9000 9001

DISK CLONE PHOTO TOOLS

FR W INU
DO LI L
E N X
KA
The fastest ways to Store, search and edit your

E
4. OA201
backup and deploy photos with open source

7G D 9
L
PLUS!

B
3 Pi PROJECTS
SERIAL CONTROL
GET ANIMATING
USE EASYGUI

The #1 open source mag

VOICE CONTROLLED
SMART HOME
Use Linux to add true smarts to your
home with security and open protocols

pages of
65 tutorials
& features
Make Arch as easy
Omoju Miller to use as Ubuntu
on how GitHub is using
Get perfect Steam
machine learning gaming with the Pi
SOUNDS FUN VECTOR DRAWING
Better Audacity Create better, scalable
audio editing diagrams with LibreOffice

WHO WE ARE
This issue We’re looking at building a open
source smart home, so what’s the
smartest thing in your life right now?
Jonni Bidwell
More and more I find myself focusing on the
not-so-smart things, so this is a really tricky
question. I dunno though, Vernier calipers
are pretty smart. Oh, and the people that do
the Royal Institution lectures.
Christian Crawley
Sorting out the kids’ dance lessons, telling
me where I need to be (and where to go)
while working to resolve the concerns of
residents as a local Councillor, the smartest
thing in my life is without doubt my wife, Ceri.
John Knight
I don’t have any ‘smart’ gadgets at home,
but I have ideas for an off-grid cabin powered
by renewables. A collection of Raspberry Pis
would be excellent for regulating power and
lighting, and their low-power consumption
would be perfect for computer usage without draining watts.
Les Pounder
The smartest thing in our home is Dexter
the dog. However, he has started to become
unresponsive to voice commands. The only
recognised commands are “walkies” and
“dinner.” Previously working commands
“b th time
bath ti ” andd “vets”
“ are no longer starting the correct
processes. The error log is full of “woof” and “bark.”
Mayank Sharma
The voice recognition in my car is not
smart, it’s evil. It’ll change tracks and dial
numbers correctly, as long as it isn’t me
talking. When it hears me, it’ll always dial
relatives I don’t want to talk to – even
when all I want it to do is change tracks.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
WELCOME
Win a secure Nitrokey Storage 2
Send your thoughts to the Linux Format dungeon server at
linuxformat@futurenet.com and secure your chance to
win a 32GB Nitrokey! It’s the complete open hardware-
encrypted storage solution!
Learn more at www.nitrokey.com.
Control everything!
Sat up here in our ivory Linux Format
Tower, it’s easy to pour scorn on those
lesser non-Linux-using types, hopelessly
switching their lights on and off with
their phones, asking little round
speakers what the weather is like
outside their windows and checking if
their milk has gone off by looking at their
smart-fridge display.
But why shouldn’t someone be able
to remote-control their lights, control
their heating or ask a system what the
weather is in complete digital safety?
We’re exploring how open source can solve the IoT problem by combining
the Mycroft and OpenHAB projects to create a smart, secure voice-
controlled open source home. Heck, it even ties into Google Home and
Alexa, if that’s your thing.
But digital Luddites of the world fret not, if having a smart home isn’t for
you, we’ve got a healthy pile of smart things to do with your install of desktop
Linux. These range from the Roundup of disk cloning tools, so you can do
smarter backups and deployments of systems, to our very own Jonni
attempting to annoy the Arch Linux community by explaining how to turn it
into Ubuntu. Some may say that’s not very smart at all.
For projects and tutorials we have more good news, from getting started
in making music with Audacity, organising your photos in Shotwell, drawing
useful diagrams with vectors and streaming games with Steam, to creating
stop-motion animations with a Pi, exploring the new Webassembly language
and troubleshooting serial connections. There’s something for everyone
who likes to tinker with computers, so enjoy!
Neil Mohr Editor
neil.mohr@futurenet.com
Subscribe
& save!
n digital and print
– see p26
May 2019 LXF249 3
Contents
NEW GIFT
SUBSCRIBE NOW!
Page 26

REVIEWS
VOICE CONTROLLED

SMART
Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro2 19
Neil Mohr is certainly no hacker, but he
does have to type an awful lot. As much as
he likes the idea of an optimised compact
keyboard, is this thing worth it?

HOME
Slax 9.8 20
Once the apple of Mayank Sharma’s eye,
can the back-from-dead slimline distro
manage to retain its charm despite all the
changes and updates?

Refracta 9.0 21
A Devuan-based distro doesn’t particularly
excite Mayank Sharma, but this one
comes with a bunch of interesting
tweaks and custom scripts.

Linux Kodachi 6.0 23 The future is finally here! Jonni Bidwell

Distros with grandiose claims don’t really explains how to set up the ultimate open source
impress Mayank Sharma, but he’s in for
a surprise with this Xubuntu-based privacy voice-controlled home with Mycroft… page 34
protecting distro…

Dusk 24
Management are nervous again, as Ian
Birnbaum appears to be ignoring their
ROUNDUP INTERVIEW
memo not to go in the ruins in this retro
first person shooter.

Disk cloning tools 28 Human computing 42

Need to provision a lab full of PCs? The Never one to turn down talking about high-
ever lethargic Shashank Sharma tests powered programming over biscuits and
the best tools to get the job done without coffee, Jonni Bidwell meets the
breaking into a sweat. multitalented Omoju Miller.

4 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 contents

on youR
RaspbeRRy pi useR fRee dvd
Kali Linux 2019.01
64- & 32-bit
Raspberry Pi news 50
Quantum computing on the Pi, power Page 96
issues and running x86 programs.

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ 51

Les Pounder wonders what makers can do
with this much power?

Using EasyGUI 52
CREDIT: IBM
Les Pounder shows us how to use Python
to search Google to gain inspiration for our
next maker project.
tutoRials

Stop-motion studio 54 teRminal: FFF 60

Christian Cawley plays with some Lego Not all file managers look the same, as
and a Pi camera to make a movie – Shashank Sharma discovered while using
although it’s not quite that simple… FFF – a Bash-based file manager.

Debug serial comms 58 shotwell: Build a photo library 62

Sean Conway walks you through the Nick Peers reveals how to bring order to
process of troubleshooting communication your chaotic photo and video library with
problems between a PC and a serial device. Ubuntu’s default photo organiser.

audacity: Audio editing 68

coding academy
Check your Git repos
John Schwartzman shows you how to
write a Bash shell script that can keep
track of all of your Git repositories.
Webassembly and Rust
Mihalis Tsoukalos looks at the next-gen
web language WebAssembly, how to
develop apps for it in Rust and Go, and how
to use them with the help of JavaScript.
John Knight returns to his old recording
friend Audacity once again, and finds things
have become a little more advanced.
90
apache: Secure and static sites 72
Stuart Burns shows how to create a
secure web server on which you can host
statically generated WordPress sites on
92 a secure Apache server.
dRaw: Vector illustrations 76
Create technical and business diagrams
and illustrations without paint packages,
as Mike Bedford demonstrates.

steam: Game streaming 80

RegulaRs at a glance Push your Linux gaming to your big TV for
real gaming fun, with the help of Alex Cox
and Steam In-Home Streaming.
News 6 Subscriptions 26
Google offers the bad news that CPU
Spectre bugs will never be fixed in software, Back issues 66
in-depth
FireFox Send service, Pure OS movements
and no more web Skype for Chrome OS. Overseas subs 67 Turn Arch into Ubuntu 46
Jonni Bidwell has spent years perfecting
Linux user groups 11 HotPicks 83 his Arch install, and he’s begrudgingly going
Les Pounder explains exactly what goes on Alexander Tolstoy would never even to share some insights that make it as easy
in Linux Presentation Days. imagine posting anything negative online as Ubuntu to use…
about any glorious government – he’s far
Mailserver 12 too busy critiquing and testing only the
Too much praise – we’ve gone red, scarily best in free and open source software like:
clever solutions, hacking RC cars, and Digikam, Olive, Cygwin, LibreOffice, ODrive,
we’re going to cover firewalls again. Quaternion, Klogg, Hyperfine, Friture,
Underrun, Sandspiel.
Answers 14
Minolta printer drivers, best scanning Your free DVD 96
solutions, Mint won’t shutdown, using ZFS,
and Peppermint upgrades. Next month 98

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 5

Newsdesk
ThiS iSSUE: Google has a meltdown Nginx is worth a lot
PureOS converges Firefox Send Skype issues EU router rules
Hardware security
Can Meltdown and Spectre
bugs ever be fixed?
The ramifications of Meltdown and Spectre continue, with Google
suggesting that there will never be a software-based fix.
ore than a year ago, the Meltdown and
M Spectre bugs were revealed to affect
some of the most widely used
processors in the world – and throughout 2018
and even into this year, new variants and threats
based on the bugs have continued to be found.
The vulnerabilities, which appear to be
present in chips from nearly every
manufacturer, enable potential malicious users
to access protected data on a victim’s device,
and exploit speculative execution and caching
features of a CPU. While there have not been
any known attacks using these vulnerabilities,
their existence has caused shockwaves
throughout the technology world – and beyond
– due to the prevalence of the vulnerabilities.
Since the revelations about the bugs were
disclosed, a number of manufacturers moved
quickly to release patches to mitigate the
problem. However, these software fixes aren’t
ideal, mainly because Meltdown and Spectre
affects features of the CPU which are designed
to improve performance, and applying the
patches results in a noticeable degradation.
At the end of February 2019, open source
hardware experts at Phoronix noted that Linux
5.0 kernel performance was worse than
previous kernel releases (read the full article
at http://bit.ly/LXFPhoronixLinux5). This
is a worrying trend, as kernel updates should
improve performance, and some readers
pointed out that this performance loss
corresponds with Meltdown and Spectre
mitigations being included in Linux 5.0.
6 LXF249 May 2019
In fact, looking at Phoronix’s
benchmark results, there’s a clear
dip in performance starting from
Linux 4.15, with another large dip
between Linux 4.20 and Linux 5.0.
As Phoronix points out, the
Image credit: TechRadar
Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities
were made public around the
time of Linux 4.14, and in-kernel
mitigations such as PTI and
Retpolines were added – which
supports many people’s fears that if
spectre will be plaguing processors for
to be protected against Spectre/Meltdown,
the near future, according to Google.
we’re going to have to live with the performance
implications that come with software patches.
Google has been even more pessimistic,
Meltdown and Spectre affectS
featureS of the cpu which are
deSigned to iMprove perforMance
recently releasing an analysis of Spectre
which comes to the conclusion that Spectre-like
vulnerabilities will never be fully eradicated by
software patches. In fact, Spectre could
continue to impact processors for the
foreseeable future, while software-based
mitigations will have an even greater impact on
performance. Read the entire paper at http://
bit.ly/LXFGoogleSpectre. For the moment at
least, it looks like we’re going to have to accept
performance hits as a price to pay for security.
www.linuxformat.com
 NEWSDESK

WEB SERVERS OPINION

Nginx acquired, rumours abound SHARP

Web server developer Nginx bought by F5 Networks in what OPENXR
some people suggest is a move against Citrix.
pplication services company to pass regulatory approvals. It’s expected the

A F5 Networks has acquired Nginx for

the princely sum of $670 million. Gus
deal will close in the second quarter of 2019.
The deal isn’t without its controversy, with
Robertson, CEO of Nginx, commented that “F5 Piper Jaffray analysts James Fish and Andrew
shares our mission, vision, and values… they Nowinski suggesting it was made to ensure that Jakob Bornecrantz
bring to bear a tremendous amount of additional F5’s rival Citrix does not acquire Nginx for itself. Senior Software Engineer,
resources and complementary technologies”, As Mitch Wagner of the Light Reading website Collabora
and assured Nginx customers that “F5 is reports (http://bit.ly/LXFLightReading), the
committed to keeping the NGINX brand and analysts also suggested that Nginx was taking
open source technology alive. Without this customers from F5, prompting the acquisition Just a few weeks ago
commitment, the deal wouldn’t have happened as a defensive move. at the Game Developers
for either side.” You can read his full statement However, this is something F5 denies, with Conference (GDC) in San
at http://bit.ly/LXFNginxBlog. Kara Sprague, SVP & GM of the F5’s Application Francisco, the Khronos
Any fears that F5 Network’s purchase will Services Business Unit, emailing Light Reading Group released the OpenXR
simply assimilate Nginx seem to be unfounded, to say that “Our acquisition of NGINX was provisional specification.
with the Nginx brand remaining a separate neither a defensive move nor due to a And that same day,
entity. Robertson will join F5’s senior dependency on NGINX for our next-generation Collabora announced
management team and continue to lead Nginx software ADC.” Monado, a free and open
alongside Igor Sysoev and Maxim Konovalov, source XR platform, and first
Nginx’s founders, while Nginx’s operations will OpenXR runtime for Linux.
continue at its existing offices in San Francisco. OpenXR is an open
It’s not quite a done deal just yet, however, standard that aims to unify
as although the board of directors of both and simplify the creation of
companies have approved the acquisition, as Networks has paid big bucks for Nginx, but its motives have experiences in augmented
have Nginx’s shareholders, the deal still needs been questioned. reality (AR) and virtual
reality (VR), collectively
known as mixed reality (XR).
Monado enables
OPERATING SYSTEMS applications and game
developers to target GNU/
Linux without having to

PureOS embraces convergence worry about hardware

enablement. Monado also
helps the hardware
The OS will run on Librem 5 phones and Librem laptops. developers add support for
their devices on GNU/Linux.
urism, the team building the much- PureOS’s “future applications [will] run on both My hope is that Monado

P anticipated Librem 5 open-hardware

smartphone, has announced that its
the Librem 5 phone and Librem laptops, from
the same PureOS release.”
becomes an ecosystem
composed of key XR
open-source operating system PureOS will be The idea is that all the apps you use on industry players and
a ‘convergent operating system’ that can run your Librem 5 phone will be able to run on a enthusiasts in the open
on both the smartphone and laptops. compatible laptop as well – with all your data source community.
A few years ago, convergent operating being synced. Not only does this offer benefits Going forward, my goal is
systems like these seemed to be all the rage. to its users, who will get a familiar experience to create a monthly update
While some software makers have dropped across their devices, but it also makes life easier about our progress on
their convergence plans – most noticeably for developers, who need only make – and test Monado. We have a solid
Canonical ditching its plans for a single – one app, rather than lots of different ones for roadmap ahead of us with
version of Ubuntu to run on PCs, phones and different operating systems. no shortage of work.
tablets, back in 2017 – Microsoft, Apple and Of course, that last point mainly relies on how The Monado project is
Google are all continuing to look at ways to popular PureOS – and the Librem hardware it hosted by freedesktop at
have one OS on many devices. runs on – becomes. From what we’ve seen so https://monado.
According to Jeremiah Foster, Director far regarding the Librem 5, we’re hoping for big freedesktop.org where
of PureOS, Purism has beaten its big things, but predicting successes in the world of you will find the source
competitors to the punch. In his blog post at technology is notoriously difficult, so ultimately code and instructions
http://bit.ly/LXFPureOSConv, he says only time will tell. on how to build it.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 7

Newsdesk
opinion
event
hOrizOn
Keith Edmunds
is Tiger Computing Ltd’s MD,
which provides support for
businesses using Linux.
The standard IT
support model of yesteryear
was ‘wait until it breaks’.
Support departments were
event-driven, where an
event was a user calling
them to report a problem.
Today, we should
distinguish between user
support – helping someone
to use IT effectively – and
system support, where we
keep things running. The
events that drive system
support should come from
a monitoring system, not
the users. Why? There are
three reasons.
Firstly, waiting for
systems to break implies
an impact to the business
before you fix anything.
That’s not acceptable.
Secondly, your users won’t
tell you that the MySQL
replication is five hours
behind the master, or that
the second disk in a RAID
set has failed. You’ll only
find out when more things
break, and you’ll almost
certainly have lost data.
That’s not acceptable.
Thirdly, it’s your job to be
aware of what’s happing, to
work proactively to keep
things working.
Proactive support
improves system availability
and data integrity. It’s how
we do things these days. If
your users have to report
server problems to you, you
have already failed.
8 LXF249 May 2019
encryption
Mozilla launches
Firefox Send
New feature offers encrypted file
transfers between users.
irefox has announced that one of its
f most popular Test Pilot experiments,
Firefox Send, is getting an official
launch. Firefox Send (https://send.firefox.
com) enables people to quickly and easily send
files with end-to-end encryption. You can drag
and drop files onto the web page and a link is
created that automatically expires, so nothing
is kept online permanently.
The service is free to use, and if you sign in
you can send files up to 2.5GB in size. It has an
software
Skype for Web
loses its shine
Latest version of the
VoIP software loses
Linux and ChromeOS.
icrosoft has been making some
M welcome and well-received overtures to
the open source community lately, but
when announcing the latest version of Skype for
Web, among a number of new features Microsoft
let slip that its browser-based version of Skype
will no longer officially support ChromeOS or
Linux. Users of those operating systems who try
to use the new Skype for Web will now be faced
with an error message saying that their device is
not supported–though some users are reporting
success with Chrome browser or changing the
user agent to Windows on ChromeOS. Thus if
you’re a Skype user on Linux or ChromeOS,
you’ll need to use the native app instead.
skype for web
is no longer
available
on certain
platforms…
Image credit: Microsoft
Image credit: Mozilla
firefox send is a new secure way to transfer
files up to 2.5Gb in size.
impressive list of features, enabling you to
specify when the link to the file expires, how
many downloads of the files are allowed, and
whether or not to add an additional password
for extra security.
The people to whom you send the link
simply need to click it to download the file –
there’s no need for them to have a Firefox
account set up. A beta Android app is also
launching imminently. You can find out more
at: http://bit.ly/LXFFirefoxSend.
routers
EU proposal
could kill off
custom firmware
EU Directive would outlaw
installation of user firmware.
he EU Radio Equipment Directive
t (which can be read at http://bit.ly/
LXFEURadio) has an inclusion that
has worried many people, at this early stage.
It requires manufacturers of routers, and other
devices sending and receiving radio signals, to
place a block on allowing customers to install
software that has not be certified by the
original manufacturer.
This effectively means any third-party
developed router firmware such as the Linux-
based OpenWrt (https://openwrt.org), which
offers additional features and greater control,
could no longer be installed. Worryingly, this
won’t just be limited to preventing custom OS
installations on routers, but potentially any other
devices such as GPS, smartphones and more.
The FSFE published a Joint Statement against
Radio Lockdown which has been signed by
many organisations and businesses concerned
about this. You can read the full statement here:
https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/
statement.en.html
www.linuxformat.com
 NEWSDESK

Distro watch
OPINION

WA-HEY,
What’s behind the free software sofa? WAYLAND
SWAY 1.0
The first stable release of Sway, a “consistent, flexible,
and powerful desktop environment for Linux and
FreeBSD” as creator Drew DeVault calls it, has been
released. In a refreshingly honest release
announcement (http://bit.ly/LXFSway1), DeVault Jonni Bidwell
explains how “nearly 300 people worked together, wants only the best for you.
writing over 9,000 commits and almost 100,000 lines
of code” for this release, which has been completely So GNOME 3.32
overhauled for a much better experience compared to came out, and to
Sway 0.15, which was, by DeVault’s admission, a celebrate I finally switched
“buggy, frustrating desktop to use.” Download it from: over to Wayland. Of course,
http://bit.ly/LXFSway1Download. Sway 1.0 is a new desktop for Linux it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
and FreeBSD. As is well documented, I am
fond of Guake, the drop
down terminal.
REACTOS 0.4.11 Unfortunately Wayland has
A new version of the open source operating system no truck with programs that
that enables you to run Windows applications has been want to grab keystrokes
released. As the release statement notes (http://bit. without focus, so its handy
ly/LXFReactOS), this new version brings substantial F12 hotkey didn’t work.
improvements to the kernel that improves Since I spend most of my
performance and addresses a number of issues. time writing in LibreOffice
A compatibility issue with PCs running Intel’s Skylake (we both know that’s not
(or later) processors has been addressed, so it can true – Ed), pressing this
now run on more modern hardware, and Win32 ReactOS 0.4.11 is an open source key resulted in the current
improvements have been included as well. re-implementation of Windows NT. paragraph becoming the
first item in a list.
Frustrating, but of course
this is expected behaviour;
ROSA R11 it’s just that under X, that
ROSA Desktop is a Linux distro that was once a fork of F12 keystroke could be
Mandriva Linux, and the latest version comes in four intercepted to prevent
desktop flavours: KDE 4, KDE Plasma, LXDE and Xfce. this unwanted listifying.
In this latest release, the Linux kernel has been The future of tech
updated to 4.15, and there’s added support for journalism may well sadly
installing the distro on devices with fast M.2 and be listicles, SEO-friendly
NVME solid state drives. If your Russian is any good, headlines and simplification
you can read up on the release announcement at: ROSA is a Russian distro with a choice beyond recognition. But
http://bit.ly/LXFROSA11. of desktops. such bilge and bunkum will
never grace these pages.
Instead have a handy two-
ANTIX 17.4 sentence guide to getting
This distro based on Debian’s current ‘Stable’ branch Guake working in Wayland.
has had an important update that is now available to Disable the F12 shortcut in
download. antiX 17.4, ‘Helen Keller’, comes with an LibreOffice. Go to GNOME’s
updated kernel which has been patched to mitigate Keyboard Settings and bind
against Meltdown, Spectre and CVE-2019-8912 F12 to the command
vulnerabilities. All packages have been updated to guake -t . The second
Debian 9.8, and there are improvements to the argument toggles visibility,
localisation of applications plus improved icons and so will do the desired thing
themes. Find out more at http://bit.ly/LXFantiX174. whether the terminal is up
antiX 17.4 brings some important security or down. Done and the flat
updates to the distro. Earth disc keeps on
spinning.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 9

Newsdesk
opinion
just
emulate it
Jon Masters is a kernel hacker
who’s been involved with Linux for
more than 22 years, and works on
energy-efficient ARM servers.
I’ve lately been
playing a lot with different
computer architectures that
interest me. An architecture
describes the kind of
fundamental instructions
that are understood by a
family of computers; for
example ‘x86’ for Intel and
AMD, ‘arm’ and ‘riscv’. For
example, nearly everyone
reading this has an x86
laptop computer, and
maybe an Arm-based
Raspberry Pi or three for
various projects.
But for other kinds of
computer, it’s much harder
to get one at home. In some
cases, this is due to cost.
Few people have the space,
power budget or building
structural support, let alone
the money, for a personal
mainframe. In other cases,
scarcity is a factor. Older
computers are hard to come
by, some are so new that
they haven’t been made yet.
The latter case includes
new designs that are coming
but are not on the market
just yet. In almost all of
these cases, there are
readily available emulators
that let you test drive just as
easily as running a virtual
machine on your desktop.
A good example is the
RISC-V QEMU port and
associated tools, which you
can get hold of at https://
github.com/riscv/riscv-
qemu/wiki.
10 LXF249 May 2019
Kernel Watch
Jon Masters summarises the latest happenings in the
Linux kernel community, for your reading pleasure.
inus Torvalds announced Linux 5.0,
L and with it the opening of the merge
window (period of time during which
disruptive changes are allowed ahead of 5.1).
In his announcement, he detailed a few last-
minute fixes, and that he was happy overall
with having extended the 5.0 cycle by a week,
following the atypical 5.0-RC8. The new kernel
includes many new features, among them the
Energy Aware Scheduler covered in last issue.
It also gains support in the AMD GPU
drivers for FreeSync, a technology popular
with gamers that smooths the display by
aligning the transition of the frame displayed
with the vertical blanking interval of the
“physical memory quickly
begins to fragment as it
is allocated and freed”
display. A complete summary of what’s new
in 5.0 is provided (as usual) by KernelNewbies
at https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_5.0.
Physically contiguous memory
Linux generally deals with two different views
of memory: physical and virtual. Physical
memory describes the actual chips within the
machine (that is, the DRAM), and is usually
quite limited compared to secondary storage
such as a disk or NVMe. Virtual memory
ongoing DeveLopment
David Howells posted a Request For
Comment patch series titled “Containers
and using authenticated filesystems”,
intended to start a conversation about
containerising the kernel’s support for
crypto keys that it can manage on behalf of
filesystems and other subsystems. The
patches introduced a new, explicit notion of
a container in kernelspace, which has not
previously been the case.
These ideas were rejected for a variety
of reasons, but they may just start a new
dialogue about in-kernel container
representation. Sasha Levin proposed a
discussion at the upcoming Linux Storage
represents a translated view in which regions
of memory may appear large and contiguous
to software, but in fact are mapped using
OS-managed ‘page tables’ into many different
physical locations by hardware. The translation
is fine for most purposes, and in fact is critical to
our ability to write modern applications. But
there are times when contiguous virtual memory
is not enough.
Sometimes, hardware needs truly contiguous
regions of physical memory. This can be
because the hardware is less complex – for
example, with embedded devices that are not
capable of ‘scatter gather’ memory operations
when moving data around. But it can also be
desirable for performance on much
bigger machines. When a
sufficiently large region of
contiguous physical memory exists,
a so-called ‘huge’ page mapping
can be created to represent the
virtual-to-physical translation of a
large region using fewer entries in page tables,
and the hardware structures that cache these.
The problem is that when a system is
running, physical memory quickly begins to
fragment as it is allocated and freed, so
eventually it can become difficult to find large
regions of contiguous physical memory. Zi Yan’s
“Generating physically contiguous memory after
page allocation” pages aim to help by effectively
defragmenting physical memory to free up large
chunks of it.
Filesystem and Memory Management
Summit about the preferred tests that
should be run against patches destined for
-stable kernels.
Stable kernels are those released by
Greg Kroah-Hartman and based upon
existing Linus kernels with various fixes and
backports, intended for those who want to
run an upstream kernel but need some
level of maintainance.
Greg noted that various tests against
stable probably exceeded those for
mainline releases, while others piled
on with input around the different tests
that could be run.
www.linuxformat.com
 LUGS

Linux user grouPs

The intrepid Les Pounder brings you the latest community and LUG news.

FinD anD join a Lug Linux Presentation Day

Build Brighton Thursday evening is open night.
www.buildbrighton.com
Cornwall Tech Jam Second Saturday of the
month, alternating between Bodmin and Camborne.
www.cornwalltechjam.uk
Glasgow Makers and Hardware Hackers
Mitchell Library, Glasgow. https://m.facebook.com/
groups/115303729096198
Huddersfield Raspberry Jam
Meet every month at Huddersfield Library,
typically on the fourth Saturday of each month.
https://huddersfieldraspberryjam.co.uk
Horsham Raspberry Jam Parkside, Chart Way,
Horsham. www.facebook.com/hackhorsham
Leeds Hackspace Open night every Tuesday
7pm-late, open day second Saturday of the month,
11am-4pm. www.leedshackspace.org.uk
Medway Makers 12 Dunlin Drive, St Mary’s Island,
Chatham ME2 3JE. www.medwaymakers.com
New Jersey Linux User’s Group
Last Tuesday of every month, at Panara Bread,
165 Route 4 West, Paramus, NJ. http://njlnux.org
PLUG – Perth Linux Users’ Group
Once a month, at Spacecubed, 45 Saint Georges
Terrace, Perth, Western Australia.
www.plug.org.au
rLab Reading Hackspace Unit C1, Weldale ST,
Reading, Wednesday from 7pm. http://rlab.org.uk
Teesside Hackspace Tuesday Evenings at
Teesside Hackspace. www.teessidehackspace.org.uk
The Things Network Reading
Walkabout Bar, Reading, 2nd Tues 7pm. ttnreading.org
It’s a bit like a school open day…
hances are that you Prince Street Social in central Bristol.
C discovered Linux many years
ago and since that day you
That’s the Prince Street Social, 37-41
Prince Street, Bristol, BS1 4PS.”
have enjoyed the fruits of what was There is still time to join, tell your
initially a laboured introduction. friends or organise your own day – all
Moving from Windows to Linux you need to do is pop over to http://
introduces a new way of thinking and int.linux-presentation-day.org and
working – software from a central follow the link for your country. If you
repository versus a random EXE run a LUG, hack- or maker-space then
download being the first hurdle. throw open your doors to the public,
But what if you’re new to Linux? show them how wonderful Linux is
Well, on Linux Presentation Day you and how it can be used from everyday
can meet like-minded individuals (how internet browsing to controlling laser
do you know what I’m thinking?–Ed) cutters and CNC machinery.
who want to help everyone to enjoy If you’re in the Bristol area, head
using Linux. Originally begun in over to their event and say hello to
Germany in 2015, Linux Presentation Sebastian and the team. See more at
Day takes place twice per year in www.linux-presentation-day.org.uk.
locations across Europe. The events
are free of charge and are a way to
introduce Linux to the public via
installfests, lessons and social events.
The main goal of the project is to help
visitors decide on whether Linux is the
correct option for their future.
The team from Bristol’s Linux
Presentation Day have been in contact
to let us know about their event.
Sebastian tells us: “It will be Sunday 19
May – yes Sunday, not Saturday – “and then you just click there.
between 2pm and 7pm at the no, not there, there. there!”

Community events news

Manchester Makefest 2019
Taking place on Saturday 25 and Sunday
26 May at Manchester’s Science and
Industry Museum, this two-day event
celebrates the various groups and skills
in the maker community. From Arduino
to artisan crafts, this weekend is packed
with lots to see and do. You can take the
family for a fun day out and learn a new
skill. We’ve been to previous years and
this is a great venue. so spend the day
there! Tickets and details can be found
via: www.scienceandindustrymuseum.
org.uk/take-part-makefest-2019.
MIXIt
Taking place on 23-24 May in the French
city of Lyon, this event is truly a mix.
There are talks and workshops covering
Ethics, Makers, Design and Lifestyle from
the world of technology. The whole ethos
of the event is to “discover new things
and meet nice people.” This is clear to
see thanks to a great lineup of speakers,
including our own Les Pounder. The
event is open and accessible to all,
including those outside of the
community. More details at:
https://mixitconf.org/en.
Preston rasPberry JaM
The person responsible for starting the
whole Raspberry Jam community, Alan
O’Donohoe, has run a successful Jam
every month since 2012! Sadly, due to
other commitments the April and May
2019 Jams have been cancelled, but
we’re promised that the Jam will return in
June: www.eventbrite.co.uk/d/united-
kingdom--preston/raspberry-jam/

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 11

Mailserver
Write to us at Linux Format, Future Publishing, Quay House,
The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA or lxf.letters@futurenet.com.

BIG words
I enjoy every issue immensely as it only brings me
further down the rabbit hole of this amazing universe
we call Open Source and all things Linux.
I’m looking to your wise and written ways to see
what discoveries you have made or found in the HCI
(Hyper Converged Infrastructure) landscape. I have
seen some details on a Proxmox + Ceph HCI solution,
but not as modular as Nutanix. I work with
a company here in Canada and we are a leading
provider of Nutanix, that has Linux underpinnings
and while mighty, it is costly.
Is there any interest in hosted Directoy-aaS for
cloud services? One may leverage a ClearOS or
Zentyal SMB server, companies could join a local
on-premise infrastructure with cloud services like
Google Apps and maintain a single sign-on service
through DaaS. Have you tried this yourself?
David, Canada
WIN A SECURE NITROKEY STORAGE 2
Send your thoughts to the Linux Format dungeon
server at linuxformat@futurenet.com,
be picked as Letter Of The Month and
win* a 32GB Nitrokey Storage 2!
The Nitrokey is worth a cool €149, has 32GB of
hardware-encrypted storage, supports hidden
volumes, secures your online accounts with one-
time passwords, can encrypt emails, files and hard
drives and is an open source, open hardware The Nitrokey is
solution. Protected with AES-256 and RSA keys up your one-stop
to 4,096! Learn more at www.nitrokey.com. security solution.
Helpdex
shane_collinge@yahoo.com
Would anyone like to
explain Hyper Converged
Infrastructure to us?
Neil says
Wow – you’ve used all the words, and I even recognise
some of them! Most of this is way over our heads,
though it’s the sort of thing we leave to the genius of
Valentine to cover in his intermittent Administeria
section. I tend to aim contents at the sort of thing most
home users could have a play with over a weekend –
unfortunately, deploying a business-wide, single sign-on
cloud solution is slightly above that, but we enjoy
learning about the possibilities.
Too clever
My home network has now grown to five PCs, all
running Mint Xfce. One sits in a corner recording
Freeview SD from six tuners and saving to hard disk.
For ages, I was then transferring these recordings
using the ‘shoe-leather’ method of using a pair of
32GB flash drives to copy them in batches onto the
playback PC on the other room.
This worked fairly well, as I wrote scripts to do the
donkey work. The only problem I had was that the

* For full terms and conditions see: www.futureplc.com/terms-conditions

12 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 MAILSERVER

Head to libremusicproduction.com for
some awesome music guides.
script would complete, but as we were watching TV
any pop-up would be invisible behind the playback.
I brainstormed several schemes but nothing simple
did the trick.
Then one day I was tapping away in a terminal on
my laptop while copying the latest LXFDVD to a flash
drive. When the copy finished, as I was already in a
terminal, rather than fight trying to find the little
button on the DVD drive I just typed eject and the
drive pinged open. A lightbulb went on over my head
(is the eject command supposed to do that? – Ed).
So a quick edit to the script and that was it – each
time the recordings were all copied and it was ready
for the next flash drive, the script would just eject
the DVD drive on the PC. Brilliant… what could
possibly go wrong?
A few nights later we were sitting in the dark
watching a scary film. The copy finished just as the
tense bit of the film built, the DVD drive shot open
with a loud click and the pair of us jumped a couple
of feet! This finally gave me the nudge I needed to
drill a hole through the wall and run an Ethernet
cable to the theatre PC.
Dave
Neil says
We’re glad you’ve gone with the more sensible solution
of drilling holes in walls.
You’re firewalled
There are lots of Raspberry Pi magazines and
information on projects out there. I could do without
your Pi User articles. I would prefer more info and
examples on your tutorials, especially on setting up
firewalls, security apps and encryption. I like your
LETTER_OF_THE_MONTH
H
Getting RC with the Pi
My ongoing project is to take old RC cars
and replace the receiver/controller IC
with a Raspberry Pi. I have tried a
number of different solutions such as
WebIOPi and Wyliodrin, but Les
Pounder’s article on Flask in LXF229 gave me another solution
that I have got working and which I really like.
Another aspect is to untether the car from the access point,
and I wonder if Les could do an article on setting up a peer-to-
peer ad-hoc network between an android tablet and a Raspberry
Pi? [Peter found a solution at http://bit.ly/LXF249point].
For the benefit of other people who don’t like doing things the
easy way, I have discovered that each of the three scrap RC cars
have a different receiver/control IC, but all the ICs have the same
pin-outs. I’m tempted to use an IC socket as the connector
between the Pi and the car. Also, it has been necessary to power
the Pi separately from the motors.
You can see an early attempt at http://bit.ly/LXF249picar.
Peter Merchant C.Eng (Ret’d)
Neil says
The Pi and
This is why we love the
Linux enables
Raspberry Pi, as it enables crazy projects
people to deploy Linux in some to take off.
pretty inventive ways alongside
creative solutions. Good luck
with your project, and if anyone
else is implementing open
source in interesting ways,
let us know!
magazine but sometimes a little more info/examples
would be nice. Thanks for your attention and
listening to my two cents.
Dean Hansen
Neil
I get your point, but as a Linux and open source
magazine we’re going to cover all the topics that
encompasses, and as the Raspberry Pi is very popular
we’d be silly to ignore that. Giving it just eight per cent
of the magazine each issue doesn’t seem outrageous.
But we are going to write about firewalls, as it turns out
Jonni is getting paranoid about IPv6. Again.

