FLOSS Project Planets

Colima is a project that is easy to use and fully open source, and it helps in running docker containers on Linux OS and MacOs machines. We know Docker Desktop is no more a complete open source, if you are not using it personally. So now Colima is a tool which does work similar to Docker Desktop and In this article we are going to see how it works alone or along with Docker Desktop on your Linux

We developers always choose to have some tools or setup, which makes our lives easier during the development process whether it might be a local environment or higher environments. Not only will lives be easier with such a setup, even the productivity of the individual or team will be increased. And today we are gonna see how Lando will help the drupal developer or drupal development much quicker

Drupal 10 is planned to be released in December 2022. Drupal 10 will be straightforward upgrades like Drupal 8 to 9. Upgrade processes used are more or less similar. Mostly you need to keep your current site up to date with the latest drupal core and contributed projects. What is new in Drupal 10? Drupal 10 is a refined version of Drupal 9 with the certain features Claro administration theme i

In the Service Industry, a Technical Lead or Technical Architect or Delivery Manager, one is always looking at the work, either as a Project or a Product, but I say, one should look at it as both, because work would be a Project for us but work would be a Product for the clients. While working on Agile basis, being at the leading positions one will be seeing the scope of work, then prepare the ba

In this article we are going to see how drupal developers can use the Drupal Constraints to Validate the Media entities. Basically Drupal provides Constraints to do the Validations on the Entities, where Drupal uses the Symfony’s validator and extends with Symfony’s Typed Data API for validating specific Entity field definitions. These constraint validators can be used in different w

In this article, we are going to see how the Local PHP Security Checker library will make people's lives easier during the development & code review process. To make developer life easier, developers look for tools or libraries which can automated security review. Here comes the Local PHP Security Checker library, which checks for any known vulnerabilities in the package dependencies. Th

In this article we are going to see how to read the dynamic data of the node or entity or field values to the template file, which are specific to the paragraph template. Generally while the Paragraph module is used, default template suggestions given by the paragraph module or the template suggestions provided by the hooks are used and further template design is done. Here’s the article wh

Paragraphs can be used as a way for Content Creation in Drupal. It actually allows the site builders to do their stuff a bit cleanly and for the end users this will be pretty easy to manage the content, meaning people get more control on the Editing side. Paragraphs is one of the  popular modules in Drupal, for handling content. It is more or less very similar to the fields and will provide

In this article, we are going to see how some tools & libraries will make people's lives easier during the development and code review process. We have a similar helpful article related to Phpcs, have a check of this. To make developer life easier, developers look for tools or libraries which can automated code review and if needed make any corrections in the code automatically. Here come

In this article, we are going to see how a developer can work with Twig templates, and how to override templates (if needed) and create template suggestions with hooks, so that templates could be easily managed. Basically drupal allows people to override the existing twig templates, so that people can fully have control on the html generated via the custom theme. First thing, we need to make sur

In this article we are going to see how your Drupal team can do code reviews and available tools or libraries which help people in the team to do the code reviews seamlessly. It’s pretty important to follow a few guidelines as well, so that all people or developers in the team are on the same page. Firstly, for the code reviews to be at their best, the committed code should be more organis

In this article, we are going to see how some tools & libraries will make people's lives easier during the development & code review process. And to make developer life easier, developers look for tools or libraries which can automated code review and if needed make any corrections in the code automatically. Here comes the PHP codesniffer and Drupal coder module. If you are maintaini

In this article, we are going to see how people can store access keys and tokens securely, in the case of your drupal application that is managed on pantheon. Generally, all the Access keys or Tokens or any Secret third party auth information should not be stored in the database or within the project web root, Its safe to store it encrypted and within a file, and keep the file outside of the proj

And I’d say it’s a pretty good release! As with all large sets of changes, there are a couple of regressions we’re tracking, particularly around the areas of external monitor brightness and multi-screen performance. They are being actively investigated. Other than those, so far all the issues have been fairly minor, requiring people to jump through various hoops to experience them. We’re still working on fixing them, of course! I’ll be writing up another post soon on these issues, discussing how they snuck into the final release, and what we can learn from the experience.

