March 2015 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

“*ERROR* pipe is still busy with an old pageflip”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 May '15

24 May '15

I’ve been hitting an occasional display freeze that matches this description <http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7675146.html>. Looks like a known problem with the 3.16 kernel. I thought things had got better with a system update I did 11 days ago, but this afternoon the freeze recurred. Unlike the previous times, killing all my user processes succeeded in unfreezing the display, so I was able to log in again without rebooting.

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New Multi-Core Raspberry Pi 2 Launches
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '15

01 May '15

'Coming in at the same $35 price-point that has come to be expected from the Raspberry Pi, it looks like the new Model 2 will be packing a quad-core ARM processor with a GB of RAM. From the article: "The Raspberry Pi Foundation is likely to provoke a global geekgasm today with the surprise release of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B: a turbocharged version of the B+ boasting a new Broadcom BCM2836 900MHz quad-core system-on-chip with 1GB of RAM – all of which will drive performance "at least 6x" that of the B+."' -- source: http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/02/02/0134211 And also in the news: "Microsoft Announces Windows For Raspberry Pi 2 Microsoft is expanding their Windows Developer Program for Internet of Things by delivering a version of Windows 10 that runs on the Raspberry Pi 2. This release of Windows 10 will be free for the maker community through the Windows Developer Program for IoT. With an official partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Microsoft is bringing development tools, services and ecosystem to the Raspberry Pi community. More details will be shared in the coming months. You can already join the program and be amongst the first to receive product information and beta software releases." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/02/02/1326225 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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VMware Being Sued For Infringing GPL
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Mar '15

28 Mar '15

As I understand it, an important part of VMware’s closed-source hypervisor depends on Linux device drivers to communicate with hardware. VMware implemented their own interface, compatible with the Linux one, in order to allow these drivers to work. However, in doing so, they appear to have copied a lot of GPL-licensed code from the actual Linux kernel. There are probably more subtleties to the lawsuit than that, but more details here: <http://lwn.net/Articles/635290/>.

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RaspEX - another Linux version for Raspberry Pi
by Ian Young 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

That man from Sweden has now put together a Linux version for the Pi. He wants money for it however. $7 US. http://raspex.exton.se/ News 150318 I have made a perfect (as I think) Linux ARM system for Raspberry Pi 2. I call it RaspEX. It is based on Debian Jessie (upcoming Debian 8), Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (upcoming Ubuntu 15.04) and Linaro (Open Source software for ARM SoCs). Why shall I use RaspEX? Eight Operating Systems are recommended by Raspberry.org. Among them Noobs, Raspbian (Debian Wheezy) and Snappy Ubuntu Core. RaspEX is faster, more useful and more fun to use. (In my opinion). How do I install RaspEX? Just like any other Raspberry system. I.e.: Unpack the downloaded ZIP file (raspex-ubuntu-15.04-armhf-923mb-150318.zip) and transfer the IMAGE file (raspex-ubuntu-15.04-armhf-3050mb-150318.img) to your Micro SD card of at least 8GB. http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Linux-Distributions/RaspEX-103737.shtml

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MIPS Wants To Join In The Fun
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Mar '15

24 Mar '15

With all the huge popularity of ARM chips in mobile and embedded devices, Imagination Technologies (owner of the MIPS architecture) would like to remind us that the MIPS ecosystem shipped 800 million chips last year, making them the world’s number 2 CPU architecture. This article <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/imagination-technologies-wants-to-ta…> reviews a reference tablet design running Firefox OS. Not impressive in itself, but hopefully a forerunner of things to come? And earlier they announced their CI20 development/hobbyist board <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/mips-creator-ci20-released-interesti…>, clearly trying to take on the BeagleBoard and Raspberry π market.

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Tails 1.3.1 Is an Emergency Release to Patch Critical Security Issues in Tor Browser
by Peter Reutemann 23 Mar '15

23 Mar '15

"According to the release notes, Tails 1.3.1 is an emergency release that includes Tor Browser 4.0.5, based on the patched Mozilla Firefox 31.5.3 ESR web browser, fixing critical security issues disclosed at the Pwn2Own hacking contest. Tails 1.3.1 has now transitioned to an all-new OpenPGP signing key, which is currently used to sign the official ISO images of the distribution, as well as to certify other OpenPGP keys that are used by the project. More details can be found here." -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Tails-1-3-1-Is-an-Emergency-Release-to-Patch… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Meeting tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '15

