Untitled Linux Show 254: Dirty Frags, Dirty Hacks

Summary

Untitled Linux Show 254: "Dirty Frags, Dirty Hacks"

Date: May 10, 2026
Host: TWiT
Panelists: Robb Moore, Bobby Borisov, Ken Starks

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Episode Overview

This week on the Untitled Linux Show, Robb, Bobby, and Ken hold down the fort with regulars Jonathan and Jeff absent. The trio dives into everything from the latest Raspberry Pi imaging tools, major Steam controller updates, and Ubuntu’s recent cybersecurity woes, to hot-off-the-press news about AI integration in Qt Creator, new open-source video codecs, and Linux kernel vulnerabilities. There’s plenty of classic TWiT camaraderie, deep dives, practical advice, and tech banter for Linux enthusiasts of all stripes.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Status Quo and Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.9

[03:08]

• Ken Starks introduces the new Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.9 release—an overhaul to the tool used to flash SD cards/USB for the Raspberry Pi family.
• Notable changes:
  • Revamped Secure Boot provisioner for “in-place” reprovisioning, mainly benefiting the new Compute Module 5 (CM5).
  • Wizard streamlines device registration with Pi Connect organizations, involving on-device key signing and fastboot flash identity registration.
  • Improved partition handling, FAT long filenames, ZSTD header parsing, and support for massive FAT sectors.
  • Changes in cloud-init customization: SSH enabling now via systemctl, single-user configs.
  • No more 512-byte alignment requirement.
• Robb and Bobby reminisce about Pi-based retro gaming and upcycling old hardware ("I gutted regular Nintendo NES... put a Raspberry Pi one inside it..." – Bobby, [06:25]).
• Ken: “With Raspberry Pi Connect for organizations, that sounds like a way to manage multiple Pis within your org.” [10:33]
• Bobby: “We talked about that when the announcement came out. Pretty cool to manage them centrally.” [10:47]

---

The AI Train Hits Qt Creator

[11:05]

• Robb and Bobby break down how the soon-to-release Qt Creator 20 beta supercharges AI features.
• Major addition: Agent Client Protocol (ACP)—AI agents can interact programmatically with the IDE to edit code, trigger builds, and more.
• Robb: “This is either really exciting or absolutely terrifying. Even I think it might be a little of both.” [12:49]
• The AI assistant in Qt ("cute creator") moves beyond basic code suggestions. Now, it can automate documentation, test cases, and deeper project understanding.
• Bobby identifies the flip side: security and trust ("Once an AI can edit files, run commands, trigger builds... you’re giving an automated tool the ability to take action inside your dev environment" [13:41]).
• Robb: “Either you’re going to be using AI, or you’re going to be replaced by somebody using AI.” [14:52]
• Ken: Might try it for a "hello world"—making fun of how approachable AI may make even C/QML development.

---

Steam Controller Update & Gaming Hardware

[19:03]

• Ken shares Valve’s big Steam client update:
  • Now, controller connect/disconnect is visually obvious.
  • Users can toggle battery notifications; improved controller pairing and setup UI.
  • New Steam Controller: 4 haptic motors, magnetic sticks with touch, USB-C connector ("Steam Controller Puck"), and more—up to 35 hours battery, $99 price point ([19:53]).
• Bobby: “I hope a lot of people buy this, Ken. I gotta be honest—I won’t be one of them.” [21:08]
• Group laments "joystick drift" and issues with cheap versus premium controllers.
• Ken: “If you go below $50, they fall apart too easy.” [22:47]
• Discussion on muscle memory and challenges switching between controller layouts.

---

Ubuntu Cybersecurity: From DDoS to Phishing/Scam Campaigns

[24:07]

• Robb recaps last week’s big Ubuntu DDoS attack—web infra took days to recover (e.g., ubuntu.com, Launchpad, Snap Store).
• This week: Ubuntu’s X (Twitter) account compromised—posted a scam promoting a fake “Numbat AI” agent (“the attackers used Ubuntu-style branding, a professional-looking fake web page, and a domain called ai-ubuntu.com” – Robb, [26:31]).
• Scam lured users to connect crypto wallets for fake token allocations: “should set off all kinds of alarm bells.” [29:29]
• Bobby: “Even trusted brands can be abused... start questioning everything.” [29:20]
• It's a phishing/brand attack; no evidence Ubuntu's software repos are compromised.
• Panel wonders whether major Linux vendors are becoming new cyberattack targets ("I think Ubuntu is the first target. Got a feeling they’ll focus on Red Hat here in the future. Or Fedora." – Ken, [30:35])

---

Inkscape 1.4.4 Maintenance Update

[34:17]

• Ken discusses Inkscape 1.4.4:
  • Fixes for 24 crash/freeze bugs.
  • Improved performance—faster zoom, copy/paste, layer dialog with complex selections.
  • New features: elementary OS color palette, “paste on page” keyboard shortcut, improved bounding box reporting, upright button for polygons/stars.
• Panel contrasts GIMP and Inkscape ("GIMP shines for photo edits, Inkscape for vector drawing—resize without loss" [37:36]).
• Amusing asides on panelists mixing up each other's names and suggesting impersonation skits.

---

Linux Kernel Security: “Dirty Frag” Vulnerability

[41:02]

• Robb explores the new “Dirty Frag” kernel bug (CVE, high-severity): lets local users escalate privileges to root. Reliable, predictable exploit—serious threat for any system with untrusted local access.
• Related to kernel's ESP (IPsec) and RxRPC/AFS code.
• "This is not one of those attacks where the bad guy has to get lucky with perfect timing. It's more predictable, which is not what you want..." – Robb, [42:54]
• Patches are already released—advice: “Patch your system, don’t put this off for web-facing servers.” [43:10]
• Ken notes unfortunate responsible disclosure issues—proof-of-concept was released before patches or CVE, making it a “zero day.” [46:49]
• The group reminisces about past server compromises and the importance of using distro package repositories for software.

---

VideoLAN Announces New AV2 Video Decoder

[50:19]

• Ken introduces DAV2D 0.0.1 (first public preview)—open-source AV2 codec decoder from VideoLAN (makers of VLC).
• AV2, a draft standard from Alliance for Open Media, targets advanced workloads (AR/VR, screen content, split screen).
• It's a successor to the widely adopted DAV1D AV1 decoder; new codebase is on GitLab, declared “battle-tested and production-ready.”
• Not yet integrated into a stable VLC release—it’s early, but promises advances for open-source streaming tech.

---

AlmaLinux 10.2 Beta: Keeping 32-bit Dreams Alive

[56:26]

• Robb highlights AlmaLinux 10.2 beta:
  • Contrary to Red Hat, Alma continues 32-bit (i686) user space package support—not hardware support, but compatibility for 32-bit apps on 64-bit.
  • “If you need to run old 32-bit applications, which is definitely a big thing in enterprise, Alma has you covered.” [58:11]
  • Other updates: Kernel 6.12, latest Python/PostgreSQL/MariaDB/Ruby/PHP, fresh Podman and virtualization stack.
  • Caveat: Still beta; production users need to wait.
• Panel reminisces about legacy hardware (“...a Windows 98 system that failed and it was running a CNC machine…” – Robb, [59:15]) and legacy apps.
• Quick news round-up: brief mentions of ReactOS, and a bug where Linux reports certain Intel CPUs as clocked to 7 GHz ([63:05]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is either really exciting or absolutely terrifying. Even I think it might be a little of both.”
  — Robb Moore on AI inside Qt Creator ([12:49])
• “Either you’re going to be using AI, or you’re going to be replaced by somebody using AI.”
  — Robb Moore ([14:52])
• “If you go below $50, they fall apart too easy.”
  — Ken Starks on cheap game controllers ([22:47])
• “Even trusted brands can be abused... start questioning everything.”
  — Bobby Borisov ([29:20])
• “This is not one of those attacks where the bad guy has to get lucky with perfect timing. It's more predictable, which is not what you want…”
  — Robb Moore about Dirty Frag ([42:54])
• “Patch your system, don’t put this off for web-facing servers.”
  — Robb Moore ([43:10])
• “You know, I get my computer, my first computer and I’m like, I want to do it all, free this and free that.”
  — Robb Moore reminiscing about software downloads ([48:51])

