Table of Contents

Welcome From The Assistant Editor's Desk

GIMP Tutorial: Adding A Person To A Group Photo

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner: Baked Ham & Cheese Rolls

Organize Thunar Custom Actions In Submenus

How To Enable Dark Theme In Trinity Mini

ICYMI: jzakiya Publishes First Paper

Overview Of The New PCLinuxOS "mylive-install" Installer

PCLinuxOS Forum Family & Friends: Meemaw

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus: Butter Pecan Praline Poke Cake

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Screenshot Showcase

From The Assistant Editor's Desk...

by Meemaw

Wow, back to school already! Well, around here, most of the schools started in mid-August, but it's definitely the beginning of the school year. Before I became a secretary, which I've been for twenty-seven years, I remember the first day of school. The teachers have been preparing for several weeks, many of them going in early to arrange classrooms and assemble bulletin boards, so the students see an organized, colorful atmosphere from day one. I was a secondary teacher (math), and I went in and did bulletin boards as well, but the elementary teachers usually do their whole room. I've seen book nooks in the corner, along with the books to read, colorful name signs for each desk, even posters with letters, shapes, numbers, and naturally, rules.

I have good memories of getting to know new students, and some different memories of things they said. I had an Algebra student who said over and over that she wouldn't EVER use Algebra, so she didn't know why she had to take it. I'm still friends with her and she's repeated that for years, along with posting on social media an answer to the question, "Name a book that made you cry" ... Algebra.

Most teachers have awesome students, great ones, and really awful ones! I've had my share of each, and it's a real balancing act to teach everyone and treat everyone equally even though you want to hug some, strangle some, and ignore others. It's also a balancing act to try to work with all levels of knowledge without totally ignoring some of them. You may have some that have trouble with everything, and some that get everything immediately, all in the same class, and it's hard to deal with that. Some teachers have a gift, while it's harder for others.

I have a niece who just got her teaching degree and started her first year. I'm excited for her, and curious to find out how she likes it. However, I probably won't ask until spring.

I really enjoyed my teaching years, but when the secretary job came along, I was ready for a change. Along the way, I have honed my organizational skills, hopefully taught some people, young and old, about agriculture and where your food originates, and gotten licensed to sell insurance (although I'm not an agent: I have to be licensed to help in the office). I've been there 27 years, and I still love it, but I'm actually considering retirement. At my age, it may be time. I won't retire from the magazine staff, but I'm sure my place is Assistant Editor, since Paul does such a wonderful job as Editor.

---------------

This month's cover was designed by parnote. It is based on an image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay. The pic above was one I created for the cover of the September, 2010 issue to celebrate back-to-school. The cover had more, but included this piece of clipart. I just found it and thought I'd share again.

As parnote would say, "Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity, and continued good health!"

GIMP Tutorial: Adding A Person To A Group Photo

by Meemaw

Several years ago (2010), I went to a meeting with some fellow secretaries. Towards the end of the meeting, we went to supper at a local restaurant, and decided to have someone take a group photo. Unfortunately, one of the girls had not eaten with us, so they asked if I could put her in the photo with the rest of us. I was able to do it, but with my limited GIMP experience, it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.

With a tutorial from Davies Media Design, I'm learning how to do it. I'll use a couple of photos I downloaded from Wikimedia Commons before I go back to my own photo. Use larger photos to give yourself room to work. Photos can always be sized down later, but not made bigger.

The group photo is from a film festival. I want to add the single man to the group photo. After loading them into GIMP, let's concentrate on the single person. Obviously, we'll have to cut him away from the background to insert him into the group photo, so let's do that first.

In this tutorial, Davies uses the Paths tool to draw around the person. Since his clothes are close in color to the background, we should do something to emphasize his clothes while we outline it. First, make a copy of the layer, and we'll work with that. Choosing the copy, go to Colors > Levels, and slide the slider until your picture is much lighter. Depending on the photo, you'll have a small change or a big one.

You can see there's now a bigger difference between the background and the clothes. Choose your Paths Tool, zoom in, and start outlining. You can get a better cutout if you zoom in a lot.

When you've gone all the way around (it might take a while, depending on how far in you have zoomed), press <Enter>. You'll get an outline with a bunch of nodes.

While your path tool is still selected, there is a tool menu showing. Choose Selection from path.

Now, choose the original layer, right click and add an Alpha Channel to it. Reminder: if your photo already has an alpha channel (transparency), the Add Alpha Channel is greyed out. Next, right click the original layer again, and choose Add Layer Mask. When the window comes up, choose Selection rather than black or white.

And your drawing will be only the person you want.

Now we have an image we can put into the group photo! You should have the photo still open in GIMP. Click the layer (in the Layers dialog) and drag it to the tab at the top with the other photo. When you do that, GIMP will switch to that photo and your layer will be hovering above the photo. Drag it to the approximate location where you want to add the person, then release your mouse button. DO NOT anchor the layer. You'll notice that the layer mask came as well.

When I did that, the person was smaller than the people in the group! Now, I need to scale the insert so he will appear to be the same size as the rest of the people. Click on your Scale tool, then click on your person. Drag the corner of the box (making sure that the aspect ratio of your photo stays the same).

