The adamant sysadmins who preferred a decade old distribution instead of the goodness of the latest software and updates didn’t like this democratic decision of Red Hat. They foolishly looked for CentOS alternatives despite Red Hat repeatedly telling them that CentOS Stream is for their own good.
But no one, not even the executives at Red Hat and Community members at CentOS had expected CentOS Stream to grow so fast in popularity.
Instead of moving to RHEL or any other CentOS alternatives like AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, people actually opted to migrate their CentOS 8 servers to CentOS Stream. They even liked all the benefits of CentOS Stream that Red Hat team and CentOS board members pitched to CentOS users.
This rise in CentOS Stream gave birth to the idea of RHEL Stream. If CentOS Stream is good for CentOS users, then a rolling release RHEL Stream would be equally good for RHEL users. This simple fact resonated with the team and they decided to announce RHEL Stream.
Doe Joan, executive assistant project developer at Red Hat, cited another reason for the creation of RHEL Stream:
CentOS Stream tracks ahead of RHEL. As a competitive company, we need to keep Red Hat ahead of everyone and everything including CentOS Stream. This is why we decided to launch RHEL Stream that tracks ahead of CentOS Stream or any other development.
Doe Joan, Red Hat
You can get more detail about RHEL Stream in the official announcement post by clicking the link below.
If you dual boot Windows and Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution, you might have noticed a time difference between the two operating systems.
When you use Linux, it shows the correct time. But when you boot into Windows, it shows the wrong time. Sometimes, it is the opposite and Linux shows the wrong time and Windows has the correct time.
That’s strange specially because you are connected to the internet and your date and time is set to be used automatically.
Don’t worry! You are not the only one to face this issue. You can fix it by using the following command in the Linux terminal:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1
Again, don’t worry. I’ll explain why you encounter a time difference in a dual boot setup. I’ll show you how the above command fixes the wrong time issue in Windows after dual boot.
Why Windows and Linux show different time in dual boot?
A computer has two main clocks: a system clock and a hardware clock.
A hardware clock which is also called RTC (real time clock) or CMOS/BIOS clock. This clock is outside the operating system, on your computer’s motherboard. It keeps on running even after your system is powered off.
The system clock is what you see inside your operating system.
When your computer is powered on, the hardware clock is read and used to set the system clock. Afterwards, the system clock is used for tracking time. If your operating system makes any changes to system clock, like changing time zone etc, it tries to sync this information to the hardware clock.
By default, Linux assumes that the time stored in the hardware clock is in UTC, not the local time. On the other hand, Windows thinks that the time stored on the hardware clock is local time. That’s where the trouble starts.
Let me explain with examples.
You see I am in Kolkata time zone which is UTC+5:30. After installing when I set the timezonein Ubuntu to the Kolkata time zone, Ubuntu syncs this time information to the hardware clock but with an offset of 5:30 because it has to be in UTC for Linux.
Let’ say the current time in Kolkata timezone is 15:00 which means that the UTC time is 09:30.
Now when I turn off the system and boot into Windows, the hardware clock has the UTC time (09:30 in this example). But Windows thinks the hardware clock has stored the local time. And thus it changes the system clock (which should have shown 15:00) to use the UTC time (09:30) as the local time. And hence, Windows shows 09:30 as the time which is 5:30 hours behind the actual time (15:00 in our example).
Again, if I set the correct time in Windows by toggling the automatic time zone and time buttons, you know what is going to happen? Now it will show the correct time on the system (15:00) and sync this information (notice the “Synchronize your clock” option in the image) to the hardware clock.
If you boot into Linux, it reads the time from the hardware clock which is in local time (15:00) but since Linux believes it to be the UTC time, it adds an offset of 5:30 to the system clock. Now Linux shows a time of 20:30 which is 5:30 hours ahead of the actual time.
Now that you understand the root cause of the time difference issues in dual boot, it’s time to see how to fix the issue.
Fixing Windows Showing Wrong Time in a Dual Boot Setup With Linux
There are two ways you can go about handling this issue:
Make Windows use UTC time for the hardware clock
Make Linux use local time for the hardware clock
It is easier to make the changes in Linux and hence I’ll recommend going with the second method.
Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions use systemd these days and hence you can use timedatectl command to change the settings.
What you are doing is to tell your Linux system to use the local time for the hardware clock (RTC). You do that with the set-local-rtc (set local time for RTC) option:
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1
As you can notice in the image below, the RTC now uses the local time.
Now if you boot into Windows, it takes the hardware clock to be as local time which is actually correct this time. When you boot into Linux, your Linux system knows that the hardware clock is using local time, not UTC. And hence, it doesn’t try to add the off-set this time.
This fixes the time difference issue between Linux and Windows in dual boot.
You see a warning about not using local time for RTC. For desktop setups, it should not cause any issues. At least, I cannot think of one.
I hope I made things clear for you. If you still have questions, please leave a comment below.
You’ve probably tried to watch a DVD after installing Fedora, only to run into an error.
You are not alone. I faced this issue recently and I am pretty sure plenty of Fedora users like you and me who still use DVDs would like to overcome this petty issue.
libdvdcss error
Fixing DVD issue on Fedora
Why do you see this error? Because the manufacturers of DVDs encrypt their disks using a Digital Rights Management system named Content Scramble System.
You can get around it by installing the required software library. Videolan, creators of the VLC player, introduced a project named libdvdcss to get around this issue. According to its page, libdvdcss is a “simple library designed for accessing DVDs like a block device without having to bother about the decryption”.
As an individual, you may use this software library and no company or FBI should be coming after you as an individual but Fedora or other distribution would avoid including it by default to avoid possible legal troubles at an organization level.
Due to this legal reason, this library is not available in the Fedora repos. However, it is available on RPMFusion. You can only install it via the command line, but the instructions are simple.
Step 1
First, you need to install RPMFusion’s free tainted repo. The tainted repos contain “FLOSS packages where some usages might be restricted in some countries”.
To install the required repo, enter the following command in the terminal:
sudo dnf install rpmfusion-free-release-tainted
Enter your password and press Y when prompted to approve the installation.
Step 2
Next, install the required package with the following command:
sudo dnf install libdvdcss
Again, enter your password and press Y when prompted to approve the installation.
Once the installation is complete, you should be able to play your DVD. It’s that easy, at least it was for me. I hope this helps you too.
Some may choose to believe that RSS readers are dead, but they’re here to stay. Especially when you don’t want the Big tech algorithm to decide what you should read. With a feed reader, you can choose your own reading sources.
I’ve recently come across a fantastic RSS reader NewsFlash. It also supports adding feeds through web-based feed readers like Feedly and NewsBlur. That’s a big relief because if you are already such a service, you don’t have to import your feeds manually.
NewsFlash happens to be the spiritual successor to FeedReader with the original developer involved as well.
In case you’re wondering, we’ve already covered a list of Feed Reader apps for Linux if you’re looking for more options.
NewsFlash: A Feed Reader To Complement Web-based RSS Reader Account
It is important to note that NewsFlash isn’t just tailored for web-based RSS feed accounts, you can choose to use local RSS feeds as well without needing to sync them on multiple devices.
However, it is specifically helpful if you’re using any of the supported web-based feed readers.
Here, I’ll be highlighting some of the features that it offers.
Features of NewsFlash
Desktop Notifications support
Fast search and filtering
Supports tagging
Useful keyboard shortcuts that can be later customized
Local feeds
Import/Export OPML files
Easily discover various RSS Feeds using Feedly’s library without needing to sign up for the service
Custom Font Support
Multiple themes supported (including a dark theme)
Ability to enable/disable the Thumbnails
Tweak the time for regular sync intervals
Support for web-based Feed accounts like Feedly, Fever, NewsBlur, feedbin, Miniflux
In addition to the features mentioned, it also opens the reader view when you re-size the window, so that’s a subtle addition.
newsflash screenshot 1
If you want to reset the account, you can easily do that as well – which will delete all your local data as well. And, yes, you can manually clear the cache and set an expiry for user data to exist locally for all the feeds you follow.
Fortunately, the Flatpak package makes it easy for you to install it on any Linux distro you use. You can refer to our Flatpak guide for help.
In either case, you can refer to its GitLab page and compile it yourself.