WRITE TO US
Do you have a
burning Linux-
related issue
that you want to
discuss? Write
to us at Linux
Format, Future
Publishing, Quay
House, The
Ambury, Bath,
BA1 1UA or email
lxf.letters@
futurenet.com.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 13

Answers
Got a burning question about open source or the kernel?
Whatever your level, email it to lxf.answers@futurenet.com
Q Document
scanning workflow
After using Linux for technical work
and development for a while, I’d like to
completely move all office-related tasks
to Linux (Manjaro KDE) as well.
Besides some minor issues with
printers, the main impediment is how to
set up my document scanning workflow.
Currently I scan all incoming documents
in one go, manually ‘staple’ them into
individual multipage PDF documents and
store them to Evernote.
Could you recommend document
scanner hardware and corresponding
software to manage the workflow and
store the documents?
Roland Stadler
A As far as hardware is concerned,
any scanner with an automatic
document feeder (ADF) that is supported
MINOLTA PAGEPRO DRIVER
Q Do you know if there is a Linux
driver for my Minolta QMS
PagePro 1200W laser printer?
Anna Brand
A As with most things printer-
driver-related on Linux,
the answer can be found on
openprinting.org, specifically
www.openprinting.org/driver/
min12xxw. This is a third-party driver
for your printer, so don’t expect
support from the manufacturer. On the
plus side, this driver has been around
for a good number of years and has
been reported to work well.
Download the relevant file for your
operating system: 32-bit or 64-bit
according to your processor, DEB
or RPM according to the package
manager used by your operating
system. If you aren’t sure of the
package format, Debian and its
derivatives, such as Ubuntu, Mint,
Peppermint and others use DEB.
14 LXF249 May 2019
by Linux should do the job. Check the list
of supported hardware at http://sane-
project.org and pick a device that suits
your needs and budget. I have used a
Brother (same here–Ed) laser printer and
scanner in the past and it worked well. Now
I use an HP all-in-one device that has the
benefit of duplex scanning, without having
to feed the pages in twice.
HP devices are supported by the hplip
driver package. This is open source but
the scanners need a binary firmware file
too. Hplip’s setup utility takes care of
downloading and installing this, but it is
something of which you should be aware if
you have a strict policy on using only open
source software.
For software, I haven’t found
anything better than Gscan2PDF (http://
gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net). This will
scan a multi-page document and save
it as a single PDF file – although it also
Fedora, openSUSE and Manjaro are
among the distros that use RPM.
Your system may offer to
automatically install the package after
downloading, but usually it just saves it
to your ~/Downloads folder. To install
it, open a terminal and change to your
downloads folder by typing
$ cd Downloads
Type ls followed by Return to make
sure the file is there, then install it with
one of the following commands.
$ gdebi openprin2xxw
$ rpm --install openprinting-min12xxw
The first command is for use with
DEB files, the second for RPMs. Press
Tab then Return after typing either
one. Pressing Tab autocompletes the
file name, so this will work for any
version or architecture, without having
to type the full filename. Once
installed, there should be options for
several Minolta PagePro models when
you use your distro’s printer
configuration tool to add a new device.
Neil
Bothwick
counts FOSS
problems
in his sleep.
supports several other formats. The
software enables you to save various
profiles, covering resolution, size, colour
depth, single- or double-sided and more,
which means setting up for a particular
type of document is as simple as pressing
the scan button, selecting a profile and
pressing Go.
There is also quite extensive post-
processing support. It can use unpaper to
clean up and de-skew scans, it can also
apply OCR (optical character recognition)
software to the scanned image, and save
a text copy of a page as a hidden layer
behind the scanned image. Although this
layer is hidden, it’s searchable, so you have
multi-page scanned images that can be
searched for a particular word or phrase.
There is no option to save to Evernote,
but if you use this service you probably
already have software to sync it with
your desktop, like NixNote, so you can
simply save to a directory that is synced
with Evernote. If you are saving sensitive
material to a cloud service, you should
consider encryption. You can password-
protect PDF files with pdftk and this could
be added as a post-processing hook in
Gscan2PDF, for example.
Eternal shutdown
I’m a happy user of Mint 19, but there are
a couple of things that intrigue/bother
me in Cinnamon. When booting, it shows
a message like this for a few seconds:
[0.004000] doIRQ: 1.55 No irq handler for
vector
[2.378397] Couldn’t get size:
0x800000000000000e
Gscan2PDF has plenty of options when it comes to
scanning and archiving documents.
www.linuxformat.com

Sometimes – apparently at random
– when quitting the system the shut-
down process is literally eternal. I get the
Mint logo with dots running and never
stopping. None of these problems arise
with Mint 19 Mate on the same machine.
Máximo Fraga
A Do the boot messages show up
before the Mint boot screen
appears? Such messages are usually
harmless, as long as they don’t halt the
booting process, and are probably not
linked to your shutdown problem. These
are kernel messages, and the kernel is a
general-purpose program intended to run
on a wide variety of hardware. To do that it
needs to test for the existence of hardware
features. A failure in any one of those tests
is not necessarily an error – they are
usually just informational or, at most,
warning messages.
Systemd’s journal makes it easy to
find any real error message that occurred
during the boot process, with:
$ sudo journalctl -b -p err
We use sudo to make sure the full system
journal is read and not just your user’s.
The -b option limits entries to those since
the last boot, and -p err shows only
entries with a priority of ‘error’ or higher.
Even this may show ‘errors’ that actually
have no bearing on the smooth running of
your computer, but you can while away a
few hours by pasting them into a search
engine if you are curious.
The shutdown problem is clearly
more serious. The chances are that
the shutdown process has stalled at a
particular point, but you cannot see this
because the splash screen is hiding the
more informative, if less attractive, boot
messages. If you hit Esc as soon as the
shutdown splash screen appears, you
should see the messages from Systemd
(this also applies to other init systems) as it
shuts down your system.
Once you can see where it stops,
you will either be able to work out the
solution yourself or have some concrete
information to plug into your favourite
search engine. One of the most common
causes is when a mounted network
filesystem is no longer available and the
command to unmount it stalls.
Whatever you do, don’t hit the power
switch or reset button when the system
hangs like this – you can cause more
problems for yourself. Use the SysReq
keys, as described in the Quick Reference
box (page 16), to get a more clean reboot.
Q Zlow filesystem
I thought I would try out ZFS,
having heard so many good things about
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
it. I have my OS (Ubuntu 18.10) on an
SSD with two 3TB drives (sdb and sdc)
for data, that I tried to set up as a RAID1
array using ZFS.
I followed some instructions I found
online and installed the ZFS packages,
created a pool with zpool and then
created a couple of filesystems with
zfs. All appeared to be well, but the
filesystems seem to be very slow. I may
be spoiled by the speed of the SSD, but
I’m sure these drives were a lot faster
when using ext4. There are no errors in
the journal, so what do you think could
be wrong?
Eric Bartlett
A This sounds like a problem with the
4K blocks used on larger drives.
Drives used to store data in blocks of 512
bytes, but as they got larger this wouldn’t
work – there were too many blocks to
manage. The manufacturers started using
4K per block once drives reached 2TB in
size, but this confused software, resulting
in dramatically reduced performance. This
used to happen with traditional partitioning
methods until tools like fdisk were updated
to deal with it.
The good news for you is that there is a
option to handle this. The bad news is that
it must be set when creating the data pool,
so you will have to backup all your data,
recreate the pool and filesystems and then
copy back the data. If you have suitable
storage for this, either an external drive or
a network filesystem, the task is easy, if
time-consuming. Back everything up and
create the new pool with:
$ zpool create -o ashift=12 poolname
pooltype devices
The ashift switch does the magic
required to restore performance with 4K
disks. Then re-copy all your data back to
the hard disk.
Answers
It’s not as pretty as a splash
screen, but the boot messages
from init tell you a lot more
about what is happening when
you boot or shutdown.
Otherwise, you could use a bit of
trickery to convert your RAID a drive at a
time, but be aware that you will have no
redundancy during this process, so backup
everything important. First you remove
one of the disks from the pool:
$ zpool detach poolname /dev/sdb
Then you create a new pool – but zpool
doesn’t allow you to create a degraded
pool, so we use a bit of trickery. Use fdisk
-l /dev/sdb (or whichever disk you just
removed) to get its size in bytes, then
create a sparse file of exactly this size and
mount it as a loop device with
$ truncate -s SIZE /tmp/dummy.img
$ losetup /dev/loop4 /tmp/dummy.img
Create a new pool using the disk you
removed and this file, then immediately
detach the loop file:
$ zpool create -o ashift=12 newpool mirror
/dev/sdb /dev/loop4
$ zpool detach newpool /dev/loop4
Now you can recreate your filesystems
on the new pool and copy the data, either
by creating each filesystem and then
rsync-ing the data or by using zfs send /
receive . Once the data is copied, you can
destroy the original pool, add the drive to
the new one and allow it to resilver. As this
is not used for system storage, you can
rename the pool to the old name with
$ zpool export newpool
$ zpool import newpool oldname
Q More pepper than mint
I read with interest your reply to
Ken Arntsen [lXF245] on upgrading his
Linux Mint to the latest version without
doing a fresh install, thus keeping his
configuration and programs. I’d like
to do the same with my Peppermint
installation. Is this possible, and if so, do
I just replace ‘mint’ with ‘peppermint’ in
the instructions you provided to him?
David Thompson
May 2019 LXF249 15
Answers
A Unfortunately, the same is not
possible with Peppermint; its
developers have specifically chosen to not
provide an upgrade path, requiring a
reinstall for each new version.
That leaves you with two options: you
can stick with Peppermint 8, which is still
supported, and keep it updated for as
long as you use it, or you can backup and
reinstall instead.
Reinstalling is made easier if you have a
separate partition for /home. Peppermint
does not offer this option by default, but
you can do so by selecting the ‘Something
else’ option on the ‘Installation type’
screen when installing. This will display
your existing partitions.
Leave swap as is, resize / to around
20GB – that’s more than enough for a
lightweight distro like Peppermint – and
set up the remaining space as an ext4
partition to be mounted at /home.
A distro installed like this will
operate exactly the same as the ‘all on
one partition’ approach, but it makes
upgrades, or switching to a different
distros, easier as your personal files will
not be touched.
Before you start the installer you
need to copy everything important to an
external drive or USB stick. You will need
one at least as large as the data in your
/home directory.
If the external drive is formatted with a
Linux filesystem, such as ext4, you can use
rsync to backup the /home directory:
$ sudo rsync -a /home /media/external/
where /media/external is the mount point
of your external drive. This gives a simple
mirror that you can restore afterwards
with rsync:
a quick reFerence to sysrq
L inux is usually stable enough to
survive misbehaving software,
but it is possible for a program to lock
up the whole computer. Before you
reach for the power or reset button
and risk corrupting your filesystems,
there is a better way to get out of it.
You can send commands directly to
the kernel by holding down the Alt
and SysReq (aka PrtScr) keys and
pressing certain letter keys. As the
kernel listens for these directly, they
work even if X is completely locked
and accepting no input.
The keys normally used to get out of
a lockup are R, to reset the keyboard –
this occasionally fixes the problem on
its own. Next press E to send a TERM
signal to all processes, asking them to
16 LXF249 May 2019
$ sudo rsync /media/external/home/
/home/
Note the slightly different syntax
– we’re not just reversing source and
destination. Note also that we use sudo ,
as we are backing up and restoring the
whole of /home rather than an individual
user’s home directory.
If the external drive is formatted with
a Windows filesystem, you cannot simply
mirror the files as this will remove file
ownerships and permissions – so we need
to use a backup program. You could use
one of the graphical backup programs
such as DejaDup if you want something
more convenient, or you can use plain old
tar, like this:
$ sudo tar -c /home | split --bytes=1G
/media/external/backup.tar.aa
The -c option tells tar to create an
archive: use -cv if you want to watch a list
of the files being added scroll past. A tar
archive will be the size of all the files in
/home, which may well exceed the size
shut down cleanly, writing any data to
disk and closing any open files. Next in
line is I, which sends a KILL signal to all
remaining processes, forcing them to
shutdown. Pressing S tells the kernel to
sync, flushing all buffers to disk so that
remaining open files can be closed
cleanly. Then you press U to unmount
all filesystems and remount them read-
only, to avoid further data corruption,
and finally B reboots the system.
So hold Alt+SysReq and press R-E-I-
S-U-B in turn, leaving a couple of
seconds between each. There are
several mnemonics to help remember
this, the most appropriate being Reboot
Even If System Utterly Broken. This is
not something you should need very
often, but it’s worth knowing.
Peppermint is not designed to be upgraded
in-place, but the lack of a separate partition
for /home makes the task more difficult.
limit for a single file, especially if you are
using a FAT filesystem on the external
drive. So we pass the output through the
split command to break it up into 1GB
chunks. You can unpack the backup once
you have installed the new OS like this:
$ cat /media/external/backup.tar.* | sudo
tar -x -C /
Here we join the chunks together with
cat and pipe it to tar, which uses the -x
option to extract the archive, while the
-C / argument tells it to unpack to the root
of the filesystem.
This will cover all of your personal files
and settings. If you want to backup global
settings and data, such as files in /etc or
databases in /var/lib (you’ll know if you
need these), just back them up to your
/home directory before performing the
above backup and restore commands,
then restore them after booting into the
new system.
get helP now!
We’d love to try and answer any questions
you send to lxf.answers@futurenet.com,
no matter what the level. We’ve all been
stuck before, so don’t be shy. However, we’re
only human (although many suspect Jonni
is a robot), so it’s important that you include
as much information as you can. If
something works on one distro but not
another, then tell us. If you get an error
message, please tell us the exact message
and precisely what you did to invoke it.
If you have, or suspect, a hardware
problem, let us know about the hardware.
Consider installing hardinfo or lshw. These
programs list the hardware on your
machine, so send us their output. If you’re
unwilling, or unable, to install these, run the
following commands in a root terminal and
send us the system.txt file too.
uname -a > system.txt
lspci >> system.txt
lspci -vv >> system.txt
www.linuxformat.com
The home of technology

techradar.com
DISCOVER THE ALTERNATIVE
TO APPLE AND WINDOWS
Take complete control of your computer by learning how to choose, control and
use a version of Linux that is tailored just for you

ON SALE
NOW

Ordering is easy. Go online at:

www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
Or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents
 reviews
Happy Hacking Keyboard
Professional 2
Neil Mohr is no hacker, but he does type a lot…

hen you’re sitting at a computer

in brieF
There’s an
W terminal for most of your day,
the primary input becomes
awful lot of really quite vital. So it didn’t come much
competition at of a surprise to discover Japanese PFU,
this end of the a part of Fujitsu, is targeting the hacking
market for both community with its ever-so Asian sounding
full-sized and Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2. That’s Can you see what’s
compact something of a mouthful for what is designed to be a on each key? No,
keyboards, diminutive, 60% portable keyboard for any self- we can’t either.
so anything proclaimed hacking type. In reality, it’s slightly annoying.
pushing Both myself and Jonni agree the key movement
premium and feel is lovely. This isn’t a Cherry-style mechanical
pricing is going keyboard; it uses Torpe rubber domes, which offer
to need to be a softer, less clicky action than the popular gaming
slick in every keyboards that abound. The sound and action is good
department. and offers fast (for us) typing speed. We also really
appreciated the textured finish of the keys, which felt
like it helped our fingers land on the keys. Less helpful
was the black print on black keys, but we guess that’s around the USB ports – two USB ports offer a low-
part of the charm. power hub. The seam around the edge seems
You might be aware of the standard keyboard sizes: unnecessary, and the whole thing feels light and cheap
full, tenkey-less and compact. The full 104-key includes like a budget keyboard. We find it odd there’s no
a number pad, tenkey-less does away with that number backlight; while we’re no fans of RGB lighting, a backlit
pad and compact describes anything smaller than that. keyboard is useful in the dark rooms we like to hide in.
The HHKB falls into that latter range and is also known When you look at the asking price, the sales pitch
as a 60% – while many compact keyboards include for the HHKB just falls on its face. Surely this is a £40
dedicated cursor keys, the HHKB does not. keyboard, not a £185 one? The price makes some sense
A ‘function’ key helps mitigate missing additional in regards to the high-end custom keyboard market,
keys such as the cursor keys, but we can’t help feel we’d where 60% keyboards, replaceable keycaps and £200
always prefer a set of the useful arrows to hand, prices are the norm – but we’re certainly not in that
perhaps just where that HHKB logo is planted. market and we’re not even sure this is really polished
It’s reassuring to see a genuine Super key rather enough to compete there.
than a Windows or Mac key. A panel at the rear of
keyboard hides a set of DIP switches – crudely
integrated behind a cheap-feeling clip – that enables
verDict
you to enable various options such as selecting Mac DevelopeR: PFU
mode and enabling the single Delete key to double Web: www.hhkeyboard.com
as a Backspace. pRice: £185
We consider the
finishing to be The build quality also leaves something to be
lacking on a desired, especially the DIP switch panel and the finish Features 7/10 ease oF use 7/10
£200 keyboard. PerFormance 8/10 value 5/10

If you have £200 to splash on a keyboard we’d suggest there

are better places to look – this simply lacks polish.

Rating 7/10

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 19

Reviews Linux distribution

Slax 9.8
Once the apple of Mayank Sharma’s eye, can the back-from-dead
distro manage to retain its charm despite all the changes?
or a long time Slax was the
in brief
The once-
f de facto distribution for
bootable USB disks. Back
popular then, the lightweight distro was
miniscule based on Slackware, but was still
distribution relatively easy to customise.
designed for Then, as with many one-man
removable projects, it stopped receiving updates
devices such as and has been dormant for several
USB drives was years. Now in its second innings, the
dormant for distro has undergone a dramatic
several years, change with the move to Debian, yet
and came back retains all the features that made it
to life re-based stand out from the swathe of Live
on Debian’s USB distros.
Stable branch Slax is available for both 32-bit Slax doesn’t have traditional support options, but its custom scripts have enough documentation
(Stretch) and 64-bit machines and its ISO to make first-time users welcome.
instead of weighs in under 300MB. The distro
Slackware. is getting regular updates and is gradually taking on new /media/sdb2/custom.sb saves all changes into the
It still packs features, the majority of which are behind the scenes and custom.sb module inside the external storage. This
in a graphical focused on improving compatibility with modern module can then be put on the USB along with the other
desktop and hardware. For instance, the previous version improved modules, or can be used to generate a new Slax ISO.
a handful of compatibility with new USB devices, and shaved a Slax’s developer has written scripts to reduce this
essential apps, handful of megabytes from the ISO image by using 1MB process to a single command. On a related note, the only
but can be blocks to compress the SquashFS filesystem instead of new feature in the 9.8 release is the possibility to exclude
easily fleshed the previous 512K blocks. core Slax modules when rebuilding a new ISO.
out using Slax has a unique mechanism for installing onto a Slax also includes a PXE server that can again be
Debian’s USB disk. Instead of dd-ing the ISO to a USB stick, you activated with a single script. You can test this feature
package need to loopback-mount it and copy its contents to a in VirtualBox by attaching the NIC of the Slax VM to the
management ext4-formatted disk. Then run a script from inside the internal network. Once the PXE server is running, any
system. USB to make it bootable, and you’re good to go. other VM that’s connected to the internal network and set
The distro offers three boot options. By default it to boot from the network will boot into Slax by grabbing
boots with the persistence option to save any changes the Slax modules over the network.
made in the Live environment. You can optionally Despite all the changes, Slax has managed to retain its
choose to boot into the factory environment by disabling edge. It’s lightweight, fast and easily customisable.
persistence. The third option runs the Live environment Behind the scenes, its developer is toiling hard to make it
entirely from RAM. It’ll perform a lot better than the compatible with a large amount of modern hardware. If it
previous options, but will only work on machines that continues on its current trajectory, it won’t be long before
have an adequate amount of memory. the distro reclaims the top spot among the portable Live
Despite its miniscule size, Slax boots to a graphical USB distros.
desktop sporting the lightweight Fluxbox window
manager. The desktop runs Slax’s homegrown and very
minimalist xlunch application launcher that weighs in at
VerDiCT
only 25K. The headline feature of the distro, however, is DevelopeR: Tomas Matejicek
its modular architecture. Everything in Slax, from the core Web: www.slax.org
components to the web browser, is a module that users licence: Several
can enable or disable on the fly as needed. This makes it
fairly simple to customise the distro to suit your needs. feaTureS 9/10 eaSe of uSe 8/10
Any changes you make to the distro, such as altering PerformanCe 9/10 DoCumenTaTion 8/10
the wallpaper or apt-get-ing new apps, are automatically
saved if you’re using the distro from a writeable medium The minimalist distro hasn’t lost its charms and is in our
such as a USB disk. If you’re running Slax from a non- opinion still the best option for lugging a USB Linux.
writeable medium like a CD or have disabled persistence,
you can still save your customisations by rolling them into Rating 8/10
a module. A simple command like savechanges

20 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Linux distribution Reviews

refracta 9.0
A Devuan-based distro doesn’t particularly excite Mayank Sharma, but
this one comes with a bunch of interesting tweaks and custom scripts.
here aren’t many desktop
in brief
Refracta is a
T distros based on Debian’s
systemd-free Devuan fork.
regular desktop But what makes Refracta interesting
distro that has are its custom scripts and packaging
a bunch of policy. It’s based on the latest
customised Devuan 2.0 ASCII release, it’s
tools to help available for both 32-bit and 64-bit
you install and machines and its selection of pre-
customise the installed apps make it an ideal
distro, and lightweight distro for daily use.
eventually roll Refracta uses the Xfce desktop,
your own Live the CLI-based Mutt as the default
ISO that you email client, and Abiword for word
can carry on processing. One of the highlights
a bootable of the distro is that its desktop is
USB stick. installed as individual packages Refracta’s scripts would be nicely complemented by a stripped-down flavour of the distro that
rather than a metapackage. This users could flesh out as needed.
makes it easier to customise their
installation by removing individual parts without affecting utility also has several tweakable parameters for
other parts of the desktop. So for instance, you can advanced users. First-timers can stick with the defaults
remove Xfce’s Thunar file manager without zapping the to generate a custom ISO to mirror their modified
entire desktop environment, and replace it with another installation. The script works flawlessly, and spits out
one like PCManFM. the ISO as promised.
Besides these, it’s a fairly standard collection of apps The third custom script is Refracta2usb, which helps
that’ll satisfy all kinds of users. Users will appreciate the make a bootable USB drive. Unlike other similar utilities,
fact that the Firefox ESR release is equipped with the this script can do a lot more than just transfer an ISO
HTTPS Everywhere and NoScript add-ons. One image to a disk. It can also create a bootable USB directly
interesting app that we particularly like is FireMenu, a from a running Refracta instance! The running instance
graphical application menu for Firejail. The app, placed has to be either from a Live CD or a Live USB and not
prominently in the top panel, presents a list of apps that from an installed instance of Refracta. Again, this option
when selected are launched in a Firejail sandbox. will also roll all the changes you’ve made to the running
FireMenu is fairly easy to operate and you can easily instance into the bootable USB. The script also gives you
customise its list of apps. While we had no issues running options to create a persistence partition that can be
apps like Firefox, GIMP and Audacious in the sandbox, the optionally encrypted for added security.
entry for MPV got us nowhere. As a desktop, Refracta doesn’t offer much to write
The main draw of the distro are its custom scripts. home about: it’s a pretty standard Xfce distro with some
First up is Refracta Installer, for anchoring the distro to esoteric app choices. What made us take notice are its
your hard disk. It’s a graphical installer that’s unlike any custom scripts. They are very useful and work as
we’ve encountered, with lots of tickboxes and pop-ups. advertised to help you package your customisations.
Its dexterity will appeal to advanced users, though it
comes with enough adequate defaults to be usable in
the hands of first-timers as well. There isn’t a dedicated
VerDiCT
partitioning tool, though, and this crucial task is instead DevelopeR: fsmithred
deferred to Gparted. Web: https://refracta.org
The installer is constantly evolving and taking on new licence: DFSG-compatible licences
features. The latest version that comes with this release
supports GPT disks and full-disk encryption. Another feaTures 9/10 ease of use 8/10
unique and interesting aspect of the installer is that PerformanCe 9/10 DoCumenTaTion 8/10
instead of anchoring the stock environment, it transfers
the Live environment along with any modifications, The stock Refracta isn’t really impressive, but its scripts make
including changes to the configuration and the app the distro worth checking out.
selection. Once you’ve installed a modified Refracta you
can easily convert it into an installable ISO image with the Rating 8/10
Refracta Snapshot script. Like the installer, the snapshot

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 21

 TRY 5 ISSUES FOR £5 *

BIG SAVINGS ON OUR BEST-SELLING MAGAZINES

SAVE SAVE SAVE
85% 83% 83%

SAVE SAVE SAVE

82% 83% 80%

For great savings on all of our magazines, see the entire range onlline
myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/spring192

Order Hotline 0344 848 2852

*TERMS AND CONDITIONS: The trial offer is for new UK print subscribers paying by Direct Debit only. Savings are compared to buying full priced print issues. You
can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within 14 days of purchase. Payment is non-refundable after the 14 day cancellation period unless exceptional
circumstances apply. Your statutory rights are not affected. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. Full details of the Direct Debit guarantee are
ƏɮƏǣǼƏƫǼƺɖȵȒȇȸƺȷɖƺɀɎِÈkƬƏǼǼɀɯǣǼǼƬȒɀɎɎǝƺɀƏȅƺƏɀȒɎǝƺȸɀɎƏȇƳƏȸƳˡɴƺƳǼǣȇƺȇɖȅƫƺȸɀ٢ɀɎƏȸɎǣȇǕ‫׏׎‬Ȓȸ‫א׎‬٣ȒȸƏȸƺǣȇƬǼɖƳƺƳƏɀȵƏȸɎȒǔƏȇɵǣȇƬǼɖɀǣɮƺȒȸǔȸƺƺȅǣȇɖɎƺɀ
ƏǼǼȒɯƏȇƬƺɀ٢ǣǔȒǔǔƺȸƺƳƫɵɵȒɖȸȵǝȒȇƺɎƏȸǣǔǔ٣ِIȒȸǔɖǼǼɎƺȸȅɀƏȇƳƬȒȇƳǣɎǣȒȇɀȵǼƺƏɀƺɮǣɀǣɎ‫ي‬ƫǣɎِǼɵٖȅƏǕɎƏȇƳƬِ…ǔǔƺȸƺȇƳɀ‫׏ב‬ɀɎxƏɵ‫ِח׏׎א‬
 Linux distribution Reviews

Linux Kodachi 6.0

Distros with grandiose claims don’t really impress Mayank Sharma,
but he’s in for a surprise with this one…
eighing in at 2.4GB, Kodachi
in brief
This Xubuntu
W is one of the heaviest Xfce-
wielding distros we’ve come
18.04-based across. But boot it up and you’ll
distro has the realise its choice of the lightweight
rather grandiose desktop is meant to keep resources
aim to be free for the other intensive tasks that
secure, anti- run in the background.
forensic and For a smooth experience it’s best
anonymous, to run Kodachi on a multi-core
and employs machine with at least 4GB of RAM.
several While you can install it via the
mechanisms to cosmetically modified Ubiquity
this end. It uses installer, it’s best to run the distro
a customised from a rewritable medium such as
Xfce desktop a USB disk. The distro’s boot menu Kodachi is flexible enough to allow for modifications to the default security mechanisms
in order to be lists an option to boot with a including the ability to switch to a different VPN provider.
resource- persistent partition, but getting it to
efficient, and work requires some fiddling around. There’s also an including the ability to create a nuke password to destroy
provides access option to boot with an encrypted persistent partition, but your installation in case you are forced to log into it
to a wide variety the release notes cast a shadow of doubt on the against your will (damn management–Ed) for any reason.
of security and functionality, and we couldn’t get it to work either. In addition to Tor and VPN, the distro includes well-
privacy tools The distro boots into a heavily modified Xfce desktop known cryptographic and privacy tools to encrypt all
while still being environment that displays tons of useful information your offline files, emails and instant messaging. There’s
intuitive. about the system directly on the desktop via Conky an entire suite of privacy-protection tools including
applets, including the status and IP address of the VPN, VeraCrypt, zuluCrypt, KeePassXC and more. It also
Tor IP, CPU usage, memory and traffic data. We found it includes Firejail, which enables you to run several desktop
was best to use a wired connection to get online with apps inside sandboxed environments. The distro caters
Kodachi. With the Ethernet plugged in, Kodachi to all sorts of users and includes many mainstream open
automatically takes the necessary steps to ensure your source apps for everything from handling office
access to the internet is completely masked. If you documents to playing all kinds of media. There’s also
connect via a Wi-Fi adapter you’ll first have to configure it the Synaptic package manager for adding apps.
to connect to the internet, which isn’t very intuitive. Kodachi might appear inundating to first-timers
Kodachi has several models for online anonymity. Go because of its very busy desktop. Its website isn’t
through the apps in the dock to ask Kodachi to route all completely bereft of documentation, but lacks pointers
traffic through a VPN, and then pass it through the Tor to help new and inexperienced users get started with the
network. For added security you can also ask it to encrypt distro. Once you get the hang of it, though, you’ll be
all DNS queries, and even set up a Tor-rified system to amazed at the level of privacy it ensures straight out of
pass all internet traffic via the Tor network. The dock also the box, and the amount of customisation it provides for
hosts a collection of tools to easily change identifying advanced users.
information such as the Tor exit country, as well as to
reset your DNS servers and more, all with a single click.
The distro includes a handful of browsers, such as the
VerDiCT
Tor browser, the Kodachi browser and a vanilla Firefox. DevelopeR: Warith Al Maawali
Using the Kodachi browser is recommended, but you can Web: www.digi77.com/linux-kodachi
make use of the others as well according to your purpose licence: Apache v2.0
for being online. All browsers are equipped with about a
dozen privacy- and security-enhancing extensions. feaTures 9/10 ease of use 5/10
Kodachi scores your setup depending on how you PerformanCe 8/10 DoCumenTaTion 6/10
have configured it to route internet traffic. You can follow
the recommendations of the evaluation app to increase Perhaps the best bet for privacy-conscious users who want
the score and make your system more secure in the to completely mask their online presence.
process. One of the most interesting collections in the
dock is ‘Panic Room’, which gives access to some of Rating 7/10
Kodachi’s unique privacy-enhancing techniques,

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 23

Reviews First person shooter

Dusk
Management are nervous again, as Ian Birnbaum appears to
be ignoring their memo not to go in the ruins…
here we were, just about hip-
SPECS
T
Heed the chilling cry of “Get
deep in corpses and spent orrrrf ov moi laaaaand!”
Minimum: shotguns shells,
OS: Ubuntu when we read the writing on the wall.
12.04 64-bit Scrawled in blood, a message: “Don’t
CPU: 2.4GHz go in the ruins”. A raspy noise echoed
dual core behind us. It wasn’t quite an animal
MEM: 2GB sound, but it wasn’t human, either.
GPU: GeForce Turning, we found something much
9800GT or worse than a bad guy: a closed door
equivalent marked Ruins Access. The raspy
HDD: 2GB breathing came again from just
behind it. An actual chill ran down
Recommended: our collective back.
CPU: 2.4GHz Dusk is an homage to ’90s first-
quad-core person shooters such as DOOM,
Mem: 4GB Quake and Half-Life. It’s also a love letter to weird cultist of shooty monsters and bullets is to move, to run circles
GPU: Geforce horror genre films like The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas around the bad guys, kite them into big groups or toward
GTX 460 or Chain Saw Massacre. More importantly, it’s great. Dusk is explosive barrels, and shoot as fast as you can.
equivalent <expletive deleted> great. Speed is the first but not the only tool. Starting with
Notes: Don’t At the beginning of Dusk, you’re meat-hooked (at least a pair of sharp sickles and moving up through the
go in the ruins the third-worst way to wake up) and trapped in a hostile traditional FPS loadout closet, you shoot demons and
world, mostly unarmed. Like the ’90s shooters it draws bad guys with pistols, lever-action rifles, double-barrelled
inspiration from, the first tool Dusk gives players is speed. super shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and grenade
This is a game where pressing the Forward button zips launchers. The most unexpected weapon found so far
you along the ground, and, charmingly, bunny hopping was the Riveter, a bulky steel box that launches hot
adds momentum just like it used to in ye olden days. construction-grade welding rivets that, for some reason,
With a heavy W-finger and a lot of jumping, exploring the explode spectacularly. We’re not sure why a rivet driver
creepy farmhouses and industrial buildings of Dusk’s first might act this way – it seems counterproductive for
chapter felt like touring a retro videogame art museum on construction work – but it is extremely fun.
a motorcycle. The blocky graphics in Dusk are the most obvious
It’s not speed for speed’s sake; you’re moving fast throwback reference to the era of games it idolises, but
because it’s the only way to survive. There are a lot of dang if they don’t look great anyway. The sharp polygons
different enemies in Dusk, from possessed scarecrows to of enemy bodies might be two decades out of date, but
hooded Klansmen throwing dark magic, but almost all of modern lighting and particle effects did a lot to make us
them charge straight ahead with melee attacks or shoot feel interested in exploring, and blowing up, the world
swarms of projectiles at you. The variety of enemies, around us. The limited polygon count and low-res
some big, some small, shooting bullets that move at textures have a jagged, unreal quality that makes corn
So little time, different speeds, makes every fight a constantly changing mazes look creepy and country churches look properly
so much to kill. obstacle course. The only way to navigate a crowded field cursed by evil magicks.
The single-player portion of Dusk consists of three
campaigns. Starting from that first moment in a weirdo’s
murder-dungeon, you fight your way through farms,
industrial zones and apartment buildings until you’ve
completely wiped out the cultist and/or demon
population of Dusk, Pennsylvania. We’d honestly
expected Dusk to be a straightforward recreation of
’90s shooters, including a generic or non-existent story.
Instead, the biggest surprise for us was discovering a
genuinely interesting, gripping little horror story on offer.
This is where Dusk becomes more than a parody or
homage to a once-ubiquitous genre and starts kicking ass
on its own terms. The bare, pixelated corridors of yore
have been replaced by low-poly but recognisable and
memorable level and environment designs. DOOM, with
its limitations, offered a bare set of hallways, but in Dusk

24 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


This is actually what Jonni’s
mind looks like inside.
you fight bad guys in bars, bookshops, bedrooms, labs,
hay lofts, gas stations and convenience stores.
Dusk insists on using the classic trope of locked doors
and coloured keycards. Modern shooters have mostly left
that conceit behind because it makes players do a lot of
backtracking through empty levels. Distinct environments
filled with recognisable decorations like furniture go a
long way to keep you from getting lost, though; it’s
usually easy enough to recall that the Yellow Door is in
the bookshop and to find your way back there quickly
enough. Clever changes in geography, such as a floor
falling in or a hidden door opening, also help mix up
paths through levels.
More than that, developer David Szymanski has a
talent for environmental storytelling that goes way
beyond the tableaus in games from much larger studios.
Once, while venturing through a pitch-black subterranean
jail with a torch, we were hit from behind. Turning the
cone of our torch revealed… well, that would spoil the
surprise, but read with the light from our torch there was
another message in blood: “Don’t trust your eyes”. This
moment of discovery, and the sensation that the game
was toying with us, was better than any dozen skeletons
we’ve discovered in post-apocalyptic Fallout toilets.
Each level is surprisingly compact, using those colour-
coded locks to send players running back and forth
across relatively small spaces. Still, every area is full of
tiny corners and hidden walkways. Sometimes, but not
always, pressing a piece of wall opens a hidden door, or
shooting an air grate blows open a secret passage.
Without rushing, the average level takes about 12 minutes
to finish. These bite-sized little pieces of mayhem and
action make it really easy to pick it up and put it down a
few minutes later, and the built-in level timers are great
for speedrunners.
Why the long face?
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
First person shooter Reviews
Dusk’s soundtrack is phenomenal. It’s got a heavy A return to Return
metal flavour that instantly makes you think of DOOM – to Ravenholm.
so it’s no surprise that it was written by Andrew Hulshult,
the composer behind Brutal DOOM and Quake
Champions. It really is a stunner, and it’s also got a
relentless, driving quality that reminded us more of Mad
Max: Fury Road than the Rip & Tear track from DOOM.
The multiplayer mode is a more direct throwback to
the original Quake, and wasn’t as successful at grabbing
our attention. The high-speed bunny-hopping makes
aiming at human opponents much more challenging than
single-player modes, though fans of old-school Quake
deathmatches will enjoy searching levels and memorising
spawns for the strongest weapons. Matchmaking was fast
and rounds start with very little down time. The guns still
feel punchy, and the arenas use a lot of vertical space to
bring battles way above and below ground level.
To be clear, the multiplayer is completely fine. But
when the single-player is this good, a fine multiplayer
mode is a bit a of a let-down. Multiplayer lacks the careful
reinvention, the painstaking spiritual reimagination that
the single-player mode captures so effectively.
Dusk is brilliant because it understands that replaying
those old games is frequently kind of a let-down. Half-Life
is a classic, but playing it today shows how different parts
of it haven’t aged well; the graphics are barer than your
memories, and the animations are more stilted. It was
groundbreaking, but it’s just not as fun as it was when it
first blew our collective minds in 1998. Dusk captures how
those ’90s games feel now in our minds, tinted by
20 years of rose-coloured memories. It shouldn’t be
possible, and it’s a remarkable achievement.
VERDICT
DEvElOPER: David Szymanski
WEB: https://newblood.games
PRICE: £15
GamEPlay 9/10 lonGEVITy 9/10
GRaPhICS 8/10 ValuE 9/10
An obsessively tuned, finely crafted shooter that more than
recreates the speed and pure joy of ’90s classics.
Rating 8/10
May 2019 LXF249 25
SUBSCRIBE Save money today!

SUBSCRIBE!
Sign up today and get your
SoundMAGIC e11c
earphones YOUR
GIFT!
WORTH
£50
Don’t miss out,
subscribe now!

“A great pair of
affordable in-ear
te
headphones, comple
with remote
and mic”

IT’S EASY TO SUBSCRIBE!

www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/lin/e11c
Call: 0344 848 2852
26 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com
 Overseas
subs on
p67

PLUS: Exclusive access to 1

the Linux Format subs area!

1) Only available to MyFavouriteMagazines.co.uk subscribers.

1,000s of DRM-free
PDF back issues and
articles! Get instant
access back to issue
66 (May 2005) with
INCLUDES
tutorials, interviews,
ars
Now with 5 ye
of Linux User & features and reviews.
Developer
issues At linuxformat.com

CHOOSE YOUR PACKAGE!

PRINT EDITION DIGITAL EDITION PRINT + DIGITAL

PLUS! PLUS!
Every issue comes with a 4GB DVD The cheapest way to get Linux Get both the print & digital
packed full of the hottest distros. Plus Format. Instant access on your editions + DVD, for one low price. Plus
your SoundMAGIC e11c earphones iPad, iPhone and Android device. your SoundMAGIC e11c earphones

Only £76 Only £25 Only £90

Annual print by Direct Debit Every six months by Direct Debit Annual bundle by Direct Debit

*Terms and conditions: This offer is only available for new UK subscribers. Gift is subject to availability. Please allow up to 60 days for the delivery of
your gift. In the event of stocks being exhausted we reserve the right to replace with items of similar value. Prices and savings quoted are compared
to buying full-priced print issues. You will receive 13 issues in a year. You can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within 14 days of
purchase. Payment is non-refundable after the 14-day cancellation period unless exceptional circumstances apply. UK calls will cost the same as
other standard fixed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) or are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone
tariff). For full terms and conditions please visit: www.bit.ly/magterms. Offer ends 31 May 2019.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 27

We compare tons of stuff so you don’t have to!

Roundup
Clonezilla Deepin Clone
G4L WereSync
FOG Project
Shashank
Sharma
By day Shashank
is a New Delhi trial
lawyer, but by
night he’s an open
source vigilante!

Disk cloning tools

Need to provision a lab full of PCs? The ever lethargic Shashank Sharma
tests the best tools to get the job done without breaking into a sweat.

how we teSted…

A disk cloning tool requires

quite a bit of hardware to be
tested effectively, particularly
hard disks. This is why virtual
hardware is ideal for testing
their capabilities. For this
Roundup we’re using several
virtual machines with multiple
hard disks of various sizes.
We’ll use them to image a
small disk to a large one, which
is one of the most popular uses
of a disk cloning tool.
Secondly, we’ll clone a large
disk with lots of empty space
to a smaller one with enough
room to accommodate the
used sectors of the larger
disk. The Clonezilla, G4L and
FOG Project tools have been
tested on Manjaro, Fedora
and Ubuntu installations. anaging a network of computers is on one computer, and then automatically
WereSync was installed on
Manjaro and Deepin Clone
M an involved process. The constant
barrage of repetitive tasks such as
replicating the same setup on other
computers. The technique, also known as
was tested atop a Deepin 15.9 running checks, troubleshooting errors, ghosting or imaging, is used by system
installation for best results. replacing dead hard disks and doing fresh admins for rolling out multiple identical
The network-based FOG installations over and over again can sap the machines over the network.
Project was installed on a energy out of any system admin, irrespective The cloning tools on test here are a
Ubuntu Server installation as of the size of your realm. Even before you can blessing for harried admins who want to put
per its documentation. tackle the problem of actively monitoring the their feet up every now and then. With these
machines, you have to install an operating tools you can image and clone machines
system on each of them. This is a time- without breaking into a sweat. We’ll look at
consuming task even for a small network tools that, besides cloning, will also help take
with, say, 10 computers. the pain out of everyday admin tasks such as
Computer cloning involves setting up the installing software, and can scale up to work
operating system, drivers, software and data over large networks and multiple locations.

