Supercomputers: All Linux, All the Time

By

-

June 28, 2018

The latest TOP500 Supercomputer list is out. What’s not surprising is that Linux runs on every last one of the world’s fastest supercomputers. What is surprising is that GPUs, not CPUs, now power most of supercomputers’ speed.

Once more, if you want to run the fastest possible computer, the June 2018 TOP500 supercomputing ranking shows that Linux is the best of all operating systems. Every last one is running Linux.

Linux has dominated supercomputing for years. But, Linux only took over supercomputing lock, stock, and barrel in November 2017. That was the first time all of the TOP500 machines were running Linux. Before that IBM AIX, a Unix variant, was hanging on for dear life low on the list.

Linux dpkg Command Tutorial for Beginners – 8 Examples

By

Falko Timme

-

June 28, 2018

If you are on a Debian or Debian-based system (like Ubuntu), there are high chances you might have encountered .deb packages. These are Debian packages, and Linux command line offers built-in commands/tools to deal with this kind of packages. One such tool is dpkg, which we will discuss here in this tutorial.

But before we do that, it’s worth mentioning that all examples in this tutorial have been tested on an Ubuntu 16.04LTS machine.

Linux dpkg command

The dpkg tool is basically a package manager for Debian/Debian-based systems. Following is its syntax:

dpkg ACTIONS

Google Becomes a Platinum Member of The Linux Foundation

By

The Linux Foundation

-

June 27, 2018

Demonstrating its commitment to open source software, we are thrilled to announce that Google is now a Platinum Member of The Linux Foundation. Google has been an active and committed contributor to the open source community for many years, releasing and contributing to more than 10,000 open source projects to date. Some of The Linux Foundation communities Google supports include Cloud Foundry, Node.js Foundation, Open API Initiative and Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which it helped found with its Kubernetes contribution.

“The Linux Foundation is a fixture in the open source community. By working closely with the organization, we can better engage with the community-at-large and continue to build a more inclusive ecosystem where everyone can benefit,” said Sarah Novotny, head of open source strategy, Google Cloud.

CIP: Keeping the Lights On with Linux

By

Swapnil Bhartiya

-

June 27, 2018

Modern civil infrastructure is all around us — in power plants, radar systems, traffic lights, dams, weather systems, and so on. Many of these infrastructure projects exist for decades, if not longer, so security and longevity are paramount.

And, many of these systems are powered by Linux, which offers technology providers more control over these issues. However, if every provider is building their own solution, this can lead to fragmentation and duplication of effort. Thus, the primary goal of Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) is to create an open source base layer for industrial use-cases in these systems, such as embedded controllers and gateway devices.

“We have a very conservative culture in this area because once we create a system, it has to be supported for more than ten years; in some cases for over 60 years. That’s why this project was created, because every player in this industry had the same issue of being able to use Linux for a long time,” says Yoshitake Kobayashi is Technical Steering Committee Chair of CIP.

CIP’s concept is to create a very fundamental system to use open source software on controllers. This base layer comprises the Linux kernel and a small set of common open source software like libc, busybox, and so on. Because longevity of software is a primary concern, CIP chose Linux kernel 4.4, which is the LTS release of the kernel maintained by Greg Kroah-Hartman.

Collaboration

Since CIP has an upstream first policy, the code that they want in the project must be in the upstream kernel. To create a proactive feedback loop with the kernel community, CIP hired Ben Hutchings as the official maintainer of CIP. Hutchings is known for the work he has done on Debian LTS release, which also led to an official collaboration between CIP and the Debian project.

Under the newly forged collaboration, CIP will use Debian LTS to build the platform. CIP will also help Debian Long Term Support (LTS) to extend the lifetime of all Debian stable releases. CIP will work closely with Freexian, a company that offers commercial services around Debian LTS. The two organizations will focus on interoperability, security, and support for open source software for embedded systems. CIP will also provide funding for some of the Debian LTS activities.

“We are excited about this collaboration as well as the CIP’s support of the Debian LTS project, which aims to extend the support lifetime to more than five years. Together, we are committed to long-term support for our users and laying the ‘foundation’ for the cities of the future.” said Chris Lamb, Debian Project Leader.

