Issue #278 / Jan 2024

Editor in Chief

Kubuntu 23.10 and Fedora 39

In the news: AlmaLinux Will No Longer Be "Just Another RHEL Clone"; OpenELA Releases Enterprise Linux Source Code; StripedFly Malware Hiding in Plain Sight as a Cryptocurrency Miner; Experimental Wayland Support Planned for Linux Mint 21.3; KDE Plasma 6 Sets Release Date; and Gnome Developers in Discussion to End Support for X.Org.

Chronicler Zack Brown reports on avoiding bloat in the Kernel that does everything, and particularly odd occurrences of Stardust.

Lots of retired Bitcoin mining computers are showing up on the second-hand market for cheap. Could these once-impressive machines have a second life in scientific computing or machine learning?

Data science is all about gaining insights from mountains of data. We tour some important tools for the trade.

The R programming language is a universal tool for data analysis and machine learning.

Immutable distributions offer a layer of added security. Bruce explains how immutable systems work and discusses their benefits and drawbacks.

Recent policy changes at Red Hat have upturned the RHEL clone community. AlmaLinux charts a new path by shifting to binary compatibility and away from being a downstream RHEL build.

Is someone listening in on your typing? Learn more about how acoustic keyloggers work.