way?

Managing passwords

Credit: https://github.com/biox/pa

Build your own dynamic timelines

Credit: https://thetimelineproj.sourceforge.net

Emulate the classic MSX system

Credit: https://openmsx.org

Multi-boot USB drives for easy distro hopping

Use the powerful Ventoy to repair operating systems and make distrohopping so much simpler, with a bit of help from Matthew Holder

Understand and deploy security keys

Stuart Burns reveals how you can quickly boost your system’s protection using security keys and Multi Factor Authentication (MFA)

Recipe management done by the book

Credit: https://hay-kot.github

Publishing a hit book using Linux

Have you ever wanted to publish your own book? Michael Reed demonstrates that all of the tools you need exist on Linux

Perl at 34

Jonni Bidwell tries not to cut himself on the “Swiss army chainsaw” of programming languages, Perl

Create 3D gaming worlds with Python

Understanding the basics of rending a 3D world is a great way to understand game code. Lock and load, says Andrew Smith…

Use Python to get more from Dropbox

Mihalis Tsoukalos explains how to use the Dropbox REST API with Python to create your own custom tools