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Raspberry Pi Imager 2.0.9 / Pi Connect: [03:08] – [11:05]
• AI in Qt Creator: [11:05] – [17:19]
• Steam Controller Update: [19:03] – [24:01]
• Ubuntu Cybersecurity/Phishing Attack: [24:07] – [34:17]
• Inkscape 1.4.4 Update: [34:17] – [39:03]
• Dirty Frag Kernel Vulnerability: [41:02] – [50:03]
• VideoLAN AV2 Codec News: [50:19] – [56:26]
• AlmaLinux 10.2 Beta (i686 support): [56:26] – [64:05]
• Command Line Tips: [66:04] – [79:03]

---

Command Line Tips/Techniques

Robb’s Tip: Play Chess in Your Terminal

[66:04]

• Chess TUI (by Thomas Moraine): A Go-based terminal UI for chess. Run local or network games or against a bot.
  • “If you like to play chess... Mine is a TUI where you can play chess on the command line.” – Robb Moore

Ken’s Tip: Splitting Files with csplit

[69:38]

• How-to: Use csplit to break large text files into contextual segments (e.g., split by "separator" line, days of week, etc.)
  • “That’s how you can use csplit.” ([78:35])

---

Plugs and Community Notes

• Ken: A link to a free student hackathon for open source mobile devs in the Netherlands ([79:23]).
• Robb: His website (robertpcampbell.com) for connecting or donating—a playful nod to buying coffees for fellow panelists ([80:12]).

---

Closing Thoughts

While the landscape of Linux gets ever more sophisticated, the panelists keep it relatable—sharing real-life usage, skepticism around AI, excitement for new hardware, and sound advice on keeping systems secure. Whether you’re an old-school sysadmin, open-source developer, or weekend hacker, this week’s conversations offer something for every Linux enthusiast.

---

End of summary. For links to referenced projects or command line demos, see the show notes or visit the TWiT Discord/rabbit hole for deep dives shared by Ken and the crew.

Transcript

[Robb Moore]

This week we're talking about AI and

[Bobby Borisov]

the cute creator, the Steam client update,

[Robb Moore]

more cybersecurity issues with Ubuntu, and a lot more.

[Bobby Borisov]

You don't want to miss it.

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you love from people you trust.

[Robb Moore]

This is Twit.

[Bobby Borisov]

This is the Untitled Lynx show, episode

[Robb Moore]

2, 254, recorded Saturday, May 9. Dirty Frags, Dirty hacks.

[Bobby Borisov]

Hey folks, it's Saturday and this is

[Robb Moore]

the Untitled Linux show.

[Bobby Borisov]

But I am not Jonathan.

[Robb Moore]

I know he's feeling a little under the weather and then Jeff Massey also couldn't make it this week. So you have Ken and and myself and as Jonathan would say, getting geeky with Linux hardware and software and whatever

[Bobby Borisov]

else is up in the Linux world this week.

[Robb Moore]

So what do you got going on this week, Ken?

[Ken Starks]

Not too much. Been playing around with Ubuntu 2604 and I noticed, and I don't know if anybody else realized, but Chrome got bloated with the latest release.

[Bobby Borisov]

I've kind of heard those kinds of statements for a while, but it's been getting bloated for years. It used to be the fast, lightweight option and now it's Chrome.

[Ken Starks]

We're not covering it, but I came across an article that said that it's got like an extra four gigabytes, it's downloading every time you launch it. Wow, I'm surprised you didn't cover that.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, that did not catch my eye.

[Bobby Borisov]

But we have a lot of other

[Robb Moore]

news for just the two of us to cover. We'll see how long this goes. All the stories we got packed for you today.

[Bobby Borisov]

Ken, you want to start it off with your Raspberry PI Imager.

[Ken Starks]

Sure, I'd love to make another image of a Raspberry PI.

[Bobby Borisov]

All right, sounds great.

[Ken Starks]

In fact, we can thank Bobby Borisov and Marcus Nestor for writing about the release of Raspberry PI Imager 2.0.9. Now this is a pre release build of the official Raspberry PI Flashing utility for preparing SD cards and USB storage with Raspberry PI OS and other supported systems. Now it revamps the Secure Boot provisioner for in place reprovisioning and implements a new reprovisioning pipeline for raspberry PI compute module 5. You may have heard of that referred to as a CM5. You'll hear Jonathan talking about that a lot now. According to Bobby, the most notable addition is a new wizard flow for registering devices into a PI Connect organization. The new workflow includes on device key signing through Connect device registrar over HTTPs, tracking organization enrollment tokens through ImageWriter and device identity registration with PI Connect after a fastboot Flash. According to Marcus, Raspberry PI Imager 2.09 also improves write reliability with better overflow handling for GPT, MBR, and FAT partition wrappers, better handling of long file names and FAT partitions, support for parsing ZSTD headers to recover the extract size for local archives, and support for handling extremely large sectors per fat in the disk formatter. It also removes the 512 byte alignment requirement. Now cloud init customization has also changed. Raspberry PI Imager 2.0.9 drops the older Enable SSH handling and now uses a systemctl run command. It also switches to a singular user configuration and fixes handling when the serial interface is disabled. As always, if you want more details about the Raspberry PI Imager 2.0.9, you can find them available in Bobby and Marcus's articles. Now Marcus even wrote a separate article that provides more details about the Raspberry PI Connect for organizations.

[Bobby Borisov]

Now I got to be honest, I maybe have about a half a dozen

[Robb Moore]

Raspberry PIs around my house

[Ken Starks]

and how many are currently in use?

[Bobby Borisov]

Let me count. Zero. I have zero in use right now.

[Robb Moore]

But I do have a project I

[Bobby Borisov]

have to fix something.

[Robb Moore]

So back around, oh, 2015 or so,

[Bobby Borisov]

I I, I gutted regular Nintendo Nintendo Entertainment System. I gutted that and I put a Raspberry PI one inside of it and

[Robb Moore]

I think it was retroarch I put

[Bobby Borisov]

on there as a emulation system and and yeah, so I made it look

[Robb Moore]

like a Nintendo, work like a Nintendo Wired.

[Bobby Borisov]

What tried to wire up Using as many of the original connectors as possible. And I played around with that for a year or two or so and then it sat.

[Robb Moore]

Sat on a shelf.

[Bobby Borisov]

But one of my kids recently was interested in other. They like all kinds of old stuff, especially video games. They want like all the systems. Nintendo, the Sega, the Game Boys and all that stuff. So I, I dug that. I'm like, oh, you should check this thing out. Hooked it up and it went through the bootloader and it got stuck on the screen. So I. I don't know why, but either I need to go through into

[Robb Moore]

the system and just fix it, but

[Ken Starks]

it's also replace the Micro SD card.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, maybe just replace that. But really being a Raspberry PI one, it's maybe time for me to. I have it. I have a three sitting around doing nothing.

[Bobby Borisov]

But I don't know, maybe it's time

[Ken Starks]

to upgrade it to a Raspberry PI 3.

[Robb Moore]

Then I could at least do that

[Bobby Borisov]

or I have no idea how the market is right now. I could upgrade to a five and buy one. But I do have a three and that would be a big performance boost. A three that I think I literally never used for anything. I bought it when it came, I

[Robb Moore]

was like, oh, three, I gotta get it. And I learned my lesson, which is why I did not buy a 4

[Bobby Borisov]

right away or a 5 right away. Because I haven't got around to projects. But I do have a project to do. So you know, if they're improving the amateur, that may make my life easier when I get around to that.

[Ken Starks]

Got my Raspberry PI 4 acting as a octopi for my 3D printer.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh, nice. I love to get a 3D printer too.

[Robb Moore]

But

[Ken Starks]

Raspberry PI 5 is currently unplugged. But it's configured so I can use it as a. Basically Cody for TV upstairs.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, I mean I kind of stopped using.

[Robb Moore]

I used to have like.

[Bobby Borisov]

I had one doing file shares I had. What else? I think I had a. A pie hole.