Closing Thoughts
I’m currently using it by moving away from web-based services as a local solution on my desktop. You can simply export the OPML file to get the same feeds on any of your mobile feed applications, that’s what I’ve done.
The user interface is easy to use and provides a modern UX, if not the best. You can find all the essential features available while being a simple-looking RSS reader as well.
What do you think about NewsFlash? Do you prefer using something else? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
If you are running Fedora 33 right now and want to enjoy GNOME 40 and all the other features that come with Fedora 34, you can easily do that.
In this tutorial, I’ll show the steps for upgrading to Fedora 34 beta using terminal as well as the GUI method.
Keep in mind that you cannot downgrade to Fedora 33 the same way you upgraded to Fedora 34. You’ll have to reinstall it.
Upgrade to Fedora beta via command line
Unlike upgrading to beta version in Ubuntu, Fedora doesn’t need additional steps to exclusively mention that you are looking for a pre-release version upgrade. The steps are the same as upgrading to any Fedora stable version. Fedora presumes that you know what you are asking for.
With that information, it’s time to see the steps of the upgrade procedure.
The first step is to upgrade all the installed packages to the latest available version. Normally, it should not take long if you update your Fedora system regularly.
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh
Then, install the system upgrade plugin for DNF. This will be quick.
sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
At this step, you should provide the number of version you are upgrading. In this case, you are looking to upgrade to Fedora 34, so instruct your system to download the release of Fedora 34 with releasever=34.
The longest time will be taken by this step. Grab a cup of coffee or even go to lunch if you don’t have superfast internet.
sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=34
When this process completes, you need to reboot your system with this command to start the actual upgrade process:
sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot
You’ll see a dark screen with progress of your system upgrade:
Once the process completes, you’ll be logged in to Fedora 34 beta.
Upgrading to Fedora 34 beta graphically with GNOME Software Center (works only for GNOME desktop)
If you are using the GNOME desktop environment that comes with Fedora by default, you have the option to upgrade to the beta version graphically using the GNOME Software application.
Well … almost graphically. Because you’ll need to run this command in the terminal anyway:
gsettings set org.gnome.software show-upgrade-prerelease true
With that done, open the GNOME Software Center and go to the Updates tab. Make sure there are no pending updates to install. If there are any, install them.
If you don’t see the availability of the next release in the software center, you can either restart your system or kill any instance of GNOME Software with this command:
pkill gnome-software
Now start GNOME Software again and you should see the availability of the beta version of Fedora 34. Hit the download button and when that finishes, you’ll be prompted to install and restart your system.
What happens when the stable version of Fedora 34 is released?
You don’t have to do anything special to get the stable version if you are already using the beta version. Just keep your system updated and you’ll have the stable version automatically. That’s convenient, right?
I hope you find the steps to upgrade to Fedora 34 beta useful. If you have any questions, please do ask in the comment section.
Plausible is a simple, privacy-friendly analytics tool. It helps you analyze the number of unique visitors, pageviews, bounce rate and visit duration.
If you have a website you would probably understand those terms. As a website owner, it helps you know if your site is getting more visitors over the time, from where the traffic is coming and if you have some knowledge on these things, you can work on improving your website for more visits.
When it comes to website analytics, the one service that rules this domain is the Google’s free tool Google Analytics. Just like Google is the de-facto search engine, Google Analytics is the de-facto analytics tool. But you don’t have to live with it specially if you cannot trust Big tech with your and your site visitor’s data.
Plausible gives you the freedom from Google Analytics and I am going to discuss this open source project in this article.
Please mind that some technical terms in the article could be unknown to you if you have never managed a website or bothered about analytics.
Plausible for privacy friendly website analytics
The script used by Plausible for analytics is extremely lightweight with less than 1 KB in size.
The focus is on preserving the privacy so you get valuable and actionable stats without compromising on the privacy of your visitors. Plausible is one of the rare few analytics tool that doesn’t require cookie banner or GDP consent because it is already GDPR-compliant on privacy front. That’s super cool.
In terms of features, it doesn’t have the same level of granularity and details of Google Analytics. Plausible banks on simplicity. It shows a graph of your traffic stats for past 30 days. You may also switch to real time view.
