Best Free Linux Firewalls of 2018

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June 22, 2018

A firewall is an important aspect of computer security these days, and most modern routers have one built in, which while helpful, can be difficult to configure. Fortunately there are also distributions (distros) of the free operating system Linux which have been specifically designed to function as firewalls.

These will generally have much more advanced features than those found on a router, and allow you to have far greater control over keeping your personal or business network safe.

In this article, we’re going to evaluate six of the most popular free firewall distros. We have tried to emphasise both power and ease of use when considering these offerings and their relative merits. If you want to see all the firewall distros available out there, feel free to visit the DistroWatch website for a comprehensive list.

GitHub: Changes to EU Copyright Law Could Derail Open Source Distribution

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Linux.com Editorial Staff

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June 22, 2018

A proposed European law would mandate that content providers utilize some kind of content filter to make sure rights holders get their royalties. But for a public open source code repository, such a contraption could be a nuisance, or it could be catastrophic.

The E.U. Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted 14-9-2 Wednesday, Brussels time, to approve the latest draft of a directive to impose sweeping changes to the continent’s copyright protections. Ostensibly, the purpose of this Parliamentary Directive would be to ensure the accessibility of all forms of content to “cultural heritage institutions” (mainly libraries and museums). Tucked into that draft is a mandate for a method for artists and rights holders to negotiate, perhaps electronically, to negotiate for and receive royalties from the distribution of their work.

But despite a flurry of proposed amendments (some of which may not have been fully circulated among members prior to being voted down, according to one member’s objections), the Directive as it stands may fail to distinguish between a multimedia site like YouTube or Spotify, and a source code repository like GitHub or GitLab.

Zapcc High-Speed C++ Compiler Now Open Source

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InfoWorld

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June 22, 2018

Zapcc, a caching C++ compiler built for speed, has gone open source.

Ceemple Software, Zapcc’s builder, claims the compiler offers dramatic improvements in both incremental and full builds compared to building with Clang 4.0 and Clang 5.0. Based on heavily modified code from the Clang compiler project, Zapcc uses an in-memory compilation cache in a client-server architecture. All compilation information is remembered between runs.

6 Open Source AI Tools to Know

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Sam Dean

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June 21, 2018

In open source, no matter how original your own idea seems, it is always wise to see if someone else has already executed the concept. For organizations and individuals interested in leveraging the growing power of artificial intelligence (AI), many of the best tools are not only free and open source, but, in many cases, have already been hardened and tested.

At leading companies and non-profit organizations, AI is a huge priority, and many of these companies and organizations are open sourcing valuable tools. Here is a sampling of free, open source AI tools available to anyone.

Acumos. Acumos AI is a platform and open source framework that makes it easy to build, share, and deploy AI apps. It standardizes the infrastructure stack and components required to run an out-of-the-box general AI environment. This frees data scientists and model trainers to focus on their core competencies rather than endlessly customizing, modeling, and training an AI implementation.

Acumos is part of the LF Deep Learning Foundation, an organization within The Linux Foundation that supports open source innovation in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. The goal is to make these critical new technologies available to developers and data scientists, including those who may have limited experience with deep learning and AI. The LF Deep Learning Foundation just recently approved a project lifecycle and contribution process and is now accepting proposals for the contribution of projects.

Facebook’s Framework. Facebook has open sourced its central machine learning system designed for artificial intelligence tasks at large scale, and a series of other AI technologies. The tools are part of a proven platform in use at the company. Facebook has also open sourced a framework for deep learning and AI called Caffe2.

Speaking of Caffe. Yahoo also released its key AI software under an open source license. The CaffeOnSpark tool is based on deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence particularly useful in helping machines recognize human speech or the contents of a photo or video. Similarly, IBM’s machine learning program known as SystemML is freely available to share and modify through the Apache Software Foundation.

Google’s Tools. Google spent years developing its TensorFlow software framework to support its AI software and other predictive and analytics programs. TensorFlow is the engine behind several Google tools you may already use, including Google Photos and the speech recognition found in the Google app.

Two AIY kits open sourced by Google let individuals easily get hands-on with artificial intelligence. Focused on computer vision and voice assistants, the two kits come as small self-assembly cardboard boxes with all the components needed for use. The kits are currently available at Target in the United States, and are based on the open source Raspberry Pi platform — more evidence of how much is happening at the intersection of open source and AI.

