We will be moving services and applications from our IAD2 datacenter to a new RDU3 one.
End user services such as: docs, mirrorlists, dns, pagure.io, torrent, fedorapeople, fedoraproject.org website, and tier0 download server will be unaffected and should continue to work normally through the outage window.
Other services …
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Darran Shen (@darranshen) | Unsplash
My employment as a research and teaching assistant at Faculty of Informatics and Digital Technologies (FIDIT for short), University of Rijeka (UniRi) ended last month with the expiration of the time-limited contract I had. This moment has marked almost two full years I spent in this institution and I think this is a good time to take a look back at everything that happened during that time. Inspired by the recent posts by the PI of my group, I decided to write my perspective on the time that I hope is just the beginning of my academic career.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Jahanzeb Ahsan (@jahan_photobox) | Unsplash
This month we had Alumni Meeting 2023 at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, or HITS for short. I was very glad to attend this whole-day event and reconnect with my former colleagues as well as researchers currently working in the area of computational biochemistry at HITS. After all, this is the place and the institution where I worked for more than half of my time as a postdoc, where I started regularly contributing code to GROMACS molecular dynamics simulator, and published some of my best papers.
Photo source: Santeri Liukkonen (@iamsanteri) | Unsplash
Tough question, and the one that has been asked and answered over and over. The simplest answer is, of course, it depends on many factors.
As I started blogging at the end of my journey as a doctoral student, the topic of how I selected the field and ultimately decided to enroll in the postgraduate studies never really came up. In the following paragraphs, I will give a personal perspective on my Ph.D. endeavor. Just like other perspectives from doctors of not that kind, it is specific to the person in the situation, but parts of it might apply more broadly.
Photo source: Tim Mossholder (@ctimmossholder) | Unsplash
I sometimes joke with my TA Milan Petrović that his usage of RAR does not imply that he will be driving a rari. After all, he is not Devito rapping^Wsinging Uh 😤. Jokes aside, if you search for "should I use RAR" or a similar phrase on your favorite search engine, you'll see articles like 2007 Don't Use ZIP, Use RAR and 2011 Why RAR Is Better Than ZIP & The Best RAR Software Available.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Eugenio Mazzone (@eugi1492) | Unsplash
Back in summer 2017. I wrote an article explaining why we used Sphinx and reStructuredText to produce teaching materials and not a wiki. In addition to recommending Sphinx as the solution to use, it was general praise for generating static HTML files from Markdown or reStructuredText.
This summer I made the conversion of teaching materials from reStructuredText to Markdown. Unfortunately, the automated conversion using Pandoc didn't quite produce the result I wanted so I ended up cooking my own Python script that converted the specific dialect of reStructuredText that was used for writing the contents of the group website and fixing a myriad of inconsistencies in the writing style that accumulated over the years.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Tuva Mathilde Løland (@tuvaloland) | Unsplash
Post theme song: Mirror mirror by Blind Guardian
A mirror is a local copy of a website that's used to speed up access for the users residing in the area geographically close to it and reduce the load on the original website. Content distribution networks (CDNs), which are a newer concept and perhaps more familiar to younger readers, serve the same purpose, but do it in a way that's transparent to the user; when using a mirror, the user will see explicitly which mirror is being used because the domain will be different from the original website, while, in case of CDNs, the domain will remain the same, and the DNS resolution (which is invisible to the user) will select a different server.
Free and open-source software was distributed via (FTP) mirrors, usually residing in the universities, basically since its inception. The story of Linux mentions a directory on ftp.funet.fi (FUNET is the Finnish University and Research Network) where Linus Torvalds uploaded the sources, which was soon after mirrored by Ted Ts'o on MIT's FTP server. The GNU Project's history contains an analogous process of making local copies of the software for faster downloading, which was especially important in the times of pre-broadband Internet, and it continues today.