If you need to edit the colors in your photos, now is the time to do it. You can use Colors > Levels or Colors > Curves to adjust the color on one of the photos to make them match a little closer. Mine was already pretty close so I didn't have much to do. One thing Davies suggests if they are different is to duplicate this image and work on the duplicate. You can go into Image > Mode and change the drawing to RGB instead of color, and work on that. Once you use Curves or something to edit it, change to the original and go to Filters > Redo Curves, and those same settings will be applied to the original.

OK, you have the colors edited, and the person inserted, even though it doesn't look right yet. Now you have to get your person in correctly. You can see above where I want the person to be, but I want him behind the others (and there's another guy sitting there, but we can't see him). We're going to use the Paths tool again.

First, right click on your person layer and add a layer group. Click and drag the person layer into the group. We're doing this so we can add another layer mask. The first mask was to mask out the photo background ... this one will mask out that part of the person we don't want to see. Right click on the layer group and select Add Layer Mask. When you do that, your person will disappear, but you can go back & forth by right clicking and checking the box in front of Disable Layer Mask.

Now, we want to use the paths tool to outline an area where we want the person to show up. Since he's going to be behind the others, we need to outline the space between the people where we want him to show.

Notice that the outline is where he's going to be, and I went around the people that should show, wide enough that his shoulders are there. Go back and uncheck Disable Layer Mask.

You can always tweak this photo by editing colors, or moving the person a tiny bit. See the finished product below. The guys in front are sitting on something, so my inserted person shows correctly now.

Davies has more procedures for getting the colors sharper and the shadows added, if needed. Most of his methods are done at the end. One thing that might make the photo look better is the use of the Unsharp Mask, which actually sharpens the image. We've looked at this before. Feel free to use whatever finishing method you want to improve your photo.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner:

Baked Ham and Cheese Rolls

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS:

1 can refrigerate pizza dough
8 thin slices ham
8 slices Swiss Cheese
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
2 tsp poppy seeds
2 tsp dried minced onion
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and grease a 8x8 inch baking dish with nonstick spray.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pizza dough, so it's a rectangle that is roughly 8x16 inches in size.

Brush dough with a bit of the melted butter and set the rest aside.

Top the pizza dough with the ham in a single layer, followed by the cheese in a single layer. Beginning with the edge closest to you, roll the dough up into a log.

Using a serrated knife, cut the roll into 9 even rounds. Arrange in the prepared baking dish and set aside to rise for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the Dijon mustard, poppy seeds, minced onion and Worcestershire sauce into the remaining butter. Once the rolls have risen, pour the sauce all over the rolls.

Bake until the dough is golden brown on the top, About 30-40 minutes

NUTRITION:
Serving: 1 roll

Calories: 275         Carbs: 23g         Sodium: 130mg         Fat: 15g         Protein: 13g

Organize Thunar Custom Actions In Submenus

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

The nice thing about Linux is all of the choices Linux users have. One is the choice of which desktop environment to use. For me, Xfce is my desktop environment of choice. One of those reasons I prefer Xfce is because of Thunar, the file manager for Xfce. It's not flashy. It lets me get my file tasks done with a minimum of fuss. But what I like most of all is how easy it is to add custom actions to Thunar to create various custom tools to perform bulk file operations (which I do quite frequently). I have several custom actions that I use frequently with the production of The PCLinuxOS Magazine, and they are REAL timesavers.

Those Thunar Custom Actions can be one-liners, or can invoke a custom bash script. I have custom actions that use both methods. Obviously, more complex actions require the use of a custom bash script, but there are quite a few one-liners that wield a LOT of power. Typically, my one-liners and my custom bash scripts run command line programs on either a single file, or on a group of files.

When I find a task that needs to be accomplished on some files on a regular basis, my mind starts brainstorming on how I might be able to create a Thunar Custom Action to streamline the process. By creating a custom action, I can guarantee consistent results, all while saving tremendous amounts of time. When "we're" on deadline and getting the magazine ready each month, the quicker I can get certain tasks done with consistent results is important.

As you might imagine (or just take my word for it), I have a literal TON of Thunar Custom Actions. In fact, I have so many custom actions defined that the list of custom actions required scrolling to see them all. Yes, there were more custom actions than could be displayed on the height of my screen. Thus, I would have to continually scroll through the list, especially if the menu item I needed was at the bottom of the list.

Now, if you need to review Thunar Custom Actions, I'll refer you to the various articles I've written over the years about them. In fact, to make it easier, just click here to search the magazine website for the articles I've written regarding custom actions. Many of the bash scripts I've written and published in the magazine are created to work either as a standalone bash script from the command line, or to function as a Thunar Custom Action.

Thankfully, the Xfce and Thunar developers came to my rescue.

Starting with Thunar 4.17.0, Thunar users have had the ability to organize their custom actions by placing them in submenus. The red box in the image above shows the new option.

I hadn't really explored this new option (Thunar is currently at version 4.18.6) until now. I was more of the mind of not fixing something that wasn't broken. Plus, I was worried about the possibility of royally "screwing up" my Thunar Custom Actions items, which I rely on ... a LOT. But, seeing how unwieldy my list of custom actions had become, I thought I'd finally "give it a shot."

The "solution" couldn't possibly work easier than the way it has been programmed into Thunar. If you want a custom action to appear in the "top tier" of custom actions, simply leave the "Submenu" field empty. This is what I've done with my custom actions that I use very frequently. But for others that I don't use as often, I've grouped them into "common" submenus.

