March 2017 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

An Ordinary User’s Adventures In Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Sep '17

30 Sep '17

I helped an elderly friend set up his new PC yesterday. His previous machine, over a decade old, was running Windows XP. I had set up an Ubuntu dual-boot a few years back, and he liked playing the games. But then the Linux boot stopped working--there was a message to the effect “hd0 out of disk”, which sounded like a GRUB problem (“hd0” being a GRUB disk name, not a Linux disk name). I booted up SystemRescueCD, and found that disk space was ample. I did an fsck on the Linux volume, and found no filesystem problems. I ran a badblocks scan, and it reported several bad sectors, though oddly they only seemed to be in the Windows partition (if I interpreted the numbers correctly). Naturally I searched online, but the hits I found for that error message didn’t seem very helpful. Reinstalling GRUB didn’t help, so I concluded there were likely other hardware problems, so time for a new machine. He got an entry-level dual-core AMD box from PBTech--their own house build, in a CoolerMaster case--for well under a grand. Nothing fancy, but good enough for his needs--mainly Web browsing, e-mail, a little bit of word processing, and those games. The PBTech box came without an OS. He could have got Windows 10 for it, but considering he would be facing a learning curve coming from XP regardless, I suggested going 100% Linux for all his daily needs, to see if that would work. He could always spend the $160-odd extra on Windows later if need be. So I set it up with Linux Mint, since that seems to be everybody’s favourite :). He was already using Firefox on Windows, so moving all his Web bookmarks across was easy. The Mint install put an icon for Thunderbird on the desktop by default, so I decided to try that for e-mail. Getting his address book across from Outlook Express was fairly straightforward, once I figured out how to map the exported CSV field names correctly. The mail messages were slightly more fiddly, but I found this extension <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/> which directly loads Microsoft’s .dbx files, and that seemed to work OK. Then he wanted to play CDs. When we put in an audio CD, it came up with options to run Banshee (media player) or Brasero (disc burner). The Banshee media player wouldn’t play the CD directly, it insisted on ripping it to the hard drive first. This was not really what he wanted. I had a look round, and found KsCD, which will indeed play audio CDs without trying to rip them to audio files first. As far as I know, this is the only GUI Linux app that can do so. So, day 1 ended on a reasonably successful note. He was already noticing how much faster the new machine was. So we’ll see how it goes from here...

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If-I-Buy-It-Do-I-Own-It Chapter 339: Tractors
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 31 Mar '17

31 Mar '17

Owners of John Deere tractors are resorting to pirated firmware in order to gain the ability to repair their own property: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170322/04582036973/tractor-owners-using…> Are farmers in NZ impacted by any of this? I see that John Deere tractors are indeed sold here.

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Phrase Of The Week: “Necessary Hashtags”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Mar '17

28 Mar '17

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s immortal quotation has spawned a T-shirt: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170327/20224837016/limited-edition-gear…>. Do you have the necessary hashtags? Do they come in a nice series of tubes?

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After 20 Years, OpenSSL Will Change To Apache License 2.0, Seeks Pasts Contributors
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

'After nearly 20 years and 31,000 commits, OpenSSL wants to change to Apache License v2.0. They're now tracking down all 400 contributors to sign new license agreements, a process expected to take several months. Slashdot reader rich_salz shares links to OpenSSL's official announcement (and their agreement-collecting web site). "This re-licensing activity will make OpenSSL, already the world's most widely-used FOSS encryption software, more convenient to incorporate in the widest possible range of free and open source software," said Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director of Software Freedom Law Center and counsel to OpenSSL. "OpenSSL's team has carefully prepared for this re-licensing, and their process will be an outstanding example of 'how to do it right.'" Click through for some comments on the significance of this move from the Linux Foundation, Intel, and Oracle.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/26/2258218 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ubuntu Linux 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' Final Beta Now Available For Download
by Peter Reutemann 26 Mar '17

26 Mar '17

'The final beta of Ubuntu 17.04 'Zesty Zapus' became available for download Thursday. While it is never a good idea to run pre-release software on production machines, Canonical is claiming that it should be largely bug free at this point. In other words, if you understand the risks, it should be a fairly safe. Home users aside, this is a good opportunity for administrators to conduct testing prior to the official release next month. "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of the Ubuntu 17.04 Desktop, Server, and Cloud products. Codenamed 'Zesty Zapus', 17.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution," says Adam Conrad, Canonical. "The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs."' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/25/2127238 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 23 Mar '17

23 Mar '17

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting coming up next Monday: "William Mckee has been to nz.js.con recently and will talk about the A/V setup used for recording the presentations: hdmi2usb" https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/237234774/ BTW It's not too late if you still want to present something! Just email me. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GNOME 3.24 Released
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '17

22 Mar '17

'GNOME 3.24 just finished its six-month development cycle, and it's now the most advanced stable version of the modern and popular desktop environment used by default in numerous GNU/Linux distributions. It was developed since October 2016 under the GNOME 3.23.x umbrella, during which it received numerous improvements. Prominent new features of the GNOME 3.24 desktop environment include a Night Light functionality that promises to automatically shift the colors of your display to the warmer end of the spectrum after sunset, and a brand-new GNOME Control Center with redesigned Users, Keyboard and Mouse, Online Accounts, Bluetooth, and Printer panels. As for the GNOME apps, we can mention that the Nautilus file manager now lets users browse files as root (system administrator), GNOME Photos imitates Darktable's exposure and blacks adjustment tool, GNOME Music comes with ownCloud integration and lets you edit tags, and GNOME Calendar finally brings the Week view. New apps like GNOME Recipes are also part of this release. The full release notes can be viewed here. Softpedia notes in conclusion: "As mentioned before, it will take at least a couple of weeks for the new GNOME 3.24 packages to land on the stable repositories of your favorite distro, which means that you'll most probably be able to upgrade from GNOME 3.22 when the first point release, GNOME 3.24.1, is out on April 12, 2017."' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/22/205210 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Firefox for Linux is Now Netflix Compatible
by Peter Reutemann 22 Mar '17

22 Mar '17

'For a while, Netflix was not available for traditional Linux-based operating systems, meaning users were unable to enjoy the popular streaming service without booting into Windows. This was due to the company's reliance on Microsoft Silverlight. Since then, Netflix adopted HTML5, and it made Google Chrome and Chromium for Linux capable of playing the videos. Unfortunately, Firefox -- the open source browser choice for many Linux users -- was not compatible. Today this changes, however, as Mozilla's offering is now compatible with Netflix!' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/03/22/1510220 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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suggestions for upcoming meeting?
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '17

19 Mar '17

Hi everyone Any suggestions for the upcoming meeting? https://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/237234774/ Thanks. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Big Surprise: HTTPS Interception Middleboxes Weaken Your Security
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Mar '17

17 Mar '17

Some companies run boxes that intercept outgoing TLS/SSL connections, by using their own certificates that employees’ machines are configured to accept, in order to enforce policies on access to outside sites. Trouble is, many of these boxes introduce their own vulnerabilities into the system, by allowing new kinds of attacks from outside. <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/17/are_you_undermining_your_web_secur…>

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