28 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Cloning
flexibility
Do they offer enough options to
meet your cloning requirements?
lonezilla offers a lot of control over the cloning process.
C You can use it to clone individual partitions or complete
disks, or to clone the disk or partitions to an image –
which can then be saved to another locally attached disk, or even
a removable drive. Rather than cloning to an image, Clonezilla can
also directly clone the disk or a partition to another disk or
partition. Although this process worked for us when cloning entire
disks, we wouldn’t recommend it and would rather suggest you
go via the imaging route, which is a lot safer and offers far more
flexibility than direct disk-to-disk cloning.
Much like Clonezilla, G4L has a very verbose interface, which
gives you several options to help fine-tune settings when creating
and restoring images. Like Clonezilla, you can use G4L in
separate modes, with the RAW mode that can clone all types
of disks and partitions being the most useful. You can save the
images locally or across the network via FTP, SSH, SMB or NFS.
For the impatient, G4L also offers the option to directly clone a
drive without imaging it first.
Unlike the previous programs, FOG Project doesn’t work as a
Live CD and thus has a different cloning mechanism. When you
use FOG Project to image a computer, it offers plenty of options,
with various fields to describe the host images. It can also
arrange the images into groups for easier management. There
are also several options to schedule the imaging process, if you
Other custom
parameters
Do they offer any supplementary
options to assist with cloning?
part from presenting you with a list of disks and partitions
A to clone, Clonezilla also gives you options to compress
them using multiple compression algorithms, and even
optionally encrypt the cloned images for added security. A major
step in the cloning process is to select the storage location of the
cloned images, and Clonezilla enables you to save them to a locally
attached disk or on another computer via the network.
G4L has a huge list of menus that help you with each step. You
can earmark the partitions or disks you want to image, name the
image, select the compression algorithm and more. G4L will help
you transfer images to remote destinations on the network, and
you can also split them up for easier storage on smaller drives.
You can create several different tasks for any of the hosts in
FOG Project’s repository. You can run the Debug task which boots
a Linux image to a Bash prompt for fixing any boot errors. You can
also create a task to remote wipe hosts, to recover files with
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Disk cloning tools roundup
Direct disk-to-disk cloning options are faster than going via the image route,
but come with certain amount of risk and don’t offer the same flexibility.
don’t wish to image them immediately. WereSync, meanwhile, is
a Python script that has a graphical interface and is designed for
regular users. The utility only offers direct drive-to-drive cloning,
instead of the more popular and safe drive-to-image cloning
option offered by the others.
Deepin Clone’s primary option is also a direct clone from one
disk to another, although it does offer the option to clone and
restore via an image too. The app enables you to clone complete
disks as well as individual partitions. Note however that it cannot
clone mounted partitions, nor can it save images on the same
partition or disk it is cloning. It also doesn’t offer any options to
compress, split or encrypt the cloned image.
VErdICT
ClonEzIllA 8/10 G4l 8/10
dEEpIn ClonE 5/10 WErESynC 6/10
FoG projECT 8/10
They all offer enough dexterity for imaging a disk or partition.
With FOG Project you can also track a user’s access to their computers, and shut
down the machines after a specified period of inactivity.
TestDisk, or to scan for viruses with ClamAV. The FOG Project
server can also install and manage printers on the network. FOG
Project can also install and uninstall apps via snapins.
Both WereSync and Deepin Clone offer very limited functionality
and are less flexible than the others.
VErdICT
ClonEzIllA 8/10 G4l 8/10
dEEpIn ClonE 4/10 WErESynC 5/10
FoG projECT 9/10
The app-based options fare poorly in terms of imaging dexterity.
May 2019 LXF249 29
roundup Disk cloning tools

Usability
What makes them
stand out? Clonezilla 8/10 deepin Clone 8/10
Clonezilla is one of the most If there’s one area where Deepin Clone
nlike desktop apps, disk recommended tools on Linux forums for trumps the rest of the competition, it’s

u cloning tools are administrative

software and you’d expect
them to sacrifice a certain amount of
user-friendliness in order to make room
for advanced functions and features.
That being said, while we don’t expect
these tools to have point-and-click
usability, a certain amount of
intuitiveness will surely make them
more approachable.
We are in no way expecting these
tools to cater to a non-technical
audience that doesn’t know what they
are getting into, but having a logically
laid-out interface with a clear path of
progression will go a long way to getting
the most out of the tools. Ease of
deployment and reasonable defaults
are the icing on the cake, and while they
aren’t all that critical to selecting a good
administrative tool, they can’t really
hurt its chances.
imaging an old disk to a bigger, new disk
thanks to its ncurses-based frontend,
which is intuitive (Really?–Ed) to navigate.
In the background, Clonezilla uses a set of
scripts with several open source disk
utilities such as Partimage, ntfsclone,
Partclone and dd to help you duplicate
individual partitions and complete disks.
The menus offer sensible defaults so
you’ll likely go with the recommended
options most of the time. Just make sure
that the partition to be cloned isn’t
mounted. Also, despite its unglamorous
text-based interface, Clonezilla isn’t
intimidating because of its very verbose
screens. Each step is dotted with relevant
information to help you make an informed
choice. Still, Clonezilla isn’t something to
be approached without adequate
knowledge and experience.
usability: the app really is as simple as
they come.
On the first screen, it asks you to select
whether you wish to clone a complete or
individual partitions. Depending on the
selection, it’ll bring up another set of
options to help you narrow down the disk/
partition you want.
On the following screen you’re shown a
list of disks or partitions. Unlike some of
the other options on test here, if you’ve
selected the option to clone partitions, the
app won’t let you clone multiple partitions
in one go. Also, its default mode of cloning
is a direct disk-to-disk or partition-to-
partition, which is rather unsafe and
something we’d never recommend doing.
In addition, to use Deepin Clone to image
the current installation, you’ll have to run
it via Deepin Recovery.

Supported filesystems
Will they work across all machines in your network?
lonezilla supports a wide number of filesystems, from In contrast, there isn’t much information on the internet

C popular ones like ext2/3/4, ReiserFS4, Btrfs, FAT16/32

and NTFS to specialised ones like XFS, JFS and UFS.
about the way that Deepin Clone works, and it doesn’t offer any
configurable parameters that would hint at the filesystems it
But that doesn’t mean it’s totally unusable for unsupported supports. In our tests, however, it worked on both ext4 and NTFS
filesystems. For those it supports, Clonezilla images only the partitions.
used blocks for greater restore functionality. If it runs into a In contrast to its peers, WereSync uses rsync to copy the
filesystem it doesn’t understand, Clonezilla uses dd to image the contents of the drive, and can image the contents of GPT, MBR
contents as-is, and can restore these easily to equal-sized disks. and LVM drives. According to the official documentation, you can
Much like Clonezilla, G4L works in two modes. There’s the even force the tool to copy the contents of a drive to a file by
filesystem level where it uses utilities such as NTFSclone and specifying the IMG extension type.
FSArchiver to directly clone supported filesystems, including
virtually all the popular ones. If you work with esoteric filesystems VErdICT
or need to clone entire disks, you can use G4L in RAW mode to
copy all bits of any file system. ClonEzIllA 9/10 G4l 9/10
FOG Project uses both PartImage and PartClone in the dEEpIn ClonE 5/10 WErESynC 5/10
background, so it supports all the popular filesystems. The FoG projECT 9/10
Imaging section also enables you to create a sector-by-sector All these tools give you decent mileage so long as you’re working with one of
image of the drive using dd. the popular filesystems.

30 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Disk cloning tools roundup

FoG Project 8/10 G4L 8/10 wereSync 6/10

FOG Project has a much more involved
installation process than the other
solutions here. Unlike Clonezilla and G4L,
you first need to set up an imaging server.
While the initial deployment might be
time-consuming, FOG Project’s web
interface makes the effort worthwhile
since it can image and deploy multiple
computers simultaneously with ease.
FOG Project’s web interface is fairly
intuitive for anyone who is familiar with
the intricacies of the imaging process. The
menus are arranged in a logical fashion
and first time users should have no issues
navigating it. The setup is scalable as well,
and you can set up dedicated storage
nodes which can help take the load off
the main FOG Project server, if you have to
host and deploy images to a large number
of computers. You can use the web
interface to manage all imaged computers
as well as their cloned images.
As with Clonezilla, the interface of the G4L
Live CD is text-based and written in
ncurses. This one, however, is much more
verbose. The process of creating and
restoring images takes you through
several wizards, each of which is loaded
with quite a number of steps. Unlike
Clonezilla, G4L ships with four different
kernels so you’ll first have to select the
one based on your hardware. If you’re
using G4L on an older machine, use an
older kernel for greater compatibility.
Upon booting, the Live environment will
first display some basic usage information
spread across multiple pages. Advanced
users can then either issue a cloning or
restoration command directly, or use the
interface to construct the command using
the various menus. As you step through
each screen, G4L brings up another
screen asking for more relevant options
to complete the task.
Installing WereSync is fairly
straightforward since you can grab it from
Python’s PIP package manager with a
single command. You can then fire up the
graphical interface which is fairly intuitive,
although there are some options that
don’t immediately make sense.
A quick scroll through the
documentation is advisable to familiarise
yourself with the peculiarities of the tool.
Some of the options also have a brief
explanation built into the app itself.
Despite these avenues of help, it’s difficult
to differentiate between options that are
mandatory and optional, and the impact
that their inclusion or exclusion will have
on the cloning process.
Also disappointing is the lack of
meaningful errors. By default the app
is configured such that once begun, all
cloning tasks end with a success message,
even when the process has failed.

Help and support

Where do you go if you run into trouble?
lonezilla hosts a pretty comprehensive FAQ on its forum boards, and can even find its developers and seasoned

C website, which you should scroll through before

experimenting with the tool. You can also engage
users via its IRC channel.
Although it has a very intuitive interface, as we’ve said there
directly with Clonezilla’s developer via the official forum boards, isn’t much information available about Deepin Clone. It doesn’t
where he is fairly active. New users can also find getting started have any dedicated avenues of support besides the ones for the
information littered all over the web, including on YouTube. main distro.
The primary source of information about G4L is its verbose There are two parts to the WereSync tool, a command-line
interface. The project is hosted on SourceForge and besides the utility and a graphical one. The project’s webpage has adequate
built-in help, there’s little else on its website. G4L does have an information to orientate new users with both the utilities,
active forum where you can engage with the developer, who again including an in-depth explanation of all its CLI parameters.
is fairly active. Again, just like Clonezilla, G4L is fairly well-covered
and you can find lots of getting started information and tutorials VErdICT
all over the internet.
New users will be well taken care of by FOG Project. The ClonEzIllA 9/10 G4l 8/10
project has extensive documentation on its website including a dEEpIn ClonE 5/10 WErESynC 5/10
wiki and a detailed FAQ. There’s also an installation guide with FoG projECT 9/10
distro-specific installation notes. If you run into any trouble with While the mature tools don’t always have good documentation of their own,
your FOG Project installation you can get help from its very active you can find help elsewhere on the internet.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 31

roundup Disk cloning tools

Network use
Are these tools good for only imaging
local disks and partitions?
ou can use Clonezilla for multicast cloning via two

y available options. Clonezilla Server Edition requires

setting up a Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL)
server to broadcast images across the network. On a smaller
network, you can use the Clonezilla Lite Server mode on the
bootable CD to set up a temporary server. You can use the G4L Live CD to turn remote computers into receivers that’ll pull
You use Clonezilla to save the cloned image of a disk or the broadcasted images and restore them over the network.
individual partitions over the network. For this it can establish a
connection to the remote machine via SSH, or through an SMB, more network services such as DHCP and PXE servers, which are
NFS or WebDAV server. optional with the other tools. By contrast, neither Deepin Clone nor
Similarly, in addition to creating and restoring local images, WereSync offer any network awareness of their own. With Deepin
G4L also has impressive network capabilities. You can use it to Clone, though, you could obviously mount a remote computer in
backup/restore and image to/from a remote machine on the the local filesystem and point to it as the destination for saving the
network via various mechanisms, including FTP and UDPcast. image of a local disk/partition.
To use the latter, configure the Live environment to set up one
machine as a multicast server, which then broadcasts images VErdICT
stored locally or elsewhere on the network.
Unlike the other tools on test here, FOG Project is built from the ClonEzIllA 8/10 G4l 8/10
ground up to work over the network. It works best when it doubles dEEpIn ClonE 5/10 WErESynC 1/10
up as the DHCP and PXE server. All of FOG Project’s imaging tasks, FoG projECT 9/10
including capturing and deployment, are handled remotely over FoG project is designed from the ground up to reside on the network, while
the network. Unlike the other solutions it forces the use of a lot Clonezilla and G4l can be used to work across the network as well.

Deploying images
Putting the cloned images to use.
e wouldn’t fault you for thinking that the process for

W restoration would be the reverse of the imaging process

for each of the tools. But Deepin Clone and WereSync
will surprise you in this respect.
Clonezilla has a very straightforward process for restoring a
partition or an entire disk from a cloned image. You begin by first
selecting the repository that houses the cloned images. Next,
Clonezilla displays a list of all the unmounted partitions to which
you can restore the image.
After you’ve made your selection, Clonezilla wipes the partition
and creates a new partition table on the disk, so be careful with
this. Also keep in mind that the destination partition needs to be
equal to or larger than the source, as it can’t restore an image to
smaller disks.
When restoring with G4L, you must point the tool to the saved
image, followed by the location of the disk or partitions where you
want to restore the image. During our tests, while G4L certainly
began restoring a cloned image from a larger disk to a smaller
one, the process never completed successfully. On the other
hand, attempts at restoring images of a smaller disk to a larger
one went smoothly.
With FOG Project, you first need to register the target machine
with the server and then associate a cloned image with it. To do
the actual rollout, you’ll have to create a deploy image task before
the image is rolled over to the machine via PXE. The same
process works irrespective of whether you wish to deploy to a
single computer or multiple ones.
All tools can perfectly restore a smaller image to a larger disk, but only WereSync
promises to restore a larger image to a smaller disk.
To restore an image with Deepin Clone, all you have to do is
point the app to the image file along with the disk or partition you
want to restore it to. As with its cloning process, the restoration
doesn’t offer any configurable options.
By default, WereSync directly clones a drive to another, so
there’s no option for restoration. However, you can force the app
to image a drive by changing the destination to an IMG file. To
restore from this image, you’ll have to reverse the fields and
specify the IMG file as the source.
VErdICT
ClonEzIllA 8/10 G4l 8/10
dEEpIn ClonE 5/10 WErESynC 5/10
FoG projECT 9/10
They’re all well-matched, with the exception of WereSync and deepin Clone.

32 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Disk cloning tools roundup

Disk cloning tools

The Verdict

ith their varied ways of working, you can find a situation

W that’s best suited to each one of the tools featured here.

For instance, Deepin Clone is an ideal intuitive solution
for home users, which just works. But while the app is available
for non-Deepin distros such as Arch, we don’t feel comfortable
using it in any other distro.
WereSync is based on the venerable rsync utility and is the
only one that can clone a larger disk to a smaller one. It didn’t
make the podium on account of its direct disk-to-disk cloning 1st FoG Project 9/10
mechanism, which we dislike. Coupled with its limited dexterity
and sparse documentation, the program manages to reach the web: https://fogproject.org Licence: GPL v3
fourth spot at best. Version: 1.5.5
While advanced users will probably have no issues working A comprehensive imaging solution that works across networks of all sizes.
through G4L’s interface, first-time users will surely feel
inundated by all the options at their disposal. Critical 2nd Clonezilla 8/10
administrative software, such as disk cloning tools, require a
certain degree of comforting familiarity, and new users will take web: https://clonezilla.org Licence: GPL v2
quite some time to get there with G4L. Version: 2.6.0-37
All things considered, Clonezilla and FOG Project are the only A feature-rich tool that works with all the usual cloning use-cases.
viable options that also scale well. We can easily recommend
them to individual users for use on their home network, as well 3rd G4L 8/10
as to admins of larger networks.
While both do similar tasks, they go about it very differently. web: https://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l Licence: GPL v2
The most visible differences between the two solutions are their Version: 0.55
user interfaces and the fact that Clonezilla runs from a Live CD, Similar to Clonezilla, but loses out because of its cumbersome UI.
while FOG Project requires setting up a server. FOG Project is
also more comprehensive in that it can perform several tasks in 4th deepin Clone 5/10
addition to imaging, such as installing apps remotely in Windows
installation via a feature called snap-ins. web: www.deepin.org/en/original/deepin-clone
If your machines aren’t on a network, you’ll have no option Licence: GPL v3 Version: 1.1.0
but to use Clonezilla. Both solutions are on an equal footing in a Works as advertised but currently only caters to users of the Deepin distro.
networked environment, but Clonezilla’s network options make
the most sense in an environment like a library, where the 5th wereSync 4/10
remote clients don’t require much administration once they’ve
been imaged. If you need to look after machines once they’ve web: https://github.com/donyorM/wereSync
been cloned, there’s no better solution than FOG Project, as its Licence: Apache License 2.0 Version: 1.0
post-imaging options are excellent. Can clone disks, but its design and backend restricts its use cases.

AlSo ConSIdEr
Two of the tools featured in lXF in the past, but not included
this time around due to them not showing any signs of life, are
Redo Backup & Recovery and Mondo Rescue. The former is by
far the easiest bare-metal cloning option we’ve run into. Its
downside, however, is that it takes away a lot of the control
over the cloning process in lieu of convenience.
The only real alternatives for cloning disks besides the ones
we’ve already covered in the Roundup are the command-line
ones that do the grunt work in the background. The two that
are really worth mentioning are Partclone and FSarchiver.
They both support a large number of filesystem formats and
can quickly roll disks and partitions into movable archives.
The real CLI veterans, however, don’t need anything else
besides the venerable dd tool, which can be used to
effortlessly clone a disk or a partition with a single command.
You’ll need to know what you’re doing!

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 33

VOICE CONTROLLED
SMART
HOME
If you utter “Siri”, “Alexa” or “OK Google” in Jonni Bidwell’s
home, all the lights go off and the router disconnects.
ep, we’re pretty cynical about
Y voice assistants here at LXF
Towers. Our (nameless) sister
magazines rant and rave
about the latest Alexa additions and how
they make ordering tat from Amazon even
easier. They quietly forgive the chaos that
ensues when Siri’s name is spoken on the
television, as all the fruity phones within
earshot frantically start offering to help.
Tech pundits wax lyrical on the
importance of shoving a network stack
deep into every single appliance in your
34 LXF249 May 2019
house so that it can be ‘smart’, so that the
‘smart’ appliances can all chatter among
themselves about their dumb masters. If
you’re in the isolated enclave known as
the UK, your utility providers would dearly
love you to have smart meters installed.
They tell you this will help monitor your
usage, save money and not be subject to
wildly varying usage estimates. That may
be true in individual cases, though we bet
a lot of people will find their water bill
increasing post-smart meter. But mostly
it’s because they can generate more
profit by not having to pay people to drive
around reading meters. Instead they’ll
have to pay people to drive around fixing
them on a regular basis.
Be that as it may, voice assistants and
network gadgets are here to stay, and as
the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ’em,
make an open source equivalent and have
said equivalent control your home. So
here’s our guide to the FOSS-powered
smart home, featuring the Mycroft voice
assistant, openHAB, Home Assistant and
more. Let’s get to it…
www.linuxformat.com

Introducing Mycroft
A Pi-powered, friendly-looking home helper on the scene.
Actually, there are two – and you can use their code.
he Mycroft Mark 1 launched in 2016 and was
T powered by a Pi 2, but things have moved on
and it now ships with a Pi 3 at its heart. It’s a
stylish device, and with its friendly ET-style face you
could almost forgive it for listening in to all your living
room conversations. Actually, non-creepiness is part of
Mycroft’s design – any feature you find invasive or
unnecessary can be disabled thanks to its open source
nature. Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included site has a
favourable write-up at http://bit.ly/lxf249mycroft 1.
The Mark 1 device is still available for $180 (we
couldn’t find a source for it in the UK, unfortunately),
but it was always designed with hackers and hobbyists
in mind. A successor is on the way, and the Mark 2 will
be much more consumer-friendly (but sadly no longer
looks like ET), featuring a six-microphone array,
touchscreen and stereo speakers.
Don’t worry though, hackers will still be able to have
their wicked way with it. Mycroft is currently taking pre-
orders for the Mark 2, so if you’re tempted check it out
at http://bit.ly/lxf249mycroft2 2. Alternatively, you
can run Picroft, the same software that runs on the
Mark 1, on your own Raspberry Pi or Linux box. But first
some Mycroft etymology and terminology.
You probably already know that Sherlock Holmes
had an older brother called Mycroft. You may even be
aware that in Heinlein’s classic The Moon Is a Harsh
Mistress, the HOLMES FOUR computer that
accidentally became self-aware was named Mycroft,
shortened to Mike. In case you weren’t, that’s where
the Mycroft Home Assistant gets its name. Don’t worry
though, despite our best efforts we couldn’t get the
device to become sentient and at no point did we feel
threatened by Mycroft… but maybe that’s just what it
wanted us to think.
Scene-setting aside, you’ll want to get familiar
with the Mycroft nomenclature before you start
ensmartening your home, as some of can be a little
confusing at first.
Enclosure – Any device running Mycroft: this could
Set your physical location to ensure Mycroft knows where it is and
answers accordingly.
1) https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/products/mycroft-mark-1/
2) https://mycroft.ai/product/introducing-the-mycroft-mark-ii-pre-order/
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Open source smart home
be the Mark 1, a Pi or your Linux box.
Wake Word – The word that will prick
up Mycroft’s virtual ears. It will try to help
you with anything you say after this word.
Utterance – A command or question
directed at Mycroft.
Intent – A task the user intends to
accomplish; different utterances may have
the same intent. Mycroft uses a lightweight
intent parser called Adapt. A more complex,
neural-network-based parser, Padatious, The prototype
Mycroft Mark 2
is also available.
home assistant
Skill – A function that Mycroft performs in retains some of
response to an Utterance, this could be to relay some its predecessor’s
information, adjust the temperature on your smart charm, but looks a
thermostat, or to activate your home’s self-destruct little more like its
proprietary peers.
mechanism. The intent parser decides which Skill
should be used for a given query.
Fallback Skill – If the intent parser is unable to match
a skill to a given utterance, a general fallback
skill is used. Fallbacks skills for DuckDuckGo and the
Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine are included, which
can answer most general queries.
Mycroft has recently begun work on the CommonIoT
framework. We’ll make reference to a few different
frameworks in this feature, so you may be thinking, why
another one? Fair point. It’s precisely because there are
now so many partially interoperating ecosystems that
bridging layers are sometimes necessary.
The important thing is that CommonIoT is available
as a Mycroft skill, which enables different platforms to
be controlled consistently and saves skill writers having to
fight with natural-language coding.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Voice recognition is reasonably taxing CPU-wise, so you’ll need at
least a Pi 2 to run Picroft. Even that will struggle and the official word
(see https://mycroft.ai/documentation/picroft) is to use a Pi 3.
That way you also won’t have to worry about getting Wi-Fi working.
Since the Pi’s onboard audio doesn’t have any kind of analogue
input, you’ll need a USB microphone. We hit up our friends at
ModMyPi and got the reasonably fancy Seeed ReSpeaker mic-array,
which has four microphones so can determine the direction of an
audio source.
You’ll also need some kind of speaker; this could connect either to
the 3.5mm analogue output or via USB, or via HDMI if your display
has speakers. Bluetooth audio may work, but users (that’ll be me–
Ed) have reported problems with this, so it’s probably best avoided.
You’ll also need at least an 8GB SD card.
Mycroft will run quite happily on a desktop Linux box too, so long
as it has speakers, a microphone and a reasonably powerful CPU.
In fact it will even run on Android if you’re feeling adventurous.
May 2019 LXF249 35
Open source smart home
Installing Picroft, or Mycroft
Set up Mycroft on your Pi or Linux box and let amusing
human-computer voice interactions ensue.
he process of installing Picroft starts off the
T same way as installing Raspbian: writing an
SD card image. There are stable and unstable
versions available at https://github.com/MycroftAI/
enclosure-picroft. We’ll work with the stable image for
this tutorial, but do give the unstable one a shot later to
see some new features (and possibly bugs). Download
the image to your machine – any machine running any
OS; just be aware it’s 2.2GB zipped and 4.9GB
unzipped, so make sure you have enough space. The
image can be burned with a graphical program like the
multi-platform Etcher (https://etcher.io) or the old-
fashioned way using dd on Linux:
$ sudo dd if=raspbian-stretch_Picroft_2018-09-12.
img of=/dev/sdX status=progress bs=4K
replacing /dev/sdX with the appropriate device (the
lsblk command will help you figure this out if you’re
not sure). That will take some time to write, so now is a
great opportunity to make a cup of tea.
When it’s done, put the SD card into the Pi and fire it
up. You’ll need a display and keyboard connected to the
Pi to run the initial setup, but afterwards, these will not
be needed unless something goes wrong. On first boot
Picroft will resize its partition to use all available space
on the SD card. When it finishes booting a second time,
it will ask if you would like some help setting up your
system. Unfortunately, this help doesn’t include setting
up wireless networking, so you’ll need to say nay here,
unless you’re using a wired connection for your Pi.
If no network connection is found you’ll be
directed to a different script which will try to
sort this out. For the basic Wi-Fi case (WPA or
WPA2 with a password), just choose the first
option and enter your network’s SSID and
password. For more complicated setups use
option 3 to edit the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_
supplicant.conf file directly.
This is the screen
you’ll want to type
your registration
code into. We’re
pretty sure this one
will have expired by
press day.
36 LXF249 May 2019
The Mycroft CLI should start and you should be able
to pair your Pi to Mycroft Home, which we’ll get to in a
minute. First though, you’ll want to set up your
microphone and speakers via the setup wizard. Exit the
CLI by typing :quit then restart the setup wizard with:
$ mycroft-setup-wizard
First choose the sound output that best matches
your hardware: Analogue, HDMI or USB. Next, set the
desired audio level. If you’ve just plugged in a USB
speaker and aren’t getting any output, you may need
to reboot (by pressing R) for it to be picked up. Then
comes the microphone test; only a couple of USB mics
and the Google AIY kit are supported out of the box, but
other hardware (such as the Seeed ReSpeaker we used)
can be made compliant once the relevant drivers are
installed. Use option 4 to postpone setting this up if
your hardware needs further convincing.
Next you’ll be asked whether to auto-update the
master branch, which is a good thing to say yes to.
You’ll then be asked if you want to allow passwordless
sudo – the default behaviour, which is insecure
depending on who has access to your Pi. Finally you
have the option to change the default mycroft
password for the pi user, which you probably should
do. Setup then continues the same as on desktop, so
skip to the Creating a Mycroft Account section.
Mycroft on your desktop
For desktop Linux boxes, Mycroft provides a setup
script on GitHub that works on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora
and Arch. It can be made to work on other distros, but
some manual setup will be required – the script will tell
you which libraries are missing and your job will be to
find the packages containing those. Whatever distro
you’re running, you’ll need Git to fetch the script. Grab
it with:
$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-
core.git
$ cd mycroft-core/
Then have a look at the dev_setup.sh script because
it’s imprudent to run random things from the internet
that are going to ask for root privileges, even if the folks
at Mycroft are a trustworthy bunch. You’ll see that the
script sets up a virtual environment so as not to
interfere with your Python installation. Once you’re
happy the script is kosher, run it with:
$ ./dev_setup.sh
You’ll be asked which branch you want to check out.
The default master branch is considered more stable,
so go with this one first. Later, if you’re feeling
adventurous, you can try the development branch. Next
you should allow the script to automatically update the
repo, unless you have some reason not to. The next
question asks whether you want to build the Mimic TTS
www.linuxformat.com
 Open source smart home

(Text-to-speech) engine locally. This will take a long This means you can SSH into it from another
time on an older machine, but will be worth it if you machine with the following:
want Mycroft to talk to you during those dark times of $ ssh username@192.168.0.23
internet outage. Finally you’ll be asked whether to add If you’re talking to Picroft, the username
the Mycroft Helper command path to your profile; this will be pi and the password will no longer be
will make your life easier, so say yes here. All Mycroft mycroft because of course you diligently
commands begin with mycroft , so typing this then carried out our earlier instruction to change it
pressing Tab will help you manipulate it. You’ll be asked as soon as possible.
for a sudo password and then a quite considerable If the microphone level in the CLI doesn’t
number of packages will be downloaded and installed. respond, quit out of the CLI with Ctrl+C and The PS3 Eye works
You may see a warning about an outdated version of check the output of: out of the box with
Mycroft, even if
Pip (we noticed it on Ubuntu 18.04.2), but this is $ arecord -L
we are only using
apparently safe to ignore. If your mic is not detected, you will need to battle its PS3 ear. Image
Now we’re ready to run Mycroft for the first time, with sorting out your particular hardware – the fairly credit: Evan Amos/
which is done from the mycroft-core/ directory with ancient Playstation 3 Eye camera/mic is strongly public domain.
$ ./start-mycroft.sh debug recommended by the Mycroft team, and works out of
The debug option starts a command line interface the box. If on the other hand it is detected there, you
and shows extensive startup logs. Once everything’s may need to install and tweak Pulseaudio.
loaded, it will give you a unique six-character This is almost exclusively going to be a Pi issue since
registration code to pair this device with the Mycroft all major distros will have this already. It was necessary
Home service. Take a note of that because we’ll need it on our ReSpeaker HAT, so check the box below for
in a moment. There’s not a lot Mycroft can do until this some guidance. Bear in mind that you can always
pairing is complete. return to the CLI client with:
$ mycroft-cli-client
Creating a Mycroft account
Visit https://home.mycroft.ai, as the vocal prompts
should tell you if your speakers are working, to create SETTING UP THE RESPEAKER
an account from where your Mycroft devices can be
managed. Enter the pairing code and give your device The Seeed ReSpeaker 4-Mic Array Pi HAT is, as they say in the
a name and description. The CLI started earlier should business, a nifty bit of kit. As well as four microphones, it has twelve
acknowledge the new device, and you’ll be able to enter LEDs which can be used to indicate audio direction of arrival, or just
natural-language questions, commands (started with : to flash randomly and concerningly. It has GPIO and I2C connections
– type :help to see a list), or, audio setup permitting, so that other devices can be daisychained to it, or it can stack directly
speak directly to Mycroft through your microphone. onto Seeed’s GrovePi hub, allowing even more sensors to be
It will try to answer anything which you precede with connected. It uses the AC108 codec which at present isn’t supported
“Hey Mycroft”. by the Raspbian kernel, so we’ll need to install a custom one. Connect
At this point, you can continue with keyboard and to the Pi, either by SSH or keyboard, and quit the Mycroft CLI. Run
monitor plugged in, which is probably a good idea for the following commands:
the moment. However, if you’re planning on a headless git clone https://github.com/respeaker/seeed-voicecard.git
Mycroft Pi setup you’re going to be connecting to it cd seeed-voicecard
over SSH, so you may as well practise that now. You’ll sudo ./install.sh
need your Pi’s IP address, which you can either ask it The install script will chug along for a while, and eventually you’ll be
for directly or type: able to reboot and activate the new kernel with sudo reboot .
whats my ip address Reconnect if you were SSHing, then run sudo raspi-config to set
into the CLI – Mycroft doesn’t care about apostrophes, up the audio. Select ‘7. Advanced Options’, then ‘A4. Audio’, then
incidentally. It should respond vocally and output ‘1. Force 3.5mm jack’. Then reboot and enjoy.
something like If you run into difficulties you may need to install Pulseaudio and
>> My network I.P. address is 192 dot 168 dot 0 dot 23 restart Mycroft’s daemons, with:
$ sudo apt install pulseaudio
$ ./start-mycroft.sh all restart
If it still doesn’t work (and
remember, if in doubt a reboot
never hurts), the Pulseaudio
input device may need to be
changed. List the devices with
pactl list sources and then
change the default to match the
line beginning Name in the
output, with:
pactl set-default-source “alsa_
input.platform-soc_sound. The ReSpeaker is suitably equipped with
multichannel-input” twelve LEDs and four microphones. No
Mycroft’s glorious ASCII splash screen. Yet another opportunity for Cool turntables, though.
Retro Term to make an appearance.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 37

Open source smart home
ensmartening your home
We briefly connected Mycroft to LXF Towers’ notoriously decrepit central
heating via openHAB, but facilities manager Dave took a dim view of that…
esides being able to tell you your IP address,
B Mycroft comes with a default set of Skills
which enable it to answer vocal questions such
as: “What time it is?”, “What’s my location?” “What’s
the weather like?” or “What is the capital of Assyria?”.
Strangely, despite the Assyrian kingdom being no more,
the latter question was the only one it got right on our
first attempt – apparently Mycroft is not versed in
Monty Python. These failings were due to the Wolfram
Alpha fallback skill guessing our location and timezone
from our IP address, specifically our local one beginning
192, which belongs to no one and nowhere but which
control Your home devices
“One of the most popular skills for
Mycroft is openHAB, a platform for
talking to all kinds of home appliances
under a unified web interface”
for some reason Mycroft resolves to New York. This
conveniently derived the time to be five hours in the
past for us. You can change your location by setting
your location in your Mycroft Home profile. You can
also choose a username from here, to make logging in
to the web portal easier.
Mycroft’s core skills also include a basic Hello World
example, which responds to its title; “how are you”;
and, rather graciously, “thank you”. This is intended to
introduce people to programming their own skills. For
Mycroft knows its
onions, as well as
fun and games try asking it to sing a song or tell a joke.
its capital cities of You can also ask it how to spell words, to tell jokes or to
fallen kingdoms. check stock prices.
38 LXF249 May 2019
One of the most popular skills for Mycroft is openHAB
(Home Automation Bus), which is a platform for talking
to all kinds of home appliances under a unified web
interface. It can communicate with a multitude of
different devices, including other smart-home platforms
such as Nest. Third-party add-ons can be added via the
Eclipse Marketplace, which as we’ll see later enables us
to control the Hive smart thermostat, as used by British
Gas in the UK.
creatures of haBit
You can install the openHAB server on your Picroft
server or on a different machine. There’s a pre-rolled
image called openHABian that you can run on a
different Pi: check it out at http://bit.ly/lxf249hab.
On Ubuntu, or any Debian-like Linux, start by adding
the required GPG key and repo, as follows. To make
things easier, you can copy and paste this text from
http://bit.ly/lxf249hab2:
$ wget -qO - ‘https://bintray.com/user/downloadSu
bjectPublicKey?username=openhab’ | sudo apt-key
add -
$ echo ‘deb https://dl.bintray.com/openhab/apt-
repo2 stable main’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
openhab2.list
Next update the package lists and install openHAB:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install openhab2
You may also wish to install the openhab2-addons
package, but add-ons can always be installed
individually as needed from the openHAB web interface.
Instructions for other distros and unstable releases can
be found at http://bit.ly/lxf249hab2. Start openHAB
and check that it’s alive with
$ sudo systemctl start openhab2
$ systemctl status openhab2
Java is a harsh mistress
If that didn’t work it could be due to your system
missing a Java runtime. This is exactly what happened
to us on our overburdened Picroft host, and we
remedied it with:
$ sudo apt install oracle-java8-jdk
$ sudo systemctl start openhab2
We were then able to connect to the web interface
by pointing our browser to http://192.168.0.23:8080
(admittedly, it took a couple of minutes). You’ll want to
change the part before 8080 to your openHAB host’s
IP address. Some initial configuration is required,
but the wizard will walk you through it. Before you
get really stuck in, do check out the thorough
documentation at www.openhab.org to troubleshoot
any niggles or find out more about the project – it’s
well worth a read.
www.linuxformat.com
 Open source smart home

See the walkthrough below to find out how to

integrate a Hive smart(ish) thermostat with openHAB
and Mycroft. This is a bit of a roundabout process since
it involves first adding the third-party Eclipse Market
repository via an openHAB addon, and then adding the
Hive bindings from there. We’re using Chris Foot’s
experimental binding to do this, which you will find at
http://bit.ly/lxf29chris.

This is what the initial openHAB

setup screen looks like. We
recommend the Standard
package for most users.

CONNECT MYCROFT TO HIVE USING OPENHAB

OPENH

Add the add-on
1 Open a browser pointing to your
openHAB host on port 8080 – it’ll be the
same IP address as mentioned above.
Navigate from Add-ons to the Misc section
and look for Eclipse IoT Market. Install it by
clicking the button. For clarity, installing
anything from external sources should
always be done with caution.
Add some more add-ons
2 While you’re at it, have a look at the
myriad other openHAB add-ons on offer.
Note that add-ons are occasionally lost
when the system updates, so on occasion
you’ll need to reinstall them. The docs
clearly say this is going to change in the
future. There’s an openHAB Android app
available on Google Play and F-Droid.
Browse the Eclipse market
3 With the Eclipse market integration
installed, several new add-ons appear in
the Bindings section of openHAB’s add-
ons catalogue. To view them it’s best to
change to a denser layout (rather than a
long list) using the widget at the top-right.
Type market into the search box to see
Eclipse market entries only.

Install the Hive binding
4 Locate Chris Foot’s ‘Hive from
British Gas Binding’ add-on and install it.
In order to make it work you’ll need your
Hive account details and an API key. This
may require registration at the official site
https://my.hivehome.com/login. Once
you’ve logged in you can generate an API
key and add these into the appropriate
place for the add-on.
Mycroft, meet openHAB
5 Add the openHAB skill from the
Mycroft Marketplace at https://market.
mycroft.ai/skills. You’ll find it in the IoT
section along with bindings for Google AIY,
Home Assistant and other platforms. If
you’re interested in learning more about
what Hive can do, check out the official
reference for Hive’s REST API at https://
developers.hive.com/reference.
Crank up the heat
6 For now, only changing the
thermostat is supported. If you run into
difficulties check out the slightly older
project by Rob Kenny at http://bit.ly/
lxf249hive. This aims to do more, but the
project has been dormant since January
2018. Still, there are some useful scripts
that might help you better understand the
Hive interface.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 39

Open source smart home
augmenting our skill set
We take a look at some more Mycroft skill-duggery and peer into the
future of its development.
urther skills can be found from the Mycroft
F Marketplace at https://market.mycroft.ai/
skills – don’t worry, they’re free). You can
install them directly from there, verbally with something
like “Hey Mycroft install coinflip”, or manually at the
Mycroft CLI. You can also install skills from the
mycroft-skills GitHub repo. You’ll also find excellent
documentation on how to write your own there.
If you have a Spotify Premium account, there’s a
skill for that. You can either play tracks through other
devices via Spotify Connect, or play them through
whatever Mycroft’s running on. Add the Spotify skill
from the Marketplace; you should see a message like
INFO - Will install [‘mycroft-spotify’] from the
marketplace
in the CLI. Before you can use the Spotify skill, you’ll
need to enter some credentials. In the links to the left of
the Marketplace, navigate to My Account > Profile.
From here follow the Skills link at the top of the page.
Scroll down to the Spotify Skill section and enter your
Spotify credentials. You’ll be asked to bestow
permissions on our Mycroft skill, and hopefully will be
openHab and otHer pLatForms
We’ve barely scratched the surface of what openHAB is capable of,
but it’s just one of a number of platforms that can interoperate to one
degree or another among themselves and indeed Mycroft.
For example, there’s a Minecraft plug-in for openHAB, so you can
control actual devices in your house from the voxellated world of the
game. It uses the popular SpigotMC plug-in – look it up. You can also
use openHAB to communicate with Nest devices and Amazon Echo.
We could actually write a whole feature spanning the diverse
selection of robots and circuits it’s capable of interfacing with (well,
if you’re offering… – Ed).
There’s also a Mycroft skill for controlling devices connected via
the popular open source Home Assistant platform (www.home-
assistant.io), which can talk to all sorts of things like Sonos audio
systems, Alexa, Google Assistant and Z-Wave devices. Like openHAB,
Home Assistant has a smartphone app and offers a handy web
interface – and we could probably devote a whole lot more space to it
than these three sentences.
Google Assistant has its own Python library. Naturally we’d rather
you used something that didn’t come from Mountain View, but since
you may already be using it, maybe you’ll be interested in hacking it.
You can check out the sample code at http://bit.ly/lxf249python 3.
The Mycroft
add-ons page
has several IoT
offerings, and
there are several
platforms outside
of Mycroft.
3) https://github.com/googlesamples/assistant-sdk-python/
4) https://github.com/forslund/spotify-skill
40 LXF249 May 2019
greeted with a successful connection message. Don’t
forget to click Save at the top of the page to yet again
confirm your intent. This second confirmation is
necessary because besides the API connection to
Spotify, which is done by an OAuth, a further device
authentication is necessary, which requires the Skill to
retain your Spotify credentials. See the documentation
at http://bit.ly/lxf249spotify4 if you want to log in via
Facebook, or generally find out more about the project.
You can now ask (or type into the CLI) queries such
as “What Spotify devices are available”, “Show my
playlists”, or “What song is this”. You can also issue
demands, for example “Play discover weekly”, “Play Get
Free by Major Lazer” (not again!–Ed) and “Stop playing”.
In the Skills configuration page in your Mycroft Profile,
under Remote Control Device you can also change the
default playback device, having Spotify stream to your
Mycroft device, if you like.
Interestingly, just as we complete this feature, some
big news has surfaced in the voice recognition world.
Mozilla has just released, under a Creative Commons
licence, version 2.0 of the Common Voice dataset.
This includes thousands of hours of matched audio
and transcription in 18 different languages, including
Welsh (lechyd da!–Ed). It enables smaller projects
access to an open dataset the like of which was
previously only available to large companies.
Mycroft has its own anonymous voice-data
collection feature, which you can opt into at the bottom
of the Basic Settings on the Mycroft Account page.
Looking ahead, the company will likely incorporate the
Common Voice data into the collaboration it already
has with the Mozilla DeepSpeech team (https://
research.mozilla.org/machine-learning). One day
the goal is for DeepSpeech to be the default Speech to
Text (STT) engine in Mycroft, but at present it requires
considerable GPU power to run at adequate speeds. In
future this can be farmed-out to the cloud, and indeed
Mycroft already has a pool of GPU-heavy machines that
can take care of the grunt work for ML-savvy Mycroft
The Spotify skill unfortunately won’t pay your Spotify bill. But it does
need some access to your account.
www.linuxformat.com
 Open source smart home

There must be an awful lot of phonemes, glottal stops and pulmonic
consonants in so much audio data.
users. In the meantime, those made of really strong
stuff may want to run their own DeepSpeech instance.
At the beginning of this tutorial, we mentioned the
Adapt intent parser. A new intent parser, Padatious –
based on neural networks and machine learning and all
that jazz – is currently being developed by Mycroft.
Where Adapt focuses on small groups of words and
tries to extract intent from them and the relationships
between them, Padatious analyses whole sentences.
According to Mycroft it’s likely that Padatious will
replace Adapt on some platforms, presumably ones
with sufficient algorithmic horse power.
Unlike closed source assistants, we can be
reasonably sure Mycroft isn’t listening to us at all times.
More precisely, it is listening at all times, but any audio it
picks up before the wake word is discarded.
A corollary of this is that without the wake word,
everything is discarded. The default engine that listens
for the wake word is called PocketSphinx, but an
alternative, Precise, is available (see http://bit.ly/
lxf249precise 5). Precise is much more, uh, accurate
and is based on data collected from Mycroft users who
have opted-in to the data collection mentioned above.
At present, Precise is used only as a wake word
detector. That’s why you may become suspicious that
Mycroft is so swift at responding to “Hey Mycroft” but
all too often fails to make head nor tail of the noises that
come afterward. That said, Precise is already being
used elsewhere. A particularly interesting use case is
Sickweather (www.sickweather.com). The site has
been using it to track coughs and sneezes in public
places, particularly on transport. With reliable data, and
enough of it, the goal is to map and predict outbreaks of
flu and other diseases – a veritable Sickness Forecast,
hence the name. It’s quite bizarre, we think, that a tool
ostensibly focussed so strongly on spoken words is
finding use in the much more general field of hacking
and croaking noises.
We trust Mycroft and Mozilla and everyone else
working on this for the good of open source, but it’s
hard not to be a little creeped-out at voice data being
harvested. We already share far more than we should
with the internet through Facebook and Google and
friends. As voice becomes an ever more popular choice
for interacting with the Internet and the Things
connected to it in your home, surely we will be sharing
more and more sensitive information with the services
they connect to.
That is troublesome if data turns out not to be
sufficiently anonymised. And on that vaguely
despondent note, we’ll sign off before the small army
of Picroft machines we set up in the LXF Towers
basement gets caught up in an awful feedback loop
and destroys us all.
The more we look
at it, the more that
cutesy smile starts
to take on a bit of
an air of Clippy,
the ever-helpful
paperclip.

revisiting tHe respeaker

enable the sPi bus Blink some leds help us!

