Update on openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference
Organizers of the openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference had a meeting this week to discuss various topics surrounding COVID19 and how it may affect the conference and planning for it.
At this point, it is uncertain what restrictions governments may keep in place in the coming months. While October is some months away, there are many aspects we are considering as to how to run the openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference.
Travel restrictions, flights, hotel and venue availability, event capacity and our community members’ ability to attend the conference are all factors we are considering. We hope to make a decision about the conference at the latest by mid-June.
In these difficult times, we want to assure our communities that we are actively engaged in a good outcome for all members, sponsors and interested parties involved with a successful openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference. We are looking at alternatives for the conference like possibly doing a virtual conference and exploring what tools might help us to achieve this should we decide it’s a viable option.
Please remember that the Call for Papers is open and people can submit their talks until July 21 at events.opensuse.org. We are moving forward, assuming the conference will take place as planned from Oct. 13 - 16 and will keep our communities informed of any decisions we make regarding the plans for the conference and any alternatives options like a virtual conference. Stay safe, healthy and strong during these hard times and we hope to see all of you later this year; celebrating together our anniversary under much better circumstances!
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baltolkien06×05 Cosas que hacer con KDE estando encerrado en casa
Este tiempo de confinamiento está siendo prolífico para el mundo de los podcast. Me congratula anunciar un nuevo episodio de los podcast de KDE España titulado 06×05 Cosas que hacer con KDE estando encerrado en casa en el que se repasan algunas de las opciones que se tienen para colaborar con el Software Libre y pasar a ser un desarrollador del mismo.
06×05 Cosas que hacer con KDE estando encerrado en casa
Quinto capítulo de la sexta temporada de los podcast de KDE España. Esta semana exploramos las opciones que tenemos en tiempos de confinamiento a la hora de contribuir con un gran proyecto de software libre como el de la comunidad KDE.
A lo largo de la hora y casi cincuenta minutos que dura este capítulo se repasan las diversas formas que se tiene de ayudar al desarrollo, es decir, de convertirse en desarrollador del Software Libre desde la forma más sencilla hasta la más elaborada.
Y es que solo se necesita una cosa para ayudar al desarrollo del Software Libre: voluntad. Existen decenas de tareas que realizar, desde simplemente conseguir que los proyectos de Software Libre sean visibles en la redes sociales hasta seleccionar los errores principales para que los desarrolladores de una aplicación determinada consiga priorizarlos hasta colaborar con traducciones de aplicaciones, de páginas web o de wikis.
Los integrantes del podcast son:
- Aleix Pol: desarrollador de KDE, presidente de KDE e.V., expresidente de KDE España, …
- Baltasar Ortega: editor de KDE Blog y secretario de KDE España
-
Mari Carmen Fernández: miembro-amigo de KDE España
- Rubén Gómez: miembro de KDE España, de HackLab Almería y de Document Foundation
Y no os entretengo más, os dejo con el vídeo:
Como siempre, esperamos vuestros comentarios que os aseguro que son muy valiosos para los desarrolladores, aunque sean críticas constructivas (las otras nunca son buenas para nadie). Así mismo, también nos gustaría saber los temas sobre los que gustaría que hablásemos en los próximos podcast.
Highlights of YaST Development Sprint 96
While many activities around the world slow down due to the COVID-19 crisis, we are proud to say the YaST development keeps going at full speed. To prove that, we bring you another report about what the YaST Team has been working on during the last couple of weeks.
The releases of openSUSE Leap 15.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP2 are approaching. That implies we invest quite some time fixing bugs found by the testers. Many of them are not specially exciting but we still have enough interesting topics to report about:
- More news about the new Online Search functionality
- Improvements in the user interface to configure NTP
- Progress in the support of Secure Boot for s390 mainframes
- Better reporting in AutoYaST
- Some bugfixes related to the handling of storage devices
- And a bonus: our new tool for mass review of GitHub pull requests
So let’s start!
