Danie

Stop Manually Checking GitHub Releases — These Tools Automatically Install & Update Apps on Linux “Package managers are essential tools on Linux systems. They help you install, update, and remove software packages with simple commands. Most distributions come with their own package managers, like apt, dnf, or pacman. However, many modern tools are distributed as pre-compiled binaries via GitHub releases. Developers using languages like Go, Rust, and Deno often release their software this way. New projects that are not included in the official distro repository yet have to opt for this method. This creates a gap between traditional package managers and these GitHub-hosted releases.” This is probably going to be of more interest to those using Debian and Fedora based package managers, as these are the most popular packages, which are typically generated directly on code hosting sites. But some interesting options to consider between deb-get, Autonomix, Eget, Install Release, bin, stew, and AFX. See

It's FOSS

Stop Manually Checking GitHub Releases — These Tools Automatically Install & Update Apps on Linux

These handy utilities tools simplify installing and managing binaries from GitHub releases on Linux.

#technology #Linux #opensource

Windows fatigue continues to push thousands of gamers to switch to Bazzite Linux distro “Bazzite, a Linux distro that has a lot in common with Valve's SteamOS, is designed specifically with gaming in mind, offering a console-like experience that ditches the majority of Windows 11's most annoying features. In recent usage statistics posted to X, Bazzite shared weekly growth of roughly 1.25x over the past 30 days. To put the number in perspective, this means that Bazzite pulls in roughly 50,000 weekly users.” There are tons of different Linux distros, but they can actually all do the same things (same Linux kernel underneath). The presentation, included packages, and the package manager type, are what really separates them a bit. So you can really pick any distro you want, and make it work. I use Manjaro KDE, and it is playing all the games I want (including Windows-only games), it does all my browsing, document creation and editing, video creation and editing, and lots more. What is different about Bazzite, is that it has specialised around making gaming work well from the get-go, and it has a focus on newcomers to Linus as well. Interestingly, it also has a rollback function for any system updates that may cause problems. Best of all, it's fast, has no adverts, no TPM v2 requirements, and no AI Copilot. See

XDA

Windows fatigue continues to push thousands of gamers to switch to this Linux distro

The SteamOS-like Linux distro's weekly downloads are increasing rapidly.

or their website at

Bazzite - The operating system for the next generation of gamers

Bazzite makes gaming and everyday use smoother and simpler across desktop PCs, handhelds, tablets, and home theater PCs.

#technology #Linux #Windows11 #gaming

GreyNoise launches a free scanner to check if you're part of a botnet “GreyNoise Labs has launched a free tool called GreyNoise IP Check that lets users check if their IP address has been observed in malicious scanning operations, like botnet and residential proxy networks. The threat monitoring firm that tracks internet-wide activity via a global sensor network says this problem has grown significantly over the past year, with many users unknowingly helping malicious online activity.” This service involves nothing being installed in your network or devices. It is just looking to see if your IP address has been picked up in their database for suspicious activity that could indicate there is malware or possible botnet activity originating from your IP address. By just visiting their website the check is done from your browser, but if you register a free account with them, you can set up alerts based on your IP addresses. I set up an alert for my home network as well as for my VPS server. See

BleepingComputer

GreyNoise launches free scanner to check if you're part of a botnet

GreyNoise Labs has launched a free tool called GreyNoise IP Check that lets users check if their IP address has been observed in malicious scanning...

#technology #security #botnets

Portmaster is an open source application firewall built to monitor and control network activity on Windows and Linux “Every packet is visible to the service, and any packet can be stopped before it leaves the system. The software matches traffic to the app that created it by using eBPF and the proc filesystem on Linux or a kernel driver and the IP Helper API on Windows. This approach lets users see each connection while still setting rules per application. It also helps the service sort out unusual cases. Portmaster can recognize Snap packages, AppImage apps and scripts on Linux as well as Windows Store apps and system services that run under svchost.exe.” I love that it shows per application how many, and what countries, connections are being made to the Internet. It also intercepts DNS queries that may have bypassed your user settings. The linked article does link directly to the GitHub project, where you can get the files to install it. See

Help Net Security

Portmaster: Open-source application firewall - Help Net Security

Portmaster is a free and open source application firewall built to monitor and control network activity on Windows and Linux. The project is develo...