Security

Security is the biggest concern, said Kobayashi. Although most of the civil infrastructure is not connected to the Internet for obvious security reasons (you definitely don’t want a nuclear power plant to be connected to the Internet), there are many other risks.

Just because the system itself is not connected to the Internet, that doesn’t mean it’s immune to all threats. Other systems — like user’s laptops — may connect to the Internet and then be plugged into the local systems. If someone receives a malicious file as an attachment with email, it can “contaminate” the internal infrastructure.

Thus, it’s critical to keep all software running on such controllers up to date and fully patched. To ensure security, CIP has also backported many components of the Kernel Self Protection project. CIP also follows one of the strictest cybersecurity standards — IEC 62443 — which defines processes and tests to ensure the system is more secure.

Going forward

As CIP is maturing, it’s extending its collaboration with providers of Linux. In addition to collaboration with Debian and freexian, CIP recently added Cybertrust Japan Co, Ltd., a supplier of enterprise Linux operating system, as a new Silver member.

Cybertrust joins other industry leaders, such as Siemens, Toshiba, Codethink, Hitachi, Moxa, Plat’Home, and Renesas, in their work to create a reliable and secure Linux-based embedded software platform that is sustainable for decades to come.

The ongoing work of these companies under the umbrella of CIP will ensure the integrity of the civil infrastructure that runs our modern society.

Learn more at the Civil Infrastructure Platform website.

Open Source Jobs Report: 3 Hot Skill Areas Now

By

The Enterprisers Project

-

June 27, 2018

In the IT job market right now, it pays to have open source skills. That’s the main takeaway from the seventh annual Open Source Jobs Report, conducted by The Linux Foundationand careers site Dice. Demand for experience and skills with open source platforms isn’t some overnight sensation, but it continues to grow more robust: 83 percent of hiring managers surveyed for the report said hiring open source talent was a priority this year, up from 76 percent last year.

For job seekers with open source chops, that means you’re in a strong position. And, increasingly, you know it: 55 percent of open source pros said they wouldn’t have trouble finding another job, and 87 percent indicated that knowing open source has advanced their career in some way.

For IT leaders and hiring managers, it’s a temperature check on what you’re up against in the competition for talent. FYI, the thermometer reads “scorching hot:” 87 percent of hiring managers said they encounter difficulties recruiting open source talent. That challenge has proven consistent during the last few years.

8 Reasons to Use the Xfce Linux Desktop Environment

By

OpenSource.com

-

June 27, 2018

I realized in looking back over my series of articles on Linux desktops that I had neglected Xfce. This article is intended to rectify that oversight. I like Xfce a lot and am enjoying the speed and lightness of it more than I thought I would.

Eight reasons for recommending Xfce

1. Lightweight construction

Xfce has a very small memory footprint and CPU usage compared to some other desktops, such as KDE and GNOME. On my system, the programs that make up the Xfce desktop take a tiny amount of memory for such a powerful desktop. Very low CPU usage is also a hallmark of the Xfce desktop. With such a small memory footprint, I am not especially surprised that Xfce is also very sparing of CPU cycles.

2. Simplicity

The Xfce desktop is simple and uncluttered with fluff. The basic desktop has two panels and a vertical line of icons on the left side.

Linux Professionals Hard to Find, Say Hiring Managers

By

Esther Shein

-

June 26, 2018

It’s a very good time to be a Linux professional. Linux is back on top as the most in-demand open source skill and hiring these professionals has become a higher priority for 83% of hiring managers this year compared to 76% in 2017, according to the newly released 2018 Open Source Jobs Report.

That’s not surprising when you consider how popular cloud and container technologies have become, as well as DevOp practices, all of which typically run on Linux. What’s also not surprising is that Linux professionals are in high demand:

87% of hiring managers experience difficulties recruiting enough open source talent. This is similar to last year, when 89% said it was a challenge finding the right mix of experience and skills.
44% of respondents rated it very difficult to recruit open source pros, a percentage that jumped from 34% in 2017.

At the same time, 52% of hiring managers say they are planning to hire more open source professionals in the next six months than they did in the previous six months. And, hiring of open source professionals will also increase more than hiring for other areas of the business for 60% of hiring managers, the report found. That’s down slightly from last year when 58% projected more hiring in six months and 67% predicted more open source hiring than other areas of the business.