The Online Search Keeps Improving
This is not the first time our loyal readers learn about the YaST feature to search online for packages within SLE modules and extensions. We initially presented it three reports ago, followed by a review of several usability improvements we had decided to implement on top of that initial version.
But, as usual, SUSE’s QA department did a pretty good job forcing us to go one step further and provided us with useful information about how to improve the functionality. Apart from some minor bugs, they reported that there were important performance problems and that the UX could be improved.
The performance issues were annoying when working with big result sets. In one of our testing machines, it took several seconds to display the found packages after having received the list from the SUSE Customer Center. Moreover, scrolling through the results was rather slow too. Hopefully, those problems are gone now: most of the time is spent in network communication and scrolling works smoothly.
Regarding the UX, we introduced a few changes:
- Now there is a button to make clear how to select/unselect a package for installation. In the
text-based interface, it was rather easy to infer that pressing
Enterwas enough. However, in the graphical alternative, things were not that easy. - We have added some information about how many packages were found.
- The help texts were extended and improved.
But the Online Search UI is not the only interface that received some love…
The Strange Case of the Multiple NTP Servers
YaST NTP allows to configure a list of NTP servers to use for synchronizing the date and time of the system. But one of our beloved users reported that a certain sequence of steps in the YaST Timezone module could ruin that list, reducing it to only its first entry. That was caused by a lack of consistency between both YaST modules.
YaST Timezone was designed a long time ago to, unlike YaST NTP, display and configure exactly one server. You may be asking, why can NTP be configured from YaST Timezone if there is an specific and more advanced YaST module for that purpose? The answer is that the YaST Timezone dialog is the only one available during installation, where it makes sense to offer the timezone and NTP configuration all together and with simplified options.
That simplicity also makes sense in an installed system for users with a basic configuration. But in systems with an advanced setup, we adapted that dialog to display the list of servers and to not offer any shortcut to adjust that configuration. Instead, the YaST Timezone dialog offers only a “Configure” button that opens the YaST NTP dialog, where the user can fine-tune the NTP configuration at will.
Secure Boot in zSeries Mainframes - Second Round
A couple of reports ago, we presented the initial support for zSeries Secure boot. We have continued improving that feature based on the feedback received from early testers and mainframe specialists.
Now, YaST behavior is better adapted to the characteristics of the system in which it’s been executed. We could go into details about each zSeries model and how YaST behaves based on its hardware configuration. But since an image is worth a thousand words, let’s just illustrate it with this new warning about z15+ requirement displayed when secure boot support is turned on.
The help texts and the information displayed in the installer proposal have also been adapted to better explain the consequences of the possible settings in YaST. Once again, let’s see it with an example image.
But, as you already know, this is not the only part of YaST we are improving step by step, one sprint after the other…
More Sanity Checks in AutoYaST
As part of our continuous effort to improve AutoYaST error handling and reporting capabilities (see this section of the previous report), we have added a new check for multi-devices technologies. Thus in case you are setting up an LVM volume group, a RAID, a Bcache or a multi-device Btrfs filesystem, AutoYaST makes sure that their components are also properly defined in the AutoYaST profile.
For instance, let’s say you want to set up a new LVM volume group but you forget to define which devices are going to act as physical volumes for it. In such a case, the new version of AutoYaST informs about the missing definitions and stops the installation.
In the image below you can see how the error reporting mechanism looks. In this example, it reports the AutoYaST profile contains a new multi-device Btrfs file system, but it does not specify which disks or partitions should be part of that file system.
It’s all About Blocks
As mentioned in the previous section and as all our users know, YaST and AutoYaST can be used to define a software RAID in which several disks or devices are combined for extra performance, extra reliability or a combination of both.
