MEET THE TEAM

This issue we’re comparing Fedora and Ubuntu, but

Grandmaster clash

Ubuntu and Fedora are two of the big

Google to streamline its approach to the kernel

THIS ISSUE: Google’s Project Icebreaker Vizio sued over GPL wrongdoing Linux on the PinePhone Pro Fedora upgrade

Software Freedom Conservancy launches lawsuit against Vizio

TV manufacturer accused of GPL infringement

PinePhone Pro announced

New details on the premium Linux-based smartphone

TRAINED TO HIRE

Matt Yonkovit is Percona’s Head of Open Source

MANAGED CONTENT

Keith Edmunds is MD of Tiger Computing Ltd,

Is Fedora Silverblue the future?

Fedora Silverblue is envisioned as an image-based desktop OS alternative to standard Fedora

Mozilla messes up new Firefox

Firefox 93’s launch blighted by an avoidable PR blooper

Distro watch

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

PANFROST LEVELS UP

Alyssa Rosenzweig is a software engineer at Collabora,

HITTING THE M1

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

MAILSERVER WRITE TO US Do you have a

Glyphtracer

Alexander Tolstoy has some crazy video conferencing ideas

OnlyOffice Desktop

Version: 6.4.1 Web: https://github.com/ onlyoffice/DesktopEditors

Open Video Downloader

Version: 2.3.1 Web: https://github.com/ jely2002/youtube-dl-gui

gThumb

Version: 3.12 Web: https://github.com/ GNOME/gthumb

JPEG XL

Version : 0.5 Web: https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl B ack

Annotator

Version: 1.0 Web: https://github.com/ phase1geo/Annotator

Monitor

Version: 0.10 Web: https://github.com/stsdc/monitor

A/B Street

Version: 0.2.61 Web: https://github.com/a-b-street/abstreet F or as

SpaceCadetPinball

Version : 1.1.1 Web : https://github.com/k4zmu2a/SpaceCadetPinball W e’ve

Metadata Cleaner

Version: 2.0.1 Web: https://gitlab.com/ rmnvgr/metadata-cleaner

Linux Fake Background Webcam

Version: GIT Web: https://github.com/fangfufu/Linux-Fake - Background-Webcam

On the disc

Discover the highlights from this month’s packed DVD!

Devuan 4.0 “Chimaera”

MIN SPECS: 1GB RAM, 10GB DISK, LESS WITHOUT A GUI

RASPBERRY Pi MEDIA CENTRE

Combine the mighty Pi, LibreElec 10 and loads of cables to build an awesome streaming centre!

InMotion Hosting

Feature-packed web hosting from a professional provider

Atari VCS

Monetising nostalgia should be an easy win for Atari so Matt Safford can‘t believe it’s created another E.T

Whonix 16

Mayank Sharma is a busy man, but when it comes to privacy and security then, like Louis Armstrong, he has all the time in the world

Devuan GNU+Linux

The backlash against Systemd resulted in this sysvinit-friendly distro, now on version 4. Mayank Sharma assesses its progress

Zephix 3.0

A fan of portable, modular distros, Mayank Sharma runs across a relatively new one and wonders how it stacks up against his all-time favourite: Slax

Ubuntu 2 1.10 vs Fedora 35

Mayank Sharma wonders if there’s more that separates the two leading Gnome-based distros than their different packaging formats

Filesystems

It’s time for Alexander Tolstoy to put the major Linux filesystems to the test and figure out which is best in terms of speed, reliability and extra features

USB flash drive performance

What if your USB thumb drive could perform faster?

Solid-state drive performance

It’s the most widespread drive type in modern personal computers

Extra features

Weigh up a range of other capabilities

NVMe drive performance

Expecting the same results as for SSD? Then you’re mistaken…

Spinning rust drive performance

They need extra time to spin up and are noisy, but they are still in charge

Power loss tolerance

We cruelly unplugged our external SSD while writing data to it

Ease of use

What does it take to set up a filesystem and use all its features?

The Verdict

Filesystems

UBUNTU VS FEDORA

Jonni Bidwell wants to know everything – and he means everything – about the two most popular Gnome-based distros…

What makes them great, again?

Here at Linux Format Towers we’re always recommending both Ubuntu and Fedora, but sometimes we forget why…

What’s in a top-tier distro?

Learn how Fedora and Ubuntu are engineered, governed and supported

Harness your hardware for smoother streaming

Use your fancy graphics card to decode videos and free up your CPU for your other calculations and compositions

Flavours, spins, upgrades

Fedora and Ubuntu have all kinds of alternate editions, and both can easily be customised beyond recognition

AUTOMOTIVE GRADE LINUX

Mats Tage Axelsson shows how open source frameworks and Linux can help navigate you safely to your coding destination

LICENCE TO BILL

Jonni Bidwell has been reading licence minutiae and fears big business threatens the future of copyleft and software freedom

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Michael Horne is the co-organiser of Pi Wars

Raspberry Pi suffers supply chain issues

The first-ever price increase and the reintroduction of smaller memory models helps fill the gaps

Vulkan on Pi

Fancy Pi graphics drivers

Pi extreme!

Running at 3GHz

Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

Meet Les Pounder’s all-new pocket rocket, complete with updated CPU

Sensor and motor control with the GPIO

Les Pounder shows how we can take Scratch further with a community-developed tool that builds on our Scratch knowledge

Interfacing to single board computers

Mike Bedford shows you how to get more from your Raspberry Pi, Arduino or other SBC by getting to grips with interfacing circuitry

Driving SPI displays

Let’s go on an adventure into the SPI protocol, LCD displays and model trains with Sean Conway toot-tooting away!

TUI podcast player

Listening to podcasts is as natural to Shashank Sharma as making tall claims. He’s tried all podcast clients and has finally found one of the best

The complete guide to editing PDF files

Nick Peers reveals all the free tools you need to view, annotate, edit and create PDFs on your Linux-running PC

Babbage and running his many engines

Mike Bedford shows you how to program the mechanical computing devices that pre-dated modern electronic computers by over a century

Install Chrome OS on any PC hardware

Enjoy a simple-looking operating system with a lot of power, which can be added using a Linux container. Matt Holder is your guide

Run a Ghost blog on your server

David Rutland would like to apologise in advance for the supernatural puns contained herein – but it was written in the run-up to Halloween

Using Python sockets for multiplayer gaming

Discover how to implement multi-player gaming in a Galaxian-style shooter with Andrew Smith, in the second part of coding Star-Fighter!

How to develop a RESTful client in Go

Learn how to develop a command-line client to access a RESTful server in Go with Mihalis Tsoukalos and the Cobra library