[Robb Moore]

And then at one point I just

[Bobby Borisov]

got a. I don't know, an old Dell Optiplex I threw Proxmox on and now I just have VMs on everything and moved everything to that. That's a private. Providing a service to my land. So I, I just haven't had the need. But this gaming system, this retro arch. If that's even still around, I don't know.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, I need to get some more SD cards, assuming I can afford them. You know how memories go in storage.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah. I wonder. Has that affected SD cards too. Are they in a little?

[Robb Moore]

I mean they're kind of different.

[Bobby Borisov]

They're the same, but different.

[Robb Moore]

I mean I can't imagine I haven't priced them recently.

[Ken Starks]

So I'm not sure.

[Bobby Borisov]

I can't imagine the big data centers are buying up SD cards.

[Robb Moore]

I can't even imagine that they even

[Bobby Borisov]

use similar manufacturing facilities for them.

[Robb Moore]

But the people who know that aren't here today. I am sorry, I don't know that.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah. Jeff, if you hear this, are SD cards manufactured in the same facility as the SSDs are in GOT labor too?

[Robb Moore]

Yeah.

[Bobby Borisov]

The only manufacturing I have experience in

[Robb Moore]

is I know how to make magazines and books and I made a lot

[Bobby Borisov]

of Linux journals back in the day. But that's about the extent of my manufacturing experience.

[Robb Moore]

Unfortunately I'm more software and hands on little hardware side.

[Ken Starks]

But with this and with that Raspberry PI Connect for organizations, that sounds like it's a way to manage multiple Raspberry PIs within your organization.

[Bobby Borisov]

We talked about Raspberry PI Connect. I think when that announcement came out, I can't remember much about it right now, but I remember it sounded pretty cool being able to manage them.

[Ken Starks]

But I think you're about to take us into the field of AI.

[Robb Moore]

Isn't everything about AI these days?

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, I'll take it away. Yeah, go ahead.

[Robb Moore]

Bet it can. All right, so yeah, you'll either love

[Bobby Borisov]

this one or you'll hate it.

[Robb Moore]

But this week in AI News, and

[Bobby Borisov]

that's it right there, you know, it's AI. You're either gonna love it or hate

[Robb Moore]

is another AI story. And people sure do have a passion for that topic. But anyway, AI is making its way deeper into the QT or QT Creator,

[Bobby Borisov]

as many people often pronounce a qt.

[Robb Moore]

I go back and forth some reason

[Bobby Borisov]

I stick on QT Creator, but most

[Robb Moore]

people seem to call it the cute creator, so I'll call it that or try to. So Anyway, Qt Creator 20 is now in beta and one of the big

[Bobby Borisov]

new features is expanding AI support.

[Robb Moore]

And this is not just a little ask the chatbot a question button bolted

[Bobby Borisov]

onto the side of an editor, because

[Robb Moore]

anybody can do that. QT is adding support for something called the Agent Client Protocol, or acp, which lets AI agents communicate directly with the ID itself. That means the AI can understand your code base, help edit files, run commands, and even trigger builds. So depending on where you stand with AI coding tools, this is either really exciting or absolutely terrifying. And honestly, you know, you guys know I Love AI. I say it all the time, but from where I stand, even I think

[Bobby Borisov]

it might be a little bit of both.

[Robb Moore]

You know, on one hand, this could be a big help for developers working

[Bobby Borisov]

in qt, C and qml.

[Robb Moore]

Having an AI assistant that can actually understand the project and help with documentation, boilerplate code, test cases, or explaining some weird XML issue could be genuinely useful.

[Bobby Borisov]

QT already describes its AI assistance as

[Robb Moore]

a way to help with things like code explanations, documentation we all need.

[Bobby Borisov]

We need more documentation, test cases, and boilerplate QML code.

[Robb Moore]

But the other side of this is a pretty obvious one too.

[Bobby Borisov]

At least anyone who's been following AI.

[Robb Moore]

You know, once an AI agent can edit files, run commands and trigger builds, you're not just, just asking a question anymore. You're giving an automated tool the ability to take action inside your development environment. And that means developers are going to need to think carefully about trust, permissions, code review, and whether they actually understand what the AI changed. And nobody has even touched on Another

[Bobby Borisov]

fear I hear about AI and coding is a taking our jobs away from the programmers. I'm I don't get paid to program, so they're not taking my job away, at least not for programming. Maybe they'll be managing for me pretty soon, I don't know.

[Robb Moore]

Anyway, cute creator 20 beta also adds more MCP server integrations, giving users a preferences page to manage model context protocol servers. But honestly, this is where software development, I mean and the world seem to be heading. Whether everyone likes it or not, it's,

[Bobby Borisov]

it's just where we are. And I, I, we said the same thing I think last week.

[Robb Moore]

You know, either you're going to be using AI or you're going to be

[Bobby Borisov]

replaced by somebody using AI.

[Robb Moore]

You know, we already saw in, in

[Bobby Borisov]

this, you know, we saw GitHub copilot support show up in Qt Creator 11 back when, way back in 2023. Long time ago.

[Robb Moore]

So this is not cute, suddenly jumping into AI out of nowhere. This is more like the next step. Moving forward from autocomplete style help towards a full blown AI agent that can interact with your project.

[Bobby Borisov]

Now I haven't dabbled in C in

[Robb Moore]

I think literally decades and I barely

[Bobby Borisov]

mess with QT Creator.

[Robb Moore]

Probably decades too. But maybe this will be a way

[Bobby Borisov]

for me to get my cute vibe on.

[Robb Moore]

What do you think Ken? You gonna dabble in some development now that you have an assistant that can help you a little more?

[Ken Starks]

Maybe. Or maybe I'll just play around with it and then drop it after a while.

[Robb Moore]

My only C

[Bobby Borisov]

experience goes way back to Visual Studio on windows, probably around 2,000 and so yeah, that's a very WYSIWYG drag and drop experience that I had back then on Linux.

[Robb Moore]

I I really never got much past

[Bobby Borisov]

C in that realm. So C is a little alien. But if there's AI tool it can help.

[Ken Starks]

If nothing else, I'll try to build a hello World program with it. Yeah, that's the first step. Right?

[Bobby Borisov]

That's the first step and I would think an AI assistant could help you do that.

[Ken Starks]

And without even learning C. Yeah, well,

[Bobby Borisov]

we'll see how good this is it.

[Robb Moore]

You might be able to do a

[Bobby Borisov]

lot without learning it and and also not not know what you're publishing. And that could lead to bad things too.

[Ken Starks]

AI.

[Bobby Borisov]

AI is on every side of the board these days. The good side, the bad side.

[Ken Starks]

But yeah, is it time for a break yet?

[Robb Moore]

You know what Ken? I could see you're getting tired, need a little stretch and rest. So we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, Ken is full Steam ahead talking about some Steam updates

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[Ken Starks]

and now that we're back from the break, I have some interesting news from Valve. In fact, Bobby Borisov wrote about Valve's latest Steam client update which focuses on controller handling. Steam now shows a pop up when a controller connects or disconnects, making device status easier to notice without opening the controller settings. Valve also added a setting to enable or disable controller battery notifications. It also improves the Add a controller interface. It even adds Steam controller support, especially since Marcus Nestor wrote about Valve officially releasing the new Steam controller. The new Steam controller features four haptic motors, two full size magnetic thumbsticks with capacitive touch, a six axis imu, two capacitive areas, a USB C connector and a USB C tethered play Support, and a 8.39 watt hours lithium ion battery promising up to 35 hours of gameplay. Now the USB C connector is called the Steam Controller Puck and it's both a wireless transmitter for your Steam controller and a charging station. Now, just like the original Steam controller, the new Steam controller can be paired with Steam input to be pre populated with community configurations for thousands of games or to give you full control to create your own configurations. Rob the new Steam controller is available for purchase right now from the Steam store for only the low low price of $99. But I do recommend reading Bobby's and Marcus's articles four more details about both the how it's doing, the controller handling and about how to purchase that Steam controller.

[Bobby Borisov]

I really hope a lot of people buy this Ken. I gotta be honest, I won't be

[Ken Starks]

one of them putting out fillers that this should be a good Father's Day present. Yeah, even if it's I buy it myself.