To place a submenu in the custom action context menu, simply type the name of the menu in the "Submenu" entry box. Repeat the process for each custom action you want to place in that menu by typing in the same name in the "Submenu" text entry box.

I've set up submenus called Graphics, Printing, Magazine, Sound, Video, Office, Archiving, and File Tools. What you call them is up to you. In the image above, you can see the items I've placed in the "File Tools" submenu.

Now, my right-click context menu in Thunar fits on my computer screen, and is fully viewable WITHOUT having to scroll through a miles-long list of custom actions. Using the submenus should help speed up (even more) my use of custom actions by eliminating the endless scrolling through all of the custom actions defined in my copy of Thunar.

Oh, and here's a "bonus tip" for working with Thunar Custom Actions across multiple computers. The custom actions are "defined" in ~/.config/Thunar/uca.xml.

The individual entries look something like this:

Now, if you have multiple computers, it's a good idea to have things configured (more or less) the same across the computers you routinely use. So, make a COPY of your uca.xml file. Go through the file and completely DELETE every line that starts with <unique-id> and save the COPY of the uca.xml file. I store a copy of my uca.xml file, with the <unique-id> line removed, in Dropbox. The <unique-id> makes the uca.xml file specific to one computer/user. Removing it allows you to "transport" the uca.xml file across multiple computers without having to completely redo all of your custom actions.

Whenever you install Xfce on a new computer, go to ~/.config/Thunar and rename the uca.xml file that is in the folder. Now, copy YOUR COPY of your uca.xml file (without the <unique-id> line) into that directory. Be certain that your copy of the uca.xml file is named precisely uca.xml. Close Thunar, and then reopen it, or just reboot your computer. Thunar should have recreated (and re-inserted) the <unique-id> ... </unique-id> line for each item in the list. If you've done everything correctly, your custom actions should appear the same on the new computer as they do/did on another computer. This allows you to tailor your custom actions to how you work across multiple computers.

Note that if your custom actions rely on custom bash scripts, you will also have to copy those scripts to your /home/[username]/bin directory, and ensure that directory is defined in your $PATH statement. The easiest way to check is to type echo $PATH at a command line prompt in a terminal session. Check the output to be sure ~/bin is listed. On my computer, it's the very first entry, shown in the image above. If you don't have a similar entry, you can refer to this "how to" from HowToGeek to add it.

How To Enable Dark Theme In Trinity Mini

by reelcat

As ⅆα√ℯℂ§ suggested, I created a short guide on how to configure a dark theme in Trinity Mini. As an example, I chose Arc Darkest, which was used in the guest's account in the latest ISO TDE Mini.

Of course, this theme can be implemented simply by copying the guest's account configuration to the newly created user directory. However, this is not recommended, because the "guest" name will remain here and there, which is difficult to detect and can cause embarrassing errors. And besides, configuring everything from scratch, the user will learn something new.

Configuring appearance of Trinity desktop and applications

Most settings can be made in the Trinity Control Panel (TCC).

As the desktop wallpaper, Mini uses the background from the current GRUB theme: /boot/grub2/themes/pclinuxos/background.png. Updating the default PClinuxOS GRUB theme will therefore change the Mini wallpaper.

Trinity color schemes are stored in /opt/trinity/share/apps/tdedisplay/color-schemes. In the TCC select the Arc-Darkest scheme. Of course, one can modify the selected color scheme and save it under a new name. The color scheme file will be saved in the ~/.trinity/share/apps/tdedisplay/color-schemes directory.

Setting the icon theme in Trinity is a bit tricky. Trinity itself uses icons from the /opt/trinity/share/icons directory. When configuring the icon theme for the Trinity application and desktop, be sure to select an icon theme from this directory. They contain icons specific to this environment and not present in other icon themes, e.g. downloaded from the repository. Mini uses a theme based on the classic Crystalsvg, with some icons modified for a dark color scheme.

You can also look for interesting icons at https://www.trinity-look.org. Fun fact: most of KDE 3.5 icon sets, colors, themes etc match Trinity or only require minor modifications.

You can also adjust the size of the icons to your needs. Basic size modification can be done in TCC, e.g. changing the size of icons in toolbars, on the desktop, etc. In Mini, the change concerns the icons of the system tray, enlarged to 32 px to fit the wide bottom panel.

Additional fine-tuning of the icon size will be discussed later.

Since the original Arc-Dark theme is the KDE Plasma theme, Mini uses the QtCurve engine to mimic its appearance. QtCurve is highly customizable and the appearance configuration files are located in /opt/trinity/share/apps/QtCurve. In TCC set the QtCurve widget style. The "Configure..." button opens a dialog for selecting predefined styles. Choose Arc-Darkest, which one can also modify as needed and save it in the ~/.trinity/share/apps/QtCurve directory.

Mini uses the Crystal window decoration, which gives you a lot of configuration possibilities. The images below show the most important settings of this decoration. Users can, of course, choose others according to their taste.

The bottom panel in Mini has a height of 56 px, is not hidden and is transparent. The transparency settings are shown in the image below.

