Canonical and IBM Leftovers

• What’s new in Security for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS?

  Canonical Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is the latest long term support release of Ubuntu, one of the world’s most popular Linux distributions. As a Long Term Support release, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will be supported for 10 years, receiving both extended security updates and kernel livepatching via an Ubuntu Advantage subscription (which is free for personal use). This continues the benchmark of Ubuntu LTS releases serving as the most secure foundation on which to both develop and deploy Linux applications and services. In this blog post, we take a look at the various security features and enhancements that have gone into this new release since the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS release. For a more detailed examination of some of these features, be sure to check out the previous articles in this series which cover the improvements delivered across each interim release of Ubuntu in the past 2 years between 20.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS.

• We Still Want IBM i On The Impending Power E1050

  In March last year, as Big Blue was finishing up the development of the Power10 family of Power Systems machines, we wrote an essay explaining that we wanted IBM i to be a first-class operating system citizen on the four-socket Power E1050 machine, which we finally expect to see launch on July 12 if the rumors are correct.

• Big Blue Tweaks IBM i Pricing Ahead Of Subscription Model

  Back in May, Big Blue said that it was going to be simplifying the IBM i stack ahead of a move to subscription pricing for systems software as well as hardware that runs it. To do that means zeroing out prices for a slew of things that had price tags on them formerly.

• Guru: The Finer Points of Exit Points

  Many years ago, we received a call from an IBM i customer stating that all exit points were gone and the QAUDJRN and receivers were missing. Then the question, “Do you think we’ve been hacked?” Truth was, the exit points weren’t gone; the associated programs had been de-registered. Conclusion, they had most likely been compromised.

• IBM i Licensing, Part 3: Can The Hardware Bundle Be Cheaper Than A Smartphone?

  How many monthly iPhone bills is a Power10-based entry server worth?

• Guild Mortgage Takes The 20-Year Option For Modernization

  When Kurt Reheiser returned to the IBM i server after a 15-year hiatus away the platform, things weren’t a lot different than how he left them.

today's howtos

• Easily Get 3rd-Party Software on Ubuntu With Deb-Get

  Deb-get is a high-level software installation and management tool that works on top of the apt package manager to easily enable installing 3rd-party software. The developers of the utility have already identified a list of where most common 3rd-party applications are distributed, and they have simply programmed their utility to download software from these places and install them for you automatically, so that you don’t have to do it by yourself. You can check that list here. The usage syntax is quite simple. Just like apt, you can run commands like deb-get install, deb-get show, deb-get search and deb-get remove. If the 3rd-party application you are looking for is distributed in a Deb package repository, then that repository will be added to your system so that you can receive updates anytime you run the apt upgrade command. Otherwise, you will just need to run the deb-get upgrade command to update all your 3rd-party installed applications whenever there is a new version.

• Install GVM 21.4 on Kali Linux

  In this guide, you will learn how to install GVM 21.4 on Kali Linux. Greenbone Vulnerability Management (GVM), previously known as OpenVAS, is a network security scanner which provides a set of network vulnerability tests (NVTs) to detect security loopholes in systems and applications. As of this writing, GVM 21.4.4 is the current stable release.

Programming Leftovers

• Understanding jq's SQL style operators JOIN and INDEX

  In this post I explore a couple of new (to me) operators in jq's arsenal: JOIN and INDEX, based on an answer to a question that I came across on Stack Overflow. The answer was in response to a question (JQ: How to join arrays by key?) about how to merge two arrays of related information. I found it interesting and it also introduced me to a couple of operators in jq that I'd hitherto not come across. There's a section in the manual titled SQL-Style Operators that describe them.

• Migrating Rails cookies to the new JSON serializer

  How to move from Marshal to the new Rails 7 default JSON serializer. I was recently upgrading Phrase to Rails 7. Big upgrades like that are usually being done with the most minimal changes, and this one wasn’t an exception. However, every major and minor version of Rails brings some new defaults that can accumulate over time, leaving you with some debt to pay.

• gfldex: Sinking Errors

  I was looking for a way to output debug messages that can also carry additional values, when not output to the screen. That is easy. The tricky part is golfing the interface. After quite a bit of struggle. I ended up with the following.

• Friday is an Open-source Virtual Assistant

  Virtual assistant technology defines as an application program that uses semantic and deep learning. It can also call an AI assistant or digital assistant. It helps users or enterprises to assist people or automate tasks.