Photo source: Vincent van Zalinge (@vincentvanzalinge) | Unsplash
The last day of July happened to be the day that Domagoj Margan, a former student teaching assistant and a great friend of mine, set up his own DigitalOcean droplet running a web server and serving his professional website on his own domain domargan.net. For a few years, I was helping him by providing space on the server I owned and maintained, and I was always glad to do so. Let me explain why.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Patrick Tomasso (@impatrickt) | Unsplash
Yesterday I was asked by Edvin Močibob, a friend and a former student teaching assistant of mine, the following question:
You seem to be using Sphinx for your teaching materials, right? As far as I can see, it doesn't have an online WYSIWYG editor. I would be interested in comparison of your solution with e.g. MediaWiki.
While the advantages and the disadvantages of static site generators, when compared to content management systems, have been written about and discussed already, I will outline our reasons for the choice of Sphinx below. Many of the points have probably already been presented elsewhere.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Arkadiusz Gąsiorowski (@ambuscade) | Unsplash
Inf2 is a web server at University of Rijeka Department of Informatics, hosting Sphinx-produced static HTML course materials (mirrored elsewhere), some big files, a WordPress instance (archived elsewhere), and an internal instance of Moodle.
HTTPS was enabled on inf2 for a long time, albeit using a self-signed certificate. However, with Let's Encrpyt coming into public beta, we decided to join the movement to HTTPS.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Elena Mozhvilo (@miracleday) | Unsplash
Hobbyists, activists, geeks, designers, engineers, etc have always tinkered with technologies for their purposes (in early personal computing, for example). And social activists have long advocated the power of giving tools to people. An open hardware movement driven by these restless innovators is creating ingenious versions of all sorts of technologies, and freely sharing the know-how through the Internet and more recently through social media. Open-source software and more recently hardware is also encroaching upon centers of manufacturing and can empower serious business opportunities and projects.
The free software movement is cited as both an inspiration and a model for open hardware. Free software practices have transformed our culture by making it easier for people to become involved in producing things from magazines to music, movies to games, communities to services. With advances in digital fabrication making it easier to manipulate materials, some now anticipate an analogous opening up of manufacturing to mass participation.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Giammarco Boscaro (@giamboscaro) | Unsplash
Today I vaguely remembered there was one occasion in 2006 or 2007 when some guy from the academia doing something with Java and Unicode posted on some mailing list related to the free and open-source software about a tool he was developing. What made it interesting was that the tool was open source, and he filed a patent on the algorithm.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Álvaro Serrano (@alvaroserrano) | Unsplash
!!! info Reposted from Free to Know: Open access & open source, originally posted by STEMI education on Medium.
In June 2014, Elon Musk opened up all Tesla patents. In a blog post announcing this, he wrote that patents "serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors." In other words, he joined those who believe that free knowledge is the prerequisite for a great society -- that it is the vibrancy of the educated masses that can make us capable of handling the strange problems our world is made of.
The movements that promote and cultivate this vibrancy are probably most frequently associated with terms "Open access" and "open source". In order to learn more about them, we Q&A-ed Vedran Miletić, the Rocker of Science -- researcher, developer and teacher, currently working in computational chemistry, and a free and open source software contributor and activist. You can read more of his thoughts on free software and related themes on his great blog, Nudged Elastic Band. We hope you will join him, us, and Elon Musk in promoting free knowledge, cooperation and education.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Patrick Bellot (@pbellot) | Unsplash
This week Microsoft released Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK) on GitHub, after open sourcing Edge's JavaScript engine last month and a whole bunch of projects before that.
Even though the open sourcing of a bunch of their software is a very nice move from Microsoft, I am still not convinced that they have changed to the core. I am sure there are parts of the company who believe that free and open source is the way to go, but it still looks like a change just on the periphery.
All the projects they have open-sourced so far are not the core of their business. Their latest version of Windows is no more friendly to alternative operating systems than any version of Windows before it, and one could argue it is even less friendly due to more Secure Boot restrictions. Using Office still basically requires you to use Microsoft's formats and, in turn, accept their vendor lock-in.