The size of panel icons, which cannot be changed in TCC, can be modified by editing the configuration file ~/.trinity/share/config/kdeglobals. This allows, for example, to adjust the size of the TDE Menu button icon to a wide panel.

[PanelIcons]
ActiveColor=invalid
ActiveColor2=invalid
ActiveEffect=togamma
ActiveSemiTransparent=false
ActiveValue=0.7
Animated=true
DefaultColor=144,128,248
DefaultColor2=0,0,0
DefaultEffect=none
DefaultSemiTransparent=false
DefaultValue=1
DisabledColor=34,202,0
DisabledColor2=0,0,0
DisabledEffect=togray
DisabledSemiTransparent=true
DisabledValue=1
DoublePixels=false
Size=48       <-- MODIFY !!!

In the TDE Menu, one can also change the size of the submenus/applications icons by editing the file ~/.trinity/share/config/kickerrc. However, be careful not to set the size too large. In general, a sensible maximum is 28 px.

[menus]
Extensions=prefmenu.desktop,recentdocs.desktop,systemmenu.desktop
MenuEntryFormat=NameOnly
MenuEntryHeight=28       <-- MODIFY !!!
RecentAppsStat=
RecentVsOften=true
UseBookmarks=false
UseBrowser=false

The taskbar in Mini is quite traditional. Application buttons are represented by an icon and text. In addition, thumbnail previews have been enabled.

You can also set the taskbar to show only application icons. Unfortunately, the default size of 32 px does not look good with wider panels. Trinity r14.1 introduced a long-awaited innovation - adjusting the size of taskbar icons. This can be done by modifying the ~/.trinity/share/config/ktaskbarrc file. Setting the size of the icons to, for example, 48 px brings a similar effect as in KDE Plasma.

[Appearance]
ActiveTaskTextColor=255,192,192
IconSize=48       <- MODIFY !!!
InactiveTaskTextColor=160,160,160
ShowThumbnails=true
ThumbnailMaxDimension=200
UseCustomColors=true

Also remember to change the color of the text in the file manager.

The theme of the mouse cursor - Xprience - was not chosen by chance. It comes from the old releases of PCLinuxOS KDE-3 and refers to the old windmill logo.

Although the Mini uses the GDM login manager, once Trinity is installed, it can easily be changed to its own TDM (Trinity Display Manager). To do this, run PCLinuxOS Control Center (drakconf) as root and select TDM in the Boot > Set up display manager section. After confirming, restart the system.

Then you can configure TDM. As an administrator (Administrator Mode button at the bottom), choose the language, visible users, style and colors, etc.

You can also use several ready-made TDM themes. Also as root (Administrator Mode button) choose one of them. More themes can be found at Trinity-Look.org. TDM themes are located in the /opt/trinity/share/apps/tdm/themes directory.

Configure the appearance of the GTK applications

Configuration of GTK styles in Trinity is difficult. There is no easy uniform setup mechanism like KDE Plasma has. Trinity and GTK-2/3/4 use their own settings files and need to be configured separately.

Trinity uses the simplest configurator, inherited from KDE-3. Settings include GTK-2 and GTK-3 style and font.

The result for GTK-2 is ~.gtkrc-2.0-kde-kde4 file, which is used exclusively by Trinity:

# This file was written by TDE
# You can edit it in the TDE control center, under "GTK Styles and Fonts"

include "/usr/share/themes/Arc-Darkest/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

"user-font" styles
{
font_name="Ubuntu 12"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"

gtk-theme-name="Arc-Darkest"
gtk-font-name="Ubuntu 12"

and ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini for GTK-3:

[Settings]
gtk-theme-name = Arc-Darkest
gtk-icon-theme-name = tdegtk-icon-theme
gtk-fallback-icon-theme = tdegtk-fallback-icon-theme

The proper tool for configuring the appearance of GTK-2 and GTK-3 applications is LXAppearance.

After starting, select the Arc-Darkest widget and the font that matches the one set in Trinity.

Icon themes for GTK applications are located in /usr/share/icons. Unlike the ones chosen for Trinity, they don't include TDE-specific icons (because they don't need them), but icons for GTK environments and applications. Mini uses the classic Crystalsvg theme, built specifically for this remaster and adapted to the dark theme.

LXAppearance sets the XPrience theme of the mouse cursor as the default for the entire user profile in ~/.icons/default/index.theme.

Font settings include anti-aliasing and hinting.

Other settings include the appearance of icons on toolbars. Selected settings: only icons, the same as on the buttons.

Configuring the appearance of the Qt5 application

The appearance of the Qt5 application is set using the Qt5 Settings (qt5ct) tool. To do this, the system variable QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct is required. In Mini, this is done by the bash script ~/.trinity/env/setenv.pclos.tde.sh for each user account. The contents of the script, including system variables, can be modified by each user separately according to their own needs.

After starting, you need to configure the style of the Qt application. As the Arc-Dark style is not natively available for Trinity, gtk2 should be selected.

Intriguingly, qt5ct also supports themes for the Qt Kvantum style manager, which has Arc-Dark as one of the available styles. Setting Arc-Dark in Kvantum and selecting the kvantum-dark style in qt5ct gives us the Qt Arc-Dark style.

Change also the color to custom Arc-Darkest. The Qt5ct colors are in the /usr/share/qt5ct/colors directory. In qt5ct you can modify colors and save your own in the ~/.config/qt5ct/colors directory.

