MEET THE TEAM

We’re exploring the Pi essentials to help people get coding, making and beyond, so we wondered how our experts would ease someone into open source life?

Let’s make it!

The first time I saw a Raspberry Pi

Better ARM booting with Tow-Boot

New distro improves booting Linux on ARM platform

Call to ditch Russian-made CPUs

OpenBLAS is considering dropping support for Russian processors because of the war in Ukraine

OPEN IS BETTER

Samuel Iglesias is an open-source graphics driver developer

FUTURE SHOCK

Keith Edmunds is MD of Tiger Computing Ltd,

Dirty Pipe exploit found

Vulnerability could allow write access with root privileges

Ubuntu 20.04.4 now on Framework

The modular laptop supports Ubuntu LTS out of the box

PipeWire celebrates a great year

The PipeWire went from strength to strength in 2021

Distro watch

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

CHOICES, CHOICES

Matt Yonkovit is the head of Open Source

TAKE OUT THE TRASH

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

HotPicks

HOTPICKS THE BEST NEW OPEN SOURCE SOFT WARE ON THE PLANET

Falkon

Version: 3.2 Web: www.falkon.org A fter three years

Zapzap

Version: 2.1 Web: https://github.com/ rafatosta/zapzap Zapzap offers

Scribus

Version: 1.5.8 Web: www.scribus.net T he publishing

Detox

Version: 1.4.5 Web: https://github.com/dharple/detox C ompatibility issues

Notepad Next

Version: 0.4.7 Web: https://github.com/ dail8859/NotepadNext T here

Whoogle Search

Version: 0.7.1 Web: https://github.com/ benbusby/whoogle-search S ome

Qxkb5

Version: GIT Web: https://github.com/ AndreyBarmaley/qxkb5 Q xkb5

Freeciv

Version: 3.0 Web: http://freeciv.org F reeciv is

Gbajs2

Version: GIT Web: https://github.com/ andychase/gbajs2 N obody

Rembg

Version: 2.0.5 Web: https://github . com/danielgatis/rembg O

Lector

Version: 0.5.1 Web: https://github.com/ BasioMeusPuga/Lector L ector

BULLET-PROOF UBUNTU 22.04

Get the most stable, long-term install around with our guide to tweaking your Ubuntu for a trouble-free Linux life

Bluehost web hosting

Feature-packed hosting geared towards WordPress, discovers Mike Williams.

Valve Steam Deck

The Steam Deck can’t yet play every game on Steam, but it’s a great handheld gaming system nonetheless, says Wes Fenlon.

OpenMandriva Lx 4.3

In what seems to have become a trend, just when he gives up hope, a project pleasantly surprises Mayank Sharma with a new release

Absolute Linux 15

After willingly burning his fingers with the unforgiving Slackware 15, Mayank Sharma tries a derivative that promises a healing touch

Slax 11.2

The portable distro doesn’t release often, but its many users – including Mayank Sharma – are always on the lookout for updated versions

MassOS 2022.03

Independent Linux distros will always have Mayank Sharma’s admiration, even if he has trouble grasping their raison d’etre

Dead Cells

Management say you have to keep working even after death. Chris Thursten isn’t impressed by their rogue-like attitude

Social video websites

Michael Reed takes a look at websites that combine video hosting with social networking tools, while comparing free and paid-for options

ESSENTIAL Pi PROJECTS

It’s Pi-time we got down to some steaming hot Raspberry Pi projects says Jonni Bidwell, who’s brought along a whole selection for you to try…

Getting started

Learn to write SD cards. Then use your Raspberry Pi as a Linux desktop, a server or something entirely inconceivable

Security, inside and out

Configure the OS, set up remote access and then invest in some tiny walls and a roof for your Raspberry Pi project…

LEDs and landing strips

Discover how you can use your Raspberry Pi to scan the skies for flying craft, and light up your workspace with bright lights

Pick an OS, any OS…

There’s a smorgasbord of OSes of great purpose, and they long to be on your SD cards. Here’s how to get them on there

Intelligent machine fun

Use the power of machine learning and make an image-classification bot

TAKE STOCK OF THE Pi SITUATION

Les Pounder works with groups such as the

‘Borg Cube’ Raspberry Pi journeys into space

The Get Away Special Passive Attitude Control Satellite resembles the infamous craft from Star Trek

Get wrecked!

Underwater Pi adventure.

Retro madness!

One Pi’s running an 8086

MX-Linux Pi Beta

Les Pounder dusts off that old 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 to test drive a lightweight, yet surprisingly configurable alternative to the official OS

Send temperature sensor data to Twitter

Les Pounder can’t make it to outer space, but he can broadcast the temperature while he’s sat at his earthbound command desk

Pi 400 Using the Raspberry Pi as a daily driver

How capable is the Pi when it comes to carrying out day-to-day computing tasks? Michael Reed powers down his x86 desktop to find out…

FINDING EQUI-LIBRE-UM

Your favourite office suite needs help, as Jonni Bidwell finds out…

Discover the supercharged file manager

The problem of plenty has long plagued GUI managers where many tools offer similar features. Shashank Sharma recreates the situation on the CLI

Use filters for image and video editing

Nick Peers reveals how the G’MIC plugin can transform the way you repair and enhance both photographs and videos

How to emulate the Acorn Archimedes

Les Pounder heard that mighty oaks grow from little acorns, but all he found was a Raspberry Pi and an Arm buried in the garden

Create automations and notifications

Matt Holder investigates Home Assistant’s Automations and Notifications to make our homes as “smart” as they can be

Use GIMP to process satellite images

Satellite photos are familiar, their underlying technology less so. Mike Bedford reveals how to process their spectacular images

Create your own VPS internet ArchiveBox

David Rutland uses the LXF virtual private server to archive as much of the internet as possible, keeping it safe for future generations

TRULY, DEEPLY, RANDOMLY

Random numbers are essential for so much of everyday life but they’re not as easy to generate as we might think. Mike Bedford takes us on a journey through the murky world of randomness to see how it’s done

Coding secure Rust system tools

Make yourself comfortable, as Mihalis Tsoukalos explains the basics of Rust, so you can write memory-secure system utilities

Discover the all-new V language

There’s nothing Mihalis Tsoukalos enjoys more than a single-letter programming language, so let’s code some command line tools in V