Put simply, I think all the projects Microsoft has opened up so far are a nice start, but they still have a long way to go to gain respect from the open-source community. What follows are three steps Microsoft could take in that direction.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Andrew Dawes (@andrewdawes) | Unsplash
Over the last few years, AMD has slowly been walking the path towards having fully open source drivers on Linux. AMD did not walk alone, they got help from Red Hat, SUSE, and probably others. Phoronix also mentions PathScale, but I have been told on Freenode channel #radeon this is not the case and found no trace of their involvement.
AMD finally publically unveiled the GPUOpen initiative on the 15th of December 2015. The story was covered on AnandTech, Maximum PC, Ars Technica, Softpedia, and others. For the open-source community that follows the development of Linux graphics and computing stack, this announcement comes as hardly surprising: Alex Deucher and Jammy Zhou presented plans regarding amdgpu on XDC2015 in September 2015. Regardless, public announcement in mainstream media proves that AMD is serious about GPUOpen.
I believe GPUOpen is the best chance we will get in this decade to open up the driver and software stacks in the graphics and computing industry. I will outline the reasons for my optimism below. As for the history behind open-source drivers for ATi/AMD GPUs, I suggest the well-written reminiscence on Phoronix.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Alina Grubnyak (@alinnnaaaa) | Unsplash
Back in late August and early September, I attended 4th CP2K Tutorial organized by CECAM in Zürich. I had the pleasure of meeting Joost VandeVondele's Nanoscale Simulations group at ETHZ and working with them on improving CP2K. It was both fun and productive; we overhauled the wiki homepage and introduced acronyms page, among other things. During a coffee break, there was a discussion on the JPCL viewpoint that speaks against open-source quantum chemistry software, which I countered in the previous blog post.
But there is a story from the workshop which somehow remained untold, and I wanted to tell it at some point. One of the attendants, Valérie Vaissier, told me how she used proprietary quantum chemistry software during her Ph.D.; if I recall correctly, it was Gaussian. Eventually, she decided to learn CP2K and made the switch. She liked CP2K better than the proprietary software package because it is available free of charge, the reported bugs get fixed quicker, and the group of developers behind it is very enthusiastic about their work and open to outsiders who want to join the development.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: j (@janicetea) | Unsplash
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (JPCL), published by American Chemical Society, recently put out two Viewpoints discussing open-source software:
Viewpoints are not detailed reviews of the topic, but instead, present the author's view on the state-of-the-art of a particular field.
The first of two articles stands for open source and open data. The article describes Quantum Chemical Program Exchange (QCPE), which was used in the 1980s and 1990s for the exchange of quantum chemistry codes between researchers and is roughly equivalent to the modern-day GitHub. The second of two articles questions the open-source software development practice, advocating the usage and development of proprietary software. I will dissect and counter some of the key points from the second article below.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Trnava University (@trnavskauni) | Unsplash
In 2012 University of Rijeka became NVIDIA GPU Education Center (back then it was called CUDA Teaching Center). For non-techies: NVIDIA is a company producing graphical processors (GPUs), the computer chips that draw 3D graphics in games and the effects in modern movies. In the last couple of years, NVIDIA and other manufacturers allowed the usage of GPUs for general computations, so one can use them to do really fast multiplication of large matrices, finding paths in graphs, and other mathematical operations.
Photo source: Ray Hennessy (@rayhennessy) | Unsplash
Last week in Rijeka we held Science festival 2015. This is the (hopefully not unlucky) 13th instance of the festival that started in 2003. Popular science events were organized in 18 cities in Croatia.
I was invited to give a popular lecture at the University departments open day, which is a part of the festival. This is the second time in a row that I got invited to give popular lecture at the open day. In 2014 I talked about The Perfect Storm in information technology caused by the fall of economy during 2008-2012 Great Recession and the simultaneous rise of low-cost, high-value open-source solutions. Open source completely changed the landscape of information technology in just a few years.