[Bobby Borisov]

For those who like controllers, I believe Jeff or maybe Jonathan or maybe both have had the original one or used

[Ken Starks]

it and like Jonathan still has the original.

[Bobby Borisov]

Still has it. Yeah.

[Robb Moore]

I am just not if I have

[Bobby Borisov]

a choice between keyboard and mouse playing video games, I much prefer keyboard and mouse. It's kind of the reason why one of the reasons why I don't play console games as much because I just prefer preferred over a keyboard. I like the precision of a mouse

[Robb Moore]

though that touchpad might help with that.

[Ken Starks]

Yep the my grandson's when he when I showed him how the article about it he goes only 99.

[Bobby Borisov]

That's not bad kids these days.

[Ken Starks]

But he's right though. Most of the comparable controllers out there are running usually around 80 to $95.

[Robb Moore]

I know. I mean I do have consoles.

[Bobby Borisov]

I actually haven't played them much in a long time and my experience is they go through controllers like crazy and

[Robb Moore]

part of that might be that I've been buying cheap 50ish dollar controllers but

[Bobby Borisov]

I know, there are controllers in the one to $200 easily, and that's several years.

[Ken Starks]

If you go below 50, they fall apart too easy.

[Bobby Borisov]

And that's probably been my problem. Wishful thinking that I could save some money. Yeah, I got so many bad controllers around. The biggest problem I have had is a joystick drift. You know, the old controllers, like, I bet I could take out my old Nintendo Super Nintendo, and the buttons on those controllers work fine, but those joysticks drift.

[Ken Starks]

My biggest problem with some of the newer controllers is muscle memory. The Atari Joey stick teaches you to do it the wrong way.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, yeah, I know. Memory is tough when you get to be, you know, a certain point in your life. Oh, muscle memory. I don't know how that works. Is that sound that same?

[Ken Starks]

That's where you do something without thinking.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh, I. Boy, I. I've always done stuff without thinking. It's never ended well.

[Ken Starks]

And that's because it's with muscle memory.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah.

[Robb Moore]

So.

[Ken Starks]

And that's what can lead you into cyber security issues.

[Robb Moore]

I don't know. I don't see how it can.

[Ken Starks]

But maybe Ubuntu can tell you.

[Bobby Borisov]

Maybe Ubuntu can tell me.

[Robb Moore]

So, yeah, as Ken is trying to do a segue into my section, I'll. I'll let him have it, and I'll

[Bobby Borisov]

take it from here.

[Robb Moore]

So after last week's Ubuntu DDoS problems that I talked about, it looks like the bad guys are at it again, just chipping away little by little at Ubuntu. Anything Ubuntu that they can. Last week, we talked about Canonical, dealing

[Bobby Borisov]

with the sustained DDoS attack that disrupted

[Robb Moore]

Ubuntu's web infrastructure for several days. Services like ubuntu.com launchpad, the snap store, and other Canonical web assets were either down or unreliable for during. During the incident. That attack reportedly started around April 30, and services were gradually restored around May 5 or so. But now, just as Ubuntu was getting back on his feet, starting to get some momentum going forward, a new problem popped up, this time on social media. According to its foss, Ubuntu's official Twitter or X account appeared to post a suspicious thread promoting what it called Ubuntu's newest AI agent. The fake project was called Numbat, which sounds believable at first glance. Ubuntu 2404 is named Noble Numbat.

[Bobby Borisov]

I mean, somewhat believable, I guess. A little outdated since 2604 is kind of the big thing now.

[Robb Moore]

But anyway, the Post also leaned heavily into current tech buzzwords like AI blockchain, decentralized and Solana. And that is what made this scam dangerous. It looked it. It did not look like a random spam post. I've, I've seen a lot of bad

[Bobby Borisov]

spam emails that unfortunately people even clicked

[Robb Moore]

on those, but this one looked very legit and it was on their, their Twitter, their X page posted. It looked like something that could plausibly fit into Ubuntu's recent AI messaging.

[Bobby Borisov]

Besides being low date.

[Robb Moore]

Like I said, the attackers used Ubuntu style branding, a professional looking fake web page, and a domain called AI-ubuntu.com which is pretty close.

[Bobby Borisov]

Something that they may use, something official that a casual user definitely isn't going to catch the difference.

[Robb Moore]

The trap came when users clicked buttons like check eligibility or Explore Ubuntu's AI. Instead of downloading an AI tool or reading official Canonical documentation, users were pushed towards connecting a crypto wallet. The fake page also used a classic crypto scam trick, suggesting that early participants might qualify for future token allocations, creating urgency, which is always what they like to do. And fear of missing out. At this point, there is no confirmed evidence that the DDoS attack and the social media compromise are connected. Maybe it is, or maybe it's just a kind of a copycat jumping in

[Bobby Borisov]

on the bandwagon, finding another vector of attack. Or maybe they just happen simultaneously, completely apart from each other.

[Robb Moore]

We don't know, maybe we never will. Canonical also had not released a detailed public explanation of exactly how the post happened.

[Bobby Borisov]

It could have been a direct account compromise, a compromise social media tool that

[Robb Moore]

was linked to it, or even a human account takeover.

[Bobby Borisov]

Maybe somebody with the credentials just felt like trying to steal your crypto. I don't know. I have no crypto, so they're not stealing from me.

[Robb Moore]

Too bad for them. The good news, just like last time,

[Bobby Borisov]

is that this does not appear to

[Robb Moore]

mean Ubuntu itself was compromised. Your Ubuntu system software updates, repositories and ISO downloads, we're not a target here.

[Bobby Borisov]

As far as we know, this was

[Robb Moore]

a phishing and brand impersonation attack, not evidence that Ubuntu's packages or user systems were hacked. Still, it's enough to even make me

[Bobby Borisov]

start to worry a little.

[Robb Moore]

And this is a good reminder that,

[Bobby Borisov]

you know, even trusted brands can be abused. Even if you're expecting a spam email

[Robb Moore]

from somebody, maybe you're expecting a quote

[Bobby Borisov]

from a vendor and and they send you Something if that, if they give you a funny little link that says, hey, click here to download your quote or whatever and then it brings you to a, a page to log in. Ah, you know, you gotta start questioning it there.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah.

[Bobby Borisov]

When you, when you gotta log in,

[Robb Moore]

start question, start questioning everything Anyway. And when an official looking post combines AI hype, crypto tokens, wallet connections and

[Bobby Borisov]

urgency, I mean, that should set off all kinds of alarm bells. Or if they tell you to go to Walmart and get a gift card. Yeah, they do that too.

[Robb Moore]

Anyway, Ken,

[Bobby Borisov]

what do you think?

[Robb Moore]

Are you still, still using Ubuntu on half of your systems?

[Ken Starks]

Of course I am.

[Bobby Borisov]

Are you getting worried? You know, they've, they've got their, their web, they've got a lot of their things, they got their social media.

[Robb Moore]

When are they going to get repositories?

[Ken Starks]

I'm wondering which big distribution they're going to go after next because it sounds like they're starting to target Linux more and more instead of Microsoft.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, I mean Ubuntu is one of the big names in the, in the, in the ecosystem. I mean, you got Red Hat and

[Robb Moore]

then you have a lot of, a

[Bobby Borisov]

lot of more niche ones out there.

[Robb Moore]

But I wonder why. Maybe just because of the.

[Ken Starks]

I think Ubuntu is the first target and I got a feeling that they're going to focus on Red Hat here in the future. Or Fedora.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, I mean, if you think about

[Bobby Borisov]

it, when you go looking to install something online, you know you want this package, you know, if it's not in a repo, or maybe it even is in a repo, but you go look on the official web page and, and you go look on the download sections. Ubuntu is almost always one of the top five ones. It's always there.

[Robb Moore]

I mean, it's almost, almost always there.

[Bobby Borisov]

And then sometimes they have others like Jonathan's Fedora or Arch or others.

[Robb Moore]

The others are kind of hit and miss, it seems like, but Ubuntu is always there.

[Ken Starks]

I think it's because Ubuntu does give people the option of going with some of the non foss applications and codecs especially.

