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Should Windows Move To A Linux Kernel?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Oct '20

16 Oct '20

An engineer at Canonical has poured cold water <https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/15/even_2020_cannot_bring_forth/> over the suggestion by Eric Raymond that Microsoft might move to substituting a Linux kernel over its own in the Windows OS. Sure, the idea seems complicated and expensive, and very likely troublesome, too. But since when have Windows upgrades not been troublesome? Even updates between different versions of what is ostensibly all the same OS, Windows 10, have been far from smooth lately. Attempting the level of compatibility needed for every Win32 API and syscall would be a huge undertaking. Consider that the WINE folks have already provided a usable fraction of this, with resources that are only a drop in the bucket compared to those available to Microsoft. And as for the vast array of drivers enjoyed by the NT kernel, Barnes reckoned that shunting them into Linux would cost millions. Sure. But would it cost as much as having to continue maintaining them? Particularly since most of those drivers would not be needed, because Linux already has its own native ones. Furthermore, rebasing Windows on Linux could have the ironic effect of stifling competition should a kernel monoculture take hold. Interesting to discuss this use of the term “monoculture”. Linux is already adaptable to a wider range of platforms and applications than Windows can manage. This in spite of the fact that the Windows NT kernel has been fragmented into a number of different versions, including about 5 or 6 different ones for ARM, with little or no compatibility between them. Linux is able to manager better interoperability than that, even between versions for entirely different architectures.

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Google and Intel Warn of High-Severity Bluetooth Security Bug In Linux
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '20

15 Oct '20

'An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google and Intel are warning of a high-severity Bluetooth flaw in all but the most recent version of the Linux Kernel. While a Google researcher said the bug allows seamless code execution by attackers within Bluetooth range, Intel is characterizing the flaw as providing an escalation of privileges or the disclosure of information. The flaw resides in BlueZ, the software stack that by default implements all Bluetooth core protocols and layers for Linux. Besides Linux laptops, it's used in many consumer or industrial Internet-of-things devices. It works with Linux versions 2.4.6 and later. So far, little is known about BleedingTooth, the name given by Google engineer Andy Nguyen, who said that a blog post will be published "soon." A Twitter thread and a YouTube video provide the most detail and give the impression that the bug provides a reliable way for nearby attackers to execute malicious code of their choice on vulnerable Linux devices that use BlueZ for Bluetooth. Intel, meanwhile, has issued this bare-bones advisory that categorizes the flaw as privilege-escalation or information-disclosure vulnerability. The advisory assigned a severity score of 8.3 out of a possible 10 to CVE-2020-12351, one of three distinct bugs that comprise BleedingTooth. "Potential security vulnerabilities in BlueZ may allow escalation of privilege or information disclosure," the advisory states. "BlueZ is releasing Linux kernel fixes to address these potential vulnerabilities." Intel, which is a primary contributor to the BlueZ open source project, said that the most effective way to patch the vulnerabilities is to update to Linux kernel version 5.9, which was published on Sunday. Those who can't upgrade to version 5.9 can install a series of kernel patches the advisory links to. Maintainers of BlueZ didn't immediately respond to emails asking for additional details about this vulnerability. Ars Technica points out that since BleedingTooth requires proximity to a vulnerable device, there's not much reason for people to worry about this vulnerability. "It also requires highly specialized knowledge and works on only a tiny fraction of the world's Bluetooth devices," it adds.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/10/15/0043232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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KDE Plasma 5.20 Released
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '20

15 Oct '20

'KDE's Plasma 5.20 is now available, bringing a bunch of refinements as well as some larger features. Some of the KDE Plasma 5.20 highlights include (via Phoronix): - Numerous fixes to the KWin window manager / compositor including a number of Wayland fixes. Among the Wayland work in Plasma 5.20 includes Klipper support and middle-click paste, mouse and touchpad support nearly on par to X11, window thumbnails in the task manager, crash fixes, and more. - Improved notifications. - Different redesigns and additions to the KDE System Settings from SMART monitoring to better looking interfaces. - Redesigned on-screen displays. - Various tack manager and system tray improvements. ' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/10/14/0058213 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Zoom To Roll Out End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) Calls
by Peter Reutemann 15 Oct '20

15 Oct '20

'Video conferencing platform Zoom announced today plans to roll out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) capabilities starting next week. From a report: E2EE will allow Zoom users to generate individual encryption keys that will be used to encrypt voice or video calls between them and other conference participants. These keys will be stored locally and will not be shared with Zoom servers, meaning the software company won't be able to access or intercept any ongoing E2EE meetings. Support for E2EE calls will first be part of Zoom clients to be released next week. To use the new feature, users must update theri clients next week and enable support for E2EE calls at the account level. This green shield will contain a lock if E2EE is active. If the lock is absent, Zoom will use its default AES 256-bit GCM encryption scheme, which the company uses to secure current communications, but which the company can also intercept.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/10/14/1722237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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WordPress Versus Jamstack
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Oct '20