1 The twelve LEDs on the ReSpeaker  2 Grab the ReSpeaker code and install 3 We couldn’t get the Direction of
are connected over the Pi’s SPI bus. some low-level Python dependencies: Arrival (DoA) code from the mic_array
This needs to be enabled before we   $ git clone https://github.com/ repo working. Changing Queue to queue  
can communicate using it. Run: respeaker/4mics_hat.git in lines 4 and 25 of mic_array.py was a 
$ sudo raspi-config $ pip install spidev gpiozero good start. Then this code:
Then select Interfacing Options > SPI  Run the demo ‘blinkenlights’ with:  $ cd ~/mic_array/
and select ‘Enable SPI’. $ cd ~/4mics_hat/ $ python vad_doa.py
$ python pixels_demo.py displayed direction in the CLI, but did not 
light up our LEDs. Any ideas?
5) https://mycroft.ai/documentation/precise/

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249   41

IntervIew Omoju Miller

on her talk…
“It’s a new vision for
the global brain – deep
learning with humans
instead of machines.”

Human computIng
macHIne learnIng
Never one to turn down talking about high-powered
programming over biscuits and coffee, Jonni Bidwell 
meets the multitalented Omoju Miller.

42 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


moju Miller is a Machine
o
Learning Engineer at GitHub.
She holds a PhD from the
University of California,
Berkeley (which, apart from its academic
excellence, she chose for its proximity
to Skywalker Ranch). While studying for
this part-time, as well being a mother,
she worked as an expert at Google for
its non-profit fund for Computer Science
Education. We were lucky enough to
catch up with her at O’Reilly’s Velocity
conference in London, October 2018.
linux Format: Tell us about your data
science work at GitHub.
omoju miller: At GitHub I am part of the
Machine Learning team, which is a part of
the Platform Engineering team. I work on
building deep learning models. Let me dial
that back, actually…
My job is to use data to supercharge
our services. So we have all these different
data sources and we’re trying to learn
which approaches will be useful to engage
in certain kinds of products. So for
example, the last project I was working on,
and probably am still working on, is about
understanding the fundamental nature of
code and how to represent that.
It’s a bit of applied research, because if
we can understand how to represent code
in some sort of vectorised space, then we
can answer questions like “Is this piece of
code similar to that piece of code?” and we
can do things like code provenance: “Who
first wrote this function?”. All these things
could come from this understanding, so
that’s what I’m working towards.
I work on other things that are more
straightforward – there’s an immediate
application to a product. Some things
are more “We have to do this because
it’s going to help us on our roadmap”,
and if we eventually get there, say in 18
months, then we can really supercharge
our products. So what I do is really Applied
Mathematics plus common sense and
usefulness in the real world.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Omoju Miller IntervIew
lXF: Your talk had an interesting title:
“A new vision for the global brain:
Deep learning with people instead of
machines”. Can you give our readers a
summary of it?
om: I trained as a classical computer
scientist who then did some work on
Intelligent Systems, specifically on
Knowledge Representation. That’s
knowledge representation and reasoning
of the semantic web. From doing that
work I wanted to understand further how
humans acquired computation.
Doing work in those two areas helped
me understand that we could actually
abstract away reasoning from the
computational substrate. It could be a
human being carrying out the computation
or it could be some other computational
device, like a machine. If that’s the case
then we know we can do this, and we’ve
seen examples of us doing this and
understanding the framework and the
architecture of a deep learning system.
We realised there is a close facsimile
to how multinational corporations run
themselves. They have this hierarchy
with the CEO on top, all the way down to
employees. And all these companies kind
of run themselves on Objectives and Key
Results (OKRs). So they have some sort of
goals that they want to achieve, they’ve set
it out, they’ve figured out how to measure
it, and each person does something
towards making sure that that goal occurs.
And they iterate over and over again.
You can take that same idea and
extrapolate it to a social network. It’s the
same thing. In the social network context,
we realised that you can actually influence
human behaviour by levelling those same
constructs. There’s something you want
to do, you can run experiments and there’ll
be some outcomes that the humans will
carry out. Unwittingly most of the humans
on the social network didn’t realise this
1) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/archive/artificial-intelligence-and-robotics
The master and
the Padawan.
was happening. But now that we know
that that’s the case, instead of thinking
about it as some evil monster, something
hideous, what if we actually bought into it
and then co-opted that same network and
architecture to solve different kinds
of problems?
What if we generated that same
architecture and decided we want to use
it to solve certain societal problems?
Maybe what you want to do is create
more empathy, maybe you want to do
something to do something towards
reducing the impact of poverty, maybe
you want to do something towards climate
change. We then figure out what is the loss
function, and how we can measure if we’re
getting close to achieving our goal.
If we can figure out how to measure it
then we can back-propagate certain kinds
of actions across this distributed platform
and get us there. Basically it’s a new vision
for the global brain – deep learning with
humans instead of machines. Also we want
to not necessarily be afraid of the global
brain – it can be used to do something far
more powerful that will not be deleterious
to society. We should take it and use it to
our own ends.
lXF: This is fascinating. I wrote an
introductory machine learning feature
[see lXF236] so it’s interesting to hear
how far these things can be abstracted
beyond recognition. I hear you’re an
adviser to the World Economic Forum
on this subject too?
om: Not officially an adviser, but I’m part
of its AI and Robotics Expert Network
[see http://bit.ly/lxf249ai 1]. The idea
is they ask really big questions and want
this group of experts to chime in. I get their
emails, I read them – sometimes I chime
in, sometimes I don’t. But if one has time
it’s a very good place to speak with one’s
peers, to talk on ideas, and to actually
May 2019 LXF249 43
IntervIew Omoju Miller
see what other people are doing. More
importantly, for me, is to get a view outside
of just AI. What are people thinking about
in education? What are people thinking
about in public health? That kind of thing.
And then seeing what kind of initiatives the
World Economic Forum is up to.
lXF: What made you specialise in artificial
intelligence and machine learning?
om: I was already fascinated with
Computer Science, but I became even
more fascinated when I discovered AI, and
it was specifically for one reason… In high
school, you know, you get your math book.
If you’re learning Pythagoras’ theorem
there will be a picture of Pythagoras and
a little blurb about his life. I was always
fascinated about all these people in
these books – what kind of people were
becomIng non-toXIc
lXF: Open source has become quite
popular, and unfortunately that has
brought with it some pretty toxic
behaviour in some communities. What
do you think we can do to further
address this problem?
om: I think we have to have very strong
codes of conduct and very strong
community and safety teams. It might
seem strange, because open source
is open source – there’s not someone
sitting there working full time [in every
project]. However, there are some open
source projects that have grants and
actually do have full-time employees.
When a project gets to that stage, I
think they need to prioritise having a
community and safety team: a group
of people whose whole job is to curate
the culture and set the tone for what is
acceptable and what is not acceptable.
And then something radical, which
I would like to see more of: instead
of banning people from projects,
what if we did things like restorative  acting on that research.
44 LXF249 May 2019
they really? The first AI class I took was
a sort of cognitive science seminar; it
was a different kind of thing because
it gave a sort of historic precedence of
why this whole thing started. It went
all the way back into an exploration of
the metaphysical, and how humanity
questioned the nature of reality, why we
are here and if there is a god, and how
those lines of inquiry led to the founding of
mathematics, to the founding of physics.
Mathematics were a way to separate
what we know from what we don’t know
and make inferences. We continued down
that path all the way down to logic, all the
way to von Neumann machines, to the
invention of computers and all that kind
of stuff. It’s just a natural progression,
logic machines to AI. It’s the same quest
of figuring out the nature of humans, and
justice? Like reform and work with the
community to bring them back. That
seems healthier than kicking people
out, which doesn’t help anybody.
Something else I’m interested in
deeply: can we do some research to
see the genesis of communities and
what are the leading indicators of a
community becoming toxic? Then we
can we nip those things in the bud.
Another thing is that it’s quite
difficult to figure out what is toxic
and what isn’t, because it’s often
community-dependent. Sometimes
certain behaviour isn’t toxic in one
community because it’s the norm,
and it doesn’t marginalise or ostracise
anybody. But when someone from that
community joins another and carries
that norm over, it might be toxic in this
new community.
How can we change this? By doing
research in this area, hard-core
research and datamining, and then  are emotionally mediated as well.
if we can figure out the nature of humans
that would be like a scientific way to
question the existential. So I thought this
was all fascinating, and that was it, I just
wanted to do that. It’s like metaphysical
exploration but from a scientific stance.
I didn’t really think of it as machine learning
or AI.
lXF: Was it more of a continuation
of some bigger journey?
om: Right. Basically I thought it was really
interesting, but it turns out it’s also really
useful too.
lXF: I’m quite interested in computer
science education, so let’s continue
with that theme. I enjoyed your TEDx
talk about dispelling “The myth of the
innate ability in tech” [see http://bit.ly/
lxf249tedx 2], particularly as it applies
to coding. What is wrong with this idea,
that when someone shows some inkling
of being good at maths, or whatever, that
we then think, oh they’re gifted, they’re
definitely going to be a good coder?
om: So this myth, I don’t think we quite put
that term to it, but what we’re saying is it’s
essentially biological determinism. We’re
saying some people are born with a special
genome that gives them a special ability to
do computationally rigourous work, while
others can’t. It’s the same idea behind
people that say “I’m a math person” or “I’m
not a math person”.
There’s no such thing as predisposition
to mathematics or computation or
to reading. It’s about how we haven’t
done enough research in education to
actually understand how people acquire
computation. They acquire knowledge in
two modes: an emotional path and a logical
path. These two paths have to weave
together for the knowledge to seep into a
human being. Human beings are embodied
creatures and they are deeply emotional;
the concepts that they have in their minds
Even in the language we use, when
you think of falling in love, you think of
love as warm and the absence of love
as cold. These are deeply emotionally
triggered concepts and it’s related first to
the warmth felt by the baby inside their
mother’s womb. Later, when the baby
is laid on the mother’s chest, warmth is
transferred from mother to child. If the
baby is put down, then the heat dissipates
and the baby doesn’t like that.
And that is one of our first associations
with something negative, that loss of heat,
that cold. We humans try and cheat that
by swaddling, we’re trying to trap some
of that heat. This is how we learn and it’s
deeply wired into our brain. When it comes
2) www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFWVHSeakkg
www.linuxformat.com
 Omoju Miller IntervIew

to quantitative subjects like mathematics, content on an education platform. We

the same mechanism is still at work.
However, if it is introduced in a way that
incites some kind of anxiety or fright or
discomfort, that overrides your capacity to
integrate with the logical. Certain people
might not have had that lock applied – it
was introduced to them in ways that did
not elicit those emotions, so it was easier
for them to acquire math skills.
But that is the root cause, why as a
society we have decided “I am a math
person” or “I am not a math person”.
We have this weird, bizarre myth now
that those math people are just two per
cent of the world’s population. That’s
not enough to do computational work:
software is eating the world. Most jobs at
some point will require some knowledge
about software, and we can’t run a modern
society on two per cent.
So at some point we have to get as
many people in the door as possible, and
that means we need to break down these
myths. Then people will see themselves
differently, and actually understand “I
feel anxious, this has nothing to do with
my ability to learn. It doesn’t mean I’m a
failure, it just means I didn’t acquire that
knowledge yet. Let me try again”. So we
need more education and research to
really understand how people learn and
to apply what we do know when we’re
writing curricula and deciding how certain
already see that happening – it’s called
GitHub. There are tons of people on
GitHub learning, they’re just doing it in an
ad hoc and natural way, because they can
pull all the materials in there, they share
it with each other and they can create for
each other. It’s slowly becoming a thing,
but it’s still not a traditional school.
We’re in this weird space where we
know that the future is different, yet we’re
still trapped in the society of the present,
that we kind of know isn’t going to work. Omoju believes
everyone has the
We’re in this transitional phase and it’s aptitude for maths.
very challenging, but at some point we’re
going to have to change the way schools
are organised. no longer relevant. There may still be
enemies of open source out there, but
lXF: Microsoft acquired GitHub and I’ve times have changed and patent litigation
just had a long chat with Microsoft CTO or anti-competitive behaviour are no
James Turnbull about that [in October longer viable strategies.
2018]. The whole GitHub ecosystem will om: Open source is not going to slow down,
bring a lot to Microsoft, but what do you it’s only going to accelerate even more.
think Microsoft can bring to GitHub? The growth of GitHub’s platform has been
om: Financial stability: GitHub will no longer astonishing. In October 2017 we had a sort
have to worry about its future financially. of ‘state of the world’ conference at GitHub.
That means it can focus exclusively on There were 21 million developers then, and
creating the best product out there for now [one year later], there’s 31 million.
developer tools, and actually achieve the That’s a lot of new people on that platform.
mission that it set
out for itself.
So it’s an on changing education…
“We’re in this weird space where
audacious drive
towards achieving

we know that the future is

subjects are introduced in schools.
lXF: Can we use artificial intelligence
to help us do this?
om: We actually can. The challenge is to
have a dataset that is large enough that
you can tease all these things apart. And
that means you also have to perhaps
deliver some forms of the knowledge
Microsoft is a force
for good with GitHub,
says Omoju.
our mission now
– we don’t have to
different, yet we’re still trapped
worry about if we’ll
be able to keep the
in the society of the present.”
lights on. And also
we don’t need to
worry about trying
to generate ten-times growth, because
when you’re venture-backed your venture
capital partners have certain requirements
of you. But when you’re an independent
subsidiary of a company that sees value in
the community that you are building, then
you can lean deeper into that.
We’re going to see a different kind of
GitHub for the better: much more shipping
of products, much more excitement from
people who use it – enterprise as well
as independent developers. Because
Microsoft is already one of the leading
contributors to open source. They’re
already doing it – I think Visual Studio Code
is one of the top IDEs now. It’s a different
kind of Microsoft now, they just open
sourced a bunch of their patents – 60,000
of them, in fact.
lXF: There’s still plenty of anti-Microsoft
sentiment in the Linux community, and
I daresay within our readership too,
but I think that’s an old grudge that’s
If that trend continues, we’re going to see
very interesting things emerge from that
platform.
GitHub is basically the reason why
machine learning has been able to
advance as fast as it has. GH is ten years
old, and a lot of machine learning rests
on open source.
TensorFlow, the deep learning
framework from Google, is one of the
most popular repos on GitHub. But before
TensorFlow could be built, there had to
be NumPy [the numerical computation
package for Python], another open source
project hosted on GitHub, there had to be
SciPy, there had to be MatPlotLib, there
had to be pandas [not the animal – the
Python data analysis package].
All these things are open source, and
these are all the things that created the
ability for there to be PyTorch, TensorFlow
and everything else that we’re seeing now
come to scale. I think we’re going to see
more and more of that.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249   45

in-depth Arch Linux
Arch Linux Tips
Jonni Bidwell has spent years perfecting his Arch install,
and he’s begrudgingly going to share some insights…
ou’ve carefully followed the
Y lengthy install guide on the Arch
Wiki and installed Arch Linux.
Amazingly (or maybe as a result
of hair pulling, shouting or other creative
problem solving), everything works –
network, display, your keymap is even
correct. You’re all ready to use your fresh
new install, but all it does is boot to a
terminal prompt. This is, of course, expected
behaviour: Arch is what you make it, after all.
But some guidance, after this arduous
installation pilgrimage, on exactly what it can
be made into might be helpful. You go back
to the Arch Wiki, but the post-installation
section links you to a somewhat
overwhelming list of ‘general
recommendations’. You should certainly
46 LXF249 May 2019
study this list, and the Arch Wiki is truly one
of the greatest Linux resources (alongside
LXF?–Ed) out there. But if you want the LXF
lowdown on how to quickly get going after a
successful install, read on!
We won’t presume you’re an Arch expert, 
but even if you are you might find some
handy tips to get your setup closer to
perfection. For this tutorial we’re going to
assume you’ve got a working Arch install.
We’ll further assume you’ve done some
bread-and-butter setup tasks: setting up a
user, local mirrors, networking and getting all
your partitions set up in /etc/fstab. All this
is in the Arch Wiki if you need guidance – we 
will often refer you there throughout this
article where appropriate, rather than 
parroting its contents.
www.linuxformat.com

ne way that Arch (and in fact all other rolling
O distros) differs from Ubuntu is that it’s critically
important to update the whole system
whenever you install a new package, since that new
package will have been compiled against the current
Arch package tree. So it won’t work if the libraries it
depends on, and is linked to, aren’t updated in lock-
step. Keeping your system up to date is good practice
anyway, so make sure you do:
# pacman -Syu
once in a while, and certainly before installing anything.
The y means sYnc all repos and the u stands for
Update all packages. Remember, we use the #
prompt instead of $ to denote commands run as root,
as opposed to a general user. You’ll have set up the root
account during the install process, and you can use it
using the su command and the password you set up
during installation (not your user password). By default
the sudo command, as used by Ubuntu and now
Fedora, isn’t installed, although this is handy –
particularly for AUR helpers – so we’ll cover setting
that up below.
Graphics drivers
If you have an AMD/Nvidia graphics card from the last
decade (and perhaps even older), the open source
radeon for AMD (formerly ATI) cards or nouveau
drivers will almost certainly work out of the box for
you. This is even more likely to be true of integrated
graphics, using the intel driver. This is what enables
the console to display in your monitor’s native
resolution, rather than the old fashioned 80x25. Be
that as it may, you’ll still need to install the relevant
DDX (Device Dependent X) driver to get 2D acceleration
in X, and the Mesa drivers for 3D acceleration.
If you have a more recent AMD card (Volcanic
Islands, GCN 1.2 or later), the open source AMDGPU
driver will be used, and if you have a not quite so recent
AMD card (Sea/Southern Islands, GCN 1.0), you may
want to enable the AMDGPU driver anyway – we’ll get
to that in a second. If you have an Nvidia card and
would like to do gaming, you’ll probably want to install
the dastardly proprietary driver, which is actually much
easier to do on Arch than it is on Ubuntu and friends. In
fact, all you need is:
# pacman -S nvidia
Of course, nothing’s ever that simple, and if you were
to reboot right away there’s a small possibility that your
display manager (if you’ve installed one) would fail to
start. This would be because both proprietary and
Nouveau modules would be loaded, and the display
server would get confused about which one to use –
either giving up with the classic ‘No screens found’
error, or more commonly just displaying a blank screen.
If you do find yourself in blank screen land, it’s
always worth trying to get to a TTY terminal with
Ctrl+Alt+F2 before reaching for the power button.
Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t; it
depends if the keyboard has been grabbed by a partially
loaded display server or not. At any rate, if it doesn’t,
always try repeatedly hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del to force a
graceful reboot rather than risking your data.
The nvidia package actually installs a file to blacklist
the nouveau module, but blacklisting sometimes isn’t
enough; the module can still be loaded if requested by
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Arch Linux in-depth
the user or another program. The most common The combination
problem is the X Server itself trying to load its nouveau of Powerline and
Cool Retro Term
module, which then loads the kernel module, which
will strike fear
then has a hissy fit because the proprietary module is into the souls of
claiming its hardware. Anyway, one way around this is passing editors
to create an xorg.conf snippet. Create this with: asking where
# nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf your feature is.
and populate the file with:
Section “Device”
Identifier “Nvidia 1080GTX”
Driver “nvidia”
EndSection
The identifier string doesn’t affect anything, it’s just
used as a label. If you’re in the converse situation, and
would like the Nouveau driver back, changing the driver
to nouveau may help you. You’d probably want to
uninstall the nvidia package altogether, to be sure.
Sudo, you know
Installing Sudo is just a matter of:
# pacman -S sudo
but for it to be useful we’ll need to give our user sudo access. This
involves editing the /etc/sudoers file, which for safety we’ll do using
the visudo wrapper. This will check any modifications that we make,
since a typo here could result in us losing sudo access. This isn’t an
issue on Arch (at least while we still have root access), but can be
catastrophic on other distros. Also, don’t worry if the ‘vi’ part of
visudo sent a shiver down your spine – you can use whichever editor
you want to edit the file (hey, I’m an editor – Ed). Let’s use Nano, for
instance:
# EDITOR=nano visudo
There’s a whole complicated syntax to this file (the Arch Wiki will tell
you all about it), but if you just want to let your user run commands
with the root password (not their user password, although that can 
be arranged too), all you need to do is add the line:
username ALL=(ALL) ALL
replacing username with your username, somewhere around the
section headed #User privilege specification . Now leave Nano with
Ctrl+X, then Y to save. Assuming you’ve obeyed the syntax, visudo
won’t shout at you and your sudo configuration will be updated.
Unlike changing group permissions, there’s no need to log out and 
log back in again for these changes to take effect.
May 2019 LXF249   47
in-depth Arch Linux
One of the most exciting features in Kernel 5.0 is
AMD’s FreeSync, which enables variable refresh rates
on suitably expensive GPUs and displays. If you are
lucky enough to have such technologies, Arch Linux is
a great place to test them out. You won’t need to mess
around with patching kernels, PPAs or custom Mesa
builds to get everything working – everything’s already
in the repos, awaiting your download.
Assuming you’ve already got a working desktop with
the xf86-video-amdgpu driver installed, you’re halfway
there. We just need a minimal xorg.conf snippet which
frobs the required option. So create /etc/X11/xorg.
conf.d/20-amdgpu-freesync.conf and fill it with:
Section “Device”
Identifier “AMD RX590”
Driver “amdgpu”
Option “DRI” “3”
Option “VariableRefresh” “true”
EndSection
It’s early days for FreeSync on Linux; at the time of
writing, the feature is disabled for browsers, video
players and desktop compositors. Still, Linux gamers
are reporting FreeSync success for OpenGL games.
New versions of KDE Frameworks,
Applications and Plasma land in
Arch pretty swiftly.
It’S the LIttLe thIngS
It’s hard to overestimate all the fine-tuning that goes into Ubuntu,
Manjaro or any other desktop-centric distribution. Recreating some of
those tweaks in Arch is tricky, but some of them are small things that
make surprisingly big differences.
For example, your command line life will be markedly improved if
you install the bash-completion package, which provides tab
completion for most commands. Note that you get filename
completion in Bash as standard – this package intelligently completes
command options, which is tremendously useful if you’re delving into
unfamiliar systemd or Qemu incantations.
In our Arch-based distos roundup in LXF246, we found some great
features in Antergos, ArchLabs, KaOS, Netrunner Rolling and Manjaro.
Some of these would be hard to recreate from scratch, like ArchLabs’
stylish Openbox/Polybar/tint2 combo. But some are easy. If you
want the Octopi or Pamac graphical package managers, they’re
available straight from the AUR. Just follow our guide to setting that
up and then do pikaur -S octopi , for example.
If you like Antergos’ glorious Numix GTK theme, that can be yours
with pacman -S numix-gtk-theme . Powerline is a plug-in for Vim,
but it can also be used, as it is in KaOS, to jazz up your terminal.
Check out the wiki page at http://bit.ly/lxf249powerline for how.
48 LXF249 May 2019
You can achieve a lot from the terminal, but many
users will be desirous of installing some sort of desktop
environment. One of the main draws of Arch Linux is
access to the latest Gnome/KDE/Cinnamon/<insert
your favourite DE here> goodness. What is less known
is that Arch provides opportunities to customise the
software selections of most of these. If you’ve done a
little distro-hopping, you’ll have some idea of the
different ways that things can be arranged in GNOME
and KDE Plasma (and Xfce, MATE, and all the others).
You’ll likely also be aware of the applications bundled
with each desktop, and may have been frustrated when
trying to trim this down. Ubuntu has done quite well at
providing a good but not excessive selection of GNOME
applications. But if you naively try to remove Evolution
(or anything related to it), watch Apt threaten to tear
your system asunder.
In Arch, the base GNOME desktop and the core
applications are encompassed by the gnome package
group. Another group, gnome-extra, includes extra
games and utilities. Entering pacman -S gnome will
offer to install the 65-package entirety of the core
group, which you can do by just pressing Return.
Alternatively you can slim down the selection – for
instance, you may not be interested in GNOME Maps/
Music/Photos/Todo, or you may not like Tracker
indexing all your files.
The previous command shows each package with a
number next to it, and you can enter a space-separated
list of these numbers, and/or ranges, to pare things
back. If you’re not sure what a package is, query it with
pacman -Si packagename . As in most other distros,
GNOME defaults to using Wayland where possible,
falling back to X if things go awry.
To boot to the graphical login screen enable the gdm
systemd service with:
# systemctl enable gdm
KDE doesn’t have its own login manager, though SDDM
(Simple Desktop Display Manager) is the de facto
choice. One consequence of forgetting this detail is that
it’s possible to install a myriad of KDE-related packages
and still not have anything like a functioning desktop,
since the display server (X.org or Wayland)
dependencies are only pulled in by the display manager.
So first install that with pacman -S sddm and enable
it with systemctl enable sddm . Like GNOME, KDE
Plasma – the proper name for the desktop produced
by the KDE community – can be installed as a package
group with pacman -S plasma . Alternatively, just
installing the plasma-desktop package provides a
foundation for a more minimal installation. Unlike
GNOME, KDE applications are entirely decoupled
from the desktop, so you’ll want to peruse the ‘kde-
applications’ group to see what you need. This group
has 161 packages in total, but if you just need a
terminal, file manager, photo/document viewers
and other basic utilities then start with:
# pacman -S konsole dolphin kate gwenview okular
ark kcalc
Alternatively, we can use metapackages. These
behave very much like groups, insofar as you can refer
to a bunch of packages by a single name, but they differ
in that they are dynamic. If someone on Team Arch
decides to add a package to the ‘plasma’ group, for
example, that package won’t magically appear on
www.linuxformat.com

systems which had that group installed previously,
unless the user explicitly reinstalls the group. If the
same thing happened with the ‘plasma-meta’
metapackage, the new package would appear. You
can’t pick and choose individual packages from a
metapackage, so they are in this sense less flexible;
however the way they’re used to package the KDE
application suite is particularly nice.
KDE applications are divided into categories (see
https://kde.org/applications), and in Arch each
category has its own metapackage, such as
kdegraphics-meta and kdeedu-meta. Since the kde-
applications-meta package depends on all of these
metapackages, we can get away with calling them
submetapackages. Nomenclature aside, they provide a
neat way to ensure your KDE install has the latest apps.
An unmistakable Aura
Besides minimalism, bleeding-edge packages and
street cred, one of the main draws to Arch is the AUR
(Arch User Repository). Here you can find community-
provided packages for software that for one reason or
another hasn’t made it into the official repos. This might
be because of licensing reasons: Spotify and Google
Chrome can’t be redistributed, for instance, but having
a ‘source’ package that downloads the official binaries
and packages them locally is fine. Or there might be
complexities running them in certain situations:
Canonical’s Snap packaging system, for instance.
It’s also a staging ground for packages that one day
might make it into the official repos, and users can vote
in order to influence this. In order to use the AUR, we’ll
need the base-devel package group, which includes
compilers, configurators, parsers and all the helper
utilities required to build from source. Once we’ve got
that, all that’s required is to download the relevant
PKGBUILD (a text file that describes an Arch Linux
package) from the AUR, and use Pacman’s makepkg
utility to bundle it into a package that can be installed
with pacman -U mypackage-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz .
This seems fairly straightforward, but unfortunately
the process can become quite laborious. For one thing
the makepkg command on its own won’t install
dependencies automatically. Fair enough; just add the
-s switch. Problem solved… except that AUR packages
can depend on other AUR packages, which makepkg
won’t help you with. So we’ll show you how to set up
one of many AUR helpers. For a long time Yaourt (Yet
AnOther User Repository Tool) was the utility of choice
here. It was great, mostly because it had the same
syntax as Pacman and so could be used as a drop-in
It may look like regular Firefox, but it’s actually Fedora’s Wayland
edition, available in binary form from the AUR.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Arch Linux in-depth
Manjaro’s graphical
package manager
Pamac can be
yours, and so can
GNOME’s emoji
selection widget.
replacement. You can still use this if you want, but it’s
unmaintained, has security issues, and there are plenty
of alternatives.
ArchLabs used to use PacAUR, but has now
switched to its own helper, Baph. The Arch Wiki has a
whole page dedicated to AUR helpers (https://wiki.
archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers), with a
comprehensive list of their features. Here you’ll also
learn that no AUR helper is officially supported by Arch,
so you’ll need to install one the manual way, by
downloading PKGBUILD files and so forth. We’ll cover
setting up PikAur (https://github.com/actionless/
pikaur), which is written in Python, has minimal
dependencies and like Yaourt before it, uses Pacman
syntax for ease of use. The best way to install PikAUR
is by using Git, and then makepkg to make a package
suitable for Pacman to digest. We’ll start by installing
The Arch user repOsiTOrY
“Besides minimalism, bleeding-edge
packages and street cred, one of the
main draws to Arch is the AUR”
the base-devel group and Git itself:
# pacman -S --needed base-devel git
The --needed switch won’t reinstall them if they’re
already there. Now we’ll go ahead and clone the pikaur
repo, which you can do as a regular user:
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pikaur.git
Then we can dive in and make the package (also as a
regular user):
$ cd pikaur
$ makepkg -fsri
The -f switch overwrites any previous package files
in this directory – useful if you’ve tried to build the
package previously and it has failed. The -s installs any
dependencies, the -r removes any that are no longer
required after the package is built, and the -i installs
the package. These last three options require Sudo to
be installed, since running makepkg itself as root is
not allowed. If you don’t have or don’t want to have
Sudo installed, you can perform those steps manually.
Incidentally pacman -Qdt is a very useful command
for listing dependencies that are no longer needed.
Happy archery!
May 2019 LXF249  49
 Pi USER
Les Pounder
works with groups Quantum computing
on the Raspberry Pi?
such as the
Raspberry Pi
Foundation to help
boost people’s
maker skills.

The power of the tiny qubit comes to the tiniest of

Pi 4 LIFE
In 2012 I first held a Raspberry Pi,
little knowing how much it would
change my life. Over these seven
years, the Raspberry Pi has
disrupted the market, brought
the cost of a single board
computer down to £35 and kept
it there for all that time.
But this is where the story of
this generation of Raspberry Pis
will end. With the release of the
Compute Module 3+ we reach
the end of what can be achieved
with the current platform, which
relies on 40nm CPUs that can
only work with a maximum of
1GB RAM. For the Raspberry Pi 4
there will be a newer ARM CPU,
possibly 28nm or less in size.
With this new CPU there will be
of course be more RAM, but what
else could there be?
A wish list for me is USB-C
power, as we are reaching the
limit of what Micro-USB can
provide. I’d also like USB 3
compatible ports and true gigabit
Ethernet. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
can remain as is. HDMI with 4K
output would be great – I just
need a 4K TV…
But my biggest wish for the
next Raspberry Pi is that we
retain the same 40-pin GPIO with
the same connections as the
previous generation of Pis. This
is vitally important to the Pi
ecosystem, with companies
basing their products on that
form factor and many projects
also relying on this configuration.
The Raspberry Pi 4 may not be
with us for a while yet, but once it
does arrive it will quickly be
adopted by the many fans of this
cost-effective board that
disrupted the market and keeps
doing so to this day. Personally,
I can’t wait.
computer platforms, sort of, kind of…
he alluring promise of quantum
T computing is one that’s been
dangling tantalisingly closely for the
last decade, and is fuel for conspiracy
theories about ‘dark’ NSA computing units
and projects set to crack your encryption.
In the absence of actual real qubit-packing
CREDIT: IBM
X86 on ARM
Box86 brings the op codes.
eople always want what they can’t
P have – or can they? A new project
called Box86 is attempting to run
desktop x86 programs (and games) on ARM
devices, via the talents of Qemu to create a
sort of Wine-lite for ARM systems. It’s early
days for the project but is well worth a look at
http://bit.ly/lxf249box86.
Here comes the x86!
CREDIT: www.giantpockets.com
hardware, IBM created a cloud-based
quantum computer simulation (http://bit.
ly/lxf249ibm), which at least enables
budding developers to test out quantum-
based code. In LXF237 we even looked at how
desktop Linux users can get involved.
But what if you want a quantum emulator
to call your own? Enter Qrasp, a Pi Sense
HAT-based qubit simulator for us all. It was
developed by IBM Q Ambassador Hassi
Norlen, whose take on the project was: “This
will not be easy. IBM Q System One is, after
all, a cloud-based quantum computing
offering, with the main hardware, cryostats,
quantum chips and all locked away in the IBM
labs.” He had a crack anyway. Go and find out
how to build your own from his blog post at
http://bit.ly/lxf249qrasp.
No Raspberry Pi here, just
pure IBM Q System One.
Pi semipowered
Dodgy supplies revealed.
odgy power supplies have dogged Pi
D users for years, and in a blog post
that discuses a few issues with the
Raspberry Pi, the issue of powering more
recent Pi models is nicely addressed,
explaining how cheap supplies will end in CPU
throttling and system performance issues.
See http://bit.ly/lxf249power for more.
Check your power to ensure smooth runnings.
CREDIT: ownyourbits.com

50 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Raspberry Pi Reviews

Compute module 3+
les pounder takes a look at the last of this generation’s Raspberry Pi
and wonders what makers can do with this much power.
he Raspberry Pi Compute Module is one of
In bRIEf
A Raspberry Pi 3
T those boards seen in the maker community, but
rarely used in projects for most makers. It’s
B+ shrunk into designed for industrial use and this is evident by the form
the shape of factor. Measuring only 67.6 x 31mm and looks more like a
laptop RAM. stick of laptop DDR RAM (but not electrically compatible),
This tiny board this is actually a Pi 3 B+ shrunk down into the smallest
has plenty of form. It even has 1GB of RAM, the current maximum for
power but can this generation of Raspberry Pi.
be built into But what do we lose in the process? Well, chiefly
bespoke wireless connectivity: there is no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth with
It might look
projects this board. Another loss is that the CPU for the CM3+ just like a stick of
designed by the runs at 1.2GHz and not the full 1.4GHz found on the laptop RAM, but here we
user. If you are 3 B+.On the other hand, we gain eMMC storage in 8, 16 have a full computer.
building a and 32GB capacities – except for the CM3+ Lite, which
Raspberry Pi relies on offboard micro SD card storage. The eMMC
project and storage is connected directly to the processor and gives still straightforward. The first step is to clone a GitHub
want to scale up us an interface speed similar to a Class 10 micro SD card. repository, which includes the tools necessary to perform
into a product, This is not lightning fast access, but quick enough and a USB boot of the CM3+. This enables the CM3+ to be
or integrate the less prone to corruption than an SD card. mounted like a regular flash drive. Then we can either use
Pi into an The BCM2837B0 System on a Chip (SoC) is the same a tool such as dd to write a Raspbian image, or in our case
industrial as found on the 3 B+ and 3 A+, but the CM3+ can offer Etcher, which detected the CM3+ and wrote the image in
application, this up all of the GPIO pins present for this SoC – all 120 of around 10 minutes.
board is for you. them! To do this the CM3+, like its earlier versions, So what do we do with the CM3+? This is where the
requires the Compute Module IO board. This board fun begins. We can design our own circuit boards based
provides us with a single USB 2.0 port to connect a hub, around the board. For example we could build a CM3+
keyboard, mouse and so on. There are also connections powered museum exhibit with touchscreen controls,
for the official Raspberry Pi camera and display – in fact, multimedia playback and motorised elements. We have
two connections for each device, so dual screens and access to all of the GPIO present on the SoC; all we need
dual camera projects are possible. The CMIO board also is the time and patience to create a carrier board, like the
provides a micro SD card slot needed for the CM3+ Lite, CMIO, that breaks out the connections that we need.
and an HDMI connector. This board isn’t for everyone; in fact, it’s only really
Flashing the operating system to the eMMC is a multi- viable for building Internet of Things, robotics and
step process, which is not as simple as a regular Pi, but industrial applications. For the average user it’s more of
an interesting piece of Pi-powered technology. But for the
few who want to create their own Pi-powered products
without the bulk of the form factor, the CM3+ is an
interesting and expansive platform, and cost-effective.