Photo source: Andre Benz (@trapnation) | Unsplash
When Linkin Park released their second album Meteora, they had a quote on their site that went along the lines of
Musicians have their entire lives to come up with a debut album, and only a very short time afterward to release a follow-up.
vedranm )
on 2025-06-19 23:34:24 UTC
Photo source: Almos Bechtold (@almosbech) | Unsplash
Last week brought us two interesting events related to open-source movement: 2015 Red Hat Summit (June 23-26, Boston, MA) and Skeptics in the pub (June 26, Rijeka, Croatia).
Release Candidate versions are available in the testing repository for Fedora and Enterprise Linux (RHEL / CentOS / Alma / Rocky and other clones) to allow more people to test them. They are available as Software Collections, for parallel installation, the perfect solution for such tests, and as base packages.
RPMs of PHP version 8.4.9RC1 are available
RPMs of PHP version 8.3.23RC1 are available
ℹ️ The packages are available for x86_64 and aarch64.
ℹ️ PHP version 8.2 is now in security mode only, so no more RC will be released.
ℹ️ Installation: follow the wizard instructions.
ℹ️ Announcements:
Parallel installation of version 8.4 as Software Collection:
yum --enablerepo=remi-test install php84
Parallel installation of version 8.3 as Software Collection:
yum --enablerepo=remi-test install php83
Update of system version 8.4:
dnf module switch-to php:remi-8.4 dnf --enablerepo=remi-modular-test update php\*
Update of system version 8.3:
dnf module switch-to php:remi-8.3 dnf --enablerepo=remi-modular-test update php\*
ℹ️ Notice:
Software Collections (php83, php84)
Base packages (php)
czanik )
on 2025-06-19 09:22:06 UTC
The June syslog-ng newsletter is now on-line:
Installing nightly syslog-ng arm64 packages on a Raspberry Pi
Working with One Identity Cloud PAM Linux agent logs in syslog-ng
Testing the new syslog-ng wildcard-file() source options on Linux
It is available at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2025-06-arm64-pam-testing
admin )
on 2025-06-19 08:00:00 UTC
This is my recap of Flock to Fedora 2025, streamed live from Kenya! I would really like to thank the amazing team – speakers, volunteers as well, who made FLOCK possible this year!
This recap is from a virtual attendee’s viewpoint, tuning in live from Kenya for June 5–6. Massive appreciation to everyone behind the scenes!
“10 years in the making,” as Justin W. put it – this year’s Flock kicked off with energy. The central track brought everyone together for keynotes and deep conversations on Fedora’s future.
The day opened with reflections from Matthew Miller former Fedora Project Leader (FPL), who spoke candidly about the passion and challenges of the role – even nearly missing his daughter’s graduation! He handed the baton to the new FPL, Jef Spaleta, who stepped on stage with a vision.
Jef Spaleta laid out Fedora’s Strategy 2028 with a focus on mentorship, contributor growth, and aligning community efforts. He emphasized the need to support people better, build transparent processes, and push forward with long-term thinking.
You can check the video: Flock 2025 The FPL Exchange.
A lot was said, I can’t really recount it all.
The “Big Elephant” – AI – was among the topics in the room, plus others.
One community member asked: “What’s the plan for those greying folks who’ve contributed for years – how do we keep them engaged?” That led to an eye-opening chat about FESCo nominations. Turns out, you don’t have to be a genius to participate. You just have to show up, say something, even if it’s “I didn’t have time to review.” It’s about honesty and growth. Not perfection. (Whew!)
And yes – apparently, it was the same Friends (Friends of Fedora) who got elected every time, or maybe people don’t really know how that works? Now, should we expect a guide on that? Many would need it I guess. Let’s push them for it. Bookmark that.
PS: You can watch all this goodness on YouTube. Trust me, it’s worth it.
During the break, while the stream showed sponsor slides (thank you, sponsors – you keep the lights on!), I took a real break. Picture this:
Fresh hot milk (fresh of course, never told you I used to milk cows when I was a kid) + Milo + a tiny bit of sugar = Happiness. (sugar in Milo! That’s crazy!! Milo is mostly sugar 
(MatH)
So, take a breather …. Oh I mean take a break `cause we’re not yet halfway through our article.