[Bobby Borisov]

There have been, there have been a lot of people upset over many things Ubuntu over the years. I mean, going way back to putting Amazon ads.

[Ken Starks]

I don't remember seeing the Amazon ads. I remember seeing the option to link your Amazon account when you were setting up Unity.

[Bobby Borisov]

I remember that. And I can't remember the detail on the ads. I know, I remember hearing about it. I don't think I used Ubuntu Desktop at the time. And maybe it's just having that. That linking part people were considering. I can't remember.

[Robb Moore]

But I think.

[Bobby Borisov]

I think it was more than that. But it wasn't something that affected me. I don't think I was an Ubuntu user.

[Robb Moore]

I was. I was.

[Bobby Borisov]

I wasn't an Ubuntu Desktop user. I think I was a server user. But there's. It's much harder to put ads in a when you don't have a gui.

[Ken Starks]

That can be a deal breaker sometimes.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah.

[Robb Moore]

Speaking of breaking, we're gonna take another

[Bobby Borisov]

quick break and this time when we come back, the topic is Inkscape.

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[Ken Starks]

Rob, as you said, we're going to talk about Inkscape, especially since this week Bobby Barisol and Marcus Nestor wrote about a maintenance update to this open source vector graphics editor being released as Inkscape 1.4.4. Now. It fixes 24 crashes and freeze issues, many of which affect common editing workflows, including crashes when opening excuse me, opening SVG and PDF files, working with the connector tool using path effects like Power stroke and corners, creating and undoing pages, breaking apart complex paths and tracing raster images. According to Bobby, Inkscape 1.4.4 enhances zooming in documents with many paths, speeds up copying and pasting large number of objects with gradients, and makes the layers and objects dialog open faster when many items are selected. Now, according to Marcus, this release introduces a new color palette for elementary os. Remember that one, Rob? As well as the ability to set a keyboard shortcut for the Paste on page feature. It also adds support for the text rendering implementation to respect the language metadata for each T span separately. Now Inkscape 1.4.4 also adds a new button in the tool controls to rotate the selected star or polygon into an upright position and add support for showing the correct size and position of the bounding boxes on the canvas when using the layers and objects dialogue to move objects between groups. As always, more details are available in Bobby and Marcus's articles. Rob, have you ever used Inkscape?

[Bobby Borisov]

I have played with it just because

[Robb Moore]

I heard about it.

[Bobby Borisov]

I've tried it out but unfortunately it was probably a little bit after my graphical editing days. But Inkscape is definitely one of those

[Robb Moore]

powerful open source graphics vector editors that's

[Bobby Borisov]

often recommended when people coming from Windows and, and not being able to use Photoshop. It's one of those that I know is often recommended to, you know, between Inkscape and gimp. You know, they serve different purposes, different functions, different features, but often it's a combination of, of a lot of those that people highly suggest to get away from Adobe.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, it actually has a slightly different use compared to gimp.

[Robb Moore]

Right.

[Ken Starks]

Played with it. But I'll have to admit I'll reach for Gimp first.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, GIMP is really more for editing.

[Bobby Borisov]

I mean it's where it shines the most.

[Robb Moore]

You can use a lot of things interchangeably. But you know, with gimp the, the

[Bobby Borisov]

best thing is when you have a, an image already, a photo and you want to edit it or, and you want to edit it where, where Inkscape kind of shines more. You know, with, with drawing tools actually creating things yourself. You could draw it out and then, and then it's vector. Vector, meaning that basically you could resize it to any size.

[Ken Starks]

And Briggs, you're right. Inkscape is a good counterpart to the Adobe Illustrator.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, yeah, that's probably better than the Photoshop, I mean the X example. But people are often just saying Adobe as a whole and you know, you got Photoshop to Gimp and Inkscape to Illustrator. And honestly, I've never, I've never used Illustrator either. I've. I, I guess I was more of a simple paint style artist back in

[Ken Starks]

the day and I lag. You're right. I did have a slip of the tongue in there and almost said Jonathan. I don't think we've ever actually called Rob Jonathan before.

[Bobby Borisov]

I don't know how you can confuse me.

[Robb Moore]

Let me see.

[Bobby Borisov]

I got my Jonathan hair here.

[Robb Moore]

I could put it on. I should have put this on today. And I could be Jonathan and then

[Ken Starks]

take it off when you wanted to be you.

[Bobby Borisov]

I could do my different parts.

[Robb Moore]

Oh man, I could do all the parts.

[Bobby Borisov]

That would be a fun show.

[Ken Starks]

But I do remember one episode where Jonathan made the mistake of calling you Jeff.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, I, I'm pretty sure that's more than one episode.

[Robb Moore]

If there's ever a day when you are all allowed.

[Bobby Borisov]

I'm gonna get a whole bunch of wigs. I should get a whole bunch of wigs beforehand because I'm not going to be able to do it the day of. I should get some wigs for all of you and I'll be. I'll do the.

[Ken Starks]

Remember, mine's got to be white.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yes, yes, it's the. What Eddie Murphy always does a bunch of characters. It'll be the Eddie Moen Murphy kind of show but.

[Ken Starks]

Or would you rather talk about another colonel Flaw?

[Bobby Borisov]

You know, I, I kind of hate talking about security issues so much. You know, Linux is the more secure way to go and if this was

[Robb Moore]

a Windows show, we probably would have

[Bobby Borisov]

multiple vulnerabilities to talk about every week.

[Ken Starks]

But here's my thing. I think this is showing how much more popular Linux is becoming, unfortunately.

[Bobby Borisov]

I mean it's very fortunate that pop becoming more popular, but

[Ken Starks]

I don't like it becoming popular this way.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, it's one downside to popularity.

[Robb Moore]

You know, being popular, trying to knock

[Ken Starks]

you off the top of the hill.

[Bobby Borisov]

Being popular isn't for everyone. And I know. No, I don't. I'm not popular. No, we don't.

[Ken Starks]

I'm gonna step out of the way here.

[Robb Moore]

All right, so there's as, as we've

[Bobby Borisov]

been saying, this is the second security,

[Robb Moore]

cyber security related, related news story this week. We had one last week.

[Bobby Borisov]

We, we had one the week before. Yeah. Or was that also last week? The copy, copy, copy fail, whatever it was.

[Robb Moore]

So they just keep rolling in, but we're patching them and that's the good news. So this week in Linux security news,

[Bobby Borisov]

we have another kernel bug with A catchy name and not so catchy impact.

[Robb Moore]

This one is called Dirty Frag and it is a Linux kernel vulnerability that can allow a local user to escalate privileges and gain root access. To be clear, this is not necessarily someone randomly attacking your server from the Internet and instantly becoming root or especially your desktop. Your Linux desktop is probably in a much safer spot as far as this vulnerability goes. But if an attacker already has some kind of low level access, maybe through ssh, a compromised web app, a container workload or regular user account, this could be the bug that lets them move from limited access to they own your box. And after the last couple of weeks Ubuntu has had, this is not, not exactly the news we need. You know, we don't really need any more security issues. The issue involves parts of the Linux

[Bobby Borisov]

kernel related to ESP or the encapsulating

[Robb Moore]

security protocol which is used with IPSEC and rxrpc, which is used with the

[Bobby Borisov]

AFS or Andrew file system.

[Robb Moore]

The CVE has been rated as a high severity and fixes have already been released. But what makes Dirty Frag especially concerning is that it is being described as more reliable than some older Linux privilege escalation bugs. Or in plain English, this is not

[Bobby Borisov]

one of those attacks where the bad guy has to get lucky with perfect timing.

[Robb Moore]

It is considered more predictable, which is

[Bobby Borisov]

not what you want to hear with when talking about a root level exploit.

[Ken Starks]

So what should you do?

[Robb Moore]

The simple answer is, as always, patch your system.

[Bobby Borisov]

The patches are there, you know, as

[Robb Moore]

soon as your distribution provides the Linux kernel updates, make sure they're there, update it. And if you're running any multi user

[Bobby Borisov]

services, websites and really anything else that's web facing, I'd suggest not putting this one off.

[Robb Moore]

There are some mitigation options involving blocking affected kernel modules, but be careful with that.