The usual scenario is to combine similar disks. But the RAID technology in Linux is so advanced that it allows to combine disks with different block sizes into the same array. Thanks to a recent bug report, we realized YaST was not handling that situation in the best way. That leaded to a wrong estimation about the final size of the RAID device which, in turn, leaded to possible errors while creating partitions in it.
We have fixed the libstorage-ng code and its documentation, that now offers an accurate description on how the situation is handled in Linux and in our storage library.
Apart from the creation of the RAID itself, the YaST Partitioner also offers some related functionality that is very handy in setups with many disks. For example, the button “Clone Partitions to Other Device” that can be used to replicate the same initial layout in all the disks that are going to be subsequently combined using the RAID technology.
When using such button, the Partitioner tries to only offer destination devices that make sense. That means they have to be as least as big as the source device, they have to have the same topology, etc. But guess what! We found out it didn’t check for the block sizes. That is also fixed now and future versions of the Partitioner will not allow to clone a partition table into another disk with a different block size, something that would lead to failures in most cases.
More Accurate Detection of zFCP devices
And talking about storage devices, recently we got a bug report about AutoYaST not being able to install SUSE on an s390 mainframe. After checking the logs and all the information provided, we found out that the profile was basically wrong as it contained the following definition for a zFCP device:
<listentry>
<controller_id/>
<fcp_lun>0x0000000000000000</fcp_lun>
<wwpn>0x0000000000000000</wwpn>
</listentry>
Apart from the controller_id being missing, fcp_lun and wwpn look wrong too. So the profile is
invalid, and there is nothing that AutoYaST can do about it. Done! Well, not that fast: the problem
is that the profile was generated by AutoYaST itself.
We discovered that AutoYaST was wrongly identifying an iSCSI device as a zFCP one. So the profile excerpt above corresponds to an iSCSI device which, obviously, does not have any of those attributes.
A simple fix solved the issue and zFCP devices are now properly detected in openSUSE Tumbleweed and in the AutoYaST version that will be shipped with openSUSE Leap 15.2 and SLES-15-SP2.
Beyond YaST: GitHub Review from Command Line
We have reserved some development time also for learning and innovation. This part about reporting result of such a work.
Sometimes we need to do a simple change but in many Git repositories. Sometimes we need to touch
all repositories, like when we need to change the CONTRIBUTING.md or some similar file.
Approving several dozens of pull requests in the GitHub web user interface is not easy or convenient so we have created a simple script which can approve the pull requests from the Linux command line. The tool is interactive, for each pull request is displays some details, the diff, the Travis status, etc… and then it asks for approval.
If you approve the request then it will approve it at GitHub with the usual “LGTM” (Looks Good To Me) message. If the request is not approved then you need to manually comment at the GitHub web UI why. Unfortunately there is no easy way for commenting a diff from command line…
For more details see this GitHub repository.
Last words… for now
As you can see, the bodies of the YaST Team members may be confined at home, but our minds are still out there, creating, fine-tuning and delivering software for you. And you can help us by testing the beta versions of openSUSE Leap 15.2 and SUSE Enterprise Linux 15 SP2 or just keeping your openSUSE Tumbleweed up to date and reporting any anomalous situation you find in YaST.
We will be back with more news in approximately two weeks. Meanwhile, have a lot of fun and take care of you and yours.
Recopilación del boletín de noticias de la Free Software Foundation – abril de 2020
Boletín de noticias relacionadas con el software libre publicado por la Free Software Foundation.
¡El boletín de noticias de la FSF está aquí!
La Free Software Foundation (FSF) es una organización creada en Octubre de 1985 por Richard Stallman y otros entusiastas del software libre con el propósito de difundir esta filosofía.
La Fundación para el software libre (FSF) se dedica a eliminar las restricciones sobre la copia, redistribución, entendimiento, y modificación de programas de computadoras. Con este objeto, promociona el desarrollo y uso del software libre en todas las áreas de la computación, pero muy particularmente, ayudando a desarrollar el sistema operativo GNU.