In addition to setting the fonts, we can also configure their display on the screen.

Qt applications, like GTK ones, also need icons from the /usr/share/icons directory.

In the last tab we are interested in, we can configure visual effects: animations, toolbar style, etc.

That's all for now. I will come back to this at a later time to describe, for example, setting colors in Krusader, Kate, Kwrite, KDiff3, etc.

And since Mini doesn't clash with qt5ct, it's even possible to set a Qt theme for LibreOffice (works for me).

ICYMI: jzakiya Publishes First Paper

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Source: CDC

An investigational vaccine that contains the nucleoprotein of the influenza A virus appeared promising as a universal flu shot that could protect against multiple strains, regardless of annual mutations, a phase IIa dose-finding study showed, according to an article on MedPage Today.

Social media has an often undesirable side effect in the online world, with people increasingly losing their jobs or being canceled for social media posts (I personally know some people who have experienced this fallout). Well now, Elon Musk, owner of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has made a broad promise: that his company will fund the lawsuits of anyone who faces unfair treatment at work due to their activity on his platform, according to an article on Breitbart. Over the past ten years, it has become a common fear: that your activity on social media — a post, retweet, or even just a "like" can become weaponized by a mob, the media, or professional activists to torpedo your career. Now, Elon Musk is promising to fight back.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and other record labels sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records, according to an article from Reuters. The labels' lawsuit (PDF) filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive's "Great 78 Project" (we covered this collection in the February 2023 issue of The PCLinuxOS Magazine) functions as an "illegal record store" for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday. They named 2,749 sound-recording copyrights that the Archive allegedly infringed. The labels said their damages in the case could be as high as $412 million.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Google researcher Daniel Moghimi discovered a new vulnerability affecting millions of Intel chip models, according to an article from TechRepublic. The vulnerability, dubbed Downfall by Moghimi, enables an attacker to steal sensitive data from victims if exploited successfully. Mitigation is provided by Intel for affected hardware, which includes computing devices based on Intel Core processors from the 6th Skylake to the 11th Tiger Lake generation.

PCLinuxOS forum member jzakiya just published his first article in the Journal of Current Trends in Computer Science Research (JCTCSR). His article (PDF), Twin Primes Segmented Sieve of Zakiys (SSoZ) Explained, was completed with his PCLinuxOS installation. According to jzakiya, "it's actually an easy paper to read (written on purpose for that). It requires no knowledge of calculus, or higher order math, in order to understand it. All you need to have is an understanding of English, basic logical thinking, and a curiosity to learn something new!"

Could the dreaded and feared "AI Run Amok" string of events have actually commenced? Microsoft has taken down a series of travel articles that were created using a combination of AI-assisted "algorithmic techniques" and human review, following criticism for their bizarre and offensive content, according to an article on Breitbart. Another article on Business Insider found that the AI-generated content also included a visit to the Ottawa (Canada) food bank, and it best be visited on an "empty stomach." Yet another article on where to find an "old fashioned hamburger" included a recommendation to visit McDonalds in Montreal (NOT an "old fashioned hamburger," for what it's worth). The AI-generated articles have since been taken offline.

Source: NASA

How many people does it take to start a colony on Mars? Scientists estimate just two dozen pleasant people could be the minimum number of astronauts it could take to build an otherworldly residence, according to an article on Gizmodo. "Neurotic" individuals need not apply (and, as Scooby Doo says, "rotsa ruck" sorting THAT out!).

The Atari 2600 — the console that shook the world in the late 70s and early 80s — is back, according to an article on Forbes. Atari, in partnership with PLAION, has today unveiled a "modern-day, faithful recreation" of the console that both dominated the North American market and led to the video game crash of 1983. The remake, which takes its visual inspiration from the four-switch CX2600-A model from 1980, will launch worldwide on November 17 and is now available to pre-order for $129.99 (€119.99/£99.99). Purists are thoroughly catered to, thanks to the inclusion of the Atari 2600+'s CX40+, "recreated with the same size and layout as the original 2600 Joystick Controller for that added touch of nostalgia." To further push the spirit of the original Atari 2600, it's also backward compatible with both 2600 and 7800 games.

ElevenLabs new Multilingual v2 model promises it can produce "emotionally rich" audio in a total of 30 languages, according to an article on Gizmodo. The company offers two AI voice tools. One is a text-to-speech model, and the other is the "VoiceLab" that lets paying users clone a voice by inputting fragments of theirs (or others) speech into the model to create a kind of voice cone. With the v2 model, users can get these generated voices to start speaking in Greek, Malay, or Turkish. The ElevenLabs platform has seen its share of controversy after it launched last year. The company's initial beta platform saw 4Chan users abusing its systems to impersonate celebrities, forcing them to say racist, misogynistic, and transphobic scripts. It was also used by AI evangelists to attack voice actors who complained about the widespread use of voice cloning tech. Since then, ElevenLabs claims its integrated new measures to ensure users can only clone their own voice. Users need to verify their speech with a text captcha prompt which is then compared to the original voice sample.

Image by DrSJS from Pixabay

Do you feel that AI, spam and hacking are ruining the Internet as we know it? You're not alone. An article on Business Insider explores that very premise ... and is in complete agreement with you.