[Bobby Borisov]

You know, if you rely on IPsec,

[Robb Moore]

VPNs or AFS, disabling those modules could,

[Bobby Borisov]

I mean most likely will break things if you're using them.

[Robb Moore]

So don't delay patch today Ken. Get your servers patched.

[Bobby Borisov]

I don't think you're on any web facing servers Ken, but I do and well I have live patch on, so I have not.

[Robb Moore]

I'm not going around to checking if

[Bobby Borisov]

I'm up to date on that yet,

[Robb Moore]

but I know my live patch has got it covered.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, my system that I use as a server, it's got the live patch and of course Once I get Ubuntu 2604 set up, I'll be Sitting and adding it to the account that I'll get the live patch through.

[Bobby Borisov]

Your servers aren't web facing, are they though? Or do you have stuff that's out there web facing

[Ken Starks]

the PLEX server?

[Robb Moore]

Well, that goes through. You don't actually have ports open on

[Bobby Borisov]

your firewall to get to your PLEX server.

[Robb Moore]

Right.

[Bobby Borisov]

That goes like through their proxies or whatever.

[Ken Starks]

Actually, lately I haven't even been able to get to it outside the local network.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, but you're not, you're also not forwarding ports through your firewall to get to it, right?

[Ken Starks]

I was, but

[Bobby Borisov]

yeah, I haven't been a PLEX user, but yeah, if you have ports going to it, that.

[Robb Moore]

That's basically exposing it on the Internet.

[Bobby Borisov]

I don't know if, you know, they'd still have to get into your system, they still have to get local access. You know, if you have an anonymous user or something that, that could do it.

[Ken Starks]

But I'm surprised that you didn't bring up Michael Leibel's article about Dirty Frag, because he said that it was released early, before they had the patches in place. The proof of concept, anyways.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bobby Borisov]

That is unfortunate that somebody didn't follow

[Robb Moore]

Responsible Disclosure, but here on the Untitled

[Bobby Borisov]

Linux show, we waited until, until the patches were out. It's Responsible disclosure, everybody. Come on. No, I, I didn't, I didn't catch that article. But

[Ken Starks]

it actually came out before Marcus's article.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ken Starks]

So it looks like Marcus wanted to wait a day so it could include the patch information.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah.

[Robb Moore]

Did. Did Larmo say how long before that point of con. The.

[Bobby Borisov]

The. Not a point of contact. The proof of concept. When the proof of concept.

[Ken Starks]

He's saying that was made public before there were any patches or even the CV. CVEs for the dirty frag vulnerability.

[Bobby Borisov]

Well, well, that makes it a zero day, everybody. That, that is what you call an official zero day. When it is. When there's at least a proof of. I don't know, maybe it's fuzzy. There's a proof of concept out there and it's likely exploited out there in the wild before the CVE or the patches are in. So it's probably a zero day. There's some gray area, but maybe.

[Ken Starks]

Fortunately I haven't been dinged by any of these vulnerabilities yet. Hold on, I just keep tripping over the word.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, I don't think. As far as I know, none of my servers or desktops have ever. According to your logs, let's say none of My Linux servers or Linux desktops

[Bobby Borisov]

have ever been compromised, as far as I am aware, compromised by anything. I've had, I've had websites compromised from SQL injections. I was horrible at coding and validating inputs. Back in the day I learned, I

[Robb Moore]

learned when somebody, the easy way to

[Ken Starks]

do that is don't create a website that takes input.

[Robb Moore]

When, when you, when you're doing web

[Bobby Borisov]

development and design and things like that, you kind of have to, but I mean, you kind of have to, but yeah, I've had, I've had that.

[Robb Moore]

And back in the day, I'm talking

[Bobby Borisov]

25 years ago, I think I had so much stuff in my Windows because I was, I was that guy who downloaded everything.

[Robb Moore]

I wanted it all. I wanted to experience everything.

[Bobby Borisov]

And, and yeah, that stuff all got my.

[Ken Starks]

Especially when I had free in front of it or behind it.

[Bobby Borisov]

Well, yeah, of course it was free. I wasn't, that was a pain downloading. I wasn't buying everything.

[Robb Moore]

I was like, oh, free this, oh free that.

[Bobby Borisov]

I mean that was in the early days.

[Robb Moore]

You know, I get my computer, my first computer and I'm like, I want to do it all free this and free that.

[Bobby Borisov]

And then I went to Windows and

[Robb Moore]

no more compromises on my desktops.

[Bobby Borisov]

But I also learned not, not by

[Robb Moore]

mistake, but I've learned, learn from other people saying use the repos, don't download things from the Internet.

[Bobby Borisov]

Maybe some of that's from my Windows experiences. I've learned that downloading anything and everything will get your system owned. And, and most like the, the case

[Ken Starks]

is still definitely don't download movies from suspicious sites.

[Bobby Borisov]

Well, there's a lot of reasons not to do that. Not, not to mention just getting a letter from your ISP to cease and desist.

[Robb Moore]

But enough of that.

[Ken Starks]

No, they won't send it for you downloading. They may send it if you're uploading.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yes.

[Robb Moore]

And if you're downloading with a turret, a torrent.

[Bobby Borisov]

Most torrent systems automatically upload when you're downloading and that's where you get caught. Is true.

[Robb Moore]

But

[Ken Starks]

were you about to suggest we take a break?

[Bobby Borisov]

I was.

[Robb Moore]

We'll take another quick break and then Ken will come back and talk about Video Land.

[Ken Starks]

And now that we're back from the break, I do want to cover Video Land and there recent publication of a decoder as it was described by Bobby Marsof and Michael. Michael Larel. Basically the Video Land developers released this week DA2D version 0.0.1. And let's see if I can say this right. Merbanan is going to be the name for it. This will be the first public preview of VideoLens AV2 decoder and the successor to the widely used Dev1D AV1 decoder. Now give you a bit of background. The alliance for Open Media or Aomedia released a draft AV2 specification back in January for public review. Now this next generation open video codec AV2 offers improved support for AR or VR workloads, enhanced handling of screen content including presentations and desktop sharing, and advanced multi program streaming including split screen scenarios. According to Michael, Video Land developers have been working on Devices 2D as an open source CPU based AV2 video decoder. Now DAV2D is based on Dev 1D Videoland's AV1 decoder. The Dev 2D code is also now public via the Video LAN GitLab repository and is said to be battle tested and production ready. According to Bobby, the codec remains in the standardization process, so DAF2D is an early implementation rather than production ready software. Now since Video Land has not announced when Daft2D will be integrated into a stable video release, I'm going to recommend watching your favorite sources for more details, including Bobby and Michael's articles.

[Bobby Borisov]

What is Video Land?

[Ken Starks]

That's the company that writes the popular video or media Stream media watching application.

[Bobby Borisov]

Okay. Okay. Yeah, I, it sounded familiar. I. I didn't look it up earlier. I looked it up while you're talking. Everything popped up. Said it was VLC or mentioned vlc. So I was.

[Ken Starks]

Yep, yeah.

[Bobby Borisov]

Trying to, trying to follow along with what you're talking about.

[Ken Starks]

Kind of wish Jonathan would have been here because I know he had had a lot to say about this coming out.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yeah, I mean I'm a VLC user.

[Ken Starks]

We are missing you.

[Bobby Borisov]

I. I'm a, I've. I am a VLC user. I, I use it when I need video or stream video but I know I just go ahead.

[Ken Starks]

I use it a lot for going through and just watching some of my stuff if I don't want to log into a Plex application.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh sure. Yeah. It's really just kind of a utility that just works and I don't know, it's nothing exciting has like you know,

[Robb Moore]

my videos have always just worked.

[Bobby Borisov]

It's worked better than other alternatives that at least in the past there's, there's alternatives.

[Ken Starks]

But yeah. Though I'll have to admit I do on occasion use FF player that comes with FFmpeg.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh yeah. I.

[Ken Starks]

Especially if I'm doing stuff on the command line. It's a lot Easier than typing. Well, the must memory is there for FF player then for cvlc. Yeah, that's the command line version of vlc. Yeah, you can type VLC and it'll launch the viewer but with all the GUI based stuff. Whereas if you do C vlc, it'll launch the file that you name and

[Robb Moore]

bring that up so it allows.