Además de tratar de difundir la filosofía del software libre, y de crear licencias que permitan la difusión de obras y conservando los derechos de autorías, también llevan a cabo diversas campañas de concienciación y para proteger derechos de los usuarios frentes a aquellos que quieren poner restricciones abusivas en cuestiones tecnológicas.
Mensualmente publican un boletín (supporter) con noticias relacionadas con el software libre, sus campañas, o eventos. Una forma de difundir los proyectos, para que la gente conozca los hechos, se haga su propia opinión, y tomen partido si creen que la reivindicación es justa!!
- En este enlace podéis leer el original en inglés: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/april
- Y traducido en español en este enlace (cuando este acabada la traducción): https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/abril
Puedes ver todos los números publicados en este enlace: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/free-software-supporter
Después de muchos años colaborando en la traducción al español del boletín, desde inicios de este año 2020 he decidido tomarme un descanso en esta tarea.
Pero hay detrás un pequeño grupo de personas que siguen haciendo posible la difusión en español del boletín de noticias de la FSF.
¿Te gustaría aportar tu ayuda en la traducción? Lee el siguiente enlace:
Por aquí te traigo un extracto de algunas de las noticias que ha destacado la FSF este mes de abril de 2020
Los Hospitales necesitan reparar respiradores. Los fabricantes hacen eso imposible
Del 18 de marzo por Jason Koebler
La Gestión Digital de Restricciones (Digital Restrictions Management DRM por sus siglas en inglés) en equipación médica siempre ha sido una amenaza a la salud y la vida de la humanidad, y también una violación de nuestros derechos, y ahora la DRM en respiradores podría costar vidas humanas: las restricciones por software impuestas por las compañías de dispositivos médicos están haciendo más difícil nuestra respuesta ante la pandemia del coronavirus.
La FSF está actualmente explorando las maneras de ayudar a difundir el conocimiento sobre cómo hacer que los dispositivos médicos que tanto se necesitan están más disponibles. Mantente informado en nuestra web donde publicaresmos actualizaciones.
Mientras, aprende más sobre cómo luchar contra el DRM en la web: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/.
Las herramientas de software libre de Software Freedom Conservancy para trabajar remotamente
Del 17 de marzo por Deb Nicholson
Conservancy es una organización 100% remota durante los últimos 5 años y ahora es una organización remota por diseño. Nos hemos dedicado a empoderar a nuestros usuaris mediante la libertad de software y siempre utilizamos herramientas de software libre para realizar nuestro trabajo siempre que es posible.
Mientras que nuevas personas son nuevas en esto del trabajo en remoto o en colaboración, parece un buen momento para compartir nuestras herramientas libres que utilizamos y cómo éstas funcionan para nosotros.
Softwara gratuito (que no libre) o “Freeware,” software libre y la crisis del coronavirus: ¡Escoge las herramientas sabiamente!
Del 30 de marzo por Free Software Foundation Europe
La industria del software puede parecer que está tratando de hacer su parte en la crisis del coronavirus dando a los usuarios acceso a versiones de prueba de software privativo.
Pero, antes de aceptar y aprovechar esa generosidad, debes leer bien la letra pequeña. Lo que puede parecer genial hoy podría convertirse en una carga mañana.
Deberías ser cauteloso de las ofertas que provienen de los vendedores de software privativo. Entre los trabajadores por cuenta propia, programas de ofimática casera (procesadores de texto, hojas de cálculo, bases de datos) tienen una gran demanda.
Pero se cauteloso con lo que escoges: Una vez que la crisis pase, puedes despertar con estricto bloqueo por parte del proveedor, con costes inesperados y otros problemas asociados.
Lo mismo ocurre con compañías que piden a trabajadores que trabajen desde casa. Las soluciones escogidas para hacer frente a los retos del trabajo en remoto pueden causar problemas que pueden explotar en el futuro, cuando la crisis haya pasado.