But in the meantime, here’s the Plasma team’s work from this week:

Notable UI Improvements

Removed some unintentional extra padding around everything on System Settings’ Touchpad page (me: Nate Graham, Plasma 6.2.1. Link):

Notable Bug Fixes

Fixed a regression in Plasma that caused pop-ups of widgets on a Plasma panel to get positioned partially off screen, but only if their parent panel was very small and positioned against on the left or top screen edge (Niccolò Venerandi, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed a regression in the new “control all screens’ brightness” feature that caused the brightness slider for external screens to get duplicated with certain screens (Jakob Petsovits, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed two minor window focus regressions caused by an intentional change in KWin’s multi-monitor focus behavior (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.2.1. Link 1 and link 2)

Fixed a porting regression that caused the virtual desktop switcher OSD to not appear when it should have (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed a porting regression that caused the first entry in the clipboard to temporarily not be removable after editing it (Fushan Wen, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed a porting regression that caused auto-mounted encrypted disks to mount normally as expected, but not show up correctly in Plasma’s Disks & Devices widget (Bohdan Onofriichuk, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed three Plasma crashes affecting the System Tray and Disks & Devices widget under various circumstances (Fushan Wen, Plasma 6.2.1. Link 1, link 2, and link 3)

Fixed a case where Plasma could crash in brightness-related code (Jakob Petsovits, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed a bug in our KPipeWire library (which lives in Plasma) that caused screen recordings in Spectacle using the default VP9 video codec to be cut off at the end on slower systems (Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed a bug that caused configuration pages of System Monitor widgets to not be scrollable when needed (Arjen Hiemstra, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

Fixed an unusual bug that caused the system to fail to log out within the first 50 seconds after logging in, but only when the splash screen was disabled (David Edmundson, Plasma 6.2.1. Link 1 and link 2)

System Settings’ Wallpapers page now has a visible title as expected (Méven Car, Plasma 6.2.1. Link)

The Baloo file indexer service no longer tries to pointlessly index the content of .obj 3D model files (Someone going by the pseudonym “Archaeopteryx Lithographica”, Frameworks 6.8. Link)

Other bug information of note:

• 2 Very high priority Plasma bug (same as last week). Current list of bugs
• 35 15-minute Plasma bugs (up from 30 last week). Current list of bugs
• 107 KDE bugs of all kinds fixed over the last week. Full list of bugs

Performance & Technical

Further optimized Discover’s launch speed (Aleix Pol Gonzalez, Plasma 6.3.0 Link)

How You Can Help

If you’re a developer, work on fixing Plasma 6.2 regressions!

If you’re an enthusiastic user, don’t sweat them and upgrade anyway. It’s a fantastic release.

Otherwise, visit https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved to discover additional ways to be part of a project that really matters. Each contributor makes a huge difference in KDE; you are not a number or a cog in a machine! You don’t have to already be a programmer, either. I wasn’t when I got started. Try it, you’ll like it! We don’t bite! Or consider donating instead! That helps too.

I have decided to start using sourcehut for a few of my projects. The first projects landing there are bugz-mode and a68-mode, two Emacs modes. The first implements a quite efficient and comfortable interface to bugzilla. The second is a programming mode for Algol 68.

Let's see how it goes!

https://git.sr.ht/~jemarch

Check out the important work our volunteers accomplished at today's Free Software Directory (FSD) IRC meeting.

Check out the important work our volunteers accomplished at today's Free Software Directory (FSD) IRC meeting.

It's been a while since I've posted about arm64 hardware. The last machine I spent my own money on was a SolidRun Macchiatobin, about 7 years ago. It's a small (mini-ITX) board with a 4-core arm64 SoC (4 * Cortex-A72) on it, along with things like a DIMM socket for memory, lots of networking, 3 SATA disk interfaces.