After over a decade of research and experimentation, scientists have finally managed to reconstruct a piece of music from brain waves recorded while someone was listening to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 1," and the recording of the brain wave extraction is absolutely horrifying, according to an article from BGR. The researchers detailed their findings in the journal PLOS. According to a press release on the subject, the researchers used AI to help reconstruct the brain waves and turn them into the audio recording that you can find in the video we've embedded below. The sound itself is a little terrifying, to say the least, though it does help scientists better understand how our brain processes these noises.

A recent Reddit thread that has gone viral chronicling an HOA that has banned e-bikes and all electric vehicles. The person who wrote the original post explained that they were using an e-board (electric skateboard) when they were approached by the HOA vice president, according to an article on Bicycling. Soon after the board met and decided to ban "Electric Bikes, Electric Scooters, or any other comparable battery-powered devices" citing the "potential hazards" of the vehicles. The letter to the residents from the HOA said that electric vehicles such as e-bikes could not be anywhere on the property, and made reference to several other residential properties implementing similar bans. The letter made clear that the ban was to go into effect immediately.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Scientists at Stanford University have designed a new paint that could help reduce our growing reliance on air conditioners and heaters, according to an article on Science Alert. It comes in an array of colors, and if used properly, it could seriously slash electricity bills and emissions.

30 years after it was developed, Windows 11 will (later this year) FINALLY get native support for RAR, 7Z, and TAR file compression, according to an article on NeoWin. The "native support" has limitations, and appears by early reports to be quite slow. For example, Win11's native support will not handle password encrypted RAR files. It looks like there will still be plenty of need for the "other" archive compressor/decompressor programs that have been prevalent for managing archive files under Windows.

GTA6 hacker Arion Kurtaj (16 years old) used an Amazon Fire Stick to break into the Rockstar Games database, according to an article on GameRant. Even more unbelievable is that the attack itself was carried out in a hotel room in England, where the City of London police were holding him after hacking into Nvidia. While being detained, Kurtaj was unable to go online using any traditional means, so he used the Amazon Fire Stick that was connected to the TV in the hotel room for online access. He then got his hands on a keyboard, mouse, and a smartphone to pull off one of the most damaging leaks in video game history. An article on the BBC website further details his hacking exploits.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

If you're even a little worried about the amount of your personal data harvested on mobile platforms, you need to read this article from The Daily Mail. From where you go to what you say to Siri and Google Assistant, most smartphone apps collect your data continuously. Companies then sell this data to advertising companies, hence why it can sometimes feel like you are recommended ads about products you mentioned in passing once. Data privacy advocate Gaël Duval said that, thankfully, it's possible to change settings so this doesn't happen. Of course, it doesn't hurt to restart your mobile device daily, as well, which can also help bolster security for your personal data.

We previously reported on how Gen Z'ers and Millennials are ditching smartphones in favor of the ubiquitous flip phones, often characterized as "dumb phones." Well, it appears that this may not be a "passing fad," according to an article from ZDNet. It certainly helps minimize screen time and the constant stream of social media notifications. If you're considering joining the "devolution" back to "dumb phones," you might want to check out this article from BoingBoing. Be forewarned, however, that if you choose this route, you may suffer like the people profiled in this article on The Guardian about people excluded or penalized for NOT being a part of the "digital revolution."

In Surrey County England, there are 110 homes enrolled in a prototype endeavor by startup Heata to use the "waste" heat generated by computer servers to provide hot water for homes in Godalming, England. According to the article on MIT Technology Review, a server is placed in the homes of enrolled participants, and the "waste" heat from those servers is used to provide hot water to those homes.

Overview Of The New PCLinuxOS "mylive-install" Installer

by David Pardue (kalwisti)

Texstar wrote in his 2023.07 release announcement that the new "mylive-install" installer has replaced the previous "draklive-install" which seasoned PCLinuxOS users are familiar with.

Texstar also noted the following information in his announcement:

User configuration now starts with user/group 1000/1000 instead of 500/500.

Time is now set to GMT.

Some adjustments may be required if you have multiple PCLinuxOS installs.

There may be a couple of bugs to work out since the installer is new to PCLinuxOS.

I would like to mention two more points which have been discussed recently in the PCLinuxOS User Forum:

If you have kept your existing installation updated, then you do not need to use the "mylive-install" installer because you already have the current version of PCLinuxOS (as it is a rolling release). The new 2023.07.iso images were provided for the case when a new installation becomes necessary. Texstar regularly provides updated .iso's, so that users do not have to download massive updates to perform afterward.

The "mylive-install" installer only runs from a live environment. It will not run in any installed environment. Therefore the installer is a one-off tool; once it has successfully installed your new PCLinuxOS system, you no longer need "mylive-install." unless you plan to remaster or take snapshots of your installation with mylivcd.

The new installer is essentially the 17g installer, which is itself a fork of the Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) installer. It is similar to Calamares but built with Python and GTK to be lighter and require fewer dependencies. Calamares is a customizable, distro-agnostic, graphical system installer for Linux. Calamares is used by EndeavourOS, Manjaro, the Live medium of Debian, Q4OS, Peppermint OS, Lubuntu and other distributions. The installer was a joint effort between Upgreyed, Texstar and TerryN, who helped fix various bugs. (Thanks to TerryN for this technical background.)

Not only has the installer's appearance changed to look more modern, but the sequence of steps is different from what we are accustomed to. I decided to create this brief tutorial which provides an illustrated overview of the new "mylive-install" installer. I hope that it will simplify the process and spare you some surprises.

(The screenshots were taken in an Oracle VirtualBox 7.0 session, running PCLinuxOS KDE Darkstar 2023.07. I was not able to capture screenshots of every possible variation; however, the procedure's major steps are covered).

As the first step, click on the Install Me desktop icon in your Live session:

Welcome Screen

You will be greeted by the installer's Welcome screen. Click on its Next button to proceed.

Language

Select your country and the language you wish to use. Then, click on the Next button.

In this case, Language refers to what language will be used by the installer - not the language of the final, installed OS.

The installed language will be English. So, if you wish to add a non-English language to your system, you must still use Pinoc's addlocale script after your initial installation has finished.

[Pinoc updated all the addlocale language archives in November 2022]

Keyboard Layout

Choose your keyboard layout, then press Next to continue.

Time Zone

Indicate your location and time zone. Then, click on the Next button.

As an alternative to clicking your location on the world map, you may also click on the Continent button itself and/or the City button, to list the available choices.

Disk Layout

At the partitioning stage, you have several different options:

You can do an Automated Installation (aka unattended installation).

You can manually partition, if you wish.

There is also the option of Install system with updates, if you are installing with an active Internet connection (Ethernet or Wi-Fi). It is currently recommended that you not select this option because some users have reported in the PCLinuxOS Forum that this significantly lengthens the installation process. The default repository mirror is NLUUG (in The Netherlands), so depending on your location, that may result in a slower download speed.

Automated Installation

If you choose this option but leave the Create swap partition unchecked/deselected, the installer does not create a swap partition automatically.

If you wish to do an Automated Installation and need — or want — a swap partition, make sure to check/select the Create swap partition option and indicate its desired size in GB. If you need advice on the amount of swap space to allocate, Abhishek Prakash's article "How Much Swap Should You Use in Linux?" (ITSFOSS, 6 Jun. 2021) has reasonable guidelines. His guidelines assume that you are using an SSD.

I should also mention that an Automated Installation will not create a separate /home partition. The installer will create one large root (/) partition.

Manual Partitioning

If you select manual partitioning, you will see something like this window:

It is beyond the scope of this article to include a tutorial on manual partitioning. I would have to oversimplify the topic because there are so many possibilities/variations. If you opt for manual partitioning, I assume that you already have a partitioning scheme in mind. However, one technique that has worked well for me, is to create my target partitions beforehand via GParted in a Live USB session. With that approach, when I reach the installer's Partitioning stage, I only have to worry about specifying the appropriate mount points for the root partition (/), /home and swap.

I recommend that you watch monbureaulinux's excellent video on the new installer. He demonstrates the manual partitioning process. It is 12 minutes long, is well worth your time, and is easier than wading through a multitude of my screenshots.

His original French-language version of the video — which also clearly demonstrates the manual partitioning process in more detail — is available here. The segment on manual partitioning runs from 16:58 - 19:31.

Based on my experiments with this installer module, I can offer these three tips:

My preferred method to assign mount points and file format type is to double-click on your selected partition. It is also possible to do this by right-clicking on the partition.

Make sure to carefully inspect the "Format as" column of the display. (I overlooked it twice while I was attempting test installs).

If your computer has UEFI firmware and you are installing in UEFI mode, remember that the /boot/efi partition must be formatted as file type "vfat", "fat16" or "fat32"..

When you finish setting up your partitions, click on the Next button.

The installer will display a warning that all data on your drive will be deleted soon. It will ask you to confirm whether you want to format the partition(s).

Note: Answering "Yes" does not yet trigger installing the OS to disk. We will reach that stage in a few minutes.

Create User Account

Clicking the Next button takes you to the step of creating your user account. Type in the requested information, then press the Next button to continue.

The following substep is somewhat confusing — in my opinion — because it is quite different from the old draklive-install procedure, which involved setting the root password separately.

You will see this dialog advising you that your username password will be (temporarily) used as the root password. Don't panic, though ... you can easily create a "true" root password after the installation finishes.

Summary Screen

The installer now displays a Summary screen which gives you the opportunity of checking that all information entered is correct before you commit to the actual installation.

If you are satisfied the Summary instructions are correct, then click on the Install button.

Installation

At this point, the mylive-install installer will begin copying PCLinuxOS to your SSD or hard drive. Based on my experience installing KDE Darkstar 2023.07 and Xfce 2023.07 to an SSD, the process was noticeably faster than with the old draklive-install.

As the installation proceeds, a message displays at the bottom of the screen: "Please do not turn off your computer during the installation process."

The closing stages of the process will be: "Install the bootloader" and "Check the bootloader ..."

When the installation finishes, a confirmation message will display.

Click the "Yes" button to restart your computer into the freshly installed PCLinuxOS.

The message prompting you to remove the installation medium no longer appears. So be sure to remove your USB device before the machine reboots.

Post-Installation: Configure Your Root Password

When you boot into your new system, it is recommended that you first configure a personal root password (so that you won't forget about this step). A simple GUI-based tool called "myrootpassword" helps accomplish this task.

Go to the Configuration menu > Configure your Root password. The menu item on the KDE Plasma:

The menu item on Mate 2023.07:

The menu item on Xfce 2023.07:

Type the current root password. Then, you will see this dialog:

Follow the instructions and click on the OK button.

You will see a confirmation dialog. Click the OK button, and you're done.

Good luck and enjoy PCLinuxOS!

PCLinuxOS Forum Family & Friends: Meemaw

How old are you?
I just turned 74 in August, 2023.

What is your marital status?
I am a widow. My husband suffered from ALS and passed away in 2020. I have 50 years of wonderful memories, though, and I'm thankful for that.

Do you have any children or grandchildren? If so, how many of each?
I have 2 daughters, 3 grandchildren (2 girls and a boy, all grown), and a beautiful great granddaughter, just recently born. I also have a son-in-law who gave me two step-grandsons and 5 great grandkids when he married into the family.

Do you have pets, what is your favorite?
I love dogs, but I don't have one of my own. I'm content to love my daughter's pets.

Are you retired or working, and for how long and at what?
I'm working in an office, three days a week. I might retire one of these days.

Where do you call home? What is it like? IE: weather, scenery
I live in Southeast Kansas, in the central US. I'm in a rural area so much of the land has crops. It's been hotter than normal and we're still in a drought, but I had a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago. Most of the trees are green at the moment, and crops are being harvested. We're hoping for lots more rain soon to fill up the farm ponds so the cattle will have something to drink now and this winter.

Where did you go to school and what is your education level?
I went to high school in a suburb of Kansas City, and attended two different colleges in Kansas, one to get my Bachelor's degree in Education, and one to get my Master's degree in Special Education. I taught school for about 20 years before I became a secretary. I've been at my present job for 27 years.

What kind of things do you like doing? hobbies, travel, fishing, camping?
I love to read, and of course helping with the PCLinuxOS Magazine! I do a fair job at some computer graphics, and I'm trying to learn more about photography. Our family loves to go to the mountains together and ride ATV's. I did a little fishing and camping when I was younger, but not any more.

What caused you to try Linux and join this forum?
I've told this story before! I had trouble with my desktop computer back in 2004 while my older brother was visiting. After trying to restore it and failing, I had given up and intended to take it somewhere to be reinstalled. My brother said, "Why aren't you using Linux?" He proceeded to tell me all about Linux, which he was using. From there, I spent a couple of years researching and downloading live CD's to try, until I found PCLinuxOS. I loved it so much, I put it on my computer and never looked back. In those days, I even had to configure my wireless card using the terminal, which I had never used. Somehow, I figured it out.

What specific equipment do you currently use with PCLinuxOS?
I have an old Dell desktop, but I don't use it much anymore. I also have 3 fairly new laptops (2 Lenovos and 1 Dell) that all have PCLinuxOS on them, all completely updated.

Do you feel that your use of Linux influences the reactions you receive from your computer peers or family? If so, how?
Well, my family used to look at me weird when I mentioned Linux, but they don't any more. My coworkers think I know everything about computers! They are wrong, but I can usually help them with minor problems or help them use one of their programs for something they don't do all the time.

What would you like to see happen within PCLinuxOS that would make it a better place. What are your feelings?
I love how things are running now, and I hope we all continue to be a happy family.

If you want, send some pictures of you and your area of interest.
The bike path in my town and one of the mountains in Colorado we ride on.

Locke Mountain, outside Westcliffe, CO

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus:

Butter Pecan Praline Poke Cake

Serves 12

INGREDIENTS:

1 (15oz) box butter pecan cake mix
1 (16oz) can coconut pecan frosting
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped pecans

FOR THE SAUCE:

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

In a large bowl, add the cake mix, coconut frosting, eggs, oil, and milk. Beat the mixture with a mixer until well blended.

Stir in pecans and pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 30-40 minutes

Remove the cake from the oven, and using the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes all over the cake. Set aside while you work on the sauce.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add condensed milk and stir well.

Bring to a simmer, then stir in the chopped pecans. Remove from heat and pour the sauce slowly over the cake, letting it run down into the holes and down the sides.

Let the cake cool before slicing and serving.

TIPS:

Can be stored for several days refrigerated. For best taste, serve at room temperature or heat individual servings in the microwave for 10-15 seconds.

Serve with a scoop of Vanilla or French Vanilla ice cream, and cup of hot fresh coffee.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 374         Carbs: 51g         Sodium: 288mg         Fiber: 1g         Protein: 5g

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Scrappler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Crossword

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

WordFind

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Mixed Up meme Scrambler

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Screenshot Showcase

Posted by Alli, Aug 18, 2023, running Trinity

Posted by astronaut, Aug 4, 2023, running Openbox

Posted by bones113, Aug 7, 2023, running Xfce

Posted by brisvegas, Aug 1, 2023, running Mate

Posted by cH1.@R3, Aug 1, 2023, running KDE

Posted by francesco_bat, Aug 5, 2023, running IceWM

Posted by Meemaw, Aug 9, 2023, running Xfce

Posted by parnote, Aug 22, 2023, running Xfce

Posted by tbs, Aug 1, 2023, running KDE

Posted by tuxlink, Aug 8, 2023, running KDE

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