Looks like a number of patches are landing in Ubuntu to address this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/2082335

Update: CUPS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Fix Available

This is a great summary. Thanks!

It looks like you are running XFCE instead of GNOME (the normal Ubuntu desktop). I’m not sure how that happened… but you an always just install another desktop.

For instance, you can try to make sure you have the ubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop-minimal metapackage installed:

sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop-minimal

After that, the login manager should allow you to select the Ubuntu session rather than the XFCE one.

Still using mutt after two decades (with isync for fetching).

I wrote a Python script to parse the data and convert into RGB values. Here are the light mode values:

            blue 00496c
             red a0252b
           green 3b6e43
          yellow 966800
    bright_green 00572c
      bright_red 880418
   bright_orange 782c00
   ext_warm_grey 9b8e8a
      ext_orange fab86c
      ext_yellow f6e062
        ext_blue 6acad8
      ext_purple d48cff
        ext_pink ff9bdd
      ext_indigo 95c4fc
     accent_blue 00525a
      accent_red 78292e
    accent_green 185529
accent_warm_grey 554742
   accent_orange 624000
   accent_yellow 534800
   accent_purple 68217b
     accent_pink 860439
   accent_indigo 2e496c

Here are the dark mode values:

            blue 94ebeb
             red ffb5b5
           green abf6d1
          yellow fff19e
    bright_green 5edb8c
      bright_red ffa090
   bright_orange ffa37d
   ext_warm_grey 9b8e8a
      ext_orange ffad00
      ext_yellow fddb40
        ext_blue 48b9c7
      ext_purple ce7dff
        ext_pink f93983
      ext_indigo 3e88ff
     accent_blue 63d0de
      accent_red fca1a0
    accent_green 92ce9b
accent_warm_grey cabab4
   accent_orange ffad00
   accent_yellow f6e062
   accent_purple e79bfd
     accent_pink ff9bb1
   accent_indigo a1c0eb

They have the RGB values as decimals in the light.ron and dark.ron files here: https://github.com/pop-os/libcosmic/blob/master/cosmic-theme/src/model/

You would need to convert the numbers to hexadecimal manually.

Yes, based on the diagrams on their blog, it looks like this only impacts Snaps.

From the Discourse Blog:

The Linux desktop provides XDG Desktop Portals as a standardised way for applications to access resources that are outside of the sandbox. Applications that have been updated to use XDG Desktop Portals will continue to use them. Prompting is not intended to replace XDG Desktop Portals but to complement them by providing the desktop an alternative way to ask the user for permission. Either when an application has not been updated to use XDG Desktop Portals, or when it makes access requests not covered by XDG Desktop Portals.

Since prompting works at the syscall level, it does not require an application’s awareness or cooperation to work and extends the set of applications that can be run inside of a sandbox, allowing for a safer desktop. It is designed to enable desktop applications to take full advantage of snap packaging that might otherwise require classic confinement.

So this looks like it complements and not replaces the XDG Desktop Portals, especially for applications that have not implemented the Portals. It allows you to still run those applications in confinement while providing some more granular access controls.

I used to use VLC for music, but these days I use Symphony to play local files on my phone. VLC tended to struggle when scanning or indexing large folders (which it did all the time…), while Symphony is a bit better at that. That said, I still use VLC for video and for casting things from my DLNA server (VLC supports Chromecast).

For ebooks, I’ve used Librera FD and that has been mostly OK. I’ll checkout the two you mentioned though. Thanks!

On Ubuntu, there is a program called “Firmware Updater” which uses LVFS to retrieve and install firmware updates (including BIOS/UEFI).

According to this page: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/com.lenovo.ThinkPadN23ETXXW.firmware your Carbon X1 Gen 6 should be supported.

I think you meant Pop!_OS (is developed by System76). TuxedoOS is developed by Tuxedo Computers, which is a European Linux focused hardware company.

That said, the point stands… there are hardware companies making Linux supported devices.

The default “App Center” does not support flatpaks (only snaps). However, if you install the GNOME software center with the suggested dependencies:

$ sudo apt install --install-suggests gnome-software

Then you will be able to install flatpaks, debs, and snaps.

What is this article How to install the Rust Cosmic Desktop environment on Pop!_OS?

