News

How not to release historic source code

by
Regarding the release of the MS-DOS 4.00 source code, Michal Necasek makes an excellent point about how just dumping the code in git is a terrible and destructive way to release older source code. It’s terrific that the source code for DOS 4.00/4.01 was released! But don’t expect to build the source code mutilated by git without problems. Historic source code should be released simply as an archive of files, ZIP or tar or 7z or whatever, with all timestamps preserved and every single byte kept the way it was. Git is simply not a suitable tool for this. ↫ Michal Necasek at OS/2 Museum The problems caused by dumping the code in git are quite real. Timestamps are not preserved, and the conversion to UTF-8 is deeply destructive, turning some parts of the code to literal gibberish. It’s a bit of a mess, and the people responsible for these release should be more careful and considerate.

X96 MAX Plus 4GB/32GB Amlogic S905x3 Android 9.0 8K

by
X96 MAX Plus 4GB 32GB Amlogic S905x3 Android 9 0 8K Video Decode TV Box 2 4G 5 8G WiFi Bluetooth 1000Mbps LAN USB3 0 Youtube Netflix Google Play Black
BUY LINK : https://affiliate.geekbuying.com/deeplink.php?affid=1756&url=https://www.geekbuying.com/item/-423020.html
X96 MAX Plus 4GB/32GB Amlogic S905x3 Android 9.0 8K Video Decode TV Box 2.4G+5.8G WiFi Bluetooth 1000Mbps LAN USB3.0 Youtube Netflix Google Play – Black
auriculares bluetooth impermeable, android tv box setup, t95 android tv box setup, how to reset t95 android box, android tv box 2021, t95 android 10.0 tv box, transmisor fm bluetooth, t95 h616 android 10.0 tv box, t95 android 10.0 smart tv box, t95 android tv box not working

Open Group: Repeat after Me II / Polish Pavilion at Venice Art Biennale 2024

by
Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga): Repeat after Me II / Polish Pavilion at Venice Art Biennale 2024. Venice (Italy), April 19, 2024.
Official description: Repeat after Me II is a collective portrait of witnesses of the war in Ukraine. The protagonists of two films from 2022 and 2024 are civilian war refugees who speak of the war as recalled through the sounds of firearms, and then invite the audience to repeat after them. The artists use a karaoke format. The accompaniment here is not hit tunes: it is shots, missiles, howling, and explosions—and the lyrics are descriptions of deadly weapons. This is the soundtrack of a war that the witnesses try to recreate. The ability to recognise these sounds can save their lives, and we are invited to learn the language of their experiences. The audience can repeat the sounds of the weapons or withdraw into the safe space designed to resemble a karaoke bar. Yet this is no ordinary bar, like the ones we know: it is an instructional karaoke venue forecasting an even more militarised future. This spectre will remain with us for so long as nationalist imperialist policies will be accepted as part of a diplomatic compromise.

Rss.App Review

by
Let me start by expressing my deep frustration with the customer service I received from RSS.App. I was excited to use their service, which sets up widgets for websites to enhance content accessibility. After trying the trial version and finding it lacking the features I needed for my website, I decided to purchase the $19.99 plan to explore further.

However, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I encountered issues with integrating the widget into my WordPress-hosted website. Despite adjusting dimensions and attempting various fixes, the widget remained off-centered. I assumed I was doing something wrong until I reached out to customer support for assistance.

Debug Academy: How to create a partial date field in Drupal (i.e. Year & Month without Day)

by
How to create a partial date field in Drupal (i.e. Year & Month without Day)

One of Drupal’s main strengths is its data modeling.

But sometimes choosing the appropriate field type comes with a form widget that isn’t what we’re looking for. For example, using a Date field results in the form displaying a date “widget” (form input) which includes a full date consisting of a day, month, and year, and optionally a time.

How to remove the time from a date field in Drupal

Because removing the time from date fields is such a common request, Drupal allows its removal without writing any custom code.

How to hide the time Drupal’s frontend

Fortunately, the date field has a highly configurable display on the frontend. By visiting the “Manage Display” page (or configuring the field’s block, if using layout builder), you will have the option of selecting (or creating) a date format.

Follow these steps to change the date’s output for your frontend:

ashrafabed
Fri, 04/26/2024

Passphrase timeout for disk decryption at boot added (potential battery lifesaver)

by
Have you had your laptop accidentally un-hibernate while you weren’t looking, leaving you with a totally drained battery?

Now OpenBSD-current has a fix for that, thanks to this commit by Klemens Nanni (kn@). The commit message reads, 

List:       openbsd-cvs
Subject:    CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: src
From:       Klemens Nanni <kn () cvs ! openbsd ! org>
Date:       2024-04-25 18:31:49

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	kn@cvs.openbsd.org	2024/04/25 12:31:49

Modified files:
	sys/lib/libsa  : softraid.c 
	sys/arch/amd64/stand/boot: boot.8 
	sys/arch/amd64/stand/efiboot: Makefile.common cmd_i386.c conf.c 
	                              efiboot.c efiboot.h 

Log message:
Add boot.conf(8) 'mach idle [secs]' to halt at idle passphrase prompts

Read more…

gnulib @ Savannah: GNU gnulib: gnulib-tool has become much faster

by

If you are developer on a package that uses GNU gnulib as part of its build system:

gnulib-tool has been known for being slow for many years. We have listened to your complaints. We have rewritten gnulib-tool in another programming language (Python). It is between 8 times and 100 times faster than the previous implementation.