22 Mar '15

Hi everyone We have a meeting tomorrow: Andrew Crosby: Raspberry Pi 2 demo, what's new, what's hot. Michael Cree: BeagleBone demo, consisting of general introduction of the BeagleBone and on using it for interfacing with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/220635633/ Cheers, Peter

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Fwd: [NZLUG] Document Freedom Day
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

Apologies, if you've received this already. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Nicola Feltrin" <nicola.feltrin(a)fsfe.org> Date: Mar 20, 2015 9:33 PM Subject: [NZLUG] Document Freedom Day To: <nzlug(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz> Cc: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Sirs/Madams, I'm writing to this address hoping to reach the largest possible number of New Zealand LUGs. If you feel I should contact your groups in any other way, please let me know. I'd like to bring to your attention the impending Document Freedom Day [1]. As you may know, the last Wednesday of March (this year it is the 25th), people around the world organize events to raise awareness over Open Standards, expressing how much these matter to them. If you think we should push more and more people towards the adoption of Open Standards, you could propose to organize something within your community. We support events of any size, from a chat with your friends at the local coffee house (or pub) to proper conferences. You can look at the "get involved" page [2] to get some inspiration and more detailed information. If you decide to do something, keep in mind that we offer some free [3] promotional material (posters, leaflets, flyers, stickers...) [4]. In addition we'd like to support local groups on the financial level by offering a refund for your expenses [5]. Finally, don't forget to register your event [6], so that anyone can see that Open Standards matter all around the globe. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly or the FSFE through the conventional channels [7]. Thank you for your time and best wishes for all your activities, Nicola Feltrin [1] http://documentfreedom.org/ [2] http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html [3] both as in freedom and as in free beer [4] http://documentfreedom.org/promotion.html - Keep in mind that the pack has to travel from Germany to you by postal service, so be sure to order in time... [5] http://documentfreedom.org/funding-expenses.html - There was a deadline fixed at 11/3, but we can still offer refunds if needed [6] http://documentfreedom.org/registerevent.html [7] http://documentfreedom.org/contact.html - -- Nicola Feltrin Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin tel. +49-30-27595290, mob. +49-152-04682063 Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJVBuuCAAoJEDh/5ZfdTAopHWwP/iPERUsgeZYat0CBEevp76Q6 za9XM5zTpthG3mgRxC7tybcsxkINA+iNF0e/JHS4Ricmj7fqOGxOGLt8wSIW0Vsv +QznECV91L+5YTHQuHnmtTu/3b7lyUOHB3KJRfcPzwuiasZrlMibfMJD5u9wi9sq NfpfQNd0br3QbHvhuaLjtQlxwTjeJSDlJslCxgHi5MLHjQqkxL7tKBZ74f4xgLTA Qg4ryQvI3u09mA2gqhMpybxT2qpGXsVwO+e8q5YgILhYmrrNb7fRW2Y3uG5OVwP8 3BcJwOkGZWZ2Pg0DWpAvPGR5WRSfa9HpM+c8+fIzklroSqehJ5R6yzVFRipYl4+g QoYsIrXMHxSUxs/mucaYPaD5LfdmBVj6nHZ0sIfSFFCA8Vv7pZ7aM6DcybWOb+go pKImh3yfn67X5EsQEQAlEFPq0M7wlF3cwz72QKHe3Epju38KsCjdjDrQbYjigQ9B o8KYnZBLqFEbeEi4f6s+zS1/MIyaoQ0SB4dWtUoWR9pzFJ4Nrb7daNlASo6+tg7W k4Eyk6cej5AjP+nkbV2qGSv7+W/oLavvTzln7Pe9yVn9KEFjoNvRULMwrwgjFs9M C0O4IjQOawHG43md868QZGxKx4WgY8Ys6GJ2tchCNsp8c2oozdfY+gY3o8KULzdC 8GtOlviTzgym8SXEKIJp =GOiP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ NZLUG mailing list NZLUG(a)lists.nzoss.org.nz http://lists.nzoss.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/nzlug

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Discarding data to /dev/random instead of /dev/null
by Eric Light 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

I just happened across this article, recommending that discardable output be redirected to /dev/random instead of just thrown into /dev/null https://pthree.org/2014/12/07/use-dev-random-instead-of-dev-null/ Looks interesting - keen to hear other thoughts. Eric -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es

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Dell Linux Laptop With 4K Screen
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

For US$100 less than the Windows version, you can get the Dell M3800 Developer Edition “workstation” laptop with Ubuntu 14.04. The desktop works nicely on the 3840×2160 15.6” screen, but app support is a bit mixed <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/review-dell-m3800-developer-edition-…>.

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