VERDICT
DevelopeR: Raspberry Pi Trading
Web: www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-
module-3-plus-32gb
pRice: £38

fEaTuREs 8/10 EasE of usE 7/10

PERfoRmanCE 8/10 ValuE 9/10

The swansong for this generation of Raspberry Pi is a

capable yet bespoke piece of kit. For those that want to
Paired with the Compute Module
create bespoke products powered by Pi, this is your board.
IO board, the CM3+ offers 120
GPIO pins to play with. Rating 8/10

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 51

 TUTORIALS Search Google

EASYGUI
Get inspiration for your
projects with Google
Les Pounder shows you how to use Python to search Google
to gain inspiration for your next project.

ach issue we write a new Raspberry Pi project Python 3 editor found in the Programming section of

E and each issue we try to be inventive and

unique. But there are times when inspiration is
the Raspbian menu. When the editor opens, click File >
New to create a new blank document. Now immediately
not with us, and in those moments we turn to searching save the file using File > Save, call it inspiration.py and
Google with key phrases or words, and often they are remember to save often.
OUR quite ridiculous. These ‘mashups’ are there to fire the
imagination; just as a child given construction blocks Easy now GUI
EXPERT can make anything they dream of, we can use these We start our project by importing a series of libraries/
Les Pounder silly searches to think up new and unique ideas. modules. Firstly we import the search function from
is a freelance In reality this project is really just three for loops the googlesearch library, then we import the choice
maker who works and two lists that store and iterate over user input while function from the random library. We next import the
with organisations it searches Google. Then it opens a random page in our webbrowser library to enable us to open a browser
such as the web browser. window. Finally we import the easygui library, but we
Raspberry Pi shorten the library name to ‘eg’, as ‘easygui’ can be
Foundation. Let’s get mashing! tricky to type at speed.
Before we can write any Python code we first need from googlesearch import search
to install two extra libraries of code. These are called from random import choice
YOU NEED packages or modules, and they contain pre-written import webbrowser
Any Pi code that we can reference in our project. The first import easygui as eg
Raspbian library will install a way in which we can search Google The first step in this project is to ask the user a
Code: from Python. The second library is an easy to use message, and to do this we use easygui’s msgbox
https:// graphical user interface toolkit. In a terminal enter (message box) function. Here we can ask a message
github.com/ the following command. ( msg ), give the dialogue box a title and change the text
lesp/LXF249- $ sudo pip3 install google easygui in the ok_button to ‘Inspire Me!’
InsPIration/ This will take a few moments. Once it’s complete, eg.msgbox(msg=”Tell me what you would like in a
archive/ close the terminal window. To write the code we need project and I shall search Google for you. This will
master.zip to use a Python editor – in this project we’ll use the trigger 3 pop up windows”, title=”InPIration”, ok_
button=”Inspire Me!”)
Next we need to create two blank lists. One will
contain the things that we want to search for, the
other will store the suggestions that our Google search
finds. Lists in Python are called arrays in other
languages. They can contain lots of pieces of data, for
example strings, integers, floats and variables, but not
exclusively these. We can call data from a list by using
its index number. A list starts the index from zero and
can go on and on.
things = []
suggestion = []
Our app is a simple In the msgbox we instruct the user that we are
tool to use silly going to ask them for three things to search for – these
keywords to fuel
are the items that they wish to use as inspiration. To do
our imagination for
another cool project. this we need to use a for loop with a range. In this case
it will create a variable called i and each time the loop
goes round it will iterate (add) one to the variable until it

52 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


reaches three, then it will stop. Each time the loop goes
round it will use an enterbox from the easygui library,
which is a dialogue box into which we can type, to
capture the user input. This is then appended to our
things list, which means it is added to the list.
for i in range(3):
things.append(eg.enterbox(msg=”READY >>> “))
We now have the items to search for, but we need to
convert them from list into a string – this is for our
Google search later. To do this we create a variable
called inspiration and in it we store the converted
items from the things list, starting with 0, then 1 and 2.
This is all wrapped inside a string-formatting function
that ensures the text is saved correctly. We then print
this to the Python shell for debug.
inspiration = str(things[0]+” “+things[1]+” “+things[2])
print(inspiration) #Debug
Round and round we go
Time for another for loop, and this time we use it
to perform a Google search. For this we use the
inspiration variable, since it contains the search terms.
We then instruct the search to use the Google TLD (top
level domain) for our country, in our case co.uk .
The num value limits the number of links returned.
The stop is a Boolean value tells our search to stop
when it has enough links. Lastly, the pause value is set
to two seconds between each search, otherwise Google
may block our computer from using its service. Each
time the for loop goes round, it prints the returned
search item (the URL) and also appends the search
item to the suggestion list we created earlier.
for item in search(inspiration, tld=”co.uk”, num=3,
stop=1, pause=2):
print(item)
suggestion.append(item)
Moving along, we have another for loop and this
time we use it to convert our suggestion list into a
multi-line string, a paragraph. We do this for the length
When the project starts, it instructs the user on how it will work,
using a msgbox.
GEt yoUr pi FILLInG hErE Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Search Google TuTorialS
At the end
it chooses a
random website
to visit from
the suggestions
stored.
( len ) of the list. Creating a variable called links to
store the multi-line string, we instruct Python to insert a
new line \n and then join the text together, starting When using the
from index 0 in our suggestion list. This is called slicing, easygui library,
and by passing the value 0: we instruct the slice to start typing
start at 0. the name of a
for i in range(len(suggestion)): function, for
links = “\n”.join(suggestion[0:]) example ‘eg.
Now that we have the multi-line string we can use it enterbox(‘ and a
helpful tool tip
in easygui’s textbox function. This function takes a
will appear to
message ( msg ) and the text that we wish to show, in
show the syntax
this case the contents of the links variable. for that function.
eg.textbox(msg=”Hey I found these that might be of this is common
interest, I’ll open one at random after you close this for the majority
message”, text=links) of python
The final line of code opens the default web browser libraries and is
for Raspbian, but the link it opens will be a random very helpful.
choice from the suggestion list we created earlier.
webbrowser.open(choice(suggestion))
With the code completed, click Run > Run Module to
start. You will now have no excuses when asked to
devise a new project. Have fun!
EasyGUI vs GUIzEro
If you have been hacking around with the Pi for a while, you will know
of guizero, written by Laura Sach who works for the Raspberry Pi
Foundation (https://lawsie.github.io/guizero). It’s a great library
which simplifies the way in which we can create Tkinter-based layouts
for many types of GUI application. We used it in LxF242 to create our
barcode scanner/Amazon book search app. So you might be
thinking, why did we choose easygui over guizero for this project?
Well, it comes down to our needs. We just needed a few dialogue
boxes to capture user input, and display the output from the Google
search. We can do this with guizero, but it would not be three simple
lines – there would be a few more lines, but still with simple code.
We have used easygui for a few years, and yes, it is rather old and
a trifle too simple for most projects. But for a really simple ‘Ask a
question, return an answer’ project, it cannot be beaten. To learn
more about easygui and how you can use it via a series of simple
tutorials, head over to its Read The Docs page and follow their work:
https://easygui.readthedocs.io/en/latest.
May 2019 LXF249  53
 TUTORIALS Stop-motion animation

PI CAMERA

Build a Raspberry Pi
stop-motion studio
Christian Cawley plays with modelling clay and a Raspberry Pi camera
to make a movie – although it’s not quite that simple…

ver sat guffawing at Terry Gilliam’s bizarre

E subversion of Victorian-era greetings cards

in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, or egging on
unlikely heroes Wallace and Gromit? Then chances are
you’ve spent a few moments thinking about how those
OUR animations are made.
There was a time when stop-motion photography
EXPERT was beyond the reach of most people. Overhead
Christian cameras mounted on rostrums were expensive, and
Cawley unless your school or college had one, your best bet
A Raspberry Pi was to take some photos and make a flick-book instead.
owner since 2012, As with everything, time and technology has
he’s nurtured 13 revolutionised the production of stop-motion Be careful connecting the jumper wires to the GPIO – ensure the
devices to date, photography, and now making a film with a digital Raspberry Pi is powered off before hooking up the button.
seeing them camera or mobile device is child’s play.
blossom into The Raspberry Pi Camera Module offers a superb you’re going to be snapping around 24 frames for
media centres, low-cost digital option. While time-lapse photography each second of footage, so having an area that remains
retro gaming is popular, it’s easy to overlook its illusory bedfellow. undisturbed when you’re not using it is vital. This ‘hot
systems, and After all, creating a stop-motion animation with figures, set’ should remain untouched by others, too.
portable radio household objects or simply toys is intensive work. Your studio area should have enough space for the
broadcast Often the results aren’t very good, and even getting tripod- or rostrum-mounted Raspberry Pi and Camera
stations. to the point where you have enough shots to create module, along with the objects you’re filming. In the
a short movie clip can be pretty back-breaking. case of 2D, paper-based animation, this should be an
YOU NEED Fortunately, there are some shortcuts you can take, area of table big enough to fill, or almost fill, the lens.
which we’ll explain here. Also useful for overhead shooting is a sheet of clear
Raspberry Pi plastic or glass. This keeps the papercraft pieces in
2 or later Stop, it’s motion time… place when taking a shot, as well as helping them to
Raspbian It’s a good idea to allocate time to your stop-motion look flat and uniform and dealing with any curled edges.
Stretch project – say a few days. Shoots are famously slow; If it was good enough for Terry Gilliam, it’s good enough
Pi Camera for you!
Module In order to shoot clay models, fruit, toys or whatever
Dual-state 3D objects you plan to animate, you’ll need an area
push-button large enough to build a set. There should also be space
Breadboard around the table for you to move in to aid with the
Monitor animation of your characters. Remember that stop-
Mouse and motion animation requires very slight movements in
keyboard every frame for each of the characters or objects you’re
Tripod or shooting. The aim is to get the character from one
secure mount position to another, while creating the illusion of motion.
Something Access to the character from every angle will help you
to animate: to achieve this.
clay figures, Whether you’re using an overhead camera or a
Lego, action standard tripod-mounted shoot, the project needs to
figures and Planning to animate Lego minifigs? Use base pieces or putty to be well-lit. See ‘Lighting balance’ box (over the page) for
so on keep the figures stable for each shot. some handy lighting tips.

54 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Stop-motion animation TuTorialS

Lights! Don’t have a

To turn your Raspberry Pi into the central component of suitable tripod
your stop-motion studio, you’ll need to attach a camera. for overheard
While USB cameras work fine, it’s far more satisfying to work? Build your
employ the latest Raspberry Pi Camera Module. own rostrum
with Meccano
Connecting this device to the Raspberry Pi requires
or another
you to insert the ribbon cable into the ‘Camera’ construction toy.
connector on the SBC. If you’re using a Raspberry Pi
model B, the shiny side of the ribbon should face away
from the Ethernet port.
For Raspberry Pi Zero devices with a camera port,
the shiny side of the ribbon should face up. Take care to
correctly unclip the catch on these connectors before
inserting the ribbon. Similarly, ensure the catch is from picamera import PiCamera
correctly secured afterwards. from time import sleep
Boot up the Pi and enter the configuration screen on from gpiozero import Button Finding
the desktop (Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi something to
animate in your
Configuration) or open a terminal and enter sudo raspi- button = Button(17)
stop-motion
config . Here, select Interfaces (or Interfacing Options camera = PiCamera()
movie project
in the terminal), then enable Camera. Click OK to might seem
confirm and restart your Pi. camera.start_preview() tough, but
With the Pi restarted, open a terminal window, and frame = 1 really you can
enter raspistill -o image1.jpg . This should take a photo while True: use anything.
from the camera, confirming the device is correctly try: it could be
connected and working. You’ll notice that raspistill is button.wait_for_press() household
built into the Raspbian operating system. It’s part of the camera.capture(‘/home/pi/Pictures/stopmotion/ objects, or it
raspicam software, which we’ll come back to later. frame%03d.jpg’ % frame) might be toys.
check toy shops
frame += 1
for Plasticine
Camera! except KeyboardInterrupt:
character kits
Setting up the camera on your Raspberry Pi will let you camera.stop_preview() or lego packs
create a stop-motion video, but it can be a bit fiddly break specifically
entering the same command for every single shot. The This script uses the PiCamera, sleep and Button designed for
solution? Create a shutter button that you can connect programs, from the picamera, time and gpiozero stop-motion
to your Raspberry Pi! libraries. It defines a button (pin 17) and camera and projects.
Prototype it first using a breadboard, connecting the waits for a button press.
two wires to pins 6 and 11 on the GPIO header (or GND At this point, it adds a single image into the specified
and GPIO17). With the button correctly mounted to directory. The script ends only when a keyboard
connect to the wires, you can use this setup to capture interrupt command is detected.
each frame. Alternatively, connect a wired-up button
directly to the pins on your Raspberry Pi’s GPIO.
However you connect the shutter button, you’ll then KeeP steadY and caRRY on
need to create a Python script to detect it. Each push of
the button will capture and save a new photo to the One important element to keep in mind is stability: it’s all too easy
specified directory. Open Menu > Programming > to knock a camera, especially one mounted on a tripod. An overhead
Python 3 (IDLE) then File > New. In the resulting camera can also be subject to vibrations and wobbles.
window, input this script, from raspberrypi.org The result of these bumps can be a jarring distortion in your
(http://bit.ly/LXF249-stopmotion-script): finished movie. While repeating the shot is one solution, it can be
time-consuming to arrange. A better solution is to ensure that the
camera is secured to a sturdy piece of gear.
A tripod should have a heavy, reliable base with a low centre of
gravity to avoid topples. An overhead camera should be securely
connected to the base, or whatever rigging is being used to support
it. You need to minimise any vibrations that might occur during the
capturing of your stop-motion frames. This can be difficult using the
breadboard-based shutter button, so it’s worth changing this to a
direct GPIO pin connection with a long cable.
For this project we opted to use a Raspberry Pi case with a
mounting point for the camera module. This meant we could use the
Pi itself like a camera, positioning it using a smartphone tripod. You
might opt to connect the Pi to a car-windscreen-mounted
For the best results, use a smartphone tripod to mount your Raspberry smartphone holder for similar vibration-free stop-motion video.
Pi for improved stability in your stop-motion movie.

linux, one Page at a time Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249  55
 TuTorialS Stop-motion animation
Action!
With everything set up, it’s time to make your movie.
it’s almost This could be considered as the difficult stage,
always more depending on how much planning you’ve done
convenient to
(you have made a storyboard, haven’t you?).
use a Raspberry
In truth, however, if the Raspberry Pi is securely
Pi without
the display. positioned, with a reliable power supply, and the shutter
However, for a button correctly connected, you shouldn’t have any
camera project trouble. The worst that’s going to happen is probably
like this it’s a bit of back- or neck-ache as you make those small
wise to have adjustments to your characters.
a monitor Your recording of the movie should follow this simple
connected. using procedure: set up scene > take shot > move character/
the preview object(s) > take shot > move character/object(s) >
feature will
take shot. This should continue until your movie is
ensure the shot
complete, or you’re ready to take a break.
is lined up and in
focus. What type As every image is saved into the same folder with an
of display you individual file name, stopping and then restarting the
use is up to following day should not be a problem. Nothing is likely
you, although to be overwritten, for example.
the larger, When you’re ready to stop recording the movie,
the better. press Ctrl+C on your Pi’s keyboard. This will terminate
the stopmotion.py program and close the preview. With
the movie complete, it’s time to compile those
With a Raspberry Pi Camera Module
attached you can turn the Pi into an
all-in-one stills and video camera.
ligHting Balance
Shadows can ruin even the best stop-motion animations, yet this
problem can be easily avoided with a bit of forward planning. Lighting
is the secret, but you need to avoid relying on daylight or a standard
ceiling light. This needn’t cause you to break the bank, either; small
LED lights perfect for this can be bought for just a few pounds.
Positioning the lights to the left and right of the animation ‘stage’
enables you to cancel out any shadows cast by you or the camera.
If you’re animating with objects, toys or modelling clay, a third light
from above will also help to cancel out shadows.
With the shadows banished, you should also ensure the white
balance is set correctly. If you’re using the recommended PiCamera
software, auto white balance will probably work.
You can adjust this yourself by altering the awb_mode property,
which by default is set to awb_mode=auto . Alternatives include
sunlight and cloudy , though tungsten , fluorescent and
incandescent are set for typical indoor lighting temperatures.
Meanwhile, you can even go as far as disable awb_mode with
the off setting. You can then specify a precise awb_gains setting
(between 0.9 and 1.9). Consistent lighting will result in a better
stop-motion movie, so take the time to set this up accurately.
56 LXF249 May 2019
hundreds or thousands of individual images into a
single movie file. Before you do that, however, it’s a
good opportunity to look for any images that didn’t
quite work out.
For example, if you took multiple attempts at a
particular shot, you can delete the ones you don’t want
(or move them to another directory). It’s also a good
chance to get a look at the overall movie in a sort of
‘film strip’ view. This will reveal if the lighting is
consistent, for example, or if your camera has drifted
or been obviously knocked when shooting. In some
cases, it might be possible to retake a shot if it is
particularly poor. However, it may be easier to simply
drop the image, and hope for the best.
When you’re ready to compile the images, browse to
the /stopmotion directory within the terminal (or
press F4 from within the desktop file manager to open a
terminal). Then run:
avconv -r 15 -i stopmotion/frame%03d.jpg -qscale 2
animation.h264
Wait while the process completes. Keep in mind the
relatively low specification of your Raspberry Pi, and the
fact that it is essentially creating a movie in high
definition. This may take a while, so go and recover –
maybe have a good shoulder rub.
The completed file animation.h264 can be run in
your preferred media player. For instance, to play in the
Raspberry Pi’s omxplayer, use
omxplayer animation.h264
Find the video is a bit jerky? Try altering the frame
rate and recompiling it, represented in the avconv
command with the -r 15 value. The higher the figure,
the smoother the animation. Note that the animation
will also become shorter as you increase the frame rate.
Sharing with the world
With your movie completed, you may want to “um” and
“ahh” over the problems. Or you might prefer to just get
it out there to find out what people think of it.
Pretty much anywhere to which you can currently
upload movies is suitable. Better still, as the movie is
probably only a few seconds long, it won’t take long to
upload – so you can think about uploading the stop-
motion movie to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and so on.
Alternatively, you could upload it to your preferred
cloud storage account. From here, it should be easy to
access it from your mobile device and upload the file to
Instagram, say.
Audio!
One shortcoming that you will have noticed with the
creation of a stop-motion movie is the lack of sound.
You have two main options to get around this.
The first is to load up a desktop video editing suite on
your main PC (your Raspberry Pi probably isn’t up to
it!). Import the stop-motion video and add a soundtrack.
This might be audio you already have saved to your PC,
whether that’s music or sound effects. Alternatively,
you could record some custom sound effects or
dialogue to accompany the action.
However, there is also the option to add audio when
you upload the video to YouTube. The Creator Studio
enables you to add sounds from YouTube’s library of
royalty free songs. The selection is pleasingly vast, so
choose carefully!
www.linuxformat.com
 Stop-motion animation TuTorialS
tuRn YouR RasPBeRRY Pi into a stoP-motion movie studio
Connect the Camera Module
1 Hooking up the Camera Module requires the correct cable
for your Raspeberry Pi computer. For Model A and B boards, the
standard cable that ships with the Camera Module is adequate.
However, for the Pi Zero, a narrower cable is needed. Slot the
cable into the port with the shiny side facing away from the
Ethernet port (or facing up on the Pi Zero).
Connect a shutter button
3 The complicated part of this project isn’t all that tough,
really. If you want to use the PiCam script, you’ll need a shutter –
an on-off (dual-state) plunger button connected to the Raspberry
Pi at pins 6 and 11. Once connected to the GPIO, and with the
script running, the button will take a single shot from the camera
on each press.
Create a movie with avconv
5 The completed movie will appear as a collection of stills
in the destination folder. A flick-book effect can be enjoyed by
scrolling through the photos in your file manager’s preview panel.
Using avconv to convert the photos into a movie is simple, but
time-consuming for longer projects. Be sure to set the right FPS  The other is to add music to the audio in YouTube when you
to get the best results first time.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Enable the Camera Module
2 When you boot your Pi, you’ll need to enable the camera.
On the desktop, do this via Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi
Configuration. Select Interfaces then select the Enabled button
for the Camera, then click OK. Alternatively, open a terminal and
use the raspi-config app. Select Interfacing Options, then Camera 
in the next screen. Choose Enable, then OK. Restart.
Start shooting frames
4 It’s one thing to just plunge the button to make your movie, 
another thing entirely to get the shots right. With the camera
securely placed and the characters and background in place,
you’ll commence the tiring job of snapping shot after shot to build
the scene. Find safe shortcuts. Repeat shots wherever possible,
and use as few characters, props and other elements as possible.
Add audio with YouTube
6 Stop-motion animation is sound-free by default. While it
might be fun to let the film play out in total silence, you have a
few options to add sound. One is to load the finished video into
a movie-editing app and add some custom audio with a mic.
 
upload it, using its Creator Studio.
May 2019 LXF249   57
 TUTORIALS Debug serial comms

COMMS

Debug serial comms

Sean Conway walks you through the process of troubleshooting
communication problems between a PC application and a serial device.
he itch for an article on troubleshooting USB- The easiest way to determine if the operating system

T to-serial connections needed to be scratched,

after working on a request for assistance from
a local model railroad group (see LXF239). This tutorial
will provide the knowledge to troubleshoot
communication (comms) issues from an app on a PC
to a serial device, using a USB-to-serial cable/interface.
OUR In the diagram shown below, there is a PC running
EXPERT an application that requires a serial interface. The PC
is connected to the serial device, shown on the far right
Sean D. Conway side of the drawing, using a USB-to-serial cable/
is a retired IT interface. The drawing contains a few additional details
security specialist that will be introduced as our discussion expands.
who now Hardware in the PC supported serial comms; at one
exercises point during the evolution of the PC, a minimum of two
his brain by DB9 ports (the 9-pin COM port) was considered
mining knowledge standard. The red highlighted text in the diagram are
through some examples of COM port communication needs.
Raspberry Pi But all things come to an end, and the ubiquitous USB
projects. port soon replaced COM ports. To consolidate all the
different serial device comms requirements, a USB-to-
serial cable/adaptor came into play. Unfortunately, this
generic serial comms doesn’t always work, and it can be
frustrating trying to isolate the root cause of serial
communication failure.
After connecting the USB-to-serial cable to the host
PC, the first step is to determine if the OS recognises
the USB-to-serial adaptor. In Linux, the dmesg
command reveals information regarding hardware
detection, driver assignments and communication port
allocation. It is important to take note of what COM port
(COM1, 2, 4 or so on) is used – this will be needed to
support our efforts, as well as set up the application.
detects the USB cable/adaptor device is to install the
device after a reboot. Installing it before a reboot
causes the device details to be consolidated inside
other boot message content.
From a command line interface type dmesg . If the
cable/adapter was plugged into the PC before bootup,
the details we want are embedded in the dmesg listing.
For the novice it’s much easier to plug in the cable/
adapter after a reboot and then run dmesg. The new
device details will be at the end of the listing.
From the information returned you can extract
which chipset/UART is in the cable/adapter. The
details will also identify which communication port
has been assigned. You are looking for something
like ‘ttyUSB’, suffixed with an assignment number –
for example, ttyUSB0 .
For the next step in troubleshooting we are going to
use an application called Putty – its UI makes it easy to
configure the ports. The goal is to confirm that software
on the host PC can communicate through a USB-to-
serial adapter. Once Putty is installed, open the
application. Select ‘Serial’ in the ‘Connection type’
choices. In the ‘Serial line’ field, enter the COM port
details you have recorded previously. Proceed to the
serial connection screen. The most common, default
setup is 9600baud 8N1. The number sequence
translation means: eight bits of data, no stop bits, one
parity bit.
Give the session configuration a name and save it.
The session configuration is not saved by default when
you leave the application; if you don’t save the session,
you’ll need to input the configuration again next time.

Serial Application Serial Connection Serial Device

(Putty) (USB to Serial cable/adapter) NULL Modem (DCC)
(Optional)
CD 1 1 CD
UART/RS232/
Data RS485/RS422 RxD 2 2 RxD
1
6

+ TxD 3 3 TxD
USB Connector

Parallel printer to
Device Connector

USB printer DTR 4 4 DTR

CH341 Chip
PC

SG 5 5 SG
EPP parallel and
9

MEM parallel DSR 6 6 DSR

5

RTS 7 7 RTS
Data
DB9 Connector
Serial connection –
2wire/4wire
(jumper for testing) CTS 8 8 CTS
synchronous serial
path mapping,
with additional RI 9 9 RI
landmarks shown.

58 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Before starting the terminal session configured in
Putty, let’s create a physical connection (technically, a
short) between pins 2 and 3 on the nine-pin serial
connector. Refer to the DB9 connector details on the
diagram: pins 2 and 3 are the serial transmit/receive
pins. By connecting the pins together, we are
redirecting the output on the transmit pin back to
the input on the receive pin.
When the Putty session is activated you will be taken
to a blank, black terminal-style window. Now select a
character on the keyboard. The keyboard character
selected should appear on the screen. If the character
appears, Putty has transmitted the character data
serially out of the transmit pin and, with the short in
place, routed the transmission back to the receive pin,
to be displayed on the screen.
The real thing
Now that we have confirmed Putty can transmit and
receive over the USB-to-serial cable/interface, we can
replace it with our unknown serial application. The
application will no doubt require the configuration
details (COM port) used to setup the Putty session.
If the cable/adapter worked with Putty it should work
with the application, provided the communication
details set up are correct. If not, you have isolated
the problem to the application.
The serial application will need to be configured with
the serial communication protocol details. The COM
port identifier is one piece of information. It is important
in serial communication that the transmission rate and
the framing of the serial message be compatible
between sender and receiver. For Putty, we relied on
the default serial options, 8N1.
Serial communication relies on both the transmitting
end and receiving ends agreeing on how they will frame
data for communication. Here is an analogy: two people
want to communicate. One speaks French, the other
English. Without establishing a language requirement,
both parties can transmit, but neither can understand
what is received. The same concept applies to serial
communication setup.
The serial device manufacturer’s documentation
should provide the details required to set up the
application. The Putty serial screen is an example of
the values that should be found in the serial device
documentation. The application needs to know the
speed and bit configuration in order to communicate.
You discovered the COM port by looking in the OS. It
can take a lot of trial and error to work through the
combination to get the serial protocol correct.
Remember that pins 2 and 3 on the serial connector
are ‘transmit’ and ‘receive’. When the cable is plugged
into the serial device, how does the serial device’s
manufacturer take care of ensuring the transmit data
pin is connected to the serial device’s receive data pin?
It would be handy if this requirement is provided in the
documentation; if not, it’s back to our troubleshooting.
There are two methods to achieve the connection
goal. The serial device’s manufacturer may cross the
transmit and receive pins on the serial device end by
switching the position of pins 2 and 3 on the connector,
get your FiLL oF seriaL Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Debug serial comms TuTorialS
or assume that the user has
sufficient knowledge to use the
option of installing a null modem.
If the two pins are switched in the
serial device, transmit and receive
pairing will match. Otherwise, a null
modem cable will need to be
installed to take care of moving the
transmit and receive connections.
Refer to the diagram for null modem
cable details.
Let’s summarise the
troubleshooting process we’ve just
developed, to really get it into our
minds. First we confirmed the USB-
to-serial cable/adapter was
supported in the host PC by
checking that it was registered in
Linux. Next we confirmed that the
computer could transmit and
receive over the USB-to-serial Putty’s screen layout
cable/adapter using Putty. We isn’t necessarily the
same in different OSes.
shorted pins 2 and 3 on the cable/
adapter’s connector, so that the
‘transmit’ and ‘receive’ were
connected, then transmitted a character and watched it
appear on the screen.
Putty was then replaced with the computer you can find
application we want to actually test, and the application simon tatham’s
was configured with the required serial port and putty repository
communication protocol requirements (rate and at www.chiark.
framing details) given by the manufacturer. greenend.org.
Finally, the PC was connected with the USB-to-serial uk/~sgtatham/
putty.
cable/interface to the serial device, with the knowledge
that transmit and receive was taken care of by the
manufacturer’s design, or a null modem cable needed
to be installed to complete the communication path.
When you experience serial communication
problems, what’s most important is to determine if the
infrastructure for serial communication actually works,
without all the overhead of the new applications and
devices. Once that is determined you can substitute the
known for the unknown, and should be able to isolate
what is not working.
the Lost art
You would think that the knowledge that a straight-through
connection, or a null modem connection, is required for a bit of kit to
work would be provided in the documentation. It’s my experience
that this knowledge, more often that not, is lacking, however.
With the demise of COM ports as computer hardware, a lot of
knowledge about serial communications has been misplaced. The
belief now seems to be “Just hook it up and it’ll work!” We need to
restore the lost knowledge to troubleshoot connection issues.
One caveat to keep in mind is not to apply both connection
methods at the same time. If the manufacture has switched the pins
and a null modem cable is installed, two rights in this case make a
wrong. Think about it: pins 2 and 3 are switched by the manufacture,
and then again by the null modem cable.
May 2019 LXF249   59
tutorials
FFF
Discover a blazingly
fast file manager
Not all file managers look the same, as Shashank Sharma discovered
while working with FFF – a file manager written in Bash.

hat sets FFF apart from other file managers is image files from within the terminal emulator itself,

W its non-conventional user interface… and its

name, of course. It’s not every day one comes
across a tool with an expletive for a name, which we
won’t repeat here for obvious reasons. You will have to
our point your browser to the project’s home page at
https://github.com/dylanaraps/fff for that.
expert FFF doesn’t exactly have an interface to speak of.
Shashank Sharma Instead it provides a directory or file list, and lets you
is a trial lawyer in perform various file operations such as copy, paste, cut
Delhi and an avid and so on. As a shell script, the project also doesn’t
Arch user. He’s have large dependencies, and you can set it up on
always looking for any Linux distribution – and even BSD and macOS –
geek memorabilia. without any hassles. For all of its file operations, the tool
relies on the coreutils package. You can optionally
install the w3m-img package, which will let you view
CommanD-line File managers
Text-based file managers aren’t new; in fact, graphical managers
could be considered the new kids on the block. Two of the most
popular file managers for Linux users, Midnight Commander and
Ranger, are command-line utilities. Unlike FFF, these feature a multi-
pane interface, and some even more advanced features.
For instance, you can use Midnight Commander to recover deleted
files, and search for files or the content of a file as well. Unlike FFF and
Ranger, however, Midnight Commander uses Emacs-style
keybindings. As with FFF, you can also create bookmarks, called
Hotlists, and can also connect with remote FTP clients and browse
contents of archives such as RAR and ZIP – something FFF can’t do.
If you’re running Ranger or Midnight Commander in a terminal
emulator on top of a graphical environment, you will also be able to
use your mouse to navigate around the interface, which is another
feature not available with the vanilla FFF file manager.
Another alternative is vifm, which as the name suggests is another
tool that supports vi-style keybindings. As with Ranger and Midnight
Commander, vifm features a multi-pane interface. While it doesn’t
offer the advanced features of Midnight Commander or Ranger, a lot
of people will appreciate its undo and redo feature, which can be used
for many different operations such as copy, delete, rename, move,
change permissions, owner/group change and so on.
using the w3m browser. The w3m-img package and
other optional dependencies listed on the project’s
GitHub page are readily available in the software
repositories for most distributions.
To install FFF, open the terminal and run git clone
https://github.com/dylanaraps/fff.git, which copies the
FFF repository into the current directory. To be able to
access FFF from anywhere in the terminal, you must
place the script somewhere in $PATH, such as the
/usr/sbin directory. You can run the sudo cp fff /usr/
sbin command to do so. Alternatively, you can source
the script from your ~/.bashrc file:
$ echo “alias fff=”/path/to/fff-script”” >> ~/.bashrc
$ source .bashrc
Of course, you can create a more convenient alias
if you prefer, such as fm or even f:
$ echo “alias fm=”/path/to/fff-script”” >> ~/.bashrc
$ echo “alias f=”/path/to/fff-script”” >> ~/.bashrc
$ source .bashrc
You can now launch FFF by running the fff
command from the terminal, or using your alias.
If you’ve ever worked with the popular vi text editor,
you’ll quite enjoy navigating with FFF. In addition to
vi-like keybindings, the project also uses the arrow keys
to help you navigate around. The key() function in the
FFF script describes the various bindings.
The search feature also produces real-time results, and is indeed fast
enough to justify the project’s expletive-riddled name.

60 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Of course, if you’d like to define your own keyboard,
you can do that as well by editing the script to your
satisfaction. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough space
to provide a complete list of the default key bindings,
but here are some that you will use frequently:
Key Function
J scroll down
K scroll up
H go to parent dir
L go to child dir
Enter go to child dir
Backspace go to parent dir
- go to previous directory
! open shell in current directory
F new file
N new dir
R rename
In addition to J, K, H and L, you can also use the
respective arrow keys for the same purpose, as these
are configured by default in FFF. That is, you can press
the right and left keys to respectively enter a directory,
or return to the parent directory. The up and down keys
can similarly be used to select a file or directory.
Most file managers help you do more than just
provide easy access to a directory’s content; they also
help you rename, copy, move, search for or delete files.
Like its graphical counterparts, FFF too supports all
these functions, and they’re all at your disposal with a
single keystroke.
You can press / followed by a string and FFF will
immediately print all files/directories which match the
entered string. Unlike other command-line utilities,
which retain a case-sensitive approach, the search
feature on FFF is not case-sensitive. For instance, if
your home directory contains several directories and
files which feature the letters M and m – whether at the
start, middle or the end – as soon as you start typing
/m , FFF will automatically limit the contents to all
matching files/directories which feature these letters.
This means that the search results will include the
directory Music as well as the file beard-grooming-
tips.txt, and all other matches. The results will keep
getting narrowed down as you type.
If you also want to view hidden files/directories, you
can press the . key to toggle hidden files. Once on, the
option remains enabled, until you toggle it again. You
can similarly use the X key to determine the attributes
such as total size, permissions, time of the last access,
modification and so on of the selected file and directory.
Most graphical file managers let you type in the
directory you wish to access. If your present working
directory is ~/Documents and you want to navigate to
/Downloads/projects/calcurse/calcurse-4.3.0/
scripts, that’s a whole lot of key presses. Thankfully,
FFF also lets you type in the directory path you want to
access. First press : and then type the directory path.
enhanCe your terminal-Fu Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
File manager TuTorials
Being a Bash script, FFF also supports tab-completion,
so you don’t have to manually type the complete path.
You can copy, move, or delete single files with FFF you can use
by selecting the file/directory and then respectively the keys 1 to
9 to create
pressing the Y, M or D key. You can also select all files
bookmarks
in the current working directory using the same keys
to commonly
plus Shift. That is, press Shift+Y to mark all files for accessed files
copying, or Shift+M or Shift+D to move or delete all or directories.
files. When you choose a file operation such as copy, open the FFF
move or delete, the selected file is highlighted in red, script in your
and the bottom of the interface will show in red the favourite editor,
operation you’re about to perform. For instance, if you navigate to the
mark a file/directory for deletion, you’ll see: ‘# Directory
(12/12) [1] selected (trash) [p] ->/home/linuxlala/ favourites’
section and use
Desktop
the template
Here, the path at the end of the line describes the
‘export
location of the file, the number in square brackets FFF_FaV1=/
describes the number of files, and the keyword in path/to/file-
brackets describes the intended operation. The (12/12) or-directory’
at the beginning of the line describes the position of the . you can now
selected file in the directory list. All the contents are use the keys 1
arranged alphabetically, and FFF automatically to 9 to switch to
computes the total number of files/directories in the a bookmarked
current working directory. So if your current directory directory,
or open a
has four files, named Alpha, Curses, beard and java,
bookmarked
they would be assigned numbers 1, 3, 2, 4 respectively.
file, irrespective
This is because FFF isn’t case sensitive. of your current
Similarly, for a move operation, the line at the working
bottom of FFF would read: directory.
(3/4) [2] selected (mv -i) [p]->/home/linuxlala/
Downloads/projects/
Here, the [2] means we’ve selected two files for the
move operation (mv -i) . Once you’ve chosen the file
operation to perform, navigate to the directory where
you want to move or copy the selected files/directories
and then press P. FFF then pastes the chosen files into
this new working directory. Unfortunately, there’s no
way for you to specify the path where you want to move
or copy files: you have to manually navigate there and
then press P for the file operation to take effect.
In summary, FFF features many of commonly used
features, has no real learning curve to speak of, and is
indeed, er, quite fast.
The FFF script is neatly split into different sections. Although not thoroughly commented, it can
teach you a lot about Bash scripting.
May 2019 LXF249  61
TUTORIALS Organise photos

SHOTWELL
How to build a photo
library in Shotwell
Nick Peers reveals how to bring order to your chaotic photo
and video library with Ubuntu’s default photo organiser.

igital photography has been become both a photos through creative use of colour and light

D blessing and a curse. It’s almost inconceivable

to remember the time when every photo was
correction, cropping, straightening and even removal
of the dreaded red-eye.
precious, eagerly awaited with a mixture of anticipation Shotwell is included by default with both Ubuntu
and dread. Nowadays, digital clutters up your hard drive and Mint, but it’s an old version (0.28.4). Step one,
OUR with dozens – if not hundreds – of photos for every
major life event, never mind the rest.
therefore, is to ensure you’re running the latest version
– 0.30.1 at time of writing. Open a Terminal window and
EXPERT Thankfully, there’s a tool that can help bring order to issue the following commands:
Nick Peers your chaotic collection. Shotwell doesn’t simply bring $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yg-jensge/shotwell
is looking forward your photos into a single library: you can use it to $ sudo apt-get update
to finally being organise them a myriad of different ways, from date- $ sudo apt-get install shotwell
able to bring based events to keyword tags. It even offers a selection Close the Terminal window and launch Shotwell from
some sense of of handy image-editing tools to help lift lacklustre the applications list. It will immediately search your
order to the
chaotic ‘pile’ View and edit photos in Shotwell
of photos he
has amassed.
1

6
3
If files in the
Shotwell library
are moved,
deleted, or –
with removable
media –
disconnected,
they become
‘missing’ and 2 4
disappear from
the main view.
5
You can check
these under Filter photos Crop options
Library > Missing
1 Use the options in the left-hand pane to filter the list of photos in 4 Click to select the aspect ratio of your selection, or switch between
Files. Either various ways, including by event, tag or flag. portrait and landscape orientation using these tools.
restore the
Basic information Toolbar
file(s) manually, 2 When you select a photo to view, its basic file information is 5 Context-sensitive options appear here – when you’re viewing a file,
or select them displayed here. various editing tools plus the zoom slider are displayed.
all and click
‘Remove from Crop tool Extended information
Library’ to 3 The crop tool enables you to cut out superfluous detail: click and 6 Press Ctrl+Shift+X to display additional information not shown by
delete them. drag on the crop square to resize or move it. the Basic information tool.

