Invoking another user's privileges to execute a command . (credit: Cavan Images/Getty)

As detailed at Prossimo , a joint team from Ferrous Systems and Tweede Golf , with support from Amazon Web Services, is reimplementing sudo and su. These utilities allow a user to perform actions with the privileges of another user (typically a higher-level superuser) without having to learn and enter that other user's password. Given their age and wide usage, the Prossimo team believes it's time for a rework.

"Sudo was first developed in the 1980s. Over the decades, it has become an essential tool for performing changes while minimizing risk to an operating system," writes Josh Aas. "But because it's written in C, sudo has experienced many vulnerabilities related to memory safety issues."

In kernel version 5.17, both /dev/random and /dev/urandom have been replaced with a new — identical — algorithm based on the BLAKE2 hash function, which is an excellent security improvement.

Enlarge / System76's Pangolin is a lightweight and relatively slender 15" design with a 1080p matte display and RGB-lit keyboard. (credit: System76 )

• 

  System76's Pangolin is a lightweight and relatively slender 15" design with a 1080p matte display and RGB-lit keyboard. [credit: System76 ]

Specs at a glance: System76 Pangolin
OS	Pop!_OS 21.04 or Ubuntu Linux 20.04
CPU	Ryzen 5 5500U or Ryzen 7 5700U
RAM	8GiB DDR4 (upgradable 60 64GiB)
GPU	AMD Vega 7 integrated
SSD	240GB to 2TB NVMe
Battery	49 Wh LiOn
Wi-Fi	Intel dual-band Wi-Fi 6
Display	15-inch 1080p matte
Camera	720p
Connectivity	two USB-A 2.0 port one USB-A 3.2 port one USB-C 3.2 port one gigabit Ethernet port 3.5 mm phone/mic combo jack DC power jack full-size HDMI 2.0 out Kensington lock slot
Entry-level price	$1,200 (Ryzen 5500U, 8GiB RAM, 240GB NVMe)

This week, System76—probably the best-known Linux-only laptop vendor— announced the latest update to its lightweight 15-inch Pangolin laptop series. The newest models of Pangolin are available and shipping today; customers have a choice between a six-core Ryzen 5 5500U and an eight-core Ryzen 7 5700U processor.

Pangolin was already the first System76 laptop model to offer AMD Ryzen processors, with last-generation Ryzen 4500U and 4700U models announced last December . This year's model bumps up both the processor generation and asking price significantly—last year's Ryzen 4500U Pangolin started at $850, offering 8GiB of RAM and a 240GiB SSD in the entry-level trim. The new 5500U-powered Pangolin runs $1,200 for the same specs.

AMD Ryzen + Linux for the win

The increase in price likely reflects additional public awareness of mobile Ryzen's outstanding Linux kernel support as well as its significant raw performance advantage over most competing Intel CPUs. Although we didn't get the chance to test System76's Ryzen 7 4700U, Acer's 4700U-powered Swift 3—which isn't even designed as an OEM Linux laptop—remains one of our all-time favorite systems for dedicated Linux users.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge (credit: jozefmicic via Getty Images )

As a relatively isolated junior sysadmin, I remember seeing answers on Experts Exchange and later Stack Exchange that baffled me. Authors and commenters might chain 10 commands together with pipes and angle brackets—something I never did in day-to-day system administration. Honestly, I doubted the real-world value of that. Surely, this was just an exercise in e-braggadocio, right?

Trying to read the man pages for the utilities most frequently seen in these extended command chains didn't make them seem more approachable, either. For example, the sed man page weighs in at around 1,800 words alone without ever really explaining how regular expressions work or the most common uses of sed itself.

If you find yourself in the same boat, grab a beverage and buckle in. Instead of giving you encyclopedic listings of every possible argument and use case for each of these ubiquitous commands, we're going to teach you how to think about them—and how to easily, productively incorporate them in your own daily command-line use.

Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Linux, or should I say GNU/Linux, comes in a variety of flavors called distros. We know that but people on a proprietary OS don't. Those people in general think that Linux, like their own OS, is a monolithic operating system but that contrary to their own OS is difficult, user unfriendly and something where you need to type into a terminal all the time.

On top of that I discovered that the concept of distros is very hard to grasp for non-Linux users while I find this one of the strongest benefits of Linux. I currently use MX Linux on my Desktop PC and had Ubuntu MATE installed before that. On my (low-end) laptop I use either Antix or Puppy Linux. One of my sons uses Ubuntu on his desktop and my father uses Linux Mint on his laptop. All these flavors have their strengths that benefit the specific needs of a user and the hardware that they use.