H2O.ai. I previously covered H2O.ai, which has carved out a niche in the machine learning and artificial intelligence arena because its primary tools are free and open source. You can get the main H2O platform and Sparkling Water, which works with Apache Spark, simply by downloading them. These tools operate under the Apache 2.0 license, one of the most flexible open source licenses available, and you can even run them on clusters powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others for just a few hundred dollars.

Microsoft Onboard. “Our goal is to democratize AI to empower every person and every organization to achieve more,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said. With that in mind, Microsoft is continuing to iterate its Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit. It’s an open source software framework that competes with tools such as TensorFlow and Caffe. Cognitive Toolkit works with both Windows and Linux on 64-bit platforms.

“Cognitive Toolkit enables enterprise-ready, production-grade AI by allowing users to create, train, and evaluate their own neural networks that can then scale efficiently across multiple GPUs and multiple machines on massive data sets,” reports the Cognitive Toolkit Team.

Learn more about AI in this new ebook from The Linux Foundation. Open Source AI: Projects, Insights, and Trends by Ibrahim Haddad surveys 16 popular open source AI projects – looking in depth at their histories, codebases, and GitHub contributions. Download the free ebook now.

Heather Kirksey on Integrating Networking and Cloud Native

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The Linux Foundation

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June 21, 2018

As highlighted in the recent Open Source Jobs Report, cloud and networking skills are in high demand. And, if you want to hear about the latest networking developments, there is no one better to talk with than Heather Kirksey, VP, Community and Ecosystem Development, Networking at The Linux Foundation. Kirksey was the Director of OPNFV before the recent consolidation of several networking-related projects under the new LF Networking umbrella, and I spoke with her to learn more about LF Networking (LFN) and how the initiative is working closely with cloud native technologies.

Kirksey explained the reasoning behind the move and expansion of her role. “At OPNFV, we were focused on integration and end-to-end testing across the LFN projects. We had interaction with all of those communities. At the same time, we were separate legal entities, and things like that created more barriers to collaboration. Now, it’s easy to look at them more strategically as a portfolio to facilitate member engagement and deliver solutions to service providers.”

Blockchain Beyond the Hype: What is the Strategic Business Value?

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McKinsey & Company

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June 21, 2018

Companies can determine whether they should invest in blockchain by focusing on specific use cases and their market position.

Speculation on the value of blockchain is rife, with Bitcoin—the first and most infamous application of blockchain—grabbing headlines for its rocketing price and volatility. That the focus of blockchain is wrapped up with Bitcoin is not surprising given that its market value surged from less than $20 billion to more than $200 billion over the course of 2017.1Yet Bitcoin is only the first application of blockchain technology that has captured the attention of government and industry.

Blockchain was a priority topic at Davos; a World Economic Forum survey suggested that 10 percent of global GDP will be stored on blockchain by 2027.2Multiple governments have published reports on the potential implications of blockchain, and the past two years alone have seen more than half a million new publications on and 3.7 million Google search results for blockchain.

Linux and Open-Source Jobs Are in More Demand Than Ever

By

ZDNet

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June 21, 2018

Do you want a tech job? Then, it’s time to move away from Windows and head toward Linux and open source. According to The Linux Foundation and Dice‘s 2018 Open Source Jobs Report, 87 percent of hiring managers are having trouble finding open-source talent, while hiring open-source talent is now a priority for 83 percent of employers.

“Open source technology talent is in high demand, as Linux and other open source software dominates software development,” said Linux Foundation’s executive director, Jim Zemlin, in a statement. “I am encouraged that that companies are recognizing more and more each day that open-source technology is the way to advance their businesses. The Linux Foundation, our members, and the open source ecosystem are focused on ensuring training and certification opportunities are highly accessible to everyone who wants to seek them out.”

5 Pillars of Learning Programming

By

D Zone

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June 21, 2018

Learning how to program is hard. I often find that university courses and boot camps miss important aspects of programming and take poor approaches to teaching rookies.

I want to share the 5 basic pillars I believe a successful programming course should build upon. As always, I am addressing the context of mainstream web applications.

A rookie’s goal is to master the fundamentals of programming and to understand the importance of libraries and frameworks.

Advanced topics such as the cloud, operations in general, or build tools should not be part of the curriculum. I am also skeptical when it comes to Design Patterns. They presume experience that beginners never have.

Test-Driven Development (TDD)

TDD brings a lot of benefits. Unfortunately, it is an advanced topic that beginners are not entirely ready for.

Beginners shouldn’t write tests. This would be too much for their basic skill levels. Instead, they should learn how to use and work with tests.

Anatomy of a Perfect Pull Request

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OpenSource.com

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June 21, 2018

Writing clean code is just one of many factors you should care about when creating a pull request.