The Macchiatobin was a nice machine compared to many earlier systems, but it took quite a bit of effort to get it working to my liking. I replaced the on-board U-Boot firmware binary with an EDK2 build, and that helped. After a few iterations we got a new build including graphical output on a PCIe graphics card. Now it worked much more like a "normal" x86 computer.

I still have that machine running at home, and it's been a reasonably reliable little build machine for arm development and testing. It's starting to show its age, though - the onboard USB ports no longer work, and so it's no longer useful for doing things like installation testing. :-/

So...

I was involved in a conversation in the #debian-arm IRC channel a few weeks ago, and diederik suggested the Radxa Rock 5 ITX. It's another mini-ITX board, this time using a Rockchip RK3588 CPU. Things have moved on - the CPU is now an 8-core big.LITTLE config: 4*Cortex A76 and 4*Cortex A55. The board has NVMe on-board, 4*SATA, built-in Mali graphics from the CPU, soldered-on memory. Just about everything you need on an SBC for a small low-power desktop, a NAS or whatever. And for about half the price I paid for the Macchiatobin. I hit "buy" on one of the listed websites. :-)

A few days ago, the new board landed. I picked the version with 24GB of RAM and bought the matching heatsink and fan. I set it up in an existing case borrowed from another old machine and tried the Radxa "Debian" build. All looked OK, but I clearly wasn't going to stay with that. Onwards to running a native Debian setup!

I installed an EDK2 build from https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588 onto the onboard SPI flash, then rebooted with a Debian 12.7 (Bookworm) arm64 installer image on a USB stick. How much trouble could this be?

I was shocked! It Just Worked (TM)

I'm running a standard Debian arm64 system. The graphical installer ran just fine. I installed onto the NVMe, adding an Xfce desktop for some simple tests. Everything Just Worked. After many years of fighting with a range of different arm machines (from simple SBCs to desktops and servers), this was without doubt the most straightforward setup I've ever done. Wow!

It's possible to go and spend a lot of money on an Ampere machine, and I've seen them work well too. But for a hobbyist user (or even a smaller business), the Rock 5 ITX is a lovely option. Total cost to me for the board with shipping fees, import duty, etc. was just over £240. That's great value, and I can wholeheartedly recommend this board!

The two things that are missing compared to the Macchiatobin? This is soldered-on memory (but hey, 24G is plenty for me!) It also doesn't have a PCIe slot, but it has sufficient onboard network, video and storage interfaces that I think it will cover most people's needs.

Where's the catch? It seems these are very popular right now, so it can be difficult to find these machines in stock online.

FTAOD, I should also point out: I bought this machine entirely with my own money, for my own use for development and testing. I've had no contact with the Radxa or Rockchip folks at all here, I'm just so happy with this machine that I've felt the need to shout about it! :-)

Here's some pictures...

Python 3.13 is here! Our regular guests, Geir Arne Hjelle and Christopher Trudeau, return to discuss the new version. This year, Geir Arne coordinated a series of preview articles with members of the Real Python team and a showcase tutorial, "Python 3.13: Cool New Features for You to Try." Christopher's video course "What's New in Python 3.13" covers the topics from the article and shows the new features in action.

[ Improve Your Python With 🐍 Python Tricks 💌 – Get a short & sweet Python Trick delivered to your inbox every couple of days. >> Click here to learn more and see examples ]

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2024-41.

Why I use KDE

Tags: tech, kde, foss, ux

Looks like we properly live by the “simple by default, powerful when needed” tagline. Now there are also challenges, this article gives a nice balanced view.

https://www.osnews.com/story/140538/why-i-use-kde/

It’s Not Easy Being Green: On the Energy Efficiency of Programming Languages

Tags: tech, programming, performance, energy

Nice paper which debunks the choice of the language as an important factor for energy efficiency. The previous papers had a too simple model, this one puts forth a more complete causal model. There are many factors at play regarding energy efficiency, the programming language itself is not really one of them.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.05460

Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home

Tags: tech, google, android, surveillance

It’s really time to get as many people as possible out of those toxic ecosystems…