It's a pity that being able to choose a distro and tailor it to specific needs is so unknown to the non-Linux user. At the same time this is very understandable. Some people here will hate this but from a marketing perspective this variety of flavors is a weakness. It dilutes the Linux 'brand' and the complexity that comes with choosing a distro is too overwhelming for most users. This on top of the perception that Linux is 'difficult' and that most PC's come with a proprietary OS installed makes the case for Linux on the desktop almost impossible.

The only way to increase market share is to exploit the biggest weakness of the Windows operating system. At some point in time almost every single user of Windows I know starts complaining how slow the PC has become. Solutions work only temporary and I'm afraid that most users ditch their PC and buy a new one. In fact a major reseller where I live uses this in commercials on national television to sell new PC's (with Windows of course). Think about all these laptops and desktop PC's that end as e-waste just because Windows made them slow. And this while the solution is simple and free, just install Linux.

My proposal may be somewhat naif. Buy a second hand PC from a thrift shop (you'll be surprised how cheap these are) install Linux on it and donate it to someone that needs a PC. In my experience, once people start working with a modern Linux on a PC they hardly need any help. Hell, a lot of people don't use anything beyond the web browser so no worries about becoming a permanent help desk.

#linux

Ça vous dirait de renouer avec les sensations que vous éprouviez à l’époque face à votre Atari ?

Bonne nouvelle, c’est possible simplement grâce à Hatari, un émulateur Atari ST / STE / TT / Falcon qui tourne aussi bien sous Windows que Linux ou macOS.

Il faut savoir que la plupart des émulateurs Atari sont pensés pour exécuter de la meilleure façon possible les applicatifs Atari GEM alors que Hatari est plutôt conçu pour émuler le plus fidèlement possible le matériel d’un Atari ST. Ainsi, au-delà des applicatifs GEM, il est possible de faire tourner « également de vieux jeux et des démos conçues pour ST / STE.

Hatari est donc capable d’émuler le matériel d’extension d’époque comme la puce vidéo Videl ou la DSP 56001 qui permettait notamment sur le Falcon de bénéficier d’une meilleure résolution. Hatari sait aussi émuler un joystick pour vos jeux d’époques.

Pour faire tourner Hatari, il vous faudra une image TOS (l’OS Atari 16 / 32 bits). Vous pouvez l’extraire vous-même de votre Atari d’époque, en récupérer une sur le net , ou utiliser EmuTOS qui remplace le TOS.

Amusez-vous bien ! Merci à Laurent pour le partage.

---

NordVPN à moins de 3€/mois

-68% 3,3€/mois durant 2 ans

Protection en un clic, fonctionnalité Kill Switch, masquage de votre adresse IP, prise en charge des partages de fichiers en p2p, protection contre les malwares et les pubs, streaming sans interruption, test de fuite DNS et même possibilité de coupler l’outil avec l’anonymat de The Onion Router … sont quelques-unes des autres options disponibles.

NordVPN a tissé une toile de serveurs dans le monde entier (plus de 5 500 dans 60 pays) permettant ainsi de se localiser dans la zone géographique de son choix. Vous avez envie d’un Anime japonais ou bien d’une exclusivité US ? Aucun problème. À vrai dire, vous pouvez même vous localiser en France en cas de déplacement à l’étranger.

En complément de cet impressionnant réseau, NordVPN a aussi développé la fonctionnalité SmartPlay qui permet d’accéder en toute sécurité aux contenus qui sont normalement inaccessibles. C’est un système de SmartDNS performant qui ne nécessite pas d’intervention complexe, vous profitez d’une connexion sécurisée et vous visionnez le contenu de votre choix en streaming sans vous prendre la tête.

Profiter de la promo

---

Il existe beaucoup de logiciels pour sauvegarder un disque dur en le clonant, mais connaissez-vous Rescuezilla ?

Totalement compatible avec Clonezilla, ce logiciel se présente sous la forme d’un CD ou d’une clé USB bootable, qui vous permet au travers d’une interface graphique de sauvegarder ou restaurer vos machines Windows, Mac ou Linux.

Comme je le disais, l’image réalisée est compatible avec Clonezilla donc vous pouvez aussi restaurer des images réalisées initialement avec Clonezilla. L’outil offre également une fonctionnalité de montage de vos images pour parcourir les fichiers sans devoir tout restaurer, mais également une fonctionnalité de restauration de fichiers effacés.

Cerise sur le gâteau, vous pouvez également utiliser Rescuezilla comme un moyen d’avoir un accès rapide à Internet puisque celui-ci embarque un navigateur. Pratique pour récupérer un driver ou une documentation technique quand on est sur un ordinateur dont le disque dur est HS.

Rescuezilla est disponible ici et les sources sont là .

Merci à Lorenper pour l’info.