[Bobby Borisov]

So the CVLC allows you to run VLC with, with arguments. Is that.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, well you can do the same with vlc, but then, yeah, depending on how you've got vlc, the GUI configured, it'll pop up all the other windows that you may have it open up or may pop it up so you've got the video and like a. The middle and then it'll show along the top your playlist.

[Bobby Borisov]

Well, maybe off to try that sometime. Like I said, I just open VLC and watch a video. I just never, never bothered or even dug into it more to even realize there was a cvlc. I'll have to see what that difference is and, and maybe bring it as

[Ken Starks]

a command line tip.

[Bobby Borisov]

Maybe once I explore it more I'll bring it as a command line tip. If I don't that one, you, you can take that one then, Ken.

[Robb Moore]

Yeah, but we'll continue on with the show and I'm going to talk about, well, about 32 bit. 32 bit. I'm going to talk about somebody that's

[Bobby Borisov]

got your back if you need to run some 32 bit.

[Robb Moore]

So with that, do you still have some old 32 bit software that needs to stay alive? And, and even though rel, that's Red

[Bobby Borisov]

Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS or you know, the likes, you know, and the

[Robb Moore]

likes have mostly abandoned you and moved on. Well, Alma Linux may have you covered. So Almalinux 10.2 beta is now available. And one of the more interesting parts of this release is that Almalinux is continuing to go its own way in a few places where Red Hat has decided to move on. So kind of split in paths there and I don't think it's the first time I think we've talked about other

[Bobby Borisov]

ways that Alma has kept things alive when Rel just kind of.

[Ken Starks]

Bye bye.

[Robb Moore]

Anyway, the headline feature here this week is that i686 user space package support. But this may, this may need a little clarification. This does not mean Almalinux is bringing back 32 bit hardware support as honestly

[Bobby Borisov]

when I first thought and glanced and

[Robb Moore]

before I read it I thought, oh yay there, you can still run your old 32 bit.

[Bobby Borisov]

Hardware.

[Robb Moore]

Nope. You are not going to install Alma Linux 10.2 on an old 32 bit only machine and bring that dusty Pentium box back to life instead. This is a 32 bit user space support on modern 64 bit systems. And I know we've talked about a

[Bobby Borisov]

lot of these distros dropping 32 bit support libraries and stuff like that.

[Robb Moore]

So what does this mean? What this means is that almalinux is trying to help people who need to run old 32 bit applications, you know, which is definitely a big thing in enterprise.

[Bobby Borisov]

You know, there's always legacy stuff around,

[Robb Moore]

you know, for those who need to

[Bobby Borisov]

run 32 bit applications.

[Robb Moore]

Even though the operating system itself is still running on 64 bit hardware and you're running a modern system, a modern distro. And while that may not be quite as fun as reviving an old 32 bit hardware, it is still a big deal for a lot of real world environments. There are still businesses, labs, developers, and probably more than a few terrifying production

[Bobby Borisov]

systems out there with older 32 bit software that just won't go away.

[Robb Moore]

I remember back working at a PC

[Bobby Borisov]

repair shop like a decade ago. I remember a Windows 98 system that failed and it was running a CNC machine, I think it was.

[Robb Moore]

And we got Windows 98 running on a, on a new computer. Lots of drivers didn't work.

[Bobby Borisov]

Fortunately it was none of the drivers they needed.

[Robb Moore]

But anyway there are use cases out

[Bobby Borisov]

there where old vendors may, may still need this.

[Robb Moore]

And I still got a ways to

[Bobby Borisov]

go, Ken, unless you have something to jump in on anyway, you know, maybe like.

[Robb Moore]

Like I say, maybe it's an old vendor tool. I. I also know of a church

[Bobby Borisov]

that's running some old bell of old bell controller on a very old computer.

[Robb Moore]

Just same kind of situation.

[Bobby Borisov]

Maybe it's a legacy internal app.

[Robb Moore]

Maybe it's something nobody wants to touch because the one person who understood it retired years ago. The one person who understood it retired years ago. For those situations, Almalinux 10.2 beta could be a useful safety net. Alma says the i686 user space packages are meant for things like legacy 32 bit software, CI pipelines and containerized workloads. They also say official docker images for Linux 386 are expected alongside the stable Alma Linux 10.2 release and that the i686 stream is planned to be maintained alongside the other Alma Linux 10 architectures through 2035.

[Bobby Borisov]

Another.

[Robb Moore]

What year is it? Another nine years. But the 32 bit user space support is not the only thing in this beta. Alma Linux 10.2beta codenamed Lavender lion, ships with Linux kernel 6.12 and includes updated developer and server packages like Python 3.14,

[Bobby Borisov]

PostgreSQL 18, MariaDB 11.8, Ruby 4, PHP

[Robb Moore]

8.4, updated Podman, QMU, KVM, Libert, and more. Now the important warning this is still beta. Albalinic specifically says this is not to be used in production installations yet, but if you have old 32 bit workloads, weird legacy requirements, or container builds that still need i686 support, this is definitely worth testing. And I think this is another good example of Alma Lennox trying to be more than just the free RHEL clone. They are adding support where parts of the community still need it, even when Red Hat has moved on. And you know, speaking of Red Hat clones, has anyone heard from Rocky Linux lately? You know, I don't think I've heard anything. They seem to be have been pretty

[Bobby Borisov]

quiet on my newsfeed lately.

[Robb Moore]

Maybe someone should go check on them.

[Ken Starks]

I haven't heard anything recently. Let me check my links that I put together when I was doing research for today's show.

[Bobby Borisov]

But check your RSS feeds.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, not Rocky, but React OS had an article come out from Pharonics this week.

[Bobby Borisov]

I did see that also.

[Robb Moore]

Not even Linux exactly, but we still

[Bobby Borisov]

touch on it because it's very adjacent and something that Linux users would be interested in.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, and that. Oh, did you see the one that Michael Larabel wrote about the Intel Bart Lake CPUs?

[Bobby Borisov]

No, I didn't see that one.

[Ken Starks]

And apparently Intel Linux is erroneously thinking you can run those at 7 gigahertz.

[Bobby Borisov]

Huh. And you can, I'm guessing. But that'd be. That'd be pretty. That'd be some nice fast speeds. I'll have to check that article out.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah, and I posted it in the show notes for the or in the Discord chat. Let me go ahead and put it in the down in the rabbit hole there.

[Bobby Borisov]

Down in the rabbit hole for those who want to check out the show notes later and see what else is on Ken's mind in the rabbit hole that he likes to share with everyone.

[Ken Starks]

Yeah.

[Robb Moore]

All right, so I think it's time for our last break and then we're gonna move on to our weekly tips and I don't know, Ken, do you want to start it off or should I start the tips off when we come back?

[Ken Starks]

Let's let you start it off.

[Bobby Borisov]

I'll start it off.

[Robb Moore]

That's the order it is on there. We didn't move that one around. So when we come back, I have a tip for you and we'll finish off the show.

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[Robb Moore]

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[Robb Moore]

And we're back. Everybody on to our command line tips. And this week my command line tips. It's it's for those who like to play games. Intellectual games. More specifically chess. Not multiple games. Chess.

[Ken Starks]

If you like to play chess.

[Robb Moore]

Mine is a TUI where you can play chess on the command line.

[Bobby Borisov]

And you know that is by on

[Robb Moore]

GitHub by Thomas Moraine.

[Bobby Borisov]

Something like that. And it's look for chess2e or check

[Robb Moore]

our show notes for the link. So I've already installed that.

[Bobby Borisov]

It is a go application and if

[Robb Moore]

I'm going to run that for those watching it brings it up.

[Bobby Borisov]

You can play just play the game. You got a local mode, you got a multiplayer. You have a bot game you can

[Robb Moore]

play on a site called

[Bobby Borisov]

Lickness L I C H E S S Liches I don't know dot org. There's also skins and you can turn the sound off and stuff like that.