#technology #opensource #security

Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode “PeerTube is a free and open source video hosting platform that serves as an alternative to YouTube. Unlike centralized platforms, it allows anyone to create their own video hosting instance while connecting with others through federation. It is developed by Framasoft, a French non-profit organization focused on digital freedom. Before you ask, the organization keeps itself afloat on donations rather than advertising or scraping people's data. The project recently hit two milestones: PeerTube v8 was released, bringing collaborative features and design improvements. Just a week later, the mobile app received its long-awaited Creator Mode.” PeerTube has steadily been improving this year and playback has also been getting much better. A year or so back, it was still plagued sometimes with buffering. It works much the same way as Mastodon and other Fediverse networks do so you can host your own PeerTube instance if you want to. There are some biggish YouTube creators there too, but it does not pay money like YouTube does as there are no adverts shoved into everything. I also post my videos there at gadgeteerza@video.hardlimit.com. But yes, my follower count there is way lower than on YouTube, because I suppose so many love the YT ads. ;-) See

It's FOSS

Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode

The open source YouTube alternative offers some welcome updates for content creators.

#technology #peertube #opensource

Affinity, as an alternative to Photoshop, runs as an AppImage on Linux “Canva, after acquiring the team behind Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher, launched the free Affinity app that brings together all three of the aforementioned apps. And while it doesn't officially support Linux, the community has stepped up to fix that. So, if you're someone working in image and photo editing, Linux is one step closer to perfection.” Although the linked article does give a Python code snippet to install this via an installation script on Linux, many may feel more comfortable just downloading and running the AppImage version as this packages the WINE files with it, so it all runs sweetly. The first run will be slow as it creates the WINE folder files etc inside ~/.AffinityLinux-Appimage/, and thereafter it will start quickly. At initial startup, it prompts for a DPI setting, and it is probably best to leave that at the default (mine was 96) otherwise I notice it displays for a much larger screen. From

XDA

I thought I needed Windows for Photoshop, but this Linux project is just as good

Affinity on Linux is a game changer

and you can get the AppImage at

GitHub

Releases · ryzendew/AffinityOnLinux

A repository that helps users get affinity software working on GNU/Linux 🐧 - ryzendew/AffinityOnLinux

#technology #Linux #photoediting

AA Browser is a WebView browser experience for Android Auto head units Transform your driving experience with a sleek, modern browser designed specifically for the road. Built with cutting-edge Material 3 design and optimised for automotive interfaces. This browser will work on Android Auto head units, but note the warnings about not looking at it whilst driving. It may though keep younger passenger amused, especially those who are too young now to use social media in Australia. There are no trackers in the app itself, but it does not have ad blocking capability of the websites you may visit. You'd need to download the APK file, though, and sideload it to your phone. See

GitHub

GitHub - kododake/AABrowser: Android Auto WEB Browser

Android Auto WEB Browser. Contribute to kododake/AABrowser development by creating an account on GitHub.

#technology #androidauto #browsers #opensource

Easier Than Nano! Fresh is a Fresh New Rust-based Terminal Editor for Linux “Fresh is a new Rust-based terminal text editor that takes a different approach. It uses standard keybindings like Ctrl+S for saving, Ctrl+F for searching, and Ctrl+Z for undoing. It works like a GUI editor but runs in your terminal.” Newer versions of Nano do, I think, default to similar easy to remember common keybindings. If not, it certainly can be set to use them, but every now, and again I still hit Nano with the old keybindings on some devices I work on. That said, I don't think Nano has any built-in file explorer, though. Fresh certainly looks well worth trying out. It installs on macOS, Linux and Windows (binaries on the GitHub site). See

It's FOSS

Easier Than Nano! Fresh is a 'Fresh' New Rust-based Terminal Editor for Linux

Rust-based editor combines fast performance with GUI-style shortcuts that just work.

#technology #opensource #texteditors

Valve Has the Secret to Playing Your Games Everywhere, and It’s Not Streaming “Last month, Valve showed off the Steam Machine, a console-like box with PC guts, along with a Steam Frame VR headset. The secret sauce of the headset is down to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU, a mobile-focused chip based on ARM microarchitecture. Valve claims the Frame will be able to play your Steam games, both over local streaming and through an open-source x86 emulator called Fex. When you put on a Steam Frame, it will be running SteamOS, same as the Steam Machine. It’s basically a Steam Deck for your face, but it’s much more distinct than that because of the underlying hardware.” So, this could be a bit like what the Proton compatibility layer has done for Windows games on Linux (and that has been huge, with more than 24,300 games rated as at least playable with Proton). See

Gizmodo

Valve Has the Secret to Playing Your Games Everywhere, and It's Not Streaming

Sorry, Game Pass, but Steam may soon bring your games to every platform.

#technology #gaming #opensource