Both implementations behave identically, that is, produce the same generated files and the same output. Nothing changes in your way to use Gnulib; it’s only faster.

In order to reap the new speed:

1. Make sure you have Python (version 3.7 or newer) installed on your machine.

2. Update your gnulib checkout. (For some packages, it comes as a git submodule named ‘gnulib’.) Like this:

  $ git checkout master
  $ git pull

  Set the environment variable GNULIB_SRCDIR, pointing to this checkout.

  If the package is using a git submodule named ‘gnulib’, it is also advisable to do

  $ git commit -m ‘build: Update gnulib submodule to latest.’ gnulib

  (as a preparation for step 4, because the –no-git option does not work as expected in all variants of ‘bootstrap’).

3. Clean the built files of your package:

  $ make -k distclean


4. Regenerate the fetched and generated files of your package. Depending on the package, this may be a command such as

  $ ./bootstrap –no-git –gnulib-srcdir=$GNULIB_SRCDIR

  or

  $ export GNULIB_SRCDIR; ./autopull.sh; ./autogen.sh

  or, if no such script is available:

  $ $GNULIB_SRCDIR/gnulib-tool –update


5. Continue with

  $ ./configure
  $ make

  as usual.

Enjoy! The rewritten gnulib-tool was implemented by Dmitry Selyutin, Collin Funk, and me.

Safety in typing, no cloud needed

by

TWIF generated on Thursday, 25 Apr 2024, Week 17

Community News

@linsui is forced to tap the sign:

We are sad to read articles like the latest one from The Citizen Lab, “The not-so-silent type: Vulnerabilities across keyboard apps reveal keystrokes to network eavesdroppers”, and rather baffled to see that “cloud-based keyboards” are even a thing. While the F-Droid repo does not hold millions of apps we are users ourselves and we include and maintain apps that, while being FOSS, are also user-centric, from like-minded developers.

A keyboard is the way we talk with our computing devices, telling them our fears, hopes and greatest secrets, it can basically read our minds, hence having all that sent to some server, and allowed to be spied upon in transit or at destination, is a great betrayal of our trust.

While Latin based keyboards abound, like the latest HeliBoard which was updated to 1.3, we have something for IME users too, Trime and Fcitx5 (and its plugins) can cover everyone’s needs to type in their own locale. And, if being FOSS is not enough, these don’t even have the permission to connect to the Internet, nor a need for that. Eg. Trime can even sync user data without Internet, via self hosted apps like Syncthing.

Breezy Weather was updated to 5.2.1_freenet, bringing Fused location support for all flavors, available natively since Android 12.

The YouApps Suite already had six apps in F-Droid, and this week CalcYou, Privacy Focused Calculator app built with MD3, joins too.

Many Gitlab users were waiting for a LabCoat update, and while the newly 2.7.9 is from an year old codebase, it took three and a half years to drop (wow!). The new icon might be fancy, but the date bug fix (posts from one second ago were dated 19 hours in the past) is sweet.

maid, Interact with artificial intelligence models (llama.cpp models locally, and with Ollama, Mistral, Google Gemini and OpenAI models remotely), was just added. Now you can run LLMs on your smartphone with a nice UI (no more messing with Termux and command lines!). But if you don’t have a powerful device, the LLM is very slow: it may take tens of seconds to spell out one word. Maid also supports remote models so you can still enjoy its results no matter the device used.

@Licaon_kter doesn’t split the atom, but gives us protons:

After being mentioned in the news two weeks ago, Proton Pass: Password Manager, created by the scientists who met at CERN behind Proton Mail, is finally live for everyone to enjoy. The Proton team has a blog post about it too, that you can read here. The app description is missing, and upstream is aware.

Standard Notes was update to 3.193.9, but did you know that its developers were acquired by Proton? You can read more on their blog.

And since we are deep in Proton news, SimpleLogin – Anti-spam, also acquired back in 2022, will be moving its legal domicile to Switzerland.

Newly Added Apps

13 more apps were newly added
  • Accelerrace – Simple HTML5 racing game made just for fun
  • Aria for Misskey – Dive into the interplanetary microblogging platform
  • Asteroid’s Revenge – Endless survival bulletHell (highscore based)
  • Flexify – Track gym progress, visualize graphs, enjoy offline support & timers
  • Fossify Notes – To do list widget with a notebook organizer, checklist, simple shopping list
  • GPS Locker – Keep the GPS locked at all times
  • Mat-O-Id – Pay beverages with RFID-Tag
  • Metadata Remover – Protect your privacy by removing metadata from your photos!
  • OpenDefault – Help opening URLs with your default App
  • Shiori – Client for Shiori, the bookmarks manager
  • SpamBlocker (Call & SMS) – Silences unwanted calls/SMS messages without replacing your default apps
  • Stream Player – A simple HTTP stream player
  • eQuran – An enriching way to connect with the Holy Quran

Updated Apps

153 more apps were updated

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

Please subscribe to the RSS feed in your favourite RSS application to be updated of new TWIFs when they come up.

You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