62 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Pictures folder for images and videos, which appear
as a list of thumbnails organised by the file’s date- and
timestamp, newest first. You’ll see several options for
filtering photos and videos by type at the top of the
screen, plus a search box to quickly look for photos
using keywords, which will become more useful as
you organise your photos.
Double-click an item to either view it in Shotwell’s
built-in picture viewer or – if it’s a video – in your default
movie player. When viewing photos, use your mouse’s
scroll wheel or the magnification slider to zoom in and
out, and click and drag to move around the photo.
Double-click again to return to the main view.
Importing photos and videos
These days, it’s not uncommon for people to have a
different folder than the standard Pictures in which to
store photos. Shotwell enables you to import photos
and video from several sources in different ways. The
simplest is to drag and drop a folder or file from the
Files application onto the Shotwell window, or you can
go down the traditional route via its File menu: choose
File > Import From Folder to choose a folder on another
drive or camera memory card you’ve plugged into a
reader. Select your folder or drive, and leave ‘Recurse
Into Subfolders’ ticked to ensure the photos inside
subfolders are also included when Shotwell adds them
to your library. Click OK.
Shotwell will then give you one of two options: ‘Copy
Photos’ physically copies the files into your Pictures
folder, organised into subfolders based on the year,
month and day corresponding to the datestamp on
each photo – for example, 2019 > 04 > 03 for photos
dated 3 April 2019. This option will check – and strip
out – any duplicates it finds. Alternatively, choose
‘Import in Place’ and nothing will be copied, but the files
become part of your Shotwell library. Should you later
move these files, Shotwell will lose the link to them.
Shotwell also supports importing files from memory
cards or digital cameras – see the box (bottom right)
for more details.
If you want to copy photos into a single folder, but
don’t want to use your Pictures folder for whatever
reason, or you don’t like the MMMM\YY\DD folder
structure, choose Edit > Preferences > Library tab.
Start by specifying an alternative location for your
Shotwell library – tick ‘Watch library directory for new
files’ if you’d like your library to automatically update
whenever new files are copied into the library folder.
You can also select a different folder structure from
here, such as ‘Year/Month’ to group photos by month
rather than day. Alternatively, select Custom to set up
your own chronologically based structure using regular
expressions. Click Help next to the Pattern box for a full
list, such as ‘%b’ for a three-letter abbreviation of the
month name (‘Apr’) instead of the two-digit number.
Organise your library
Shotwell’s left-hand pane offers several options that
relate to the way photos and videos are organised and
viewed – click one to switch to that view. The Library
view is self-explanatory – a straight choice between all
photos or those you most recently imported, plus the
wastebasket to which entries in the library can be
dragged. It’ll also display missing and flagged photos
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Organise photos TuTorials
(more on that shortly). The Shotwell library itself Select Edit >
doesn’t contain any physical links to your actual photo Preferences
> Library to
files; instead, think of it as a virtual database layer that
configure the
sits on top of your photos. This means that anything folder structure for
you ‘do’ to your photos in Shotwell – whether photos copied into
organising them by adding tags or altering their date, your library.
or by editing the photos themselves – isn’t applied to
the physical files. In other words, it’s non-destructive by
default, but if you want to apply certain changes to the
real files there are ways to do this, as we’ll see.
Let’s start by looking at the different ways in which
Shotwell organises your files. By default, all photos and Not all date-
videos in your library are displayed together, sorted by and timestamps
date, with the newest shown first. You can alter this by on photos are
choosing View > Sort Photos, where you’ll find options correct – for
for displaying by title, filename or rating, plus choose example, if
whether to view in descending (newest or last first) or you scan in
ascending order. old family
This view obviously becomes impractical incredibly history photos.
edit these by
quickly, which is where all the viewing and filtering
selecting the
options become useful. First, without doing any
photo and
additional work you can browse by date using the choosing photos
Events view. Click ‘All Events’ or select a year or month > adjust Date
from the list to group all photos by date. Roll your and time. tick
mouse over an individual day to see quick-fire previews ‘Modify original
of all the photos inside, then double-click to show just files’ to amend
the photos taken on that day. Other viewing options the actual file
include Imports, which records each separate import datestamp.
IMport pHotoS FroM a CaMera
You can also import directly from your camera – Shotwell uses
gPhoto 2, which supports most models (visit http://bit.ly/
lxf249gphoto for a list of over 2,500 models). Connect your camera
to your PC with a USB cable, then with Shotwell open, switch the
camera on. After a short pause you should see your camera’s
pictures fill the Shotwell window – look in the left-hand menu where
you should see a new Cameras submenu with a ‘Mass Storage
Camera’ entry indicating it has been recognised.
Tick the ‘Hide photos already imported’ to prevent accidentally
importing the same photo twice in future, then either click ‘Import All’
to bring them all across to your photo library, or Ctrl-click those
photos you wish to import before clicking ‘Import Selected’. Wait
while Shotwell imports the photos – you’ll see each photo appear one
after the other, and then click Keep or Delete depending on whether
you want to leave the photos on your camera or not.
May 2019 LXF249   63
TuTorials Organise photos

from file or camera, and Folders, which is useful if you on the first and last days to select them all, then
don’t keep all your photos in a central location. One final choose Events > Merge Events.
want to back up option for browsing is tags, which is based on keywords The photos will then be grouped together under a
your Shotwell that are attached to individual photos. These can be single event that’s named according to the date(s) it
library? Because anything you like – a place or person, for example, and occurred on. Select this, right-click and choose Rename
thumbnails the benefits of clicking them are obvious. Event to give it a more memorable name – it’ll remain
are generated These viewing options form the crux of Shotwell’s organised by month and year to help you locate it in
automatically, organisation tools. Let’s begin with Events. As we’ve future. If you want to add a comment – basically a
all you need to seen, by default Shotwell uses days to create individual description packed with keywords you can use to locate
do is back up events, but you can create your own named events that the event later if necessary – right-click the event name
the database
can either span multiple days or split an individual day and choose ‘Edit Event Comment...’
file – you’ll find
this hidden
into two or more parts (for those busy days when you
away under cram in two or more engagements). Organisation options
~/.local/share/ If you’re splitting a single day into two or more It’s also possible to label photos individually or in
shotwell. events, simply select the day, then hold Shift as you selected batches. You can add titles, comments and
Visit the FaQ click on the first and last photo you wish to group into a tags (keywords), all of which can help you find them.
at https:// single event, before choosing Events > New Event. If Select a photo or group of photos and you’ll find options
wiki.gnome. you’re creating an event from photos spanning more for adding a title and comment under the Photos menu,
org/apps/ than one day you’ll need to select the month in which while the Tags menu enables you to both add new tags
Shotwell/FaQ they appear under Events (or the year, if the event is and modify existing ones. Tags are a good way of
for complete
split across two or more months). From here Shift+click adding locations to your photos; you could for example
details.
make it a rule to include a village/town, county/state
and country, so Ventnor, Isle of Wight, or Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada for example.
You can also rate photos from one to five stars,
enabling you to rank your photos or even simply sort
your photos from best to worst. Look under Photos >
Set Ratings for the options available to you.
Select a month One final tool allows you to flag individual photos.
under Events The photo’s thumbnail is marked with a small grey
and you’ll see a
summary of all
exclamation mark, enabling you to draw attention to it
events in that for whatever reason you like – for example, marking
period. photos that need correcting. Right-click a photo or
selection of photos and choose ‘Toggle Flag’ to switch it
on or off as required. When you’ve flagged one or more
expaND SHotwell photos, you’ll be able to view them all together by
selecting Flagged under Library.
Shotwell’s capabilities can be increased through the use of plug-ins, By default, all of these changes have no impact on
some of which are provided with the program. These are managed the files themselves, but you may find that embedding
via the Edit > Preferences > Plugins tab, and you’ll see there are three the metadata into the files could be useful, because it
categories: Data Imports, Publishing and Slideshow Transitions. makes that data available to other applications. To do
These are the only plug-ins currently published and available for this for all the files in your collection, simply choose Edit
Shotwell, and they do change over time – for example, an option to > Preferences and tick ‘Write tags, titles and other
publish to Facebook was recently removed as it no longer works. metadata to photo files’. To apply it to individual files
You can see the current status of Shotwell’s plugins by taking a trip only, you’ll need to export the file (see below).
to http://bit.ly/lxf249shotplugs, where you’ll discover that the
obsolete Picasa Web Albums plug-in is in the process of being Shotwell’s image editing tools
updated to support publishing to Google Photos instead. Not all photos comes out perfectly, and Shotwell offers
If you fancy writing your own plugin, visit http://bit.ly/ some tools to help you make certain improvements.
lxf29shotplugs2 for a complete guide to doing so. After completing As already stated, these changes are all non-destructive
your plug-in, open your /Home folder in Files and create the following – the underlying file isn’t changed, so you can
folder path: ~/.gnome2/shotwell/plugins. Copy your plug-in file to experiment to your heart’s content without worrying
here and restart Shotwell – the plugin should now be available. about ruining the original file.
Individual changes can be undone as you make them
in the usual way with Edit > Undo, or you can remove all
of them at any time by opening the image and choosing
Photos > Revert to Original. If you perform any edits,
hold Shift to view the photo in its original, unedited form
Manage Shotwell’s for comparative purposes at any time. If you do make
plug-ins from the significant improvements to your photos that you’d like
Edit > Preferences to keep, you can save the edited version to disk: choose
dialogue. All
currently available
File > Export and choose any option other than
plug-ins can be ‘Unmodified’. You’ll also have the option to export any
found here. metadata you’ve attached to the picture. Either save
your copy to a new location or overwrite the original.

64 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Organise photos TuTorials

To edit a photo in Shotwell, double-click it and you’ll Flickr is one of

see the controls you need at the bottom of the screen. the few publishing
options offered
Most are self-explanatory – Rotate and Crop, for
by Shotwell right
example – while clicking Enhance enables Shotwell now – sadly
to perform automatic adjustments that can quickly (thankfully?–Ed),
improve a photo’s lighting or colour balance. All Facebook is no
changes can be undone via the Edit menu. longer supported.
You’ll also notice three other options, which require
a little more explanation. If you’ve scanned something
in – an old photo or document, for example – chances
are it’s slightly skewed. Click Straighten to overlay a
grid on your photo, then either use the Angle slider to
perform adjustments or click and drag the cursor in a
line over the photo to realign it along that line’s angle.
Once done, the photo will update automatically, but
until you click Straighten it won’t actually apply the
change; click Cancel to void it, or Reset to start again.
The Red-eye button’s purpose is obvious. First, zoom with the Shadows/Highlights sliders, so if you’re not
into the photo so your subject’s devilish eyes are 100 per cent happy with its results, leave Enhance
magnified, then click Red-eye. A small circle appears in clicked and then focus your tweaks on these tools. If Shotwell
the centre of the photo: start by positioning it over the appears to
freeze after
first eye and using the Size slider to resize it. When it Share and publish switching on
has surrounded the red portion of the eye, click Apply Shotwell also offers various ways in which you can
your camera,
and move on to the next eye. share your photos with others. The simplest is via switch off the
The final option is the most powerful: if you don’t feel email: simply right-click a photo and choose Send To… camera and
that Shotwell’s Enhance button has done enough to fix You’ll see similar options to those offered when close Shotwell.
your photo’s poor lighting or colour, click Adjust exporting the photo, but we’d recommend choosing open Files,
instead. A pop-up window appears, displaying a JPEG for starters, then setting a scaling constraint – then switch the
histogram of the current image. You’ll see so-called typically ‘Longest edge’ – in pixels before clicking OK, camera back
‘Intensity Threshold’ markers appear at either end of it. at which point the photo will be sent to your email on. after a short
These change the lightness of the brightest white and application in the form of an attachment. pause it should
appear – click
the darkness of the darkest black, and are particularly There are also several options for publishing your
to open it and
good at correcting washed-out images. photos online: choose File > Publish or press Ctrl+Shift
you’ll see an
There are also seven sliders you can adjust for +P. By default there are options to publish to Flickr, option to open
additional corrections, including colour issues. The Google Picasa Web Albums and Piwigo for photos, and it in Shotwell –
step-by-step guide below walks through these in more YouTube for videos. Gallery3 and Tumblr options are click this
detail. It’s worth noting that the automatic Enhance also available, but only after enabling the plug-ins – see and it should
button tweaks the Intensity Threshold markers along the box (on page 64) for more about those. now function.

perForM MaNual lIgHtINg aND Colour aDjuStMeNtS

Adjust exposure Tweak colour balance Additional adjustments

1 The Exposure slider creates the
effect of changing a photo’s exposure time
– push the slider right to lighten an
underexposed photo, or left to darken it.
The Contrast slider helps counter washed-
out photos (push right) or narrow the range
between dark and light (push left).
2 Photo looks washed out? Try
pushing the Saturation slider right to inject
more colour. Drag it all the way left to
remove the colour so it becomes greyscale.
If your camera has incorrect white balance
settings, use Tint to correct them by adding
more red (move it left) or green (right).
3 Use the Temperature slider to make
cold-looking photos warmer (or vice versa).
The Shadows slider is useful for bringing
out detail hidden in dark areas of the image,
while the Highlights slider enables you to
reduce the number of bright areas. Use 
Shadows and Highlights together.

BeCoMe Better orgaNISeD Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249  65
back issues

Back issues Missed one?

Issue 248 Issue 247 Issue 246
April 2019 March 2019 February 2019

Product code: Product code: Product code:

LXFDB0248 LXFDB0247 LXFDB0246

In the magazine In the magazine In the magazine

Find out how to
relive the entirety of computing
history (well, most of it) through
open source. Build your own Pi
Camera photobooth, check out our
Roundup of vector graphic editors,
build a better WordPress server,
and make scanning easy.
Lock down
Linux Mint 19.1 tighter than the ed’s
wallet with our full guide to security.
We take at look at the huge range of
photo editors available in Roundup,
show you how to get your head
around Git, build a 2D platform
game, and make your terminal talk.
We bring you
100 of the best open source tools,
ranging from audio and video
software, to file management and
security, and more. There’s tutorials
on desktop publishing, Emacs and
Middleman, plus how you can get
into open source astronomy.

DVD highlights DVD highlights DVD highlights

Qubes OS 4.0.1 64-bit, possibly the Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon 64-bit It’s a Linux starter pack: Bodhi Linux
most secure Linux distro to date. and Xfce 32-bit editions. Tasty! 5.0, Voyager 18.10 and Sparky 4.9!

Issue 245 Issue 244 Issue 243

January 2019 December 2018 November 2018

Product code: Product code: Product code:

LXFDB0245 LXFDB0244 LXFDB0243

In the magazine In the magazine In the magazine

Roll up your
sleeves and get making, with our
handy feature on bread boards,
soldering irons, LEDs and more.
Then design a magazine in Scribus,
write a Sudoku checker in Go, learn
what you can do with Kubernetes,
and we review five web servers.
Discover how
to run Linux in a virtual environment
with our 10-page guide. We review
five office suites, reveal how to make
your web forms bot-free, and run
through how to set up a video player
on the Raspberry Pi. And we go cave
diving with open source technology!
Leave Windows
for Mint-flavoured pastures new –
we have an in-depth guide. Five
video-editing packages go under the
Roundup microscope, we explore 3D
photography, build an Android app
and get the most from weather
sensors. Plus: run a secret server.

DVD highlights DVD highlights DVD highlights

Experience the might of Manjaro 18, Try Elementary 5.0, the distro that’s Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon, Slax Linux
and try out 32- and 64-bit Fedora. ideal for beginners. Plus Ubuntu 18.10. 9.5.0 and Peppermint OS 9.

To order, visit myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Select Tech from the tabs of magazine categories, then select Linux Format.
Or call the back issues hotline on 0344 848 2852
or +44 344 848 2852 for overseas orders.

Quote the issue code shown above and have your credit or debit card details ready

66 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 UK subs
NOT FROM THE UK? turn to
p26

SUBSCRIBE!
Don’t wait for the latest issue to reach your local store –
subscribe today and let Linux Format come straight to you!

3 GREAT
WAYS TO
SUBSCRIBE
Print, digital, and
print + digital
bundles!

USA REST OF THE WORLD EUROPE

From $15 From $15 From €15
every 3 months every 3 months every 3 months

IT’S EASY TO SUBSCRIBE!

Click: www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sublin
Call: +44 344 848 2852
Lines open 8am–7pm GMT weekdays, 10am–2pm GMT Saturdays*
Savings compared to buying 13 full-priced issues. You’ll receive 13 issues in a year. You can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within
14 days of purchase. Your subscription is for the minimum term specified and will expire at the end of the current term. Payment is non-refundable after
the 14-day cancellation period unless exceptional circumstances apply. Your statutory rights are not affected. Prices correct at time of print and
subject to change. *UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free
minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). For full terms and conditions please visit http://bit.ly/magtandc. Offer ends 31 May 2019.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 67

TUTORIALS Audio editing
AUDACITY
Advanced audio
recording and editing
John Knight returns to his old recording friend Audacity once again,
and finds things have become a little more advanced.
ig audio suites are great, but they can be
B intimidating to say the least – sometimes
you just want something that works without
having to think too much about it. Enter Audacity,
OUR from: www.audacityteam.org.
Audacity has become popular on all desktop
EXPERT platforms, and has started popping up on YouTube
John Knight tutorials quite a bit. Known for its ease of use and
writes ebooks on intuitive interface, Audacity is perhaps the audio
how to play the equivalent of Microsoft Paint (erm…–Ed) – it can’t do
drums, when he’s deeply complicated tasks, but then it was never
not playing with a intended to do so. It’s designed around simple controls
Commodore 64 that most people can guess their way around… though
emulator. that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve some great results!
Audacity’s interface
1 features, but we will cover enough of the essentials to
5
6
3 Sounds good
2 some existing audio or just record random sound (blank
4 If you want to add some existing audio tracks, you
Main Toolbar Collapse Button
1 Where your primary tools are kept, such 4 Squishes up any track into a kind of sliver
as Selection, Time Shift, Zoom and Envelope. which can be expanded later.
Track Controls Zoom Controls
2 Tools for muting, soloing tracks and 5 Dedicated buttons for specific zoom
changing the gain and the pan. This is where functions, including zooming into a selected
you really shape your soundscape. portion of a wave, or zooming out 100%.
Track Menu Recording Options
3 Provides a bundle of more advanced 6 Choose which audio system you want
controls, such as mono-stereo conversion, to use, which device to record from, mono or
as well as renaming and moving tracks. stereo, and change the playback device.
68 LXF249 May 2019
Although technically Audacity can record multi-
channel digital audio, the interface really isn’t designed
for it – it’s meant for simple recording in mono or
stereo. If you’re looking for a Pro Tools replacement,
Audacity isn’t it: try Ardour or QTractor instead. But if
you’re looking for an easy to use wave editor and a fast,
simple way of making stereo mixes, it may be what
you’re looking for. Audacity lets you get deep into the
wave form and perform easy cuts and edits, making it
very popular among technicians who want to cut
together quick edits, and apply basic effects without
getting bogged down by a complex interface.
Nevertheless, Audacity has undergone some
changes lately, and at first glance some long-time users
might have their nose put out of joint. So for the new
users we’ll give you a walkthrough of the major features,
and for the veterans we’ll show you what’s changed and
how to adapt to it. We won’t be showing you all the
start a workflow.
In order to show you how Audacity works, we first need
to have some audio to play with. You can either import
silence is fine) – it doesn’t really matter, as long as
there’s an audio track of some sort.
can run through a maze of GUI prompts if you really like,
or you can just click and drag them onto the editing
field. As for recording audio, just hit the Record button
in the main toolbar, and if you’re using an internet mic,
clap your hands a few times – that should show up on
the waveform. Press Stop when you’re done and we’ll
be able to look at Audacity properly.
The Device Toolbar lets you change which sound
card you want to use, and which audio host will run the
system – likely ALSA, maybe with the option for JACK.
For your recording device, you will probably have
options for Default (most likely an ALSA device) or
Pulse. ALSA will probably run quicker and be kinder
on the system, though Pulse will likely be easier to get
working if your system is already configured around it.
Perhaps of chief importance is the number of
Recording Channels. Here you can choose between
www.linuxformat.com

one channel for mono or two for stereo. Don’t just
choose stereo because you think stereo = better.
If you’re recording a single instrument, it may be easier
in the long run to record this in mono, even if you will
ultimately be creating something in a stereo image.
If you’re recording something like an FM broadcast or
capturing computer audio, this is something you will
want to do in stereo.
Audacity’s toolbar – which has the snappy name
of ‘Audacity Tools Toolbar’ – houses the main tools
like Select, Draw, Time Shift and Zoom. By default the
Selection Tool will be enabled, and is used for
highlighting audio before doing things like cutting and
pasting, muting sections and so on. Cutting and pasting
is done by the usual shortcuts, so you’ll have no
problems there, and you can use the Delete key
on selected bits of audio. You can select the magnifying
glass for Zoom: left-clicking zooms in, and right-clicking
zooms out. You can zoom right down to the grains of
each waveform if you want to do some hardcore
manual editing, and if you select the Draw tool, you can
even re-draw the shape of the wave.
If one of your tracks is out of sync with the other
recorded tracks, you can use the Time Shift tool to
correct it. If you click and drag left or right it will move
the timing forwards or backwards, and you can even
move a track to before the zero-second mark.
Further on the right are the zoom controls, all with
different magnifying glass icons, which replicate the
Zoom tool. The icons with the + and - let you zoom all
the way in to the fine points of a waveform, or back out
so that you can see the track as a whole.
Going solo
Less obvious, but crucial when you get the hang
of things, are the next two controls: ‘Fit selection in
window’ and ‘Fit project in window’. When you have
some audio selected, ‘Fit selection in window’ will zoom
in until your highlighted selection fits perfectly on the
screen – no more and no less. When you need to see
the project as a whole again, ‘Fit project in window’
zooms all the way back out in one click.
Moving to the tracks in the main editing field, track
controls are on the left. Each track has a close button
which removes the track, and a drop-down menu.
Plenty of advanced options are in the drop-down menu,
but the main controls you’ll use are the Mute and Solo
buttons, plus the two sliders. The Mute and Solo
buttons should be fairly self-explanatory, but remember
that you mute each track individually, rather than all of
them en masse. While the Solo button will obviously
mute all other tracks, you can ‘solo’ more than one
track – something that will annoy many pedants!
Moving down to the two sliders, the first is the Gain
control. In simple terms it basically turns up and down
the volume of each track; in audiophile terms, this is
where pre-amp adjustments happen. The second slider
is the Pan control, which lets you move sound left and
right in a stereo image.
Looking to the advanced controls in the drop-down
menu, the first option is Name, where you can rename
each track individually. The Move Track Up and Move
Track Down features will become essential when you
start doing elaborate multi-layered editing, as this lets
you re-order the tracks.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Audio editing TuTorials
Audacity is still the
More advanced users will want to check out the easiest way to do
multi-track editing
options Swap Stereo Channels, Split Stereo Track and
and recording,
Split Stereo to Mono. These features are so much even though it’s
quicker and easier than what you encounter on now slightly more
professional editing suites, and are perfect for anything complicated.
that involves switching between mono and stereo.
Get recording
Getting started with the first track is the hardest part
of any recording session. You’ve got to make sure the do you have
correct input is selected, get the levels right, and check some pesky
audio that only
that your recording is actually coming through on your
runs through
program’s waveform. If you’re very lucky you’ll be able
one speaker?
to just hit the Record button and it will work. But even you can fix it
with something as easy as Audacity, you’ll probably be by clicking the
greeted with a blank wave and need to spend ten track’s drop-
minutes switching between inputs to find what’s wrong. down box and
Before we get too negative, try your luck and hit the choosing split
big Record button. Make some noise and if all is well, stereo to Mono.
you will see the sound outputting into a waveform. If
you were greeted with silence and a flat line, first make
sure the recording option for that channel is enabled in
your mixer and that it’s not muted. Otherwise, try
changing entries from the Recording Device drop-down.
Unless you have a Goliath of a sound card, there
shouldn’t be too many entries to test, and you can
probably choose between several channels under
Adding effects
Because Audacity cuts out the complex audio buses that underlie big
editing suites, adding effects is incredibly easy. Just select whatever
audio you want to apply an effect to and choose it from the Effect
menu – and if more input is required, most effects have a settings
window with a handy Preview button. As for the effects included by
default, you will want to pay particular attention to Fade In and Fade
Out, Amplify, and Equalisation. Note that Amplify is useful for making
things both louder and quieter, as you can simply enter a negative
value if you want to turn something down.
While Audacity has a number of effects pre-installed, we
recommend installing extra plug-ins. Audacity supports LADSPA,
LV2, Nyquist, VAMP and VST plug-ins, and you should be able to find
quite a few plug-ins in your package manager. Just browse around
and install anything you like the look of! Anything to do with reverb,
chorus or flange is probably a good idea.
May 2019 LXF249  69
TuTorials Audio editing
Default or Pulse. Default will probably use ALSA, which
will run much faster, but if you’re using Pulse audio,
A cool feature open the properties for your sound card. In KDE we had
veterans may to open the Advanced tab in the Audio Volume section,
not know about and from the Profile drop-down box, we used Analogue
is the Wave Stereo Duplex. If you’re using digital speakers, just try
color entry anything that enables an analogue input. Once you have
in the drop- something that works, write down what you did and
down menu, don’t mess with it – record everything you can while it’s
which has
working! After this, Audacity should be smooth sailing.
four different
colours, and is
Now to tweak the recording levels.
meant for easily The smaller the wave in height, the worse the
differentiating signal-to-noise ratio will be, making the track hissy and
between probably muffled. The louder the recorded input, the
instruments. more likely it will ‘clip’ the edge of the waveform and
sound horrible and distorted. You want to strike a
balance where a good amount of space in the wave
form is used, but leave room in the dynamic range for
sudden loud notes, such as a big cymbal crash. Keep
turning up your instrument, input or mixer desk until
your waveform is getting near the edge, and back it off
The Envelope
tool lets you
make smooth
and continual
transitions to
volume over time,
such as a long
fade-out.
recording With JAcK
Running Audacity with JACK rather defeats the purpose of its simple
interface, but maybe there’s some kind of effect chain you want to
create, or some kind of MIDI program you need to use, and the only
way to do it is JACK. First, you need to make sure JACK runs
properly. We recommend installing QjackCtl, which provides
a straightforward GUI for starting and configuring JACK.
If you try to start JACK and get an error, first try specifying your
soundcard by clicking Setup, and in the Settings tab will be the
Interface drop-down menu. Change the setting from ‘(default)’ to
your soundcard’s actual device name. If this doesn’t work, make
sure Driver is set to ‘alsa’ instead of ‘dummy’, and if it still doesn’t
work, try disabling ‘Realtime’.
To change Audacity from using ALSA to using JACK, open your
system settings by choosing Edit > Preferences and in the Devices
tab will be the Interface section. For Host, open the drop-down menu
and change the entry from ALSA to ‘JACK Audio Connection Kit’.
It’s best to leave everything at default settings and see if you can
record as-is. If you need more JACK connectivity, you change
Audacity’s Playback and Recording devices to JACK, though you may
need to manually connect ports in QjackCtl’s Connect window. JACK
is messy and temperamental at the best of times. Don’t use it with
Audacity unless you really need to!
70 LXF249 May 2019
if it starts clipping. Depending on your underlying audio
system, you may be able to turn the recording levels
back down with the slider in the top-right of the window.
Running tracks
Recording a piece of audio is great, but you can do
that on just about anything. What makes Audacity so
popular is that it does multi-track layered recording,
and probably makes it easier than any other program
out there. If you’re new to the concept of multi-track
recording, it allows you to record sounds one at a time
in layers, slowly building up a soundscape.
For instance, the most common usage is in music
where you may record each musician in isolation, rather
than recording the band as a whole. You may lay down a
drum track first, and with that first drum track in their
headphones, the bassist can record their track in a new
second layer. Then the guitarist could hear the drums
and bass playing through their headphones and record
their guitar in a third layer. With the instrumentals
finished, the singer can record their vocals.
If you’re a seasoned Audacity user, you need to
know that things have changed. When you hit the
Record button, Audacity used to create a new track
automatically and start recording in that. Now when
you click Record, Audacity will start recording on the
end of the current track, and just keep on adding to it.
If you would rather record into a new track, use the
keyboard instead of the mouse. Pressing R records
onto the end of the current track, but Shift+R records
into a new track. If you’re determined to have things the
way they used to be, you can change it by choosing Edit
> Preferences from the main menu. Open the
Recording section and in the Options field, click
‘Always record on a new track’.
Note that Audacity now has latency correction built-
in, but some audio device settings may result in an error
regarding latency timing. If this is the case, you can also
tweak your latency correction settings in the
Preferences window. In the Devices section, you can
tweak the buffer length and ‘Track shift after record’
settings in the Latency field.
Track-on-track action
Not only can Audacity do multi-track recording, but you
can also edit each recorded layer individually, making
tweaks to any layer without upsetting the others. Going
back to the band example, if you simply recorded them
in one live image, you would have to mix them together
as a whole and you wouldn’t be able to make many
adjustments. But with separate tracks you can correct
mistakes and tweak each recording individually.
For instance, if the guitarist plays a bum note or the
drummer coughs during silence, you can simply mute
their second of bad audio and the rest of the song will
be unaffected. Or, if one instrument is too loud, you can
turn the volume down on just that track without
affecting the volume levels of any other musician.
If you want to turn a track up or down, just move that
track’s Gain slider. If you wish to mute a second of
audio, simply highlight the portion of audio you don’t
want and press Ctrl+L, or click Edit > Remove Special >
Silence Audio. For more advanced users who want to
do volume automation, there is the Envelope Tool in the
main toolbar. This lets you make smooth volume
www.linuxformat.com

Each track has a handy Collapse function, which is perfect for focusing
on one track when the number of tracks becomes overwhelming
transitions by creating two lines: one on the edge of the
track and one on the edge of the waveform, which can
be dragged around to reshape the wave’s amplitude.
The outer line will bring down volume overall, but the
inner line can be dragged upwards to increase the
wave’s amplitude.
The really fun bit of Audacity is creating custom
stereo images. You can take a large selection of tracks,
and by sliding the Pan control on each, you can create
a large stereo image in your own virtual soundscape,
making your music or home movies really come alive.
If this is something you’ll do a lot of, a common
mixing technique is to actually record individual voices
or instruments separately in mono. This makes it much
easier to manage when you want to create a stereo mix,
because if the imported track is already in stereo, it
adds unnecessary complexity and filesize. If you’ve
recorded each voice in mono, you simply import all of
the tracks into the same session and assign their place
in the stereo mix with the Pan slider.
A common scenario is with digitally recorded drums,
where each drum mic will have recorded to a separate
channel, with each channel outputting to a separate
wave file. If you import all of these files at once you will
just hear a dull mono image, but if you use the Pan
slider, you can place each drum and cymbal virtually
based on where they would sit in real life.
For instance, overhead mics will usually be mixed far
left and far right, the hi-hat on the left, the ride cymbal
on the right, and the kick and snare will usually be
mixed around the centre. If you put the snare slightly
left and the kick slightly right, you will be able to hear
each drum more clearly in the mix and avoid
overlapping frequencies.
Trade-free exports
Simply saving your work isn’t going to be of much use,
because the only thing that will read Audacity files is
Audacity – you need to export your work. If you click
File and look at the Export sub-menu, you will see a
number of options. Firstly, we need to differentiate
between the ‘Export as…’ options and ‘Export Selected
Audio’. The ‘Export Selected Audio’ option is simple
enough: whatever you highlight with the Selection Tool
WAnt More sound ideAs? Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Audio editing TuTorials
is saved to an external audio file. The ‘Export as…’ and
‘Export Audio’ options save an image of your work
exactly as it sits now – mixer settings, effects, and to make a split
everything. This is something you’ll want to do when in the audio,
you’ve got everything just the way you want it. choose the
WAV files are something of a de facto standard in selection tool,
the mixing world because pretty much anything can click where you
want the split,
read them, although no one’s going to shout at you for
and click edit >
using FLAC files. Use WAV or FLAC wherever you can
clip Boundaries
while you’re mixing – most compressed formats like > split. now
MP3 or OGG are lossy and should only be used for you can move
distribution after you’ve already made a proper master. sections of
If you don’t like WAV, OGG or MP3, more encoding the wave
options are available using the Export Audio function. independently.
For Audacity veterans, there is some cool new time-
saving functionality for the Tracks menu, under the sub-
menu Mix. There are three options: Mix Stereo Down to
Mono, Mix and Render, and Mix and Render to New
Track. The first option is pretty self-explanatory,
converting any selected stereo tracks into mono. Mix
and Render converts all your current tracks into one
single track, including any volume or pan adjustments,
added effects and so on. Note that you will have to
‘Select All’ to make this work properly.
Lastly, Mix and Render to New Track does the same
Mix and Render, except it leaves the existing tracks as
they are and creates a new rendered track beneath
your current tracks.
All mixed up
Audacity has undergone quite a few changes of late,
most of which push it toward being a more viable and
professional multi-track recording program. However,
these changes also add to its bulk and complexity; the
simple truth is that Audacity is no longer as simple as it
once was, which may scare off some new users and
even put off some veterans.
Nevertheless, Audacity is still the friendly and
intuitive program it has always been. As long as it
doesn’t gain much more in complexity, existing users
should be able to adjust and Audacity will maintain its
niche as the easiest way to get into multi-track
recording and editing.
By simplifying and stripping back the underlying system, applying audio effects is much easier
than it is in big editing suites.
May 2019 LXF249   71
TUTORIALS WordPress to static HTML
APACHE
Building a secure
website to host sites
Stuart Burns shows you how to create a secure web server on which you
can host statically generated WordPress sites on a secure Apache server.
ne of the great things about dealing with static
O content is that having no PHP or database
dependencies, this means that not only are
the sites more performant, they consume less
resources and therefore are not only less expensive but
OUR backing up the important data is trivial. There are many
VPS (Virtual Private Server) providers you can choose
EXPERT for this task. For this instance we are going to use
Stuart Burns DigitalOcean (www.digitalocean.com) as they are very
specialises in fast, easily accessible and inexpensive.
large-scale This second instalment builds on the previous
infrastructure tutorial around creating performant static websites
management and from a local WordPress instance. It is assumed at this
virtualisation point the reader is able to create and successfully
technologies, and export the WordPress site as a zip file containing the
writes about new static Worpress export files using the SimplyStatic
and emerging tool. The next step is to create an internet facing
technologies. webserver for this purpose, which is what we’re going
to cover here.
The first step is to create an account with
DigitalOcean, which is pretty simple and straightforward
– you can also use an existing Google account if you
Simply Static’s prefer. Once you’ve signed up, select Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
output generation. as the distribution choice. Select the starting plan and
72 LXF249 May 2019
Part Two!
Missed part one
in LXF248? See
p66 for back
issues!
select the $5 instance. Choose an appropriate
datacentre (we suggest choosing the one that’s most
geographically close to you) and click the green Submit
bar. Shortly after submitting the request you should
receive an email with the root password.
It’s possible to use public/private keys to log in, but
the specifics may vary by vendor. We’ll implement a
public/private key setup for our server manually.
The email should contain both the server IP and
address and root password. Log in to the server using
the following command in the terminal window:
ssh root@<ip address>
Assuming you trust this IP, it will ask you to accept
the fingerprint. On initial login you’ll need to change the
password. Enter the password and confirm it. All being
well you’ll be logged into the server as root. This can be
confirmed by using the command whoami . This will
confirm the current user logged in.
The first step is to update the server to include
the latest patches and reboot. Perform this with the
following commands:
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
reboot
The next step is to configure users, because being
logged in as the root user for most purposes is not a
good idea from a security stance. Create a user with
the following command and set a password for it.
useradd -m adminuser -s /bin/bash
passwd adminuser
The next step is to add the user to the sudoers,
the users who can elevate their rights and run
administrative command using the sudo command.
Luckily, this is quite straightforward:
usermod -aG sudo adminuser
Verify this is working by using the command:
id adminuser
This command should give a list of the groups the
user belongs to: one of them should be sudo. It should
now be quite straightforward to log in using the admin
user and the new password, using SSH as we did
before: ssh adminuser@ip_address . Test that the sudo
elevation works by using the command sudo su . If it
does work, you can move on to making the environment
a bit more secure. One of the first things to do is to
disable the abilities of the root user. Open the
www.linuxformat.com

configuration file for OpenSSH by using the command:
sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Find the line that reads PermitRootLogin and
change that from Yes to No . With the file still open
there are other changes we can make. These include
changing the default SSH port. While this may not
sound like much, it removes a lot of low-level port
scanning on port 22. It won’t stop determined hackers
but it makes logs smaller and removes the low-level
detritus. Locate the line Port 22 and change that to
some other random port number. To make these
changes permanent it’s important to restart the
OpenSSH server. This is done with the command
sudo service sshd restart
To log in now using our new port number we need to
modify how we use the ssh command. To specify a
port, use the -p switch. For example, to log in to
192.168.0.10 using port 999 the command would be.
ssh adminuser@192.168.0.10 -p 999
Assuming everything works as expected, we can now
enable public/private key logins. This negates dictionary
attacks and makes the setup even more secure. On your
local Linux workstation, open a terminal window and
generate the public private keys using the following:
ssh-keygen
This will ask where you want to store the files; go
with the default by pressing Return. We strongly advise
using a passphrase, as that prevents anyone who has
access to the private key from just using it to log in.
Once it has been generated, it can be copied to the web-
facing host using the ssh-copy command:
ssh-copy-id adminuser@webserver-ip -p 999
To enable public/private keys for login, open the
sshd_config file again and change the Password
authentication line to no , making sure it is not
commented out. Before progressing, try logging in
using the ssh application again (don’t forget we
changed the port number too!). This time it should offer
up our private key and let us log in once we’ve given it
our passphrase.
Now we can deploy the Apache infrastructure. While
logged in, install Apache using the following command:
sudo apt-get install -y apache2
Test to ensure Apache is working by opening up a
local web browser and browse to the website. It should
show the famous Apache website landing page.
Assuming all works as expected, we can turn our
attention to making the infrastructure for our various
websites. As with the actions we performed in the first
installation we need to create a base folder for each
website, like so:
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/livinginstarbucks.com/html
The next step is to create the appropriate
configuration file for each website. We could copy the
original file but in this case, because our requirements
are so simple we’ll just start with an empty file and build
our own configuration. For each website, create the file:
sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/livinginstarbucks.
com.conf
Each site needs a configuration file. Copy the one
below and edit to suit your server. Save it and quit.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/livinginstarbucks.com/
html
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
WordPress to static HTML TuTorials
ServerName livinginstarbucks.com Signing up for
ServerAlias www.livinginstarbucks.com DigitalOcean.
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log
combined
</VirtualHost> the default
It’s a good idea to give each site its own set of log Wordpress
design includes
files. Ideally, put each site’s log files into separate
several items
folders – this makes it easier to perform analytics and
that aren’t
troubleshooting. Repeat until all the sites you want to useful for
upload are done. To activate a site, use the following anything in
command with the appropriate configuration file. the world of
sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/sites-available/ htML-only.
livinginstarbucks.com.conf therefore use
Before restarting the Apache service (and to help the Wordpress
mitigate any downtime), run apachectl configtest to web design tool
check for any errors. All being well, restart the service to remove these
links from the
with sudo service apache2 restart . If you ever need to
default website,
roll it back there is a similar command called a2dissite .
such as the
Essentially this is a quick way to add and remove sites meta menu.
from the live environments.
At this point, we are almost there. Assuming that the
export from our WordPress site is on the local Linux
BAckups And restoring
It’s not the most riveting topic, but there is an important need to
perform a good backup. Critically, make sure you have a backup of
the source VirtualBox machine. Losing this would be catastrophic
because there is no way to put the HTML output back into WordPress
– or at least, not without a lot of manual effort. Luckily, backing up
the VirtualBox server is as simple as ensuring the virtual machine is
shut down and then copying the folder and its contents to a backup
location, ideally an external drive or such. Restoring the VM is as
simple as copying it back to your local system and then importing it
into VirtualBox, from the menu.
Backing up the HTML code is important, as mentioned, for version
control. Assuming you’re using a folder that is Git version-controlled,
again it becomes simple to copy the folder (make sure to include the
hidden files and folders that are part of the Git setup). Copying the
entire contents enables you to keep your version-controlled contents
of the HTML files within easy access to all previous versions that are
stored online.
May 2019 LXF249   73
TuTorials WordPress to static HTML
workstation, we can use scp (Secure Copy) to copy
the compressed file to the webserver. Do this with the
following command:
scp /path/to/wordpress_exprt.zip -p 999 /home/
adminuser
As we are now using public/private keys for
authentication, it will ask for your passprase. Once
it’s uploaded, uncompress the Zip file using unzip
wordpress_export.zip . Copy the files from the local
folder to the root folder of the webserver.
cp -r /home/adminuser/uncompressed_word_folder/*
/var/www/livinginstarbucks.com/html
By default, the Apache server runs with highly
Contents of the restricted rights. It is important to make sure that the
live website:
pure glorious files are owned by the right user (www-user) and that
HTML files! the rights are correct. For example, if there are errors on
iMpLeMenting https is eAsy
Most technically savvy readers will know that HTTPS is the way
forward, but historically it has always been tricky to configure. Enter,
stage left, EFF’s Certbot. This is designed to implement HTTPS easily,
and really is super simple. To implement it, do the following:
sudo su -
apt-get install software-properties-common python-software-
properties
add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt-get update
apt-get install python-certbot-apache
The above provides the dependencies, but to actually run and
implement the configuration use the following command:
certbot --apache -d mydomain.com
It will take a few moments to run but will configure everything for
you. Once it’s complete, assuming that you’ve followed the main
guide it should be as simple as reloading the page, simply swapping
HTTP for HTTPS.
Do note, however, that Certbot only approves certificates for a
period of three months. This isn’t too much of an issue because it
gives you the option to log in periodically and re-run Certbot, or
perhaps use crontab to automatically re-run the command every
week – Certbot only performs the renewal when there is a set
amount of time remaining.
Certbot also supports multiple domains at once, removing the
need to manually manage each one – not to mention saving time,
money and complexity!
74 LXF249 May 2019
opening the website it could well be that the rights are
incorrect. With that in mind, for each website perform
the following commands:
sudo chown -r www-user:www-user /var/www/
livinginstarbucks.com/html
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/*
Because we’re using a virtualhost configuration, we
need to make the DNS work as there are several sites
that share the one IP address. If you haven’t yet done
so, it’s time to change DNS records. The reason we’ve
left it until this point is that if there is already a live
website, it will go offline as we update it now.
How you update will depend on your DNS provider.
Most DNS updates will be updated almost instantly. At
this point it should be possible to open a web browser
to navigate to the URL in question. If you haven’t
updated (commented out) the entries in your localhost
file, you may get the wrong results. Just check you are
looking at the right server by pinging the DNS name.
If there are additional websites, repeat the process
for each one. To do things properly we should configure
the entries on the host so that the host can know what
it looks after. Open the hosts file and add all your
entries to the hosts file:
sudo vi /etc/hosts
Look for the line 127.0.0.1 and add both the
hostname and the www alias. Therefore, our example
would be:
127.0.1.1 localhost livinginstarbucks.com www.
livinginstarbucks.com
Lastly, implementing the correct firewall rules is
definitely strongly recommended. Implementing a
firewall with a proper policy provides protection from
ports that are open when they shouldn’t be. Using the
firewall can also allow extra security by blocking IP
ranges, or even countries if needed.
If you’ve got a static IP address, it’s pretty simple
to use firewall rules to prevent anyone from any other
network being able to attempt to SSH into the
webserver. The best defence has multiple layers of
security that prevent any one single facet breaking.
With that in mind, we’ll install UFW (Uncomplicated
Firewall) using the following command:
sudo apt-get install ufw -y
Before making it live, we need to make some
modifications, not least because our SSH port was
changed earlier. We also want to allowing inbound
HTTP requests. To add this port use the commands:
sudo ufw allow 999/tcp
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
To make the firewall live use the command:
sudo systemctl enable ufw
It’s a good idea to ensure that the webserver can be
reached on port 80 (HTTP), which aids with
troubleshooting later on.
Currently there will be some defaults set up which
are surplus to requirements.
sudo ufw status
We’re assuming that you’re not interested in running
IPv6. Therefore it makes sense to disable IPv6 – if it’s
not used, it should be turned off. To disable IPv6 use
the following commands:
sudo vi /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
www.linuxformat.com