Either, if you want to use the new COSMIC login screen, you can install the cosmic-greeter package:

sudo apt install cosmic-greeter

Once that is installed, you should be able to switch back and forth between cosmic-greeter and gdm3 with:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3

and selecting whichever login manager you wish to use.

I think the WINE project was maintaining a fork of Mono that was used to support running certain Windows applications:

https://wiki.winehq.org/Mono

So in addition to translating traditional WIN32 system calls, WINE also supports .NET applications, which a number of Windows programs require.

Coincidentally, I received a firmware (EFI) update from Dell today via LVFS. Really nice that it works so smoothly on native Linux (no more manually downloading firmware to USB drives, or relying on Windows).

This reddit post seems relevant. A user mentions:

I found out that only the containers having these kind of networking problems where all running the container in “host” networking mode.https://docs.docker.com/network/drivers/

Since I don’t need host mode, I can just comment that line out, and it will start using the standard Bridge (which will be used by default if you don’t specify any networking settings for your containers)

This is running under docker as you had in your initial configuration.

Another reddit post mentions setting the gateway and DNS server if you have a static IP:

It turned out to be nothing to do with Plex but rather was the fact that there was missing information on my static IP setup. Once I added in the gateway and DNS information those extraneous messages went away.

I’m not sure if that will help, but it’s perhaps something you could consider as you debug this issue. Good luck.

The reasons for this shift in budget away from funding Free Software and the NGI initiative seems to be an allocation of more funds for AI, leaving internet infrastructure by the wayside. Meanwhile, the EC has thus far declined to comment to share its official reasoning for striking this funding from its budget.

Sigh. It appears that they are chasing after the latest “shiny” thing instead of investing in existing infrastructure. Not surprising, but disappointing.

+1 For xournal++. That is what I usually use for annotating slides and drawing with my wacom tablet.

I agree that the amount of work for many students can get quite out of hand and to be honest when I first started teaching, I was pretty guilty of having very work intensive courses.

That said, over the years, I’ve worked to streamline my courses to only have what I believe to be absolutely critical to learning and have added a lot of scaffolding and automated tests (for immediate results). In general, I try to have no busy work and make sure everything assignment is meaningful (as much as it can be anyway).

Additionally, because I understand that sometimes life happens, I have built-in facilities for automate extensions for assignments and even have a system for dropping certain homeworks.

This not to say that there isn’t work in my classes… it’s just that the work is intended to be relevant and reasonable, which most students seem to agree with these days.

I think students should be expected to work less over a longer period of time.

I think this would be a great idea. Or rather, I think it would be great to allow students to learn at different rates… some may want to go faster, some may want or need to go slower.

I think the modern course-based education system is often too rigid and not flexible enough to adequately accommodate the needs of students with different experience levels, resources, or constraints. Something like a Montessori model would be a lot better IMHO.

First off, 10 is an integer square root. Of 100.

Right, what I was trying to say is that 10 itself is not a perfect square. You cannot take the square root of 10 and get an integer (ie. 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, etc.).

I was told by multiple English teachers (including the head of the department) that I was a math student and should never attempt to write because I saw through the regurgitation assignments, didn’t agree with teacher assessments of what Dickens “was trying to do” and had zero interest in confirming their biases.

I think that is unfortunate and probably inappropriate. I try to avoid classifying students as particular types and generally try to encourage them whenever possible to pursue whatever their interests are (even if I disagree or don’t have the same interest myself).

College coursework on the whole is a waste of time reinventing wheels. I don’t need to spend a couple of weeks working up to “Hello, world!” in C and as such left CS as a major my first quarter at uni.

There is a reason for reinventing wheels; it is to understand why they are round and why they are so effective. To build the future, it helps to understand the past.

That said, perhaps the course was too slow for you, which is understandable… I frequently hear that about various classes (including ones I’ve taught).

But teachers do this shit every day, year after year, and we blindly say they’re doing important work even as they discourage people from finding their path and voice, because god forbid a 16-year-old challenges someone in their 50s.

Again, I think you’ve had an unfortunate experience and I think it’s a good thing to challenge your teachers. I certainly did when I was a student and I appreciate it now when students do that with me. I recognize that I am not perfect nor do I know everything. I make mistakes and can be wrong.

I wish you had a more supportive environment in secondary school and I have a better understanding of your perspective. Thanks for the dialogue.