Updates on technologies, trends, and tools
Black Hole Image Has an Open Source Connection
Last week the whole world was stunned by seeing what was unseen – a black hole. Scientists were able to create a picture of a black hole named Messier 87 in the Virgo A galaxy. The black hole is more than 55 million light years away.
The first image of a black hole is the outcome of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) (https://eventhorizontelescope.org/) project, which created a virtual telescope as big as earth by networking 8 ground-based telescopes. The telescopes generated more than five petabyte of data. Collecting data was the first part of the puzzle. The team of scientists used various algorithms to fill gaps in this data to be able to generate an image of the black hole.
TFIR reports that the team of scientists used three imaging algorithms for image processing, and two of these were fully open source Python libraries – Sparselab and ehtim.
Sparselab is a Python Library for Interferometric Imaging using Sparse Modeling.
ehtim is a Python module for simulating and manipulating VLBI data and producing images with regularized maximum likelihood methods.
The source code of these libraries is published on GitHub under GNU GPLv3 licenses.
Ubuntu 19.04 Released
The Ubuntu project has announced the release of Ubuntu 19.04. The new Ubuntu will be available in Cloud, IoT, Server, and Desktop editions. In addition to the standard Gnome desktop edition, parallel 'buntu releases featuring the KDE (Kubuntu), Xfce (Xubuntu), LXDE (Lubuntu), MATE, and Budgie desktops, as well as other specialty versions, also made their way to the public.
The latest Ubuntu comes with Linux kernel 5.0 and Gnome 3.32. According to the announcement in the Ubuntu blog, "Ubuntu 19.04 integrates recent innovations from key open infrastructure projects – like OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph – with advanced life-cycle management for multi-cloud and on-prem operations – from bare metal, Vmware, and OpenStack to every major public cloud."
Linux Mint Founder Calls for Better Developer Support
Linux Mint is among the most popular and seemingly most easy to use Linux distributions. The Ubuntu-based distribution has built its loyal user base and has been growing ever since. However, the founder of Linux Mint seems to be burning out.
In the latest blog post, Linux Mint founder Clement 'Clem' Lefebvre wrote that he didn't enjoy the latest development cycle as two of the most talented developers have been away. The project couldn't make the performance improvements it expected.
"Boosting performance in the Muffin window manager hasn't been, and still isn't, straight forward," he wrote.
Some frustration also seems to stem from the new logo and website design, "Feedback on the new website and logo brought a huge amount of incertitude," Lefebvre said.
It seems he is also sensing the developer community of Linux Mint is not as energized as it once used to be. "For a team to work, developers need to feel like heroes. They want the same things as users, they are users, they were "only" users to start with. At some stage they decide to get involved and they start investing time, efforts and emotions into improving our project. What they're looking for the most is support and happiness. They need feedback and information to understand bugs or feature requests and when they're done implementing something, they need to feel like heroes, they literally do, that's part of the reason they're here really," said Lefebvre.
It's not certain if Lefebvre is tired of the project or it's a momentary frustration with some core team members not showing up and negative feedback on some changes.
« Previous 1 2 3 Next »
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.