14 Oct '20

Welcome to a new buzzword: “Jamstack”, which stands for “JavaScript, APIs and HTML Markup”. Or, in other words, websites made up of static pages, with all the dynamism implemented by JavaScript running on the browser. Hmm, maybe not quite all--that “APIs” part does still imply server-side dynamism of some sort. Seems the founder of WordPress is less than keen on the idea. WordPress, of course, is built very heavily around PHP code doing dynamic things (like reading and writing databases) server-side. Maybe the difference between the two is more one of degree and centralization rather than anything hard-and-fast. <https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/13/wordpress_matt_vs_netlify_matt/>

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Oh, Those Lascivious Sinful Onions ...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Oct '20

14 Oct '20

A seed company had one of its ads banned by Facebook after the image in it was deemed to contain “overtly sexual positioning”. To the normal human eye it just looks like a picture of some onions. Not even the most depraved imagination seems incapable of conjuring more than that out of it. Judge for yourself <https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/13/in_brief_ai/> ...

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Meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 13 Oct '20

13 Oct '20

Hi everyone Due to labour day, our next (and last meeting before the AGM) will be next Monday already. Ian will talk a few minutes about his experience upgrading his Ubuntu to 20.04.1. However, we could do with additional content. Suggestions? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Notepad++/Windows -> Notepadqq/Linux
by Peter Reutemann 13 Oct '20

13 Oct '20

Hi everyone Today, I was looking for a (graphical) text editor that could search through a directory structure and replace a particular string in lots of config files. Just using find in conjunction with sed wasn't gonna cut it, as I needed to inspect each individual file first (but then do a single subversion commit covering all the files). While searching on alternativeto.net for an alternative to Notepad++, using this URL: https://alternativeto.net/software/notepad-plus-plus/ I came across Notepadqq, which had the desired functionality: https://notepadqq.com/ Just like Notepad++, it also has syntax highlighting for lots of different file types. It's great to have such a wide variety of editors out there! :-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Long-term WLUG member featured in a good-news article
by Eric Light 13 Oct '20

13 Oct '20

Hi everyone! I apologise if this isn't appropriate here (it does verge on a political post), but I noticed a familiar name in The Spinoff today. Most of you will know Roderick Aldridge from his membership in the WLUG over the years. It's been quite nice to see his writing on non-technical issues as well. https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12-10-2020/im-80-years-old-ive-never-touch… Thanks Roderick :) E -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es

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Linux 5.9 Boosts CPU Performance With FSGSBASE Support
by Peter Reutemann 13 Oct '20

13 Oct '20

'FSGSBASE support in Linux "has the possibility of helping Intel/AMD CPU performance especially in areas like context switching that had been hurt badly by Spectre/Meltdown and other CPU vulnerability mitigations largely on the Intel side," Phoronix wrote back in August. As it started its journey into the kernel, they provided a preview on August 10: The FSGSBASE support that was finally mainlined a few days ago for Linux 5.9 is off to providing a nice performance boost for both Intel and AMD systems... FSGSBASE support for the Linux kernel has been around a half-decade in the making and finally carried over the finish line by one of Microsoft's Linux kernel engineers... FSGSBASE particularly helps out context switching heavy workloads like I/O and allowing user-space software to write to the x86_64 GSBASE without kernel interaction. That in turn has been of interest to Java and others...On Linux 5.9 where FSGSBASE is finally mainlined, it's enabled by default on supported CPUs. FSGSBASE can be disabled at kernel boot time via the "nofsgsbase" kernel option. Today on the Linux kernel mailing list, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 5.9: Ok, so I'll be honest - I had hoped for quite a bit fewer changes this last week, but at the same time there doesn't really seem to be anything particularly scary in here. It's just more commits and more lines changed than I would have wished for. And Phoronix reported: Linux 5.9 has a number of exciting improvements including initial support for upcoming Radeon RX 6000 "RDNA 2" graphics cards, initial Intel Rocket Lake graphics, NVMe zoned namespaces (ZNS) support, various storage improvements, IBM's initial work on POWER10 CPU bring-up, the FSGSBASE instruction is now used, 32-bit x86 Clang build support, and more. See our Linux 5.9 feature overview for the whole scoop on the many changes to see with this kernel.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/10/12/0029215 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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