Welcome back from your break! I know you didn’t really take a break; I was just humoring you.
Yes, my Flock snack game was elite. 
Otto Richter from Codeberg walked us through why Fedora moved to Forgejo for hosting – and what Codeberg is all about (all the goodies it has). He even gave a quick demo, plus a bonus pronunciation lesson. You can find the slides to the talk here on Pretalx.
Then came a surprise: Fedora’s Downstream Gaming Variant!
Noel Miller and Antheas from the Bazzite team introduced their work on making a variant of Fedora that is more gaming-friendly. I hadn’t even heard of Bazzite before this. Maybe I should try it? Yes, sometime. If you play games and love Fedora, these folks want you – whether you’re a dev, tester, or gamer who just clicks buttons and wins.
After lunch sessions split across rooms. I tried to be in two rooms at once (classic virtual problem 
). I joined the Topaz Room for the Fedora Join SIG session.
I’m actually a member of the Join SIG, so it felt like home. Our job? Help newcomers feel welcome, direct them to the right teams, and support their journey into Fedora. It’s possibly the easiest SIG to “join”—”if you hang around, you’re one of us.” That was simple, true and beautiful. Thanks to Ankur and AkashDeep Dhar, and yet another Friend who helped with the slides that didn’t make it – Mat H (theprogram).
But we need your help, we need you to help us help newcomers navigate the community and find their place in. There’re probably a few helping out!
Somewhere between hopping between Topaz and Opal rooms, I landed in one of my favorite sessions – Fedora Documentation.
Stay there:
Here’s a spoiler alert: I’m hosting a Fedora Docs Hands-On Virtual Workshop this June 21, 2025!
Yep, mark your calendars! You can accept the invite here, also say hi in the discourse channel and let this be engaging (would love to hear from you, really).
We often forget that docs aren’t “extra.” They are the user’s first experience, the contributor’s first clue, and often the only map through the maze. And Fedora takes this seriously.
Later, in the Opal Room, I caught talks on mentorship programs like GSoC and Outreachy, led by Sumantro M. and Fernando.
And yes – drumroll please – this was especially meaningful for me – I’m currently an Outreachy Intern (June–August 2025)!
One standout talk: “Open Source Mentorship: Crafting Community Leaders” by Nikita Tripathi (an Outreachy alum still contributing to Fedora) and Samyak Jain. The session explored what mentorship is and isn’t – not just teaching, but growing together. As Samyak Jain shared: “Communities thrive on engagement. Your voice matters.”
Before logging off, I caught “Scaling Fedora Ready through Community Contributions” by Roseline Bassey, presented by Justin W. The talk highlighted how Fedora Ready can grow through community testers, reviewers, and ambassadors, helping users find hardware that works well with Fedora.
Quick talks followed:
“The Role of Designers in Open Source” by Smera, reminding us that design matters just as much as code. Let them be there at the beginning of the research project
“How Do You Open Source a T-shirt?” by Troy Dawson. This was a cool one, cool shirts. And yes, I’m still thinking about it.
Both were refreshing takes on open source beyond code.
If you’re curious about the “hidden rooms” I missed or the full Day 2 content, check out the recordings on YouTube and the checklist on Pretalx. There’s only so much a human can digest in 48 hours – even with Milo
If you haven’t already, please take a moment to fill out the Fedora Contributor and User Survey. Your feedback helps shape the future of the Fedora Project.
Okay, let’s close now.
Flock (2025 edition!) reminded me that Fedora is more than software. It’s people, mentorship, storytelling, experimentation, and community care. I’m glad I could stream the experience and share it – I’m hoping to join the next FLOCK.
As a remote attendee, I felt seen, included, and inspired. (Inclusion)
Looking forward to more conversations and continued impact.
Your Friend in Open Source, Cornelius – Open Source Freedom Fighter