Large pull requests cause a big overhead during the code review and can facilitate bugs in the codebase.

That’s why you need to care about the pull request itself. It should be short, have a clear title and description, and do only one thing.

Why should you care?

A good pull request will be reviewed quickly
It reduces bug introduction into codebase
It facilitates new developers onboarding
It does not block other developers
It speeds up the code review process and consequently, product development

Google’s Fuchsia Adds Emulator for Running Linux Apps

By

Eric Brown

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June 20, 2018

Google has added a Guest app to its emergent and currently open source Fuchsia OS to enable Linux apps to run within Fuchsia as a virtual machine (VM). The Guest app makes use of a library called Machina that permits closer integration with the OS than is available with typical emulators, according to a recent 9to5Google story.

Last month, Google announced a Project Crostini technology that will soon let Chromebook users more easily run mainstream Linux applications within a Chrome OS VM. This week, Acer’s Chromebook Flip C101 joined the short list of Chromebooks that will offer Linux support later this year.

While it’s encouraging that Chrome OS will soon support Linux apps is addition to Android, it’s not entirely surprising — since Android and Chrome OS are based on Linux. Yet, one of the first things Google emphasized when it revealed Fuchsia in 2016 was that it’s not based on the Linux kernel.

To some, Fuchsia seemed to be something of a betrayal considering how Linux not only forms the basis for Android and Chrome OS but also the Google enterprise platforms. Why add another Windows or iOS when we were getting so close to everyone sharing a common Linux foundation?

No doubt, Google has some very good reasons for avoiding Linux. One reason may be the age and complexity of Linux. By starting from scratch, Google can escape that aspect and deliver more elegant, up-to-date code with fewer targets for hackers. Google is also baking secure updates deeply into the OS, and unlike Linux, is isolating applications from having direct kernel access.

Open for now

Back in 2016, we thought Google might be skipping over Linux to shift to a proprietary OS that it could control the way Apple dictates all things iOS. That may still happen, but for now Fuchsia is an open source project.

Some also speculated at time that considering the trim little microkernel, Google was bypassing Linux due to its inability to scale downward into the MCU realm. Yet, MCU-based IoT does not appear to be the current focus of Fuchsia. Several reports, including a TechRadar post last week, have said that Fuchsia is intended to replace both Android and Chrome OS, and the combined platform will eventually be called Google Andromeda.

Earlier this year, 9to5Google reported that Fuchsia would include separate UIs — an Armadillo UI for phones and a Capybara UI for desktops — and like Android Things and other new Android variants, would tightly integrate Google Assistant voice technology. Essentially, this is the same idea that was behind Microsoft’s failed plan to offer a common Windows for phones and laptops, or Canonical’s defunct “convergence” version of Ubuntu.

Guest ex Machina

Whatever Fuchsia’s destiny, Google needs to attract mature applications, as well as developers, and the best way to do that is to add Linux app compatibility. The new Guest app, which initially supports Linux-based platforms including Debian, works with the Machina library to accomplish this in a way that goes beyond what you can get from QEMU, suggests 9to5Google.

Google describes Fuchsia’s Machina as “a library that builds on top of the Zircon hypervisor to provide virtualized peripherals that integrate with a garnet system.” Zircon is the Fuchsia microkernel, based on Little Kernel (LK), and formerly called Magenta. Garnet is the layer that sits directly atop Zircon and offers device drivers, the Escher graphics renderer, Fuchsia’s Amber updater, and the Xi Core engine for the Xi text and code editor. Other layers include Peridot for app design, and on top, Topaz, a Flutter-supported app layer.

Machina adopts the Virtio virtualization standard, which is also used by the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). It makes use of Virtio’s vsock virtual socket, “which can open direct channels between a host operating system and its guest, to allow for conveniences that would be otherwise impossible,” says 9to5Google.

This extra effort will likely enable fast mouse performance, automatically adjusted screen resolution, and support for multiple displays, file transfers, and copy and paste, says the story. This appears to be much like the allegedly superior emulation that is expected with Google’s Project Crostini for running Linux apps on Chrome OS. The news of the Guest app follows earlier reports that suggested that Google is building an Android Runtime into Fuchsia rather than depending on emulation to run Android apps.

App emulators should be viewed with some skepticism. Most of the mobile Linux OS contenders promised some sort of Android app compatibility, but they have generally failed to deliver. Still, by building emulation deeply into the stack from the start rather than adding an emulator on later, Fuchsia may well offer Linux developers an emulator that they can live with.

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