January 2022 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

List Of IPTV Resources
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Sep '24

22 Sep '24

This user <https://github.com/iptv-org> just popped up in my GitHub feed. One repo <https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv> claims to be a list of links to over 8000 streaming TV channels from nations all over the world, while the other is a list of tools*, providers and other resources. Do be aware it’s a bit of a mixed bag: yes, there are legitimate channels (no encryption so far that I have noticed), but also some dubious-looking links. *Oddly, FFmpeg and youtube-dl aren’t in the list.

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Enabling Case-Insensitive Filenames On Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Feb '24

06 Feb '24

The ext4 filesystem has had the “casefold” option for a while now <https://lwn.net/Articles/784041/>. This allows you to specify, when you initialize a new filesystem, that you want file/directory names to be treated as case-insensitive. At the same time, you have to specify that the filenames are to be interpreted as UTF-8 encoding; normally the kernel doesn’t care, it only singles out ASCII slash and NUL bytes for special interpretation, and simply passes through any other byte values in the names. I was able to create such a filesystem, but I wasn’t able to mount it in my last-upgraded-just-a-few-days-ago Debian Unstable setup. When I try, it fails, and in the dmesg log I see Filesystem with casefold feature cannot be mounted without CONFIG_UNICODE Turns out the Debian 5.10 kernel has not been built with this CONFIG_UNICODE option enabled. However, this situation looks set to change shortly, according to <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=985689>.

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Weta Digital’s Technology Division Sold To US Firm
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Nov '23

30 Nov '23

Let me see if I understand this article <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sir-peter-jackson-to-sell-weta-digital-…> correctly: the part of Weta Digital that used to develop the in-house 3D graphics/effects tools that they use in all those movies is being sold to US-based Unity Software. The part that is left will be called “WetaFX”, and will become a customer of Unity for the use of those tools, no longer doing its own development in-house. By the way, I’ve been looking at the Unity site <https://unity.com/>, and it looks like all their products are rentware (subscription-based).

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Outlawing Dark Patterns
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Nov '22

05 Nov '22

“Dark patterns” is a term coined to describe user interfaces designed to manipulate people into giving up time, money or personal data that they didn’t intend to. A common example is the obstacle course you often have to go through to cancel a subscription to something online. Another example is the use of countdown timers to rush buyers into hasty decisions. They may not be out-and-out deceptive, but they do come close. Now, the US states of California and Washington are looking to pass laws to restrict this practice. <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/lawmakers-take-aim-at-insidious…>

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Apple’s Windows 10
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Jul '22

19 Jul '22

Fred Brooks predicted long ago that complex pieces of software would eventually reach the point of irreducible entropy, where any attempt to fix a bug would simply introduce a new one. Microsoft’s Windows 10 seems to be about there, and it’s now clear that Apple’s macOS 10.15 “Catalina” has also joined that elite group <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/27/apple_catalina_update/>: The first spin of Catalina, officially released in October 2019, was a mess. ... The biggest issue was that all kinds of apps simply stopped working. ... Peripherals like mice, keyboards and printers stopped working. Email went missing; iCloud backups failed; users were constantly harassed by login requests; updates didn’t update ... ... So came for the first update to its new system one week after the main launch which fixed some, but not all, of the issues. ... Version two came in December 2019 and fixed some of those issues, but not all. ... More bug fixes came with version three in January 2020, but the OS seemed to have finally stabilized; something that was then spectacularly undone with version .4. ... Then we had the “supplemental update” to version 10.15.4, which fixed some, but not all, of the problems – most significantly the problem with Finder and transferring large files. And, amazingly, appeared to undo the good work that had been done with website security and broke SSH for some users. But now, with version point-five this week, that problem appears to have been sorted and, of course, your battery might last longer too.

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Linux On Mars: NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Flies
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 May '22

10 May '22

The first powered aircraft on Mars <https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/19/perseverance_computing_feature/> has proved its concept, taken flight for a few seconds, and made a controlled landing again. The control system is running Linux on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip, not because NASA considered it the best tool for the job, but because it was the easiest solution available. The hardware “is tuned for use on Earth, not Mars”, so it is only planned to make brief flights of no more than 90 seconds at a time, always landing back at the same spot, and it is not expected to endure beyond the initial 30 days of the Perseverance mission.

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Review: MNT Reform laptop has fully open hardware and software—for better or worse
by Peter Reutemann 01 Feb '22

01 Feb '22

'If you’re a Linux fan or open source advocate looking for a decent laptop, you actually have some solid options right now—much better, at least, than buying a Windows laptop, installing Linux on it, and hoping for the best. Dell has offered Ubuntu editions of some of its XPS laptops and other PCs for years now, and Lenovo sells a respectable collection of desktops and laptops with Linux. System76 sells a selection of Linux-friendly laptops preloaded with Ubuntu or its own Pop!_OS distribution. The repair-friendly Framework Laptop doesn’t ship with Linux, but it can be configured without an OS, and Framework promises robust Linux support from multiple distributions. But those laptops all have something in common with run-of-the-mill Windows PCs: a reliance on closed-source hardware and, often, the proprietary software and drivers needed to make it function. For some people, this is a tolerable trade-off. You put up with the closed hardware because it performs well, and it supports the standard software, development tools, and APIs that keep the computing world spinning. For others, it’s anathema—if you can’t see the source code for these “binary blobs,” they are inherently untrustworthy and should be used sparingly or not at all. The MNT Reform is a laptop for the latter group. It's a crowdfunded, developed-in-the-open, extensively documented device that cares more about being open than it cares about literally any other aspect of the computing experience. Perhaps predictably, this makes for a laptop that is ideologically pure but functionally compromised.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/review-mnt-reform-laptop-has-fully-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitHub Is Broken
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

github.com is currently returning a server-error page.

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Only 90s Web Developers Remember This
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Jan '22

28 Jan '22

An only-slightly-tongue-in-cheek expletive-laden rant <https://zachholman.com/posts/only-90s-developers/> about how Web development used to be: the wonders of the 1×1 GIF (“To this day it is the only way to vertically center elements”) and the fun of “ ”, to the coming of JavaScript to create the “Technology of Terror”, DHTML (Dynamic HTML).

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A bug lurking for 12 years gives attackers root on most major Linux distros
by Peter Reutemann 27 Jan '22

27 Jan '22

'Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news—a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running most major distributions of the open source operating system. Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Unix-like OSes. It provides a mechanism for nonprivileged processes to safely interact with privileged processes. It also allows users to execute commands with high privileges by using a component called pkexec, followed by the command.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/a-bug-lurking-for-12… I think, I saw an update coming through the other day... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 (office) +64 (7) 577-5304 (home office) https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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