You can also see where your traffic is coming from and which pages on your website gets the most visits. The sources can also show UTM campaigns.
You also have the option to enable GeoIP to get some insights about the geographical location of your website visitors. You can also check how many visitors use desktop or mobile device to visit your website. There is also an option for operating system and as you can see, Linux Handbook gets 48% of its visitors from Windows devices. Pretty strange, right?
Clearly, the data provided is nowhere close to what Google Analytics can do, but that’s intentional. Plausible intends to provide you simple matrix.
Using Plausible: Opt for paid managed hosting or self-host it on your server
There are two ways you can start using Plausible. Sign up for their official managed hosting. You’ll have to pay for the service and this eventually helps the development of the Plausible project. They do have 30-days trial period and it doesn’t even require any payment information from your side.
The pricing starts at $6 per month for 10k monthly pageviews. Pricing increases with the number of pageviews. You can calculate the pricing on Plausible website.
At It’s FOSS, we self-host Plausible. Our Plausible instance has three of our websites added.
Plausble dashboard for It’s FOSS websites
If you maintain the website of an open source project and would like to use Plausible, you can contact us through our High on Cloud project. With High on Cloud, we help small businesses host and use open source software on their servers.
Conclusion
If you are not super obsessed with data and just want a quick glance on how your website is performing, Plausible is a decent choice. I like it because it is lightweight and privacy compliant. That’s the main reason why I use it on Linux Handbook, our ethical web portal for teaching Linux server related stuff.
Overall, I am pretty content with Plausible and recommend it to other website owners.
Do you run or manage a website as well? What tool do you use for the analytics or do you not care about that at all?
Sleek is nothing extraordinary except for its looks perhaps. It provides an Electron-based GUI for todo.txt.
For those not aware, Electron is a framework that lets you use JavaScript, HTML and CSS for building cross-platform desktop apps. It utilizes Chromium and Node.js for this purpose and this is why some people don’t like their desktop apps running a browser underneath it.
Todo.txt is a text-based file system and if you follow its markup syntax, you can create a to-do list. There are tons of mobile, desktop and CLI apps that use Todo.txt underneath it.
Don’t worry you don’t need to know the correct syntax for todo.txt. Since Sleek is a GUI tool, you can utilize its interface for creating to-do lists without special efforts.
The advantage of todo.txt is that you can copy or export your files and use it on any To Do List app that supports todo.txt. This gives you portability to keep your data while moving between applications.
Experience with Sleek
Sleek gives you option to create a new to-do.txt or open an existing one. Once you create or open one, you can start adding items to the list.
Apart from the normal checklist, you can add tasks with due date.
While adding a due date, you can also set the repetition for the tasks. I find this weird that you can not create a recurring task without setting a due date to it. This is something the developer should try to fix in the future release of the application.
You can check a task complete. You can also choose to hide or show completed tasks with options to sort tasks based on priority.
Sleek is available in both dark and light theme. There is a dedicated option on the left sidebar to change themes. You can, of course, change it from the settings.
There is no provision to sync your to-do list app. As a workaround, you can save your todo.txt file in a location that is automatically sync with Nextcloud, Dropbox or some other cloud service. This also opens the possibility of using it on mobile with some todo.txt mobile client. It’s just a suggestion, I haven’t tried it myself.
Installing Sleek on Linux
Since Sleek is an Electron-based application, it is available for Windows as well as Linux.
For Linux, you can install it using Snap or Flatpak, whichever you prefer.
For Snap, use the following command:
sudo snap install sleek
If you have enabled Flatpak and added Flathub repository, you can install it using this command:
flatpak install flathub com.github.ransome1.sleek
As I said at the beginning of this article, Sleek is nothing extraordinary. If you prefer a modern looking to-do list app with option to import and export your tasks list, you may give this open source application a try.
By default, all Linux distributions already come pre-installed with a terminal application or terminal emulator (correct technical term). Of course, depending on the desktop environment, it will look and feel different.
Here’s the thing about Linux. You are not restricted to what your distribution provides. You can opt for an alternative application of your choice. Terminal is no different. There are several impressive terminal emulators that offer unique features for a better user experience or for better looks.