La aplicación Zoom de iOS application envía datos a Facebook incluso aunque no tengas cuenta en Facebook
Del 26 de marzo por Joseph Cox
Las video conferencias con Zoom se han convertido en una forma popular de mantener reuniones de trabajo en la era del COVID-19, y también una manera para la gente de mantenerse conectados con sus seres queridos.
Sin embargo, como con todo el software privativo, este viene con importantes contraprestaciones de privacidad: en este caso, la versión para iOS de la aplicación Zoom envía algunas analíticas de datos a Facebook, incluso aunque los usuarios de Zoom no tengan cuenta en Zoom, de acuerdo a un análisis realizado por Motherboard.
Mereces algo mejor para el software que utilizas para mantener tu trabajo, tus relaciones y tu salud mental durante la cuarentena y la FSF lanzará una guía de las mejores opciones disponibles actualmente, próximamente.
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e599/zoom-ios-app-sends-data-to-facebook-even-if-you-dont-have-a-facebook-account
- https://theintercept.com/2020/03/31/zoom-meeting-encryption/
Estas son solo algunas de las noticias recogidas este mes, pero hay muchas más muy interesantes!! si quieres leerlas todas (cuando estén traducidas) visita este enlace:
Y todos los números del “supporter” o boletín de noticias de 2020 aquí:
—————————————————————
IA para reconhecimento do COVID-19 em raio X
RESSALTO QUE SÃO APENAS TESTES INICIAIS, Não posso ter a pretensão, muito menos gerar expectativas e nem sensacionalismo com este post. É um assunto muito sério!
Não quero me promover, mesmo porque são apenas testes e iniciativas em execução acontecendo no mundo todo. Mas com uma base de conhecimento, talvez os resultados podem ser confiáveis, e com as ferramentas de inferência e aceleração de hardware diminuiremos os custos computacionais.
Embora seja um modesto teste com IA (Deep Learning), e também não podemos ainda utilizar e/ou garantir o uso desta técnica na triagem sem um estudo Clínico (os coeficientes de FALSO NEGATIVO e FALSO POSITIVO).
Entretanto existe uma notória possibilidade evolutiva desta técnica, comprovada com a pequena quantidade utilizada de amostragem (dataset) com 249 imagens de raio X da China,Itália, Espanha, Egito e outros.
Em breve reportarei novidades nas próximas semanas.
Changing or rename Oracle user schema
Renaming or changing a schema is not an easy task in Oracle operation but if you really want to rename the schema go for the traditional way of exporting the existing schema and import into a new schema.
Step shown in this tutorial is using Oracle 11g, it maybe won’t work for newer version.
> select * from v$version;
|================================================================================|
|BANNER |
|================================================================================|
|Oracle Database 11g Release 11.2.0.4.0 - 64bit Production |
|PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.4.0 - Production |
|CORE 11.2.0.4.0 Production |
|TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.4.0 - Production |
|NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.4.0 - Production |
Data Pump Mapping to the imp Utility
Please take note, Data Pump import often doesn’t have a one-to-one mapping of the legacy utility parameter. Data Pump import automatically provides many features of the old imp utility.
For example, COMMIT=Y isn’t required because Data Pump import automatically commits after each table is imported. Table below describes how legacy import parameters map to Data Pump import.