[Robb Moore]

If you go into a play a

[Bobby Borisov]

game, you got your local game where you know, I guess you're gonna be side by side and and just selecting it. Multiplayer where you can play over the network with someone else who has it play with the bot. I'm not even sure what this one is but there's a OpenAI PGN file and step through the game. So I guess that's so.

[Robb Moore]

So the.

[Bobby Borisov]

The description says open a PGN file and step through the game. Move by move with auto play and multi game navigation. So I don't know, maybe you get to watch a bot playbot. I don't know what that is. Anyway, by going to local game you can pick time control to hit enter. There's a ultra bullet bullet blitz rapid classical and no clock or custom hit enter for no clock and then you have your chessboard where move around with the arrows or if you're in a GUI you can use a mouse hit

[Robb Moore]

spacebar to select I'm gonna move that guy right there and then it flips over to the other person so they

[Bobby Borisov]

can move theirs because I I select a local game and you can go back and forth.

[Robb Moore]

So for those who want to play

[Bobby Borisov]

chess but maybe want to do it

[Robb Moore]

with someone remotely someone online or you just don't want to set up the

[Bobby Borisov]

board yourself over and over again at home because that.

[Robb Moore]

That just gets messy. You know, real world things just.

[Bobby Borisov]

Just not as clean as digital chess. Tui. What do you think Ken?

[Robb Moore]

You want to play some chess sometime?

[Ken Starks]

I think I needed to unmute myself. Actually. Yeah, could do that. Maybe a couple of hours between moves for if I was playing you. Because of our different schedules, I. I

[Robb Moore]

don't know how well the networking holds up hours long. I.

[Bobby Borisov]

That'd be a fun test but I

[Robb Moore]

used to love chess. I have not played it for a

[Bobby Borisov]

while but I know one of my kids can beat me more often than not. So I. It's. Yeah, I gave up. But what do you got for command line tip?

[Robb Moore]

I you got.

[Ken Starks]

I'm going to Talk about how you can split files, that is.

[Bobby Borisov]

Oh, I thought you were telling me to get out of here. But you know what?

[Robb Moore]

I will get out of here so you could do your tip.

[Ken Starks]

All right, and as I said this week, I'm going to show you how to split a file into sections based on context found within the original file from the command line using C split. Now, let me go ahead and bring up my share screen share so y' all can see how this works. But I've got set up here, so I've got a file that I'm calling Productivity text and running through it earlier and I forgot to delete some files. Let me do that real quick. And y' all may remember when Jonathan covered this last month or last week. There we go, A lot of files there. Let's clear that. And now we just have the productivity text file in there and we're going to use the command C split. As I mentioned earlier, let's go ahead and do a csplit dash dash help so you can see how you can use it to split a file into sections determined by context lines. The basic format is csplit. Any options that you may want to use the name of the file followed by the pattern you want to look for. Now, with the file itself, let me go ahead and use CAT to show you what's in that file. You've got it. Now, what I want to point out is in line 14 of the file, I've got just the word all in caps, by the way, separator that I'm going to use to split the file in half using C split. And the way that command is going to look is you'll have C split followed by the file name productivity txt followed by in single quotes/separator/ now, when I hit that, the only output you're going to see is the bite size of the two files that it creates. The first one's 493 bytes total. The second one's 538. Now, when I do a listing of my directory, you'll see that I've got the protectivity TXT along with XX00 and XX01. Now, what's in those? I'm going to use TEL to show both of them at the same time. And with tel, it gives you the file name for each one in between equal, equal, greater than and less than signs. And then it has the file. Then for the xx01 file, it starts with the word separator followed by the information that was after that for those of y' all listening. That's going to be where it has dash dash, Thursday dash dash fugitive notes on what to do and how long to spend them doing. And then again for Friday and Saturday and Sunday. Now let's go ahead and. Clean up the. Directory again here so we don't get all. Let's see what happened. Had a space in there. There we

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go.

[Ken Starks]

And there's. So that now we've got just productivity in there again. This time I'm going to take advantage of the option to change the prefix from xx to day dash. And then I'm also going to change the context that I'm going to look for so that it's going to split it on the days. The way that looks is dash f followed by in single quotes, day dash. That'll do the prefix. Then I've also got a dash n3 so that it changes it from the two digits you saw previously to three digits. And the expression I'm going to use is in between the single quotes. And the two dashes is going to be dot, star OR *, day dash dash. Then I'm going to follow that with another parameter that I put in curly braces. So set how many times to do it. I put an asterisk there to tell it to do it in infinitely, basically until it hits the end of file. And when I run that, it does. It's indicating 8 files. The first one has 0 bytes, second one has 32, for a total of 8 files, with the last one having 70 bytes. Now let's look at what those files look like by doing a LS and there you see I have the day dash 00 through 07,000 through 007. Now let's go back to that tell command I used earlier. And we're going to change that to day dash. And that gives us all the. All the files in one viewing. And as you can see, the reason it said day zero had the first file had zero bytes is because day zero doesn't have anything in starts with Monday for file day 001, what's the information? And you'll see that right after each file it's got the ongoing days. Now, if I had done this with. And as I said, you could change this to any number. So let's change that to two and let's put a three instead of the asteris. And you'll see that it does. Even though I said three, you'll see it's got five files with of course, the first one having zero bytes in it again. And. Let's change this so it's question mark, question mark for the tail and that way it just lists the files with the. Just have two digits. And you'll see that on the. At day four, it's got all Thursday through Sunday shown, Whereas the day 1, 2 and 3h had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And that's how you can use C split.

[Bobby Borisov]

Nice, nice tip. I, I feel like, I feel like I've seen that one before, not on the show, but it, I don't know, seems familiar. I've seen so many split commands in the past and various things similar to that. I get all confused.

[Ken Starks]

And you saw me pulling up how to use some of the command line tips that we've used in the past.

[Bobby Borisov]

Yes.

[Robb Moore]

All right, so there's only two of us. That means only two tips for this week.

[Bobby Borisov]

We, you know, we didn't double up on the tips. Half the people, half the tips, I guess. So I guess that brings us to

[Robb Moore]

the end of our show where we're going to try to do this in order. We'll let everybody get a turn and do their plugs and we'll start with you, Ken. What do you have to plug?

[Ken Starks]

Well, I've got in the show notes, I've got a link to an article by Surav Rudro where he talks about a two day free hackathon aimed at students who want to get hands on with open source mobile development. If any of you students out there are interested, follow that link, read about it and if you're close to Netherland, definitely take advantage of it.

[Robb Moore]

It's free and I always see people online, well, not always, occasionally, often wondering how they can get involved.

[Bobby Borisov]

And that sounds like a good way to get your start if you're, if you're a student.

[Ken Starks]

And now it's your turn.

[Robb Moore]

And now it's my turn. I just got the usual.

[Bobby Borisov]

My usual plug is.

[Robb Moore]

If you want to see more of me, you can connect on my website, Robert P. Campbell.com which is in the show notes, if you've been watching. It's been at the bottom of the show near my name all day, I think.

[Bobby Borisov]

I don't think that gets cut out in post. I don't know, maybe it does.

[Robb Moore]

Well, anyway, once you get to that page, you can find a little link to connect with me on LinkedIn, on Twitter, Blue Sky, Mastodon, or if you really like what I do, you can click on the little coffee cup.

[Bobby Borisov]

Donate a cup of coffee to me Donate a cup, cup of coffee to

[Robb Moore]

one of the other panelists on the show, I will get it to them.

[Bobby Borisov]

I have got, I've paid Jeff off.

[Robb Moore]

I, I still owe the other guys several coffees, which one of these days

[Bobby Borisov]

I'm going to visit them in person and get them a coffee.

[Robb Moore]

But that is the end of our show, folks. It has been a great time being with you and you know, as much as we miss Jonathan, I'm having fun

[Bobby Borisov]

leading the show this time. I don't think I've let it since

[Robb Moore]

we've had video and so I am enjoying that. But I'm sure next week Jonathan will be back. Jeff is bound to come back one

[Bobby Borisov]

of these weekends and, you know, maybe

[Robb Moore]

we'll have a full show. Maybe won't, but either way, somebody will be here. And we'll see you all next time on the Untitled Linux show.

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[Ken Starks]

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