MEET THE TEAM

This issue we’re looking at building a Raspberry Pi media centre as a first maker project. What’s your favourite Pi project to help kick-start would-be maker fans?

Maker bliss

We’re sure this Christmas many people will be

Man uses Linux and the world goes crazy!

Linus Tech Tips tries – and fails – to install Steam in Linux

Canonical brings Ubuntu to M1 Macs

Canonical has unveiled an updated Multipass, which makes it easy to run Linux on Apple’s latest machines

GitLab severs used in DDoS attacks

Security flaw in GitLab’s servers exploited

FORTUNE TELLING…

Accurately predicting trends can get you ahead of

HUMAN FAILURE

In any business system you want to eliminate

Steam Deck devs to use Manjaro KDE

Valve puts forward Manjaro Linux as a suitable test environment

Zink levels up

Outperforms Nvidia’s own drivers with Tomb Raider

Gamers 4 Linux!

Well, over one per cent of them love FOSS. Progress!

Distro watch

What’s behind the free software sofa?

GIVING THANKS

We just celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US,

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

Alexander Tolstoy

is touring the world and ticking off the

Audacity

Version: 3.1 Web: www.audacityteam.org

Pscircle

Version: 1.3.1 Web: https://gitlab.com/ mildlyparallel/pscircle

Edotool

Version: 3.0.1d Web: https://github . com/evuraan/edotool

Quickemu

Version: 2.3.0 Web: https://github . com/wimpysworld/quickemu

USB Imager

Version: 1.0.8 Web: https://gitlab.com/ bztsrc/usbimager

GtkStressTesting

Version: 0.7.5 Web: https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gst

Key Mapper

Version: 1.2.1 Web: https://github.com/ sezanzeb/key-mapper

Sonic Robo Blast 2

Version: 2.2.9 Web: www.srb2.org

NumptyPhysics

Version: 0.3.9 Web: https://github.com/thp/numptyphysics

Js-dos

Version: 7.2.1 Web: https://github.com/ caiiiycuk/js-dos

Larynx

Version: 1.0 Web: https://github.com/ rhasspy/larynx

MALWARE ATTACKS

The complete guide to avoiding ransomware, blocking malware attacks and general nasties

Intel Core i9 12900K

Intel was never going to be without its performance crown for long, so with appropriate pomp and ceremony Jacob Ridley introduces the new CPU king

Waterfox G4.0.3

Can Firefox-fanatic Jonni Bidwell be won over by water signs, debloating and a privacy boost?

Edge on Linux

Will Edge find space in the saturated Linux web browser market, just because Mayank Sharma thinks Microsoft has done a good job with the release?

NuTyx 21.10

If there’s a scale for rating the complexity of power-user distributions then Mayank Sharma has found one that’s at the lowest end of the spectrum

Itd Os 0.9

Distracted by the distro’s spruced-up desktop, Mayank Sharma failed to notice its lowly version number, and the other rather glaring shortcomings

Ubuntu Touch OTA-20

Jonni Bidwell once again delights at being able to use hardware that people told him to throw away ages ago…

Black Mesa

Andy Kelly really doesn’t want to go back to the Linux Format Test Chamber, but The Management are quite insistent…

Video conversion tools

If you get your codecs mixed up with your containers, a graphical video conversion program may make life easier. Neil Bothwick investigates

Input and output formats handled

The heart of the matter: what can you convert into to what else?

Processing with filters

Do you want to process the video while you’re converting it?

Using the user interface

The heart of the matter

Batch processing multiple videos

How easy is it to set up a run of videos for overnight processing?

Video-editing options

Sometimes you need to be selective, as some of these programs can be

Audio manipulation

Do you need to add, enhance or isolate audio from a video?

Extra features

Each of these programs brings something new to the table…

The Verdict

Video conversion tools

MEDIA CENTRE

Start 2022 off right with Jonni Bidwell’s outrageous media centre, powered by Pi, Kodi and just one too many LEDs

Kodi academy

New versions of Kodi and LibreELEC are out, but only for Raspberry Pi 4 users (for now)…

Setting up Kodi

LibreELEC is probably the easiest Linux distro you ever installed, and Kodi will be ready for action in no time

Hi-fidelity Kodi

Integrate the world’s most popular streaming site into Kodi and see how the Pi fares at high resolutions

The light fantastic

Add a touch of pizazz to your media centre with a border of colourful Ambilight-like, picture-reactive LEDs

Unofficial Android 12 lands on the Pi 4

Discover how you can (unofficially) try the latest mobile operating system on your Raspberry Pi

Pop!_OS (Pi edition)

Les Pounder loves pop… pop music, fizzy “pop” drinks and popcorn. But does he have an appreciation of Pop!_OS?

Cyberdeck Bonnet

Les Pounder dons his mirrored shades, adds the latest wetware to his Adafruit-enhanced Pi 400 and gets ready to hack the matrix

Create multi-level Scratch games

Les Pounder creates multi-level games with Scratch 3. He also needs to defeat hostile, hungry space hippos before they consume the Earth!

Build a Pi-powered network storage device

You can have your own high-end NAS device without breaking the bank, but Mats Tage Axelsson explains how it’s just a Pi and a bank of disks

Run a Pi Zero 2W social Fediverse server

We go boldly where no man has gone before… well, David Rutland has, into the Fediverse with just his trusty Raspbery Pi Zero 2 W

LINUX AT THE PEAK OF PERFORMANCE

Mike Bedford explores the world’s fastest supercomputers to find out how Linux came to power every top 500 high-performance computer

Effortlessly transfer files across computers

Mere mortals use USB drives to transfer files, but Shashank Sharma wants convenience and security. Luckily, the right tool is just a command away…

Enhance your Linux system management

Nick Peers takes a deep dive into a tool that aims to be a one-stop shop for all your system maintenance and monitoring needs

How to emulate an Oric 8-bit computer

Les Pounder puts a daffodil in his lapel and enters his surprisingly spacious blue police box to once again take us back to the 1980s…

Set up a music studio using Qtractor

Feeling creative? Michael Reed looks into how to build a Linux-based home studio using free software that can be applied to any type of music

Set up and configure a custom RSS news feed

Deftly skirting the lines of legality, David Rutland reveals how he’s able to scrape all the news that’s good to read direct to his own server

Safely swap your filesystem to Btrfs

The Btrfs filing system is well-supported, reliable and packed with modern features, so Michael Reed will show you how to make good use of it

MAIL-IN- A-BOX

Hillary Clinton’s self-hosted mail server didn’t do her presidential campaign much good. Let’s see how Jonni Bidwell’s fares…

Recreate the famous Game of Life

Mihalis Tsoukalos casts a light on Python sets and shows how to implement the classic programming exercise the Game of Life in Python

Accurate, open source IP-based localisation

Tim Armstrong reveals GeoIP.Network , an open source IP address localisation solution using Python that’s better than what went before!