| Original imp Parameter | Similar Data Pump impdp Parameter |
|---|---|
| FROMUSER | REMAP_SCHEMA |
| TOUSER | REMAP_SCHEMA |
How I gonna rename my ORACLE schema
Let say, I accidently create user schema HOST_USER as suppose to be host1
-- Create user schema (mistaken username here..shit)
create user HOST_USER IDENTIFIED BY password4sk default TABLESPACE host_sk;
-- creating table space
create TABLESPACE host_sk datafile 'host_sk.dbf' size 1G autoextend on maxsize 8G;
-- create database role
create role HOST_SK_ROLE;
-- granting some privilage to role we created
grant
CREATE SESSION, ALTER SESSION, CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW, CREATE PROCEDURE,
CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SYNONYM, CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE,
CREATE VIEW, DEBUG CONNECT SESSION
to HOST_SK_ROLE;
-- grant that role to user (that I mistaken created previously)
-- and give tablespace quota to them
GRANT HOST_SK_ROLE TO HOST_USER;
ALTER USER HOST_USER QUOTA unlimited ON host_sk;
-- create table
CREATE TABLE "HOST_USER"."STOCK_BALANCE_WS"
("TRANSFERID" NUMBER(9,0), "ARTICLE_ID" VARCHAR2(14),
"QUANTITY" NUMBER(6,0)) SEGMENT CREATION IMMEDIATE
PCTFREE 10 PCTUSED 40 INITRANS 1 MAXTRANS 255
NOCOMPRESS LOGGING
STORAGE(INITIAL 1048576 NEXT 1048576 MINEXTENTS 1 MAXEXTENTS 2147483645
PCTINCREASE 0 FREELISTS 1 FREELIST GROUPS 1
BUFFER_POOL DEFAULT FLASH_CACHE DEFAULT CELL_FLASH_CACHE DEFAULT)
TABLESPACE "HOST_SK" ;
-- insert some data inside
INSERT INTO HOST_USER.ARTICLE_SW
(TRANSFERID, ARTICLE_ID, ARTICLE_NAME, DESCRIPTION, WEIGHT)
VALUES (1, '1003', 'CONDOM DUREX', 'Super studs', 10);
As you see, I already do lot of thing with my database, then I just realize schema should be HOST1 instead of HOST_USER! I want to rename the schema. Unfortunately, oracle don’t allow to change schema name easily.
There is a trick by importing and map to HOST1 schema (if you follow my step, please don’t just copy paste. create the target user it if you don’t have and as long that user have same privilage and tablespace it will be fine)
Export with oracle data pump
$ expdp HOST_USER/password4sk directory=tmp schemas=HOST_USER dumpfile=old_schema_to_remap.dmp LOGFILE=exp_schema_to_remap.log
Export: Release 11.2.0.4.0 - Production on Thu Apr 2 04:17:08 2020
Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Release 11.2.0.4.0 - 64bit Production
Starting "HOST_USER"."SYS_EXPORT_SCHEMA_01": HOST_USER/******** directory=tmp schemas=HOST_USER dumpfile=old_schema_to_remap.dmp LOGFILE=exp_schema_to_remap.log
Estimate in progress using BLOCKS method...
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/TABLE_DATA
Total estimation using BLOCKS method: 0 KB
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/PRE_SCHEMA/PROCACT_SCHEMA
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/TABLE
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/COMMENT
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/INDEX/INDEX
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/CONSTRAINT/CONSTRAINT
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/INDEX/STATISTICS/INDEX_STATISTICS
. . exported "HOST_USER"."ARTICLE_SW" 0 KB 0 rows
Master table "HOST_USER"."SYS_EXPORT_SCHEMA_01" successfully loaded/unloaded
******************************************************************************
Dump file set for HOST_USER.SYS_EXPORT_SCHEMA_01 is:
/tmp/old_schema_to_remap.dmp
Job "HOST_USER"."SYS_EXPORT_SCHEMA_01" successfully completed at Thu Apr 2 04:17:21 2020 elapsed 0 00:00:13
Import to other target user via remap_schema parameter
$ impdp userid=host1/password4sk directory=tmp dumpfile=old_schema_to_remap remap_schema=HOST_USER:host1 LOGFILE=imp_schema_to_remap.log
Import: Release 11.2.0.4.0 - Production on Thu Apr 2 04:19:07 2020
Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Release 11.2.0.4.0 - 64bit Production
Master table "HOST1"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01" successfully loaded/unloaded
Starting "HOST1"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01": userid=host1/******** directory=tmp dumpfile=old_schema_to_remap remap_schema=HOST_USER:host1 LOGFILE=imp_schema_to_remap.log
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/PRE_SCHEMA/PROCACT_SCHEMA
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/TABLE
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/TABLE/TABLE_DATA
. . imported "HOST1"."ARTICLE_SW" 0 KB 0 rows
Job "HOST1"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01" successfully completed at Thu Apr 2 04:19:09 2020 elapsed 0 00:00:01
after import via data pump, the next step is just to drop the old schema.