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated

It’s Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word - The Atlantic

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, business, scam

Indeed, we should stop listening to such people who are basically pushing fantasies in order to raise more money.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/10/sam-altman-mythmaking/680152/

The Static Site Paradox

Tags: tech, web, self-hosting, complexity

Excellent point, we made the web too complex for regular users. This is actually an issue in term of access and democracy for people to write content there.

https://kristoff.it/blog/static-site-paradox/

HTML for People

Tags: tech, web, html, self-hosting

There is hope! Nice intro for regular people who want to get into publishing a web site. Good way to bring some democracy back to the web.

https://htmlforpeople.com/

A modest critique of Htmx

Tags: tech, web, frontend, htmx

I don’t think I would side with the conclusion. It’s a worthwhile article to get a better idea of the pain points around htmx.

https://chrisdone.com/posts/htmx-critique/

My Wayland Your Wayland Our Wayland

Tags: tech, linux, wayland, foss, governance

Yes, the governance of Open Source projects can be tricky. This is part of the job though, and properly embraced we all go further. An example from the Wayland space.

https://www.supergoodcode.com/My-Wayland-Your-Wayland-Our-Wayland/

Modern PATH environment variable

Tags: tech, unix, system

Indeed, we should likely revisit what we put in our PATH environment variable. Some of it is old cruft which is now unnecessary.

https://blog.izissise.net/posts/env-path/

Iterating through matched characters in modern C++: views::filter and coroutine

Tags: tech, c++, coroutine, performance

Several ways to deal with the task, which are the performance implications? Clearly coroutines aren’t the best tool for the job here.

https://lemire.me/blog/2024/10/06/iterating-through-matched-characters-in-modern-c-viewsfilter-and-coroutine/

Approaches to concurrent programming

Tags: tech, multithreading

This is a neat broad introduction about the problems you will encounter when multiple threads are involved and how to approach them.

https://underlap.org/approaches-to-concurrent-programming

Why You Shouldn’t Forget to Optimize the Data Layout

Tags: tech, cpu, performance, memory

Data layout is essential for performance reasons. It is too often overlooked. If you want real speed you need to help the memory subsystem.

https://cedardb.com/blog/optimizing_data_layouts/

Building Real-Time Global Illumination

Tags: tech, gpu, graphics, shader

Another good tutorial about global illumination. Make sure to read part 2 as well.

https://jason.today/gi

Transforming colors with matrices

Tags: tech, colors, shader

Neat little introduction on color manipulation using matrices. Mentions the things to pay attention to.

https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/posts/transforming-colors-with-matrices.html

The Data Visualisation Catalogue

Tags: tech, data-visualization

Nice catalogue of ideas for data visualisation tasks.

https://datavizcatalogue.com/

This Post Is Not About Python

Tags: tech, tech-lead, engineering, decision-making

Nice post, and indeed it’s not about Python if you read until the end. It shows that it’s important to be able to make informed choices and not just pick your tech stack based on knee-jerk reactions.

https://jerf.org/iri/post/2024/not_about_python/

Put business logic in the application, not the database

Tags: tech, databases, design, performance

I’m not sure I’m sold on this one. Interesting food for thought but I’ll have to mull it over for a while I think. I’m concerned about the performance implications of querying like this.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2269523/put-business-logic-in-the-application-not-the-database.html

Understanding and effectively mitigating code review anxiety

Tags: tech, codereview, psychology, cognition, anxiety, research

Still very early days on this topic, clearly more studies are required. Still this one is interesting and indicates are clear link between code review anxiety and code review avoidance. If you’re often procrastinating or rubber stamping code reviews, a workshop to reduce biases and showing you can manage your anxiety could improve things greatly.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-024-10550-9

From software to reality?

Tags: tech, science

The latest Nobel prizes indeed say something about the presence of computer scientists in other fields. Do we risk to delve too much on theoretical model? For sure using computers helps a lot, we have to be careful about not loosing empirical validation in the process.

https://lemire.me/blog/2024/10/09/from-software-to-reality/

Bye for now!