This high demand has prompted many companies to pay premiums above base salary, especially for professionals with skills in cybersecurity, big data and process management.

And companies are finding that supporting open source projects can be a valuable recruiting and retention tool. This year, 57% of hiring managers reported that their organization contributes to open source projects, up from 50% in 2017. Nearly half (48%) of hiring managers report that their organization has decided to financially support or contribute code to an open source project specifically with the goal of recruiting developers who work on that project.

The role of the economy

The strong global economy is encouraging half of hiring managers to hire more staff this year, up from 43% in 2017. Only 6% said the economy is leading them to decrease their open source hiring.

The report found 55% of open sources pros say it would be easier to find a new open source job — a slight increase compared to 52% in 2017 and 50% in 2016. Only 19% reported not receiving a recruitment call in past six months. This is a significant decline from the 27% who said they didn’t receive a recruitment call in 2016 and 2017 job surveys.

The overall unemployment rate for tech professionals is on the decline – in April it dropped to 1.9%, compared to 3% one year ago.

The 2018 Open Source Jobs Report is an annual partnership between The Linux Foundation and IT career site Dice. This year’s survey includes responses from more than 750 hiring managers at corporations, small and medium businesses (SMBs), government agencies and staffing firms worldwide, plus more than 6,500 open source professionals.

Download the complete Open Source Jobs Report now.

Last Chance to Speak at Open Source Summit and ELC + OpenIoT Summit Europe – Submit by July 1

By

The Linux Foundation

-

June 26, 2018

Submit a proposal to speak at Open Source Summit Europe & ELC + OpenIoT Summit Europe, taking place October 22-24, 2018, in Edinburgh, UK, and share your knowledge and expertise with 2,000+ open source technologists and community leaders. Proposals are being accepted through 11:59pm PDT, Sunday, July 1.

This year’s tracks and content will cover the following areas at Open Source Summit Europe:

Cloud Native Apps/Serverless/Microservices
Infrastructure & Automation (Cloud/Cloud Native/DevOps)
Linux Systems
Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics
Emerging Technologies & Wildcard (Networking, Edge, IoT, Hardware, Blockchain)
Community, Compliance, Governance, Culture, Open Source Program Management (Open Collaboration Conference track)
Diversity & Inclusion (Diversity Empowerment Summit)
Innovation at Apache/Apache Projects
TODO / Open Source Program Management

View the full list of suggested topics for Open Source Summit Europe.

Suggested Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) Topics:

Linux Kernel Bug Hunting

By

Medium Blog

-

June 26, 2018

The story starts with a message on our workplace chat:

“Our k8s master servers are rebooting randomly every day!”

This announcement had a good and a bad side. On the good side, our clusters handled this unfortunate event without problems, even when two out of five servers were rebooting at the same time. On the bad side, we didn’t receive an alert. …We had zero information about what could possible cause this. So, we thought to start the investigation by looking at system statistics. The interval of pulling those statistics was too high and as a result the statistics hid valuable information.

We didn’t know the cause of the restart but we found out the following two kernel settings.

kernel.hung_task_panic = 1
kernel.softlockup_panic = 1

Those settings instruct the kernel to panic when a task stops or when a softlockup occurs. Furthermore, we found out that kernel automatically reboots when a panic happens because we have kernel.panic = 70 in our sysctl settings. The combination of triggering a panic and auto reboot prevented us to capture a kernel crash dump.

Linux Fu: The Great Power of make

By

Hackaday

-

June 26, 2018

Over the years, Linux (well, the operating system that is commonly known as Linux which is the Linux kernel and the GNU tools) has become much more complicated than its Unix roots. That’s inevitable, of course. However, it means old-timers get to slowly grow into new features while new people have to learn all in one gulp. A good example of this is how software is typically built on a Linux system. Fundamentally, most projects use make — a program that tries to be smart about running compiles. This was especially important when your 100 MHz CPU connected to a very slow disk drive would take a day to build a significant piece of software. On the face of it, make is pretty simple. But today, looking at a typical makefile will give you a headache, and many projects use an abstraction over make that further obscures things.

In this article, I want to show you how simple a makefile can be. If you can build a simple makefile, you’ll find they have more uses than you might think. I’m going to focus on C, but only because that’s sort of the least common denominator. A make file can build just about anything from a shell prompt.