net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1
One done, use the command sudo sysctl -p to make
the changes permanent. Doing so can, however, impact
applications such as apt. To mitigate the issue, force
the apt tools to use IPv4. Do this by editing the
appropriate file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99force-ipv4:
sudo vi /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99force-ipv4
Acquire::ForceIPv4 “true”;
We recommend a reboot to ensure everything is
correctly configured. All being well, at this point all the
configuration is completed and updating your site has
become as simple as performing the export as covered
in the previous article, then exporting the Zip file and
uploading it to the production system as we’ve
discussed above.
If you haven’t done so already, run the Simply Static
export and download the zipped content file. Once
downloaded, it can be uploaded directly to the
webserver using the scp command. To copy the file to
the webserver, use the following command, substituting
as required:
scp my_export.zip adminuser@livinginstarbucks.
com:/home/adminuser -p 999
Once uploaded, create a folder (called out in our
example) and unzip the file:
unzip my_export.zip -d out/
At this point there should be a folder with the
contents of the WordPress export. Copy the files into
the /home folder, correcting the path as needed. Note
that any WordPress links will have been converted to
folders and HTML text, so it is vitally important you
make sure all files are copied:
sudo cp -r /home/adminuser/my_export/out* /var/
www/www.livinginstarbucks.com/html/
Depending on the configuration the owner and rights
may need to be reset. This was done earlier and can
just be repeated. At this point, open a new web browser
and open the website. All being well, you should see the
static version of the website.
For those that are a bit more technically advanced,
it’s quite a simple affair to subject all these revisions to
version control so that you can effectively see every
get More rAW htML Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
WordPress to static HTML TuTorials
understAnding Mod_reWrite
Without this function working correctly, the whole export process will
fail. Mod-Rewrite is used to rewrite URLs on the fly. Signs of it failing
to work may be seen if the administrator clicks on a link and they get
the well-known ‘404 page not found’ error. The entire permalink
setup relies on mod_rewrite working correctly. If mod_rewrite fails, so
will the export of the WordPress posts and therefore the final set of
web pages will not work correctly.
Mod_rewrite is very configurable and provides great functionality.
One example is to enable URLs to be rewritten to send data to a PHP
script that can use the input as part of the data to process, and the
script then outputting the PHP. Also, mass migrations can use mod_
rewrite to deal with merging several domains’ worth of data into a
single instance, using mod_rewrite depending on the entry URL used.
A more detailed breakdown and discussion of mod_rewrite can be
found at the Apache.org website (http://bit.ly/lxf249mod).
Depending on the configuration, mod_rewrite can be specified in
several places as needed, even down to the individual HTML folder.
The /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file is the master file that sets the
baseline settings that all virtualhosts takes as its base settings.
If the feature is not enabled in the root of our config, none of the web
hosts will work. Before changing any of these files, be sure to make a
backup so that any changes that are made can be easily reversed.
revision to date. The easiest way to do this is to create
a Git-based repository in the cloud – choose from any
of the major providers. Unless you have reason not to, When using
public and
make it a private repository.
private key
Create your changes and perform the export from
logins, it’s
Simply Static. Once downloaded, uncompress the files essential to
and copy them into the Git-controlled folder. Add them ensure you have
as a new revision, commit and push it up. a copy of at
On the server side, install the git client: least the private
sudo apt-get install git -y key. Without it,
At this point it becomes a simple affair to then log in logging in won’t
to the webserver and clone the files to the webserver’s work because
/html folder. we disabled
password-
There are tweaks and options for other setups, but
based login.
hopefully these tutorials provides a glimpse of what is
possible when creating a static WordPress site.
The live pure
HTML website.
May 2019 LXF249   75
TUTORIALS Vector graphics

LIBREOFFICE DRAW
Creating diagrams
and illustrations
There’s a much better way of creating technical and business diagrams
and illustrations than with a paint package, as Mike Bedford demonstrates.

hoto editing packages, also known as Of course, to be displayed on screen, it does have

P painting applications, are widely used, but

often inappropriately. They’re far from ideal for
to be rendered as pixels – as it also has to be if it’s
printed – but the basic definition is just a small amount
producing diagrams, flow charts, logos and illustrations of data. This has huge advantages when the box is
for scientific, technical and business purposes. Instead, edited or deleted. If a box is defined purely by its pixels,
OUR the tool of choice for this sort of job is drawing software,
otherwise known as vector editing software. In LXF248
adding that box to the image obliterates the pixels that
had previously been in its position on the page. If you
EXPERT we ran a Roundup of five vector graphics offerings, all then edit the box’s shape, it isn’t possible to reinstate
Mike Bedford of which are freely available under Linux, and most of the pixels that formerly occupied that area of the
The content of a which are open source. image. If you remove a box stored as its basic
document might Here we’re offering some hands-on guidance on how parameters – a vector graphic – on the other hand,
be paramount, to use one of these tools for a few typical applications: the complete image can be recreated using the
but Mike reckons LibreOffice Draw, which is a very capable package. definitions of all the remaining objects, with no loss of
that appearance Ironically, you might think, our chosen tool isn’t the one information. You can think of it as destructive (bitmap
is vital to make a which scored the top spot in our review. However we editing) versus non-destructive (vector graphics).
good impression. believe it offers all that most users need. In addition, Vector graphics editors usually provide a degree of
Or at least that’s LibreOffice Draw is probably already installed on your support for bitmaps – paradoxically, you might think.
his excuse for PC, and it’ll easily work in conjunction with other In most cases, though, they don’t provide the same
being obsessed LibreOffice tools because of the commonality of file extensive facilities for editing bitmaps as photo editing
with drawing formats. Even if you choose to use different software, software does. Of primary importance, though, bitmaps
software. many of the basic principles covered here still apply. are treated just like the objects we’ve already looked at,
so you can adjust their size and position and rotate
Vector editing principles them. It’s not difficult to imagine how the inclusion of
Before starting with any hands-on instructions, it will be bitmapped images could brighten up a basic line
helpful to discuss, in broad terms, what vector editing drawing. For example, a diagram illustrating the
software provides and how it’s fundamentally different electronic control system in a car could certainly benefit
from paint software, which can also be thought of as from using pictures of the engine, gearbox, wheels and
bitmap-editing software. Although paint software now so on, instead of just plain boxes with text labels.
offers some of the facilities that were previously the
sole domain of vector editing software, this type of
Dimensioning
shows the sizes package operates primarily at the level of individual
of objects as pixels. While editing pixels is the obvious way forward
they appear on for photos – which are, after all, nothing more than a
the page – so bunch of pixels – for diagrams, the vector approach of
nothing larger working with objects is much more appropriate.
than 210mm In referring to objects, we mean mainly geometric
horizontally shapes such as lines, boxes, circles and text, all of
on an A4 page. which can be further defined by the colour and
This isn’t very
thickness of any outlines, and the colour of any fill.
useful if you’re
What makes the vector approach so valuable, though,
designing a
kitchen, so is what happens when you draw an object such as a
use the scale box. Instead of it being stored internally as a set of
options to pixels, it’s defined by its position, its width, its height, For engineering illustrations, room layouts and similar mechanical
adjust this. its rotational angle, the width and colour of its outline drawings, the dimensioning feature ensures that dimensions remain
if any, the colour of its fill and so on. correct following any size changes.

76 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Although LibreOffice Draw doesn’t have some of the
more artistic features of the highly respected Inkscape
and Gravit vector graphics packages, for more down-to-
earth applications in science, engineering and business
it takes some beating. So, in common with just about all
vector graphics software, it’s ideal for drawing technical
illustrations, flow charts, organisational charts,
electronic circuit diagrams and the like. This being the
case, our first step-by-step guide (see over the page)
introduces you to the basic principles by describing how
to draw a diagram of a MOSFET, the type of transistor
that powers just about all our electronic gear.
Only connect
One reason for choosing to base this tutorial on
LibreOffice Draw is that it has some features that are
not universal among vector graphics software, but
which are particularly useful for the sort of uses you
might be interested in. An especially powerful feature
is something called connectors. Connectors look like
ordinary lines, and are used for connecting boxes and
similar shapes in flow diagrams, organisational charts
and the like – but with one important difference –
Connectors remain attached to the objects they join
together, even if you edit your diagram by moving those
objects around – the connecting lines re-route as
necessary. Because this is such a time-saver for many
types of technical and business charts, our second step-
by-step guide makes use of connectors.
Another handy feature, for those who require
mechanical drawings, is specific support for
dimensions. Of course, you can add dimensions
yourself in any drawing package, using text and
lines with arrow heads, but if you change the size
of something you’d have to amend the dimensional
information manually. With LibreOffice Draw’s
dedicated dimensioning facility, on the other hand,
once you’ve added a dimension, it will continue to
show the correct value, irrespective of any resizing.
There’s clearly a limit to the number of LibreOffice
Draw’s facilities that we can illustrate in step-by-step
guides, but this need not limit your voyage of discovery.
So let’s consider a few more things that you might like
to try out to help you get to grips with this powerful
package. You might want to work with bitmaps, for
instance. We suggest that you get to grips with this
useful feature by elaborating on the organisational
chart that we create in our second step-by-step guide.
In particular, since that exercise involves producing
a company organisational chart, a good next step would
be to add photos of each staff member. If you don’t
have any suitable head-and-shoulder shots at hand,
a quick Google image search will reveal no shortage
of sample images. Because they will be reproduced at
quite a small size, we suggest that you limit the file size
of your diagram by down-sampling the photos first, to
something like 300 pixels, using a photo editing
package such as GIMP.
More irregular shapes
So far, we’ve mostly talked about regular shapes such
as squares, rectangles, circles and straight lines, since
they’re pretty much all you need for so many types of
illustration. There are times, though, when you need
something not quite so regular – for example, the cloud
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Vector graphics TuTorials
We’ve struggled to
think of anything
you might need for
drawing technical
and business
illustrations that
LibreOffice Draw
doesn’t provide.
shapes used to signify the internet in network diagrams
– and fortunately LibreOffice Draw provides several
tools for drawing irregular objects. You’ll find these at LibreOffice
the Curve icon in the Drawing toolbar, and we’ll look at Draw offers
the general concepts here. options for
First up is the Polygon, and there are several options editing bitmaps.
for this. The filled Polygon is much as you expect, and it as you’d expect,
enables you to define any closed shape from a number you can adjust
brightness
of straight-line segments. There is also a variant where
and contrast,
you are constrained to angles that are multiples of 45
and this basic
degrees. Then there’s the plain (unfilled) Polygon, also functionality is
with the 45 degree option – but this is really a enhanced with
misnomer. It would be more accurately called a control over
polyline, a line made up from several straight-line the three
segments but with no fill. Note that, having drawn a primary colours
polygon, it’s possible to move, delete or add nodes – and gamma.
that is, the points between line segments which appear
as small squares.
Next is Curve, which is perhaps a bit confusing, since
all these tools are found under the broad heading of
Curve. Unlike the various types of Polygon, which are
composed of straight-line segments, a Curve – as the
name suggests – is made up of curved-line segments.
Space doesn’t permit us a full description of how to
draw a Curve or edit one and in any case, this is
something that’s best learned by trying it out. With a
Curve, in addition to editing the nodes you also have
GrOupinG
In the walkthrough on page 78, we create a line and a circle and then
make several copies of that combination for use elsewhere in the
diagram. If you’re doing this sort of thing, when you’re moving a
group of objects around it’s notoriously easy for them to become
separated because you’ve accidentally forgotten to select one of
them. It’s simple to prevent this, however.
The secret is to convert those objects into what LibreOffice Draw
considers to be a group. To do this, select the objects to be grouped
and then select Modify > Group. Once a combination of objects is
grouped in this way, it will be treated as a single object – as you’ll
discover if you try to select just one constituent part of the group.
As a group, therefore, it’s pretty much impossible to try to edit the
group and find that your editing operation applies to only part of it.
Grouping is reversible, which is good news if you subsequently
decide that you need to edit the individual parts of the group. As
you’ve probably guessed, having selected a group all you need to
do this is to use Modify > Ungroup.
May 2019 LXF249  77
TuTorials Vector graphics
basiC DrawinG skiLLs
Snap grid
1 It’s easier to line up objects if you use a snap grid. The
defaults are usually suitable but to check, go to Tools > Options
and then, at the left, select LibreOffice Draw > Grid. Ensure ‘Snap
to grid’ is selected, Horizontal and Vertical Resolution are set to
1.00cm, and Horizontal and Vertical Subdivisions are set to 10.
Editing boxes
3 Outline and fill colours are defined by menus in the Line
and Filling toolbar (second from top), and can either be chosen
before you draw or changed afterwards. We want a pale blue box
and black outline so, with the box selected, change if necessary.
Now draw the other boxes shown in the screenshot.
Adding text
5 Add labels using the Text tool in the Drawing toolbar. You
can resize most objects by selecting it and using the handles on
its surrounding rectangle, but with text this only alters its
bounding box. Instead, to change the size, use the Font Name
and Font Size menus, which appear whenever text is selected.
78 LXF249 May 2019
Boxes
2 Zoom in on the top half of the page using the magnifying
glass in the Standard toolbar (at the top). Select Rectangle from
the Basic Shapes icon in the Drawing toolbar (at the bottom), click
at one corner and drag to the diagonal corner. We want one of
15cm x 4cm so watch the indications in the rulers while dragging.
Lines and circles
4 Add the lines and the circles using the methods used for
boxes. You can draw one line and circle, then copy them: select
the line and circle by dragging a box round them with the Select
tool before selecting Edit > Duplicate. Rotate when needed using
the Rotate tool in the Mode toolbar and drag to its new position.
Tidying up
6 Now you’ll probably want to tidy it up. Use the techniques
of resizing and moving that we’ve already seen; you might also
want to change the line thickness (0.05cm is good) using Line
Width in the Line and Filling toolbar. Using Modify > Align after
you’ve selected several objects can also be useful for tidying up.
www.linuxformat.com
 Vector graphics TuTorials

the option of moving the so-called control points which
appear as small circles, and which enable the exact
shape of a curved section to be adjusted. Mess around
with control points to see how they affect the shape –
it’s much easier to try than to describe!
Finally, truly irregular shapes can be drawn using
the Free-form Line tool, and its filled variant. These are
drawn by clicking and dragging to produce any line or
shape, just as you would draw a line with a pencil or a
drawing tool in a bitmap package, although the result
is subjected to a degree of smoothing.
As a final bit of guidance on creating non-regular
shapes, it can sometimes be rather time-consuming to
achieve exactly the shape you need using the various
curve tools alone. For example, perhaps you want a
square with one of the sides turned into a curved line.
The secret, in cases like this, is to start with the closest
regular shape which, in this case, is a square. Normally,
of course, the options for editing the shape of a square
are limited to expanding or shrinking it, and individual
points or line segments can’t be edited. However, by use the
converting it to a curve or a polygon using the Convert Gluepoints
feature to
option on the Modify menu, all that changes. Now,
add extra
depending on whether you’ve converted it to a curve or
attachment
a polygon, some or all of options that are available for points to
editing polygons or curves become available, thereby objects.
giving you full control over the shape.
Another related facility is the Combine option, which
is also available in the Modify menu. This operates on
two or more selected objects and, while it might seem
similar to grouping objects, in reality it’s very different.
Instead of grouping them together for ease of handling,
they are actually converted, irreversibly, to a single
irregular object, which can subsequently be edited by
manipulating its nodes and control points. Again, have
a play – you’ll quickly get the idea of it.

usinG COnneCtOrs

Start with some boxes Annotate the boxes

1 To demonstrate the benefit of connectors, we’re going to
create a simple organisational diagram. So, set up a snap grid and
place some boxes on the page. We need one on the top row, two
on the second and four on the third. We suggest using a different
colour for each row. Don’t bother too much about their exact
position – we’ll adjust them later.
2 Each box represents a person in the company, so annotate
them with a name followed by a job title in each. The top box is the
most senior person, perhaps the MD, the people in the second
row are directors, and the third row comprises managers. You can
add another layer (more damn management layers!–Ed) later, if
you want. For ease of editing, group each box and its annotations.

Connect them up Final touches

3 Now we’re going to join up the boxes using connectors. 4 Finally, to finish off the diagram, move the boxes around so
Select the first type of connector from the Connector icon in the that all the boxes on the same row are at the same height and
Drawing toolbar (bottom by default). Move over the top box and equally spaced. Note how the connectors stay attached to the
several connector attachment points appear. Click the bottom boxes, rerouting as necessary, as you do this. It’s possible that
one and drag to the top connection point on the first box on the  some of the connectors might not line up properly, but they can 
second row. Connect all the boxes in the same way. be edited manually as you’ll see if you click one.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249   79

TUTORIALS Steam streaming
STEAM
Stream your Steam
games at home
Push your Linux gaming to your big TV for real
gaming fun, with the help of Alex Cox.
alve’s Steam Link was an odd little device.
V Frequently discounted to just a couple of quid,
and much-maligned for producing inconsistent
results, the now-discontinued black box aimed to beam
your games from your desktop PC – presumably
OUR residing in a dirty corner of your home – to your living
room TV. That’s not a new concept, certainly – you can
EXPERT do it with an Xbox or PlayStation, or with tech such as
Alex Cox GeForce Go, or even Steam from PC to PC – but a
is a tech expert damn convenient one if you have a library full of Steam
and writer, games and an insatiable yearning for your sofa.
inexorably drawn Good news, then: Steam Link is dead, but long live
to tinkering with, Steam Link, now reborn as a chunk of Linux code
and inevitably suitable to run on a Raspberry Pi 3. Yes, you’ll be
breaking, investing more – you need a Raspberry Pi 3B or 3B+
anything put in (£34, plus all the other bits you require) – but once
front of him. it’s hooked up, you’ll get the same effect, and there’s
nothing to stop you installing other stuff on your Pi to
give it a second job. RetroPi, anyone? Plex or Kodi?
It’s up to you.
Prepare your Pi
You absolutely need a Raspberry Pi 3B or 3B+. We
didn’t try this on a Pi Zero or a previous version of the
main Raspberry Pi branch, because we weren’t feeling
masochistic enough; it’s unlikely to work at all, but if
that’s all you’ve got, you’re welcome to try it. You also
need an Ethernet connection (we’ll come to this later
on) and, at least initially, a keyboard and mouse, before
you replace them with a controller. A large SD card isn’t
a primary requirement (we installed on an 8GB card we
had lying around), but if you want to do more with your
Use Etcher to
write your SD card.
80 LXF249 May 2019
A Raspberry Pi 3B or 3B+ can
replace the old Steam Link.
Steam Link box, you’ll want to give yourself a little more
breathing room. Lastly, don’t skimp on the power
supply: you need something that puts out at least 2.5A,
because if your Pi doesn’t get the relevant juice, it’ll
descend into a mess of glitches. Consider also adding
a heatsink kit to your box to prevent it frying itself.
Get carded
Unlike the case with some single-use Raspberry Pi
setups, there’s no special distro needed to be installed
on your SD card: the Steam Link app installs and runs
on top of Raspbian Stretch, the Pi’s default OS.
Download the desktop version www.raspberrypi.org
and unzip it, then grab Etcher from www.balena.io/
etcher to get the OS image onto your SD card. Insert
the card into your reader, run Etcher, drag and drop the
ISO image onto the window, and proceed with the
writing procedure. Make sure you’ve extracted
everything you need from that SD card, as this is a 100
per cent destructive procedure.
When the write’s done, pop the card into your
Raspberry Pi and boot up – it should drop you straight
to Raspbian’s Pixel desktop.
Install Steam Link
Open up a terminal and type sudo apt update to make
sure your OS install is as current as it can be, and to
ensure Raspbian’s knowledge of its repositories is up to
date. Then type sudo apt install steamlink to download
the whole thing and install it automatically. That’s the
installation process done with – you should see a
Steam Link icon appear on your desktop, and the
program’s ready to run. You can now either double-
click that icon, or run steamlink within the terminal
window.
If you have a controller, you can plug it in and
configure it now; Steam Link on the Raspberry Pi
www.linuxformat.com

Setting streaming up
within the Steam client.
supports Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
controllers, as well as the Steam Controller (as long
as you’re using the wireless dongle). However, we
recommend going wired in order to cut out that tiny
amount of latency caused by wireless links. This could
be important given that you’re already going to be
dealing with around 20ms network and rendering
latency (at least on the beta we tested), and whatever
your TV’s picture processing engine puts on top –
depending on the TV, this could be anywhere from
6ms to 30ms if you’re in any “game” mode offered,
and far worse than that without.
Once that’s set up, you’re asked to perform a
network test. If you’re connected by Wi-Fi on a standard
Pi 3B, which is 2.4GHz only, this is the point where
Steam Link will shout at you. On a 3B+, you may find
that 5GHz networking is actually adequate for
streaming, but we wholeheartedly recommend hooking
up to an Ethernet connection, both on your Raspberry
Pi and the PC you’re streaming from. The latency is
lower, the speed is generally higher, and there’s far less
chance of interference causing you to drop frames.
Connect to Steam
Now it’s time to select which Steam-running PC you
want to connect to; if you’re given no options at this
stage, boot up your PC and run Steam. Note down the
PIN given to you by Steam Link, then head back to your
PC and enter it in the box that’s popped up. All being
well, your PC will jump into Steam’s Big Picture mode
and, returning to your Raspberry Pi, you’ll see its screen
duplicated, and the menu should be controllable by
whatever input device you have hooked up to the
Raspberry Pi.
Bad news if you were hoping to use your PC for
something else while others game, because that isn’t
how Steam Link works; it locks up your main machine
for the whole time you’re streaming, in the same way as
Steam’s standard In-home Streaming mode does.
Better connections
As they say, your results may vary. It’s entirely possible
that your network holds up well and your Steam Link
Authorise devices when
they first connect.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Steam streaming TUTORIALS
experience is positive. Don’t count on it, though – these Try to adjust
things don’t always work as planned. There are ways to quality settings to
improve streaming.
get better results beyond using a wired connection. Dig
around your network and stop those upload-heavy
peer-to-peer connections; delve into your router’s
settings and, if possible, assign some priority to the
machines on either end of your Steam Link equation,
using QoS management tools; close whatever you can
on the PC you’re linking to, in order to give it the
maximum resources to render your stream.
This can include Nvidia hardware encoding – you
might want to turn off ShadowPlay and Gamestream in
GeForce Experience, because these can actually make
Steam’s encoding worse.
Steam settings
Steam itself can be configured to make a decent
difference to streaming. Tweaking your connection’s
settings to drop a little graphical fidelity is highly
advised. On your Pi, head to the cog icon, select
‘In-Home Streaming’ and opt for ‘Fast’ or ‘Balanced’
if the Beautiful mode is glitching out. On your host PC,
select Steam > Settings > In Home Streaming >
Advanced Host Options, and try flicking some of the
switches there.
Don’t forget to set your game to the lowest
resolution you find acceptable, too. From your sofa,
720p might not seem so painful.
RUNNING AUTOMATICALLY
If you’re dedicating a Raspberry Pi entirely to running Steam Link,
and you’re mostly aiming for sofa gaming, it might make sense to
remove the need to manually launch the program when the Pi powers
on; that way, you can do away with the mouse and keyboard entirely.
Raspbian Stretch has a number of methods to run apps
automatically, but editing /etc/rc.local is the simplest way to do it.
Open up a terminal and run sudo nano /etc/rc.local to begin
tweaking, then make a new line just above exit 0 . Add the text sudo
-u pi /usr/bin/steamlink & . The ampersand is important, because
without it, the Pi’s boot process won’t properly complete. Then save
the file by hitting Ctrl+X followed by Y. Reboot your Pi and it should
jump straight into Steam Link. Now the only problem is shutting
down: there’s no way to do it gracefully with a joypad, and pulling the
power risks corrupting your SD card. Consider adding a Pimoroni
OnOff SHIM, which works as a safe power button when installed.
May 2019 LXF249 81
Discover another of our great bookazines
From science and history to technology and crafts, there
are dozens of Future bookazines to suit all tastes

you buy direct from us not available anywhere else super-safe ordering
THE BEST NEW OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ON THE PLANET

HotPicks
DigiKam Olive Cygwin LibreOffice ODrive
Quaternion Klogg Underrun Sandspiel
Alexander Tolstoy
almost broke the Matrix
after firing up Cygwin on
ReactOS. Luckily,
everything ran inside a VM.

Hyperfine Friture

IMAGE ORGANISER

DigiKam
Version: 6.0
Web: www.digikam.org
ne of the reasons why digiKam evolves so

O rapidly is its constant participation in Google

Summer of Code, which is hard to
underestimate. We’ve extolled the enormous power of
digiKam in the past, and it’s only getting better. Its key
feature is the ability to mark images with tags and
create sorted catalogues of photos.
Tagging is incredibly useful; it lets you navigate huge You can click a video to play it. Tag, sort and organise them just like photos without having to go
to a separate player app.
image libraries to quickly find the desired files. digiKam
is also very capable at importing photos from various
sources. The import window has dozens of options,
but perhaps the key one is automatic creation of Navigate around the digiKam interface
albums based on dates. This way you can turn a single
folder with thousands of files into a much more
appealing set of subdirectories sorted by date. Last
but not least are built-in ‘dark’ and ‘light’ rooms
3 5
designed for processing RAW shots. 2
It is impossible to list all the goodness delivered with 4
the latest digiKam 6.0. The update is really big, with the
gorgeous Time-Adjust tool (batch-fix timestamps of
your files), export to Pinterest, OneDrive and Box web-
services, new icon-view customisation tool and more.
The new digiKam 6.0 can play your videos right inside
the application without switching away, so in some
sense videos are now as easy to organise and watch 1
as still photos are.
Another well-timed update lies in the Lighttable
component, which sports a wider list of supported
devices that can shoot in RAW. digiKam now correctly All albums at your fingertips timeline, people, similarity checker and even an
parses RAW shots from recent Samsung Galaxy and 1 The albums tree view is the most popular integrated Marble globe.
Apple iPhone devices, as well as some new DSLRs. But default view in digiKam. You can treat it like a
file manager. Configure digiKam your way
video support is perhaps the main hero of the digiKam 4 The app sports a packed Configure
6.0 changelog. We added our ~/Videos directory to the Main thumbnail view dialogue. Adjust the RAW handler, colour
library and tested it with digiKam. The application 2 Select an item in the left area and see profiles, templates, database location and much
integrates a very smooth with its robust video player its contents in the main part of the digiKam more here.
module, which doesn’t slow things at all, even with large window. Click an image or video for a larger
preview of it. Extra information about the current file
amounts of ‘fast previews’ for our videos. A tagged 5 Not only file properties, but also colours,
video catalogue in digiKam instead of a plain Videos Expand other view modes versions, filters and manipulation tools are all
folder in a file manager? Give it a try! 3 Lots of hidden power here: tags, dates, withing your reach.

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 83

hotpicks
VidEO EditOr
Olive
Version: Alpha
Web: www.olivevideoeditor.org
on-linear video editors are now another
n category of software in which Linux users can
enjoy plenty of freedom of choice. You might
have heard of Kdenlive as the king of open source video
processors and Flowblade as its younger rival, but here
comes yet another software of that type, Olive. Sceptical
at first, we soon discovered that Olive fills its own niche
and looks attractive to a wider audience.
The project’s devs tried to find a balance between
simplicity and professional-level features, a goal that
is harder to achieve that it might seem. We took Olive
for a spin and tested it with a classic workflow example,
which implied merging a couple of video files together
with transition effects and adding a different sound
track over the top.
Olive is only in its alpha version period, and it lacks
a great variety of advanced features that exist in some
mature Adobe Premiere like rivals, but it’s simpler and
more robust software. We think it’s a great choice for
amateur users who are still undecided about what to
do with their home video libraries.
POSiX-COMPAtiblE EnVirOnMEnt
Cygwin
Version: 3.0
Web: www.cygwin.com
arely do we talk about (or to) Windows users,
r but this time there is a perfect reason for doing
so. Many Linux switchers continue to use the
OS from Microsoft, either willingly or not, but the
existence of Cygwin is surely good news for them. It’s a
POSIX-compatible layer for basic GNU command-line
utilities, available as a open source addition for
Microsoft Windows.
The project has matured nicely since its initial
release in 1995, but even now when Windows 10 users
can run WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), Cygwin
has not lost its purpose. It supports a greater variety of
Windows versions, it has a smaller footprint and it does
just what it was supposed to do.
Cygwin brings the world of the Bash console to the
Windows desktop and spices it with lots of familiar GNU
utils such as ls, tar, awk, ssh and so on. It enables Linux
users to live the GNU-style life within Windows without
changing their habits and continue to administer
various things using a Bash shell. Cygwin is ideal for
running UNIX-style scripts in WIndows and automating
84 LXF249 May 2019
Not so many
features that you’ll
get lost, but all the
essentials in place.
Olive sports a decidedly classic interface, with
project files in the top-left panel, media and sequence
players next to it and a gorgeous timeline area that
occupies the lower half of the Olive window. Behind the
scenes its uses the FFmpeg multimedia framework,
which defines the list of supported audio/video formats
and codecs.
When you feel you are done with your sequences,
tracks and transitions, select File > Export to encode
your work into any supported video format. Olive
provides very rich options for exporting. In a way, it can
even serve as a media converter, although FFmpeg is
famous for having plenty of other GUI frontends for that
purpose. The Olive project offers Snaps, Flatpaks,
Appimages and the PPA (ppa:olive-editor/olive-
editor), so it becomes super-easy to get it running with
almost no delay.
If you’ve worked
with DosBox in
Linux, this is the
opposite of it.
routines in the same manner you can do it natively
on Linux. Compared to WSL, the main thing Cygwin
does not support is running Linux binary applications
natively, but that’s not required too often.
The Cygwin project has recently rolled out the third
major release of its brainchild. Cygwin 3.0 includes a
new mkdir that can create case-sensitive directories,
and also now has the chattr and lsattr utils for handling
advanced filesystem flags along with historic DOS file
attributes in Windows. Cygwin supports FAT, NTFS
and also exFAT filesystems.
There is no need to compile anything or prepare a
build environment on Windows in order to get Cygwin.
It comes with a nice graphical installer and takes all
hassles away from you, including setting the needed
environment variables and paths. After installation
you’ll be able to open Cygwin’s Bash console to do
your scripting and run GNU commands without leaving
Windows at all.
www.linuxformat.com

OffiCE SuitE
LibreOffice
Version: 6.2
Web: https://libreoffice.org
ew releases of LibreOffice are hard to miss
n because this office suite is one of the most
successful and widely used open source
projects. The new 6.2 version brings a bounty of
valuable new features, fixes and improvements –
the official Release notes page from The Document
Foundation takes half an hour of thoughtful reading.
Some things are really worth trying, although not
immediately noticeable without prior knowledge.
The first is the extended menu of alternative user
interfaces that include a sidebar style, a tabbed
interface and a ‘groupbar’ mode. The latter two have a
visual resemblance to the (in)famous Ribbon interface
from Microsoft, except that LibreOffice doesn’t force
you to use any mode and lets you quickly switch from
one to another. The feature sits in the View > User
Interface menu, but only if you enable the experimental
LibreOffice features in Tools > Options > Advanced.
Another important feature is the official unveiling of
the updated KDE interface plug-in. LibreOffice finally
stops looking like an alien when used with KDE Plasma
GOOGlE driVE CliEnt
ODrive
Version: 0.2.0
Web: http://bit.ly/lxf249odrive
illions of Linux users have Google accounts,
M yet there is no official Google Drive client for
Linux. Currently available options imply
mounting the cloud storage as a FUSE drive (http://
bit.ly/lxf249fuse), or using proprietary software like
InSync. But we’ve discovered a much easier way of
synchronising your local files with your Google account.
ODrive is a nice little Electron-based application that
is very easy to work with. The name stands for Open
Drive and should not be confused with the odrive cloud
storage service, which has different software. The hero
of our review has just one window and a tray applet,
and sets up your connection in a few seconds.
There are two steps: one for authenticating with
Google and giving the app the required permissions,
and the other for choosing a local directory for
synchronising. The big blue button fires up the sync
process and keeps you informed about the number of
transferred files.
Closing the main ODrive window leave it running and
accessible via the tray icon. The sync daemon detects
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
hotpicks
or LxQt thanks to the new VCL plug-in, which supports Native Qt5 widgets
Qt5 and KF5 styles. The confusing variety of VCL plug- in Libreoffice? Very
nice indeed!
ins found in previous versions of LibreOffice has been
fixed. Gone are gtk2 and kde4 plug-ins, and we now
have just two integration packages for Gnome (gtk3)
and KDE (kde5).
Of course, all these visual changes shouldn’t obscure
the titanic work that has been done to improved Writer,
Calc, Impress, Math and Draw. LibreOffice works
snappier and better than ever, and those who regularly
work in this suite will surely have a great time with the
new version. There is no need to wait for LibreOffice 6.2
to land in your Linux distribution repos – the official
download page already has all you might need.
local changes in your Google Drive directory and syncs Press ‘Synchronise’
file automatically, without the need to do anything else – to merge the
contents of your
so in a way ODrive is a decent replacement for other
Google Drive to
Google Drive clients. It doesn’t have selective sync and the local folder.
leaves you with the ‘all or nothing’ sync approach, but
still, it is fully FOSS software and has proven to be
usable by non tech-savvy users. Despite being so
minimalistic, ODrive has been in rapid development,
so new features are expected to land soon.
ODrive is a cross-platform application, with the
official AppImage download available from the project’s
page at GitHub. As with most other Electron-based
apps, ODrive behaves exactly the same way on all
supported platforms.
May 2019 LXF249 85
hotpicks
MAtriX CliEnt
Quaternion
Version: 0.0.9.3 Web: https://github.
com/QMatrixClient/Quaternion
ecentralised messaging is getting more and
d more popular among privacy-conscious users.
Recently we saw the KDE project switching
from IRC to Matrix, one of the most popular
decentralised protocols. The concept of such
messaging includes everyone who works on a computer
or a mobile device, so it is not limited to KDE or even
Linux. We picked Quaternion, a nice and rapidly
evolving Matrix client, and tried it in order to see how
decentralised (or federated) instant messages feel,
and in what way it is different to standard IM.
Quaternion greets you with a connection window
and asks for a login name, a password, a device name
and a server address. The server can be any host which
runs the server part of Matrix; for example, it can be
your own Synapse instance (Synapse is a reference
implementation of a Matrix server). However, you can
safely skip the ‘decentralised’ part and join the main
public server at https://matrix.org, which is fine for
online chatting. Getting a Matrix account can be tricky
for novice users, because the registration implies
lOG ViEwEr
Klogg
Version: 19.01.0.318 Web: https://
github.com/variar/klogg
hat software do you use for viewing a log file?
w Most people will find their favourite plain-text
editor perfectly OK for this kind of task.
However, when it comes to viewing very long and
complex files, it becomes evident that navigating and
searching through the endless list of lines takes extra
effort. So if you need to find something useful in such
huge text files, without getting lost, try klogg.
This is a small application tailored for quick and
comfortable scrolling through thousands of lines. The
exterior is very minimalistic, but once you start using
the app you immediately notice how smart it is. Klogg
knows that your log file may be constantly updating at
the time of viewing, which is why there’s an ‘Auto
refresh’ option in the lower-right corner. Use it once
and forget about manual file re-opening every time an
application writes to your log file.
An even more important feature of klogg, however,
is support for regular expressions. The text field above
the file contents is designed for searching, but it also
accepts regexps that you can use for complex
86 LXF249 May 2019
Quaternion is a
simple and robust
Matrix client for
everyday chatting.
solving a captcha, and therefore it is preferable to
register on a web page. The browser version of Riot.im
is perfect for that: https://riot.im.
Once you register and sign in, it’s possible to join
available rooms or create your own. The federated
network works in such a way that members of one
room can be connected to different Matrix servers –
either public, or their own home instances – but the
chat will still synchronise for everyone.
Using Quaternion for chatting has much in common
with using IRC. The main window with the contents of
the chat reacts to what you write in the text field below,
and accepts standard commands for joining, leaving,
referencing and so on. The list of rooms is on the left,
and the current room members on the right, pretty
much like most other IM clients. Don’t forget to check
the official Quaternion room at #quaternion:matrix.org
to stay in touch with the community!
Administering
systems and
applications logs
with klogg is a
true pleasure.
searches. Klogg also lets you bookmark any line of
the text file simply by putting a blue arrow next to it.
Marked lines can always be listed separately in the
search results area below the main log. Another useful
feature is line colouring, Open the Tools > Filters setup
window and add one or several filters to the list. Each
filter can have its own distinctive colour and therefore
you can mark parts of your log that match given criteria
with custom colour. Life gets really bright with klogg!
We tested it with some typical examples, such as the
Apache Tomcat webserver, and were very happy to see
how the tons of visual garbage turned into a readable
and live-updated journal. Needless to say that klogg
supports tabs (open many logs in one window!) and lets
you set custom text encoding separately for each file.
www.linuxformat.com