Here, I will be compiling a list of such interesting terminal applications that you can try on your Linux distribution.
Awesome Terminal Emulators for Linux
The list is in no particular order of ranking. I’ve tried to list the interesting ones first followed by some of the most popular terminal emulators. Also, I have highlighted the key features for every terminal emulator mentioned, choose what you prefer.
1. Terminator
Key Highlights:
Multiple GNOME terminals in one window
Terminator is decently popular terminal emulator which is still being maintained (moved from Launchpad to GitHub).
It basically provides you multiple GNOME terminals in one window. You can easily group and re-group terminal windows with the help of it. You may feel like using a tiling window manager but with some restrictions.
For Ubuntu-based distros, all you have to do is type in the following command in the terminal:
sudo apt install terminator
You should find it in most of Linux distributions through the default repositories. But, if you need help installing, go through the GitHub page.
2. Guake Terminal
Key Highlights:
Tailored for quick access to terminal on GNOME
Works fast and does not need a lot of system resource
Shortcut key to access
Guake terminal was originally inspired by an FPS game Quake. Unlike some other terminal emulators, it works as an overlay on every other active window.
All you have to do is summon the emulator using a shortcut key (F12) and it will appear from the top. You get customize the width or position of the emulator, but most of the users should be fine with the default setting.
Not just as a handy terminal emulator, it offers a ton of features like ability to restore tabs, having multiple tabs, color-coding each tab, and more. You can check out my separate article on Guake to learn more.
Guake is available in the default repositories for most of the Linux distributions. You can refer to its official installation instructions.
Or if you’re using Debian-based distro, just type in the following command:
sudo apt install guake
3. Tilix Terminal
Key Highlights:
Tiling feature
Drag and drop support
Drop down Quake mode
Tilix Terminal offers a similar drop-down experience that you find with Guake – but it also lets you have multiple terminal windows in tiling mode.
This is particularly useful if you do not have tiling windows by default in your Linux distribution and have a big screen to work on multiple terminal windows without needing to switching between workspaces.
We’ve already covered it before separately if you’re curious to learn more about it.
Want to beautify your Linux terminal and give it a different look? Here are a few ways you can customize your terminal.
4. Hyper
Key Highlights:
Terminal built on HTML/CSS/JS
Electron-based
Cross-platform
Extensive configuration options
Hyper is yet another interesting terminal emulator that is built on web technologies. It doesn’t provide a unique user experience, but looks quite different and offers a ton of customization options.
It also supports installing themes and plugins to easily customize the appearance of the terminal. You can explore more about it in their GitHub page.
Hyper is not available in the default repositories. However, you can find both .deb and .rpm packages available to install through their official website.
Tilda is another drop-down GTK-based terminal emulator. Unlike some others, it focuses on providing an integrated search bar which you can toggle and also lets you customize many things.
You can also set hotkeys for quick access or a certain action. Functionally, it is quite impressive. However, visually, I don’t like how the overlay behaves and does not support drag and drop as well. You might give it a try though.
You can refer to its GitHub page for installation instructions on other distributions.
6. eDEX-UI
Key Highlights:
Sci-Fi Look
Cross-platform
Theme options to customize
Supports Multiple terminal tabs
If you’re not looking particularly for a terminal emulator to help you get your work done faster, eDEX-UI is something that you must try.
It is absolutely a beautiful terminal emulator for sci-fi fans and for users who just want their terminal to look unique. In case you didn’t know, it is heavily inspired from the TRON legacy movie.
Not just the design or the interface, overall, it offers you a unique user experience that you will enjoy. It also lets you customize the terminal. It does require a significant amount of system resource if you’re planning to try it.
You might want to check our dedicated article on eDEX-UI to know more about it and the steps to install it.
You can find it in some of the repositories that include AUR. In either case, you can grab a package available for your Linux distribution (or an AppImage file) from its GitHub releases section.
Want to beautify your Linux terminal and give it a different look? Here are a few ways you can customize your terminal.
7. Cool Retro Terminal
Key Highlights:
Retro Theme
Animation/Effects to tweak
Cool Retro Terminal is a unique terminal emulator that provides you with a look of a vintage cathode ray tube monitor.