This step is much easier than redo everything IMHO. Anyway, please becareful. I am novice oracle dba, my step maybe not suitable for you :smile:
CUDA 10.2 em Linux : fatal error: nvscibuf.h
Durante a compilação do CUDA 10.2 no openSUSE 15.1, me deparei com o erro referente a ausência do arquivo nvscibuf.h
Solução:
Na linha 41 do arquivo Makefile, insira o parametro conforme o exemplo a seguir :
< FILTER_OUT := --- > FILTER_OUT := 0_Simple/cudaNvSci/Makefile
Chafa 1.4.0: Now with sixels
April 1st seems like as good a time as any for a new Chafa release — though note that Chafa is no joke. At least not anymore, what with the extremely enterprise-ready sixel pipeline and all.
As usual, you can get it from the download page or from Github. There are also release notes. Here are the highlights:
Sixel output
Thanks to this 90s-era technology, you can print excellent-looking graphics directly in the terminal with no need for character cell mosaics or hacky solutions like w3mimagedisplay (from w3m) or Überzug. It works entirely using ANSI escape sequence extensions, so it's usable over ssh, telnet and that old 2400 baud modem you found in grandma's shed.
The most complete existing implementation is probably Hayaki Saito's libsixel, but I chose to write one from scratch for Chafa, since sixel output is remarkably intensive computationally, and I wanted to employ a combination of advanced techniques (parallelism, quantization using a PCA approach, SIMD scaling) and corner-cutting that wouldn't have been appropriate in that library. This gets me fast animation playback and makes it easier to phase out the ImageMagick dependency in the long term.
There are at least two widely available virtual terminals that support sixels: One is XTerm (when compiled with --enable-sixel), and the other is mlterm. Unfortunately, I don't think either is widely used compared to distribution defaults like GNOME Terminal and Konsole, so here's hoping for more mainstream support for this feature.
Glyph import
If sixels aren't your cup of tea, symbol mode has a new trick for you too. It's --glyph-file, which allows you to load glyphs from external fonts into Chafa's symbol map. This can give it a better idea of what your terminal font looks like and allows support for more exotic symbols or custom fonts to suit any respectable retro graphics art project.
Keep in mind that you still need to select the appropriate symbol ranges with --symbols and/or --fill. These options now allow specifying precise Unicode ranges, e.g. --symbols 20,41..5a to emit only ASCII spaces and uppercase letters.
Color extraction
In symbol mode, each cell's color pair is now based on the median color of the underlying pixels instead of the average. Now this isn't exactly a huge feature, at least not in terms of effort, but it can make a big difference for certain images, especially line art. You can get the old behavior back with --color-extractor average.
क्या openSUSE Asia Summit 2020 अब भी भारत में होगा ?
इस प्रश्न का उत्तर जानने के लिए हमें जुलाई के महीने तक इंतजार करना होगा।
१७ मार्च को openSUSE Board की बैठक हुई। यह निर्णय लिया गया कि इस समय हम केवल COVID-19 की स्थिति देख सकते हैं और जुलाई तक इंतजार कर सकते हैं जब बोर्ड द्वारा openSUSE.Asia Summit और oSLO 2020 को लेकर कुछ निर्णय लिया जाएगा।
तब तक सुरक्षित रहें और यदि आप का देश लॉकडाउन में हैं तो कृपया घर पर रहें।
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