ShOOtEr GAME
Underrun
Version: GIT
Web: https://github.com/phoboslab/underrun
omething has gone wrong in our remote-
S controlled server infrastructure. Artificial
intelligence systems, radiation protection
and power management have all failed. The automated
control system was not able to restart the servers, so
there is only one way out: you must go to the server
room and manually restart the systems.
The task is trickier than it sounds: soon you’re
wandering inside the maze of the server room (armed
with a gun, of course) and shooting at the fast-moving
alien giant spiders that suddenly jump out of the
ominous darkness to attack. You need to do the rounds
and find all the servers before those creatures can kill
you – and once you succeed, advance with the same
task to the next level.
We can hardly think of any other open source
shooter that is so captivating and filled with suspense,
thrills and action as Underrun. This is not a heavyweight
game, but a browser-playable toy with all assets
weighing in at less than 50K. An unbelievable ratio of
thrills per kilobyte! The graphics are intentionally low-
PArtiClE SiMulAtiOn GAME
Sandspiel
Version: GIT Web: https://github.com/
MaxBittker/sandspiel
here are simple things in life like burning wood
t logs, flowing water streams, melting ice and
other sorts of elements that can hypnotise
you in certain conditions. sandspiel is an example of
the relatively rare kind of game that simulates physical
effects in the real world. Playing requires a certain
attitude and participation, but we were surprised to
realise how easy it was to lose yourself in the process.
The game provides a sandbox (in all senses) and a
concise set of tools in the top-right part of the screen.
To play the game you need to select a tool and draw
some structures with it. There are tools for sand, dust,
water, stone, fire, wind, seeds and others.
The joyful part starts once you decide to see how
one element interacts with another. You can build a
house of ice and use the ‘fire’ brush to see how it melts
into water. Or, perhaps, create a stone bowl filled with
oil and set it on fire. With 20 available tools it’s
impossible to imagine all combinations, and so
sandspiel is a gorgeous find for anyone fond of
modelling shapes, pots and other things in their minds.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Games hOtPiCKS
res and blurred due to some brutal upscaling, but it Beware spiders in
never spoils the game experience. The character, the game, and in
real-world servers.
whom you control using the standard WASD key set,
moves very smoothly and can even be turned with
your mouse. This means you’ll need to turn to face a
spider before shooting at it.
While Underrun may not be a high-profile shooter,
it’s definitely a vigorous and very playable game
worth spending time with. There are so many
features packed into Underrun that it looks almost
magical, given the game’s miniscule size. Different
enemies, dynamic lighting, sound effects, extra levels,
a game menu with tips and legend description…
That’s impressive!
The game can be played on a webserver, for which
there is the handy build.sh script which will prepare
the bundle. Or you can play it right away online at:
https://phoboslab.org/underrun.
Sandspiel enables
you to build
spectacular
schemes that
everyone will
love to explore.
Sandspiel implements very realistic effects for many
real-world materials, and lets you watch wooden
parts slowly burning down, acid drops grinding their
way down through almost everything, and funny-
coloured flowers growing up as in real life.
It’s a gaming application, not a serious simulator,
and therefore has some limitations. We tried to draw
a Pythagorean cup, but the water wouldn’t behave
like a liquid in the connecting vessels. Our cup stayed
full all the time! However, the gravity in all simpler
cases worked like a charm, so we were very happy to
see particles fall to the ground as if they were real.
This browser game is a splendid example of
educational software for all ages. All your innermost
engineering fantasies come true in this physics lab,
so prepare to lose quite a bit of time playing it…
May 2019 LXF249 87
hotpicks
bEnChMArK tOOl
Hyperfine
Version: 1.5.0 Web: https://github.
com/sharkdp/hyperfine
here are things in the world that can be very
t interesting to look at and study, even if at first
they seem commonplace. We experienced
such a feeling when we stumbled upon hyperfine. This
utility is designed for performance testing, but who
would have thought that it could be so exciting?
Hyperfine differs from its more famous counterparts
(we’re looking at you, Phoronix Test Suite) firstly
because of its simplicity. Here’s a universal example
for any test you want to quick-start:
$ hyperfine <some command>
This measures the execution time of the command
so you can see how fast your system is. Naturally, lots of
things affect the figures hyperfine returns, including
disk caches and CPU loads. Hyperfine can be aware of
such things once you tell it to take measurements after
some cold runs. Let’s give it a warm-up with three tests:
$ hyperfine --warmup 3 <some command>.
Disk I/O caching certainly skews the figures we get,
usually to improve them, so let’s flush it and make the
test fairer:
AudiO AnAlySEr
Friture
Version: 0.36 Web: http://friture.org
ound engineering can be mundane daily work
S for one audience and rocket science for
another. We’ve discovered an open source
application that can possibly build a bridge between
these two groups of Linux users, and here’s why.
Friture is a small and neat, yet very powerful audio
spectrum analyser. It can visualise any live audio data
in several ways, enabling you to actually see the sound.
That yellowish ‘flaming’ bar is a 2D spectrogram widget
that draws audio data against time and frequency.
Other widgets include the spectrum (audio vs
frequency), octave spectrum (audio vs time), delay
estimator and two meters for levels and scope.
Now, what are all these complex things for?
Friture is an unmatched helper when you feel there’s
something wrong with the sound but you’re not sure
how to fix it. Classic examples includes capturing the
sound of a pipe organ in a church, or recording a
lecture or a speech in a large hall. In both cases there
will be probably an undesired audio response, when the
sound loops between the output and the recording
device. There can be other defects too, like badly
aligned sound tracks created after recording the
88 LXF249 May 2019
$ hyperfine --prepare ‘sync; echo 3 | sudo tee / This app uses
proc/sys/vm/drop_caches’ ‘<some command>’ multiple test-runs
for more precise
There are a whole lot more options described in
benchmarks.
hyperfine’s built-in help, so you can form complex
chains of commands and wrap them with hyperfine.
The tool is extremely useful for testing hard drives,
CPUs and of course operating systems. You can
quickly see the difference between Linux kernels,
desktop environments and even terminal emulators.
Hyperfine compiles into a single 3.5MB binary file
(builds and packages are also available right away
from the project’s Download section at GitHub), and
supports various extra actions such as exporting
benchmark results to CSV, JSON and Markdown.
Use Friture to
find out if your
audio track or live
stream sounds
better than it looks
on visualisation
widgets.
same scene with several microphones, sound
reverberation, humming and so on. Fixing all these
errors requires using phasers, equalisers and other
tools available in such programs as Audacity. Friture
is here to analyse and see what is happening in the
moment: all these defects form their own unique
pictures in Friture’s widgets and can be better
detected visually then aurally.
By default, Friture tries to capture audio data
from an ALSA source, but you can direct it to use
Pulseaudio in the Settings window. The quickest
way to try Friture is to grab the Appimage, make it
executable and run it. Bear in mind that you may
need to adjust your audio settings in applications
such as Pavucontrol in order to make Friture detect
the audio stream.
www.linuxformat.com
CODING ACADEMY Keep track of Git

SHELL SCRIPTS
Check the status
of your Git repos
John Schwartzman shows you how to write a Bash shell script that
can keep track of all of your many Git repositories.

it is a version control software system that

G keeps track of all of the changes you’ve made

to your source code and enables you to revert
to a previous version at any time. It’s important to keep
Git up to date by checking in (committing) your source
OUR code frequently – whenever you have made changes
EXPERT that you’ve tested and are happy with. This is
particularly important in continuous integration/
John deployment environments.
Schwartzman This git-checking script stemmed from a current
is a software C++ project has seven different source directories, with
engineering a single Git repository that spans all the directories. To
consultant to put these projects under Git source control, we’d open a
business and terminal in the project’s base directory, ~/
government. Development/UDS (the ultimate parent
He also teaches of all of the source directories) and issue the Git init
Computer command. This makes the base directory a Git
Science at a repository. Then going to each of the project source
local college. directories issue Git add * to stage the files. Finally,
going back to the project base directory and issue
Git commit -am “initial version” to commit all the
staged versions.
If you have certain artifact files that show up in all
your source directories, you can tell Git to ignore them The output from the gitStatus shell script is designed to be instantly
Git isn’t only for and not treat them as untracked files. The Eclipse IDE readable, with the use of colour coding.
C++ projects. places a .cproject file, a .project file and a .settings
You may have directory in each of the source directories. You can your repository.
Perl, Python,
create a .Gitignore file containing the names of these General confusion led to the decision that it would be
C, shell scripts,
items and place it in the Git repository directory. useful to have a single command (a Bash shell script)
text files,
make files, When you’re working in many different directories at that would summarise the status of the repository of
configuration the same time, it’s easy to get confused and forget just the seven source code directories and would indicate
files or what you’ve changed and what you haven’t. Git enables which directories need attention.
magazine you to go to each of your source code directories, one The image above shows the output of the shell
articles that at a time, and use the Git status . command to tell you script, which we’ve called gitStatus. The green items
you want to what hasn’t yet been committed to the repository and are up to date and need no attention. The yellow and
keep track of. whether there are any new files in the directory that red items do need attention. They tell you that the
You probably haven’t yet made it into source control. utility directory has one or more untracked files:
already have
You can also use the Git diff command to tell you source code files that were never put under version
Git installed on
exactly what has changed between a source file in the control. That may not be a problem so we indicate
your system.
Try typing git directory and a source file in the Git repository. To that condition in yellow – as in caution.
--version at the commit your changes to Git, use the command They also tell you that the transport source code
command line. Git commit filename -am “Your comment goes here” . directory has two files on disk that are different from
Meanwhile, the gitk command shows you a GUI view of the versions under source control. Two files in the

90 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


transport directory need to be committed. command-
history and findit also need to have multiple files
committed. Using the shell script saves time: after
running the script, you can simply go to the directories
that need attention. The top half of the script
establishes what you’re going to look for in all of the git
status . outputs, and what you are going to display to
the user as a result. Running git status . in the base
directory will give you the same information, but it can
be a bit confusing to look at. Also, you may have a lot of
small projects, where the Git repository is the same as
the project directory.
In this scenario, you’d have to go to each of your Git
repository directories to issue the git status .
command. The git-status, command-history and
findit projects fall into this category.
Let’s look at the shell script in detail. Line 1 tells
Linux what kind of file this is (a Bash shell script) and
how it should be executed (in Bash); it’s standard
Linux/UNIX boilerplate.
#!/bin/bash
Then there are some escape sequence definitions so
that you will be able to output text in colour. Colour
makes things easier to comprehend.
escRed=’\e[1;31m’ # define a few colour escape
sequences
escYellow=’\e[0;33m’
escGreen=’\e[0;32m’
escReset=’\e[0m’
Following the colour escape sequence definitions are
the two commands that you will execute in each of your
source repository directories.
# define cmd1 and cmd2
cmd1=”git status . | grep -c \”modified:\””
cmd2=”git status . | grep -c \”Untracked files:\””
You can execute each of the these commands
from the command line to see what the git status .
command is telling you before and after you pipe it
through grep. Notice that we’re using grep’s -c (count)
option. This will suppress the output of the text we’re
searching for and simply tell us how many times the
string appears in the output of the git status .
command. You’re looking for the strings modified: and
Untracked files: . The first string occurs once for each
file that is different from the version in the Git
repository. The second string occurs one time if git
status . finds any untracked files; it will not appear at all
if it finds no untracked files.
The next few lines indicate what you’re going to
output to the user depending on the values of count1
and count2 .
# define the output strings
strNoCommit=”has no files that need to be
committed.”
strCommit=”file(s) that need to be committed.”
strNoUntracked=”has no untracked files.”
strUntracked=”has one or more untracked files.”
The next lines contain a simple array of project
names and repository directories. Notice the vertical bar
character ‘|’ used to separate the project names from
their associated directories. Obviously, until you
populate the proj array with your own project names
and repository directories, you’ll get nothing but errors.
git status . will scream if you issue it in a directory that
is not associated with a Git repository.
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Keep track of Git coding academy
# declare an array of the project names and their…
associated directories
declare -a proj
proj[0]=”utility|$HOME/Development/UDS/utility/src”
proj[1]=”transport|$HOME/Development/UDS/
transport/src”
proj[2]=”serverTest|$HOME/Development/UDS/
serverTest/src”
proj[3]=”clientTest|$HOME/Development/UDS/
clientTest/src”
proj[4]=”simpleClientTest|$HOME/Development/UDS/
simpleClientTest/src”
proj[5]=”throttledServerTest|$HOME/Development/
UDS/throttledServerTest/src”
proj[6]=”utilityTest|$HOME/Development/UDS/
utilityTest/src”
proj[7]=”command-history|$HOME/Development/
command-history”
proj[8]=”git-status|$HOME/Development/git-status”
proj[9]=”findit|$HOME/Development/findit”
numProjects=${#proj[@]} # keep track of the
number of projects in the array
The next lines timestamp the output and print a
blank line.
echo $(date) # timestamp the output
echo
In the bottom half of the script is a for loop. First,
inside the for loop, you recover your project and
source directory from the current element of the array
using Bash pattern matching.
project=”${proj[$i]%%|*}” # derive the project name
from proj[i] (return everything before ‘|’)
dir=”${proj[$i]#*|}” # derive the directory name from
proj[i] (return everything after ‘|’)
You iterate through the array to recover each of your
project names and cd to its associated source
directory. In each source directory you execute cmd1
and cmd2 and save the results in count1 and count2 .
Based on the values of count1 and count2 you echo
two status statements to the user. The first statement
indicates the number of modified files that need to be
committed and the second statement indicates whether
or not gitStatus found any untracked files.
Once you’ve created your shell script in a text editor
and saved it, you must tell Linux that it is an executable
file. This is done so frequently that many developers
and system administrators keep an alias for the
purpose: alias mx=’chmod +x’ . Add the alias to the file
$HOME/.alias or $HOME/.bash_aliases, depending
on your distro. You then copy the executable into your
/bin directory with a short name that you can
remember. Issue the following commands in your
working directory.
mx gitStatus.sh
cp gitStatus.sh $HOME/bin/gitStatus
Any time you want to know the status of your
projects, you type gitStatus on the command line. If
you like, you can create a gitStatus shell script for
every Git repository on your system, or you can include
multiple repositories and their associated projects in
the same gitStatus command.
Look at how much we can accomplish in a one-page
shell script. Hopefully this proves to be useful and that it
will give you some ideas for your own shell scripts. Have
fun and keep coding!
May 2019 LXF249 91
CODING ACADEMY Speed up web apps

WEBASSEMBLY + RUST
Speed your web apps
with WebAssembly
Mihalis Tsoukalos explains how to develop WebAssembly applications
from Rust, and how to use them with the help of JavaScript.

avaScript has been the dominant programming

J language among web developers for a long

time now. WebAssembly wants to become the
new king of web development – not as a programming
language, but as a virtual and portable compilation
OUR target. Therefore WebAssembly is not here to replace
EXPERT JavaScript entirely, but to work with JavaScript. The
two biggest advantages of WebAssembly are portability
Mihalis and good performance.
Tsoukalos This tutorial is about writing Rust code, compiling it
is a UNIX person into WebAssembly and using that WebAssembly code.
and the author of At the time of writing, the latest Rust version is 1.32.0.
Go Systems However, you should not have any problems executing
Programming the code of this article even with older Rust versions.
and Mastering At the end of the tutorial we’ll see how to create
Go. You can WebAssembly code from Go, so we can compare
reach him at the Rust way with the Go approach.
www.mtsoukalos.
eu and @ Installation
mactsouk. As always we’ll need to install WebAssembly on our
Linux machine in order to use it with Rust. First, you
will need to install the standard Rust toolchain, which
includes rustc, the Rust compiler; rustup, the Rust
toolchain installer; and cargo, which is the package
manager for Rust. The easiest way to install all these
is to follow the instructions at www.rust-lang.org/
tools/install. If you prefer, you can use your favourite
Linux package manager instead.
After installing the Rust toolchain, you should install
wasm-pack by following the instructions at http://bit.
ly/lxf249rust2 1. Then you will need to install cargo-
Get the code for generate to make creating WebAssembly projects in
this project on Rust simpler and easier. As cargo-generate is just a
the LXFDVD Rust crate, it can be installed by executing cargo install
or visit www. cargo-generate . Be prepared for a lengthy installation
linuxformat. process; it includes the execution of the following:
com/archives $ sudo curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
and grab teh $ sudo curl https://rustwasm.github.io/wasm-pack/
code pack. installer/init.sh -sSf | sh
$ sudo apt install libssl-dev pkg-config
$ cargo install cargo-generate
Figure 1 shows a small part of the output of the
commands from the installation process. Note that all
1) https://rustwasm.github.io/wasm-pack/installer/
Figure 1: A small part of the installation process of the Rust
WebAssembly support, which is a pretty lengthy task.
Rust tools are installed in ~/.cargo/bin, so ensure that
~/.cargo/bin is in your PATH environment variable.
The output of the rustc --version command will verify
that everything is OK with your Rust installation.
If you try to execute cargo generate without first
installing the required Rust crate, you’ll see the
following error:
$ cargo generate
error: no such subcommand: `generate`
This happens because cargo generate is not a
standard command of the Cargo tool. Installing
WebAssembly support for Rust is the most difficult and
challenging task you will find in this tutorial; at the end
of it, we’ll see that this isn’t the case with WebAssembly
and Go, as WebAssembly is just another supported
architecture for Go.
In a moment we’ll look at a simple Rust project that
generates WebAssembly code, which is going to be
served using HTML and JavaScript. You will need to use
nmp (Node Package Manager) to be able to test the
generated applications on your local machine. As npm
is installed with Node.js, you need to install Node.js to
get npm on your computer. Therefore, it would be a
good idea to install Node.js at this point. For the Ubuntu
machine used in this tutorial, installing Node.js and npm
is as simple as executing apt install npm with root
privileges – this installs both components.

92 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


It’s very important to have the latest version of npm
installed; you can update your current version by
executing npm install npm@latest -g with root
privileges. After updating npm, reopen your terminal for
changes to take effect – this is also really important!
Please bear in mind that although npm and Node.js
have nothing to do with WebAssembly, they might
create some problems in the publishing of the
WebAssembly code, which means that you should
make sure that they are properly installed.
If you do not want to manually install all these things
on your Linux machine, you could always use a Docker
image instead. Although you will need to learn some
new things in order to use Docker and work with its
images efficiently, you will see many benefits from this
choice in the long run, especially if you are using
multiple machines with different versions of Linux for
development and deployment. Unfortunately, we don’t
have the space here to explain more about Docker.
Hello world
After you’ve downloaded all the required files, you are
ready to start compiling Rust code into WebAssembly.
But first you will need to create a new Rust project
using cargo generate . This command will clone and
use an external project template that comes pre-
configured with some rational default values in order to
save you time. It will ask you for a project name, which
in this case will be lxf (you can choose any name you
want, of course). The Rust program will print a “Hello
World” message – this is what the WebAssembly code
will do, but in a way that you might not expect!
So, first execute the following commands:
$ cargo generate --git https://github.com/rustwasm/
wasm-pack-template
$ cd lxf # replace lxf with your own project name
$ wasm-pack build
Figure 2 shows the output of the previous
commands as well as the initial directory structure of
the Cargo project. The src directory contains the Rust
code of the project, whereas the Cargo.toml file
contains the dependencies of the Rust project.
The wasm-pack build command does all the work
for you, which includes downloading all necessary
components and generating its output inside the
pkg directory. The most important file in the pkg
directory is ./pkg/lxf_bg.wasm, because it contains
the created WebAssembly code. The output of the
next command will verify that ./pkg/lxf_bg.wasm
contains WebAssembly code:
$ file pkg/lxf_bg.wasm
pkg/lxf_bg.wasm: WebAssembly (wasm) binary
module version 0x1 (MVP)
In order to see the results of the WebAssembly
program you will need to publish it on a webserver
either locally or on the internet – in this tutorial we’ll
illustrate how to use it on your local Linux machine.
So execute the npm init wasm-app www command
to do this locally. You now have a new directory called
/www inside the root directory of your Rust project,
with the following:
$ ls -a www/
. bootstrap.js index.html LICENSE-MIT
README.md
.. .git index.js package.json .travis.yml
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Speed up web apps coding academy
Figure 2: The
initial structure of
the Rust project,
as well as the
output of the
commands used
for generating
the WebAssembly
binary file.
.bin .gitignore LICENSE-APACHE package-lock.json
webpack.config.js
Now go to that directory and execute npm install . the Go way
Instead of deploying the application in npm, we will use of generating
WebAssembly
the local copy of it, which means that you should go to
code is much
the pkg directory and execute the npm link command
simpler
with root privileges. Now, return to the /www directory compared to the
and execute npm link lxf . Lastly, you will need to make Rust way, this
the contents of www/index.js as follows: does not mean
$ cat ./www/index.js that Go is a
import * as wasm from “lxf”; better language
wasm.greet(); than Rust. It’s up
This is needed for telling index.js to serve our to you to decide
project instead of the default one. Finally, execute whether to use
Go or Rust.
npm run start from the /www directory in order to
start the local webserver. You can now visit http://
localhost:8080 and see the results of the lxf project
as rendered by Firefox (see Figure 3 over the page). The
the CARGo tool
The Cargo tool is very powerful and can help you develop Rust
applications. Let’s look at most popular and useful commands of
this tool, along with a small explanation in order to help you
remember them while learning Cargo.
The cargo new command creates a new project – by default, that
project will lead to a binary executable. Should you wish to create a
library, you should execute cargo new --lib instead. cargo build
compiles a debug version of the local package along with its
dependencies. On the other hand, cargo build --release generates
an optimised binary executable or library.
The cargo clean command removes artefacts that Cargo has
generated in the past – it will enable you to build a project from
scratch. The cargo run command runs the main binary of the local
package, which is ./src/main.rs. cargo install installs a binary
executable, whereas the cargo uninstall command removes a Rust
binary. Last, the cargo test command enables you to execute all unit
and integration tests of the current package.
Figure 5 (see the final page) shows the default help screen of the
cargo tool. You can find more information about specific commands
by executing cargo <command> --help .
May 2019 LXF249 93
coding academy Speed up web apps

message that is displayed in the box is defined in ./src/

lib.rs. Additionally, if you press the OK button, the
Although displayed message box will disappear from your screen.
creating a
WebAssembly
binary from
A bit random
We are going to develop another Rust project that also
Rust is a
relatively generates a WebAssembly binary file. However, this
straightforward time it will be a more interactive example, as the project
process, will generate random numbers each time you press a
serving that user-defined button on the HTML page, created by
WebAssembly WebAssembly code. You can initiate the project by
code using executing the following commands and changing the
html and ./src/lib.rs file to the following (again, you can change
JavaScript the name of the project if you prefer):
might be
$ cargo generate --git https://github.com/rustwasm/ Figure 4: The output of the ran-str Rust project that creates
challenging, WebAssembly code and shows random numbers that were
wasm-pack-template
especially if you generated using JavaScript in your web browser.
aren’t familiar $ cd ran-str # This is the name of the Rust project
with JavaScript. $ vi ./src/lib.rs
therefore be Now, execute the following commands to build the everyone! The alert() function takes the formatted text
extra careful project and create the necessary JavaScript files that that is generated by the format! macro and presents it
with your code. will help you execute the WebAssembly code: to the user.
$ wasm-pack build Although the Rust code is relatively simple, the
$ npm init wasm-app www JavaScript and HTML code used for using the
$ vi ./www/index.js WebAssembly binary is much trickier.
$ vi ./www/index.html
$ cd www Let’s talk JavaScript
$ npm install The random numbers are generated by JavaScript
$ cd ../pkg/ using the Math.random() JavaScript function. Each
$ sudo npm link random number that is generated will be given as an
$ cd ../www argument to the wasm.greet() function that is
$ npm link ran-str implemented in Rust and compiled into WebAssembly
code. The contents of ./www/index.js should be:
Explaining the Rust code $ cat ./www/index.js
The core functionality of the project can be found in the import * as wasm from “ran-str”;
greet() function that is implemented inside ./src/lib. var x = Math.floor(Math.random() * 100) ;
rs as follows: wasm.greet(x);
#[wasm_bindgen] The contents of ./www/index.html should be:
pub fn greet(input: &str) { $ cat ./www/index.html
alert(&format!(“Random number: {}!”, input)); <!DOCTYPE html>
} <html>
So, this time, the greet() function expects some <head>
Figure 3: This input using a parameter named input . This means that <meta charset=”utf-8”>
is the output the JavaScript code will have to call it with a string <title>Hello wasm-pack!</title>
generated by the parameter. The value of that parameter will be </head>
lxf Rust project, generated from JavaScript. The #[wasm_bindgen] <body>
compiled into
WebAssembly
attribute tells Rust that this function should be able to <button value=”Refresh Page” onClick=”window.
and rendered in be called by JavaScript. Put simply, this attribute tells location.reload()”>New Number</button>
Firefox. the world that this Rust function is available to <script src=”./bootstrap.js”></script>
</body>
</html>
If there are no errors, executing npm run start from
the www directory allows you to see the results of the
ran-str Rust project in your favourite web browser (see
Figure 4 above).
The good thing is that you will no longer need to have
Rust installed on your local machine in order to use that
WebAssembly code. You can also use the wasm-pack
publish command to publish your project to NPM.
However, you will first need to sign up at www.npmjs.
com/signup and then login using npm login for
wasm-pack publish to work correctly.
It’s worth knowing that the wasm-pack test
command enables you to test your WebAssembly
project. Its default output is as follows:
$ wasm-pack test

94 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com


Figure 5: This figure illustrates the use of the Cargo tool by showing
its default help screen.
Must specify at least one of `--node`, `--chrome`,
`--firefox`, or `--safari`
When you define one of the allowed command line
options, the command downloads the required
packages and begin testing. The only requirement for
the test to run is that you should have the desired web
browser already installed.
Again, talking more about testing is beyond the
scope of this tutorial, but you can find plenty more
resources online.
Go WebAssembly!
In this final section we’ll talk about the way the Go
programming language generates WebAssembly code,
in case you want to compare Rust with Go in relation to
WebAssembly generation. This section will not talk
about publishing the generated WebAssembly code –
just the Go way of generating WebAssembly code.
The good thing is that as far as Go is concerned,
WebAssembly is just another supported architecture.
Therefore you can use the cross-compilation
capabilities of Go in order to create your WebAssembly
binary files. Additionally, you will not need to install any
extra packages for WebAssembly support in Go.
So if you have a Go source file called hw.go, you can
compile it and generate a WebAssembly file as easily as
the following:
$ GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm go build -o main.wasm hw.
go
The hw.go file contains ordinary Go code without
any indication that it is going to be compiled into
WebAssembly. It is the values of GOOS and GOARCH
that specify and tell Go to create WebAssembly code. If
you do not specify the right values, the compilation will
not generate WebAssembly code or might fail
completely. There are various ways to see the output of
main.wasm, including using your favourite web
browser. However, if you have Node.js already installed
on your Linux machine, there is a much easier way to
see the output, which will save you from loading the file
in your web browser:
$ export PATH=”$PATH:$(go env GOROOT)/misc/
wasm”
$ GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm go run .
Hello World!
ImpRoVe youR CoDe SkIllS Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/LinuxFormat
www.techradar.com/pro/linux
Speed up web apps coding academy
About WebASSembly
WebAssembly (aka Wasm) is a machine-model and executable
format targeted for a virtual machine, designed for efficiency – both
in speed and file size. That means that you can use a WebAssembly
binary on any platform you want without a single change. It also
means that WebAssembly binaries tend to be quite large in size,
though this shouldn’t be a problem with modern computers.
WebAssembly comes in two formats: a plain-text format and a
binary format. Plain-text format WebAssembly files have the WAT
extension, whereas binary files have the WASM file extension. A WAT
file uses S-expressions, whereas the binary format can be executed
by Wasm virtual machines.
An S-expression is an older textual format used for representing
trees. In the case of WebAssembly, an S-expression is used for
describing modules, which are the fundamental code units in
WebAssembly. Note that if you have a WASM binary file, you’ll have
to load and use it using the JavaScript API.
Apart from Rust, WebAssembly can also be generated by other
programming languages that have support for static typing, including
Go, C and C++. Functions in WebAssembly should be included in
modules – in our case, this is being taken care of by Rust, and most
other languages provide the same support.
The entire process is also illustrated in Figure 6
below, which also includes the Go code of hw.go.
However, choosing between Go and Rust for creating
WebAssembly code is a matter of personal preference. you can learn
It looks like WebAssembly is here to stay, so it would more about
be a good idea to learn more about it and how you can WebAssembly
generate WebAssembly code from Rust. by visiting
You should keep four things in your mind after WebAssembly:
https://
reading this tutorial. First is that WebAssembly is not a
webassembly.
programming language, second is that you can generate
org and https://
WebAssembly code from many existing programming developer.
languages. The third one is that after creating the mozilla.org/
WebAssembly code you no longer need the compiler of en-uS/docs/
the programming language that you used; and the last WebAssembly.
one is that some JavaScript code is still required. Enjoy
WebAssembly and happy coding!
Figure 6: This is the Go way of creating WebAssembly code – and illustrates a trick that can help
you execute your WebAssembly binary without the need for a webserver.
May 2019 LXF249 95
On the disc
Discover the highlights from this month’s packed DVD!

pen-testing distro
stArt Here
using the LXFdVd
Using Linux for the first time can
be very confusing. It’ll be unlike
Kali Linux 2019.1 64- & 32-bit
anything that you’ve likely operated nce again we have only a single memory) to the live environment with apt.
before, especially if you’re used
to Microsoft Windows or Apple
macOS.
o distribution this month, but this time
we’re not neglecting our 32-bit users,
Speaking of the live environment, you may
notice that those are the only available options
with 64- and 32-bit versions of Kali Linux. It’s when booting the disc: the installation options
Generally our DVDs are designed
to be run directly, which is to say
been a while since the last Kali release – the end are all conspicuously absent. That’s because we
that when you first power on your of October 2018, in fact – and we like to removed them, much as we did eight issues ago,
PC (or Mac) it should ‘boot’ from encourage our readers to hack all the things because they don’t play nice with our multi/
the DVD – so before Windows or (in a totally legal and responsible way, of course), hybrid booting menu system. Given the choice,
macOS even starts to load – with
so here we are. we’d rather have a disc that boots to a nice live
Linux running directly from the
DVD. This trick is known as a Live The main event in this new release is version environment than one that offers broken
Disc. It enables you to try out the 5.0 of Metasploit Framework, released in January options, promises and dreams.
various versions of Linux without 2019, but there’s all sorts other goodies. We’ve Kali Linux is often run straight from a live
having to install or change anything gone for the MATE release this time, because we medium anyway, but if you do want to install it,
on your PC. Just remove the DVD,
restart your PC and it’ll be exactly
like it. This is the full-fat edition with all the tools just burn/write the Kali ISO (located in the Kali/
as you left it. ready to go. There’s only so much you can fit on or Kali-light32/ directories on the disc) to a
While many systems will boot a DVD, so we’ve got the Xfce-based Kali Light for DVD-R or USB stick. Writing the whole disc
from a DVD when it finds one, 32-bit users. This has all the basic tools, and you (either using dd or using a program like
many will not. See below for the can add anything you like (subject to available Unetbootin or Rufus) won’t work, partly because
standard process for enabling
booting from a DVD on various
desktops and laptop PCs. We took away
the installation
The alternative option is to
options and
locate the ISO file on the DVD and
added a warning.
write this to your own USB thumb
We are a cruel
drive and attemp to run that. We
and heartless
recommend using Etcher from
bunch.
www.balena.io/etcher that’s
available for Windows, macOS
and Linux. Good luck!

boot the disc

Many PCs should boot
automatically if they’re turned on
with a disc in the drive. If not, many
offer an early Boot Menu accessed
by tapping a key while powering up
from cold: F9 (HP), F12 (Dell,
Lenovo), F8 (Amibios) or F11
(Award BIOS). Alternatively, use
the BIOS/UEFI to adjust the boot
order to start with the optical drive.
Again, this is accessed by tapping a
key during power up, usually Del
but sometimes F1 or F2. Some new
UEFI PCs require access via
Windows: holding Shift select its
Restart option. If you’re still having Important notIce!
problems using the DVD visit: DefectIve DIscs: For basic help on running the disc or in the unlikely event of your
www.linuxformat.com/
dvdsupport Linux Format coverdisc being in any way defective, please visit our support site at
www.linuxformat.com/dvdsupport. Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer advice on
Mac owners: Hold the C key
while powering on your system using the applications, your hardware or the operating system itself.
to boot from the disc.

96 LXF249 May 2019 www.linuxformat.com

 Adding a
partition to And More!
a USB stick
from a funky
terminal. (There Reading matteR
is absolutely
no need to
Advanced Bash
update fstab.)
Scripting Guide
Go further with shell scripting.

Bash Guide for Beginners

Get to grips with the basics
of Bash scripting.

Bourne Shell Scripting

First steps in shell scripting.
The Cathedral and
the Bazaar
Eric S. Raymond’s classic text
explains the advantages of
open development.

The Debian Book

the install options still won’t be there but mostly
because you’ll have just added a new layer of
filesystem abstraction to things. Use a program
like Etcher (www.balena.io/etcher) if you want
to do things graphically, or use dd if you prefer
the old fashioned way:
$ sudo dd if=/media/LXFDVD249/Kali/kali-
linux-mate-2019.1-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4K
status=progress
The forementioned Unetbootin and Rufus
probably work on the Kali ISOs too, but we
haven’t tested that and we like Etcher.
Having a Kali USB stick avails you of its
persistence features (we left those options on
the DVD menu just to pique your interest). This
means you can carry around a customised Kali
Linux that you can boot anywhere without
touching the host machine.
Perhaps you’ll be working on database
dumps and need to save intermediate files
before getting an hour’s sleep and moving to the
next safehouse; maybe your coworker stole your
last USB stick (what, me?–Ed) and you just need
somewhere to save the cat GIFs du jour; maybe
you just really want to install Kali Linux (it’s
based on Debian and uses the same installer) –
it’s all possible.
nothing if not persistent
A small amount of further setup is needed to
use Kali’s persistence features. Mostly we need
to create our data partition in the extra space on
the USB stick. The Kali live partition occupies
about 3GB (actually 3214MB), so the difference
can be used to store data. We need to specify
the partition boundaries to create the partition;
the following worked for us with a 16GB stick:
Essential guide for sysadmins.
$ sudo parted /dev/sdX mkpart primary 3214 Dive Into Python
15.5gb Everything you need to know.
You may have to decrease the end boundary if Introduction to Linux
it refuses or if you have a smaller capacity USB A handy guide full of pointers
for new Linux users.
stick – remember the usable capacity of these
things is never quite as advertised. You can Linux Dictionary
specify a value in megabytes (as in the start The A-Z of everything to do
with Linux.
boundary) or use the gb suffix for metric
gigabytes. You may also get some warnings Linux Kernel in a Nutshell
about not being able to use the exact start An introduction to the kernel
written by master hacker
values, or about the partition placement not
Greg Kroah-Hartman.
being ‘optimal’. These can be safely ignored
and the values it suggests are generally sensible. The Linux System
Once that’s done, we can make our Administrator’s Guide
Take control of your system.
filesystem. We’re a bit short of space here, so
we won’t cover setting up a LUKS-encrypted Tools Summary
volume here (you’ll find the details at https:// Overview of GNU tools.
kali.org/prst), but adding an ext3 filesystem is GNU Emacs Manual
just a matter of Six hundred pages of
essential information!
$ sudo mkfs.ext3 -L persistence /dev/sdX3
In order to use it, we need to create a config Producing Open Source
file that tells Kali to use this partition for Software
Everything you need to know.
persistent storage. That file should reside in the
root directory of the persistence volume and be Programming from the
called persistence.conf. All it needs to contain Ground Up
Take your first steps.
is the text:
/ union
Check the previous link if you need more details.
The Bookshelf is also back this month, and as
well as everything listed in that column over
yonder we’ve managed to find space for Kali
Linux Revealed, Offensive Security’s official 341-
page guide to the distro. This covers much more
than we could fit in this magazine, let alone
these two pages. The root password is ‘toor’ –
everything in Kali is done with root.

new to LInux? start here… downLoAd

Never used Linux before? Here are some handy resources: your dVd
Read our quick-install guide http://bit.ly/LXFinstall iMAges!
Looking for an answer? https://askubuntu.com Get code and DVD images at:
Want to delve more deeply? https://linuxjourney.com www.linuxformat.com
/archives

www.techradar.com/pro/linux May 2019 LXF249 97

 LXF250
will be on sale
The #1 open source mag

Future Publishing Limited,

Tuesday Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA

Email linuxformat@futurenet.com

7 May
EDITORIAL
Editor Neil Mohr
Black-hat editor Jonni Bidwell

2019 Art editor Efrain Hernandez-Mendoza

Production editor Ed Ricketts
Group editor in chief Graham Barlow
Senior art editor Jo Gulliver
Editorial contributors
Michael Bedford, Neil Bothwick, Stuart Burns,
Christian Cawley, Sean Conway, Alex Cox,
Jon Masters, John Knight, Nick Peers, Les Pounder,
Mayank Sharma, Shashank Sharma, John
Schwartzman, Alexander Tolstoy, Mihalis Tsoukalos
Cartoons Shane Collinge
Cover illustration magictorch.com
ADvERTIsIng
Media packs are available on request
Commercial director Clare Dove
clare.dove@futurenet.com
Senior advertising manager Lara Jaggon
lara.jaggon@futurenet.com
Advertising manager Michael Pyatt
michael.pyatt@futurenet.com
Director of agency sales Matt Downs
matt.downs@futurenet.com
Ad director – Technology John Burke
john.burke@futurenet.com
Head of strategic partnerships Clare Jonik
clare.jonik@futurenet.com
InTERnATIOnAL LIcEnsIng
Linux Format is available for licensing. Contact the
Licensing team to discuss partnership opportunities.
Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw
licensing@futurenet.com
subscRIpTIOns & bAck IssuEs
Web www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Run Linux on
Email linuxformat@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
UK 0344 848 2852
International +44 (0) 344 848 2852
cIRcuLATIOn
Head of newstrade Tim Mathers
pRODucTIOn AnD DIsTRIbuTIOn
Head of production UK & US Mark Constance

Chromebooks
Production project manager Clare Scott
Advertising production manager Joanne Crosby
Digital editions controller Jason Hudson
Production controller Nola Cokely
ThE mAnAgEmEnT
Chief content officer Aaron Asadi
Editorial director William Gannon
Brand director Andy Clough
Head of art & design Rodney Dive
Commercial finance director Dan Jotcham

It was more fun than expected, so we took Printed by Wyndeham Peterborough, Storey’s Bar
Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, PE1 5YS
Distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary

hacking the low-cost Linux boxes to the next level!
Wharf, London, E14 5HU www.marketforce.co.uk
Tel: 0203 787 9001
LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, GNU/Linux is abbreviated to Linux
throughout for brevity. All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected.
Where applicable code printed in this magazine is licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or
later. See www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.

Rescue distros
We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from
responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in
this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests,
conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The
manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification
and accreditation

Before your think you’ve lost it all, try to rescue it. We test the  Disclaimer All contents © 2019 Future Publishing Limited or published under
licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored,

best of rescue distros to discover how to save your bacon.
transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in
England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All
information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we
are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any

Child rescue
responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to
contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/
services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this
publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any
other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not

How open source software and deep learning is being used 

affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have
the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant
Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in

to develop tracking tools that can locate lost children. any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and
on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any
material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither
Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss

Better webcams
or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise
stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.
All contents in this magazine are used at your own risk. We accept no liability for
any loss of data or damage to your systems, peripherals or software through the use
of any guide. Many blue passports died to bring us this magazine.

Get more from your webcams as we explore the drivers, the Future is an award-winning international media group and
leading digital business. We reach more than 57 million

software and what you can do with a PC-attached camera. international consumers a month and create world-class
content and advertising solutions for passionate consumers
online, on tablet & smartphone and in print.

Linux thin clients

Take advantage of network-booting thin clients, from the 
Raspberry Pi to full Intel-based systems.
Future plc is a public Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne
company quoted on the Non-executive chairman Richard Huntingford
London Stock Exchange Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand
(symbol: FUTR)
www.futureplc.com Tel +44 (0)1225 442244
Contents of future issues subject to change – we might be battling the Brexit zombie hordes.

98 LXF249 May 2019