If you’re looking for some extra-functionality terminal emulator, this may disappoint you. However, it is impressive to note that it is decently light on resources and allows you to customize the color, effects, and fonts.
You can find all the installation instructions for major Linux distributions in its GitHub page. For Ubuntu-based distros, you can type in the following in the terminal:
sudo apt install cool-retro-term
8. Alacritty
Key Highlights:
Cross-platform
Extension options and focuses on integration
Alacritty is an interesting open-source cross-platform terminal emulator. Even though it is considered as something in “beta” phase, it still works.
It aims to provide you extensive configuration options while keeping the performance in mind. For instance, the ability to click through a URL using a keyboard, copying text to a clipboard, and performing a search using “Vi” mode may intrigue you to try it.
You can explore its GitHub page for more information.
Alacritty can be installed using package managers says the official GitHub page, but I couldn’t find it in the default repository or synaptic package manager on Linux Mint 20.1.
If you’re not a newbie, this probably needs no introduction. Konsole is the default terminal emulator for KDE desktop environments.
Not just limited to that, it also comes integrated with a lot of KDE apps as well. Even if you’re using some other desktop environment, you can still try Konsole. It is a lightweight terminal emulator with a host of features.
You can have multiple tabs and multiple grouped windows as well. Lot of customization options to change the look and feel of the terminal emulator as well.
For Ubuntu-based distros and most other distributions, you can install it using the default repository. With Debian-based distros, you just need to type this in the terminal:
sudo apt install konsole
10. GNOME Terminal
Key Highlights:
GNOME’s terminal
Simple yet customizable
If you’re utilizing any Ubuntu-based GNOME distribution, it already comes baked in. It may not be as customizable as Konsole (depends on what you’re doing) but it lets you configure most of the important aspects of the terminal easily.
Overall, it offers a good user experience and an easy-to-use interface with essential functions.
If you’re not using GNOME desktop but want to try it out, you can easily install it through the default repositories.
For Debian-based distros, here’s what you need to type in the terminal:
sudo apt install gnome-terminal
Wrapping Up
There are several terminal emulators available out there. You can try anything you like if you’re looking for a different user experience. However, if you’re aiming for a stable and productive experience, you need to test the terminal emulators before you can rely on them.
For most of the users, the default terminal emulators should be good enough. But, if you’re looking for quick access (Quake Mode) or Tiling feature or multiple windows in a terminal, feel free to try out the options mentioned above.
What’s your favorite terminal emulator on Linux? Did I miss listing your favorite? Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.
There are more friendly ways to see the disk usage in Linux with graphical tools like GNOME Disks. If you are confined to the terminal, you can use a TUI tool like ncdu to get the disk usage information with a sort of graphical touch.
Gdu: Disk usage checking in Linux terminal
Gdu is such a tool written in Go (hence the ‘g’ in gdu). Gdu developer has benchmark tests to show that it is quite fast for disk usage checking, specifically on SSDs. In fact, gdu is intended primarily for SSDs though it can work for HDD as well.
If you use the gdu command without any options, it shows the disk usage for the current directory you are in.
Since it has terminal user interface (TUI), you can navigate through directories and disk using arrows. You can also sort the result by file names or size.
Here’s how to do that:
Up arrow or k to move cursor up
Down arrow or j to move cursor down
Enter to select directory / device
Left arrow or h to go to parent directory
Use d to delete the selected file or directory
Use n to sort by name
Use s to sort by size
Use c to sort by items
You’ll notice some symbols before some file entries. Those have specific meaning.
! means an error occurred while reading the directory.
. means an error occurred while reading a subdirectory, size may not be correct.
@ means file is a symlink or socket.
H means the file was already counted (hard link).
e means directory is empty.
To see the disk utilization and free space for all mounted disks, use the option d:
gdu -d
It shows all the details in one screen:
Sounds like a handy tool, right? Let’s see how to get it on your Linux system.
Installing gdu on Linux
Gdu is available for Arch and Manjaro users through the AUR. I presume that as an Arch user, you know how to use AUR.
It is included in the universe repository of the upcoming Ubuntu 21.04 but chances are that you are not using it at present. In that case, you may install it using Snap through it may seem like a lot of snap commands:
