today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 18, 2025

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Late Night Linux – Episode 325

    Tracking WiFi devices with cheap ESP32 devices, using OSM and Surveillance Giant Google Maps together, deleting your Ex-Twitter data, “3D” images with any camera, forcing Ubuntu to give you all the available updates, efficiently importing photos, counting lines of code, and more.

• Applications

  • TecMint ☛ Redo Rescue: A Free and Easy Backup & Recovery Solution

    Whether you’re using Linux or Windows, Redo Rescue supports bare-metal restores, meaning you can fully recover your system even if your hard drive fails or gets corrupted within minutes.

  • Barry Kauler ☛ EasyAPT launch from menu

    I posted about EasyAPT, a simple substitute for the Debian APT 'apt' CLI utility: [...]

Distributions and Operating Systems

• Remy Van Elst ☛ After 47 years, OpenVMS gets a package manager (VSP)!

  As of the 18th of February, OpenVMS, known for its stability and high-availability, 47 years old and ported to 4 different CPU architecture, has a package manager! This article shows you how to use the package manager and talks about a few of its quirks. It's an early beta version, and you do notice that when using it. A small list of things I noticed, coming from a Linux (apt/yum/dnf) background: There seems to be no automatic dependency resolution and the dependencies it does list are incomplete. No update management yet, no removal of packages and no support for your own package repository, only the VSI official one. Service startup or login script changes are not done automatically. Packages with multiple installer files fail and require manual intervention. It does correctly identify the architectures, has search support and makes it way easier to install software. The time saved by downloading, manually copying and starting installation is huge, so even this early beta is a very welcome addition to OpenVMS.

• Best GNU/Linux Distributions to Use in 2025

  Linux has continued to evolve as a powerful, open-source operating system that caters to a wide range of users, from enterprises to home users, developers, gamers, and privacy enthusiasts. However, with hundreds of GNU/Linux distributions (distros) available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

• Ubuntu Handbook ☛ The Graphics Drivers PPA updated with NVIDIA 570 for Ubuntu / Linux Mint

  For users who want to try out the new NVIDIA 570.124.04 driver, the Graphics Drivers Team PPA finally updated with the packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 24.10, and Ubuntu 25.04. NVIDIA 570.124.04 is the latest production branch driver for Linux, which was released in last month.

• Ubuntu News ☛ Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 883

  Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 883 for the week of March 9 – 15, 2025. The full version of this issue is available here.

• Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • Open Source For U ☛ Top Tools for DevOps, Cybersecurity, and Cloud Management in 2025

    In 2025, organisations will continue to rely on open source tools to retain a competitive edge. We look at why the best tools for DevOps, cybersecurity and cloud management will remain relevant and how best to integrate them into your organisation.

  • Software Freedom Conservancy ☛ Liblouis Joins Software Freedom Conservancy

    A news item from Software Freedom Conservancy.

    Essential Tool for Visually Impaired Users Establishes Nonprofit Home

  • Open Data

    • Dan Snow ☛ OpenTimes: Free travel times between U.S. Census geographies

      Today I’m launching OpenTimes, a free database of pre-computed, point-to-point travel times between major U.S. Census geographies. In addition to letting you visualize travel isochrones, OpenTimes also lets you download massive amounts of travel time data for free and with no limits. Visit the dedicated about page to learn more about the project.