- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Fwd: Re: Removing Libsystemd0 From a Live-running Debian System
by Chris O'Halloran 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:52:45 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > > To those who may not understand the background to this, systemd is a > project, headed by Lennart “PulseAudio” Poettering, to modernize the Thanks for that Lawrence.

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Inkscape Version 0.91 Released
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

"Four years since the last major Inkscape release, now news is out about version 0.91 of this powerful vector drawing and painting tool. The main reason for the multi-year delay is that they've switched from their old custom rendering engine to using Cairo now, improving their support for open source standards. This release also adds symbol libraries and support for Visio stencils, cross platform WMF and EMF import and export, a native Windows 64-bit build, scads of bug fixes, and much more. Check out the full release notes for more information about what has changed, or just jump right todownloading your package for Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/01/31/1914255 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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Removing Libsystemd0 From a Live-running Debian System
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

"The introduction of systemd has unilaterally created a polarization of the GNU/Linux community that is remarkably similar to the monopolistic power position wielded by Microsoft in the late 1990s. Choices were stark: use Windows (with SMB/CIFS Services), or use UNIX (with NFS and NIS). Only the introduction of fully-compatible reverse-engineered NT Domains services corrected the situation. Instructions on how to remove systemd include dire warnings that "all dependent packages will be removed", rendering a normal Debian Desktop system flat-out impossible to achieve. It was therefore necessary to demonstrate that it is actually possible to run a Debian Desktop GUI system (albeit an unusual one: fvwm) with libsystemd0 removed. The reason for doing so: it doesn't matter how good systemd is believed to be or in fact actually is: the reason for removing it is, apart from the alarm at how extensive systemd is becoming (including interfering with firewall rules), it's the way that it's been introduced in a blatantly cavalier fashion as a polarized all-or-nothing option, forcing people to consider abandoning the GNU/Linux of their choice and to seriously consider using FreeBSD or any other distro that properly respects the Software Freedom principle of the right to choose what software to run. We aren't all "good at coding", or paid to work on Software Libre: that means that those people who are need to be much more responsible, and to start — finally — to listen to what people are saying. Developing a thick skin is a good way to abdicate responsibility and, as a result, place people into untenable positions." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/15/1959209 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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Live Patching Now Available For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 13 Feb '15

13 Feb '15

'It provides a basic infrastructure for function "live patching" (i.e. code redirection), including API for kernel modules containing the actual patches, and API/ABI for userspace to be able to operate on the patches (look up what patches are applied, enable/disable them, etc). It's relatively simple and minimalistic, as it's making use of existing kernel infrastructure (namely ftrace) as much as possible. It's also self-contained, in a sense that it doesn't hook itself in any other kernel subsystem (it doesn't even touch any other code). It's now implemented for x86 only as a reference architecture, but support for powerpc, s390 and arm is already in the works (adding arch-specific support basically boils down to teaching ftrace about regs-saving).' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/12/1853215 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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Upcoming features of Fedora 22
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

New features to be included in Fedora 22 release currently scheduled for around May 2015 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Upcoming-Features-of-Fedora-22-472955.shtml Regards Paul Wilson

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Re: [wlug] Kali Linux 1.1.0 Released
by Eric Light 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

That sounds awesome, I'd personally LOVE to hear more on that. Peter, Ian, does that suit you guys? Ryan - The next wlug meeting is Monday, February 23, 7:30 PM, in MS4.G.02. Can Baden make it? *excite* Thanks Eric. Yup we do use some of the tools from time to time. If you are interested, we can arrange for my grad student Baden to talk about (and demo) some of the tools. Only catch is that he is busy with his thesis writing now - due next week. Ryan On 12 Feb 2015 15:44, "Eric Light" <eric(a)ericlight.com> wrote: > I'm definitely not suitable - I have *no idea* what I'm doing. > > Let me check with Ryan and see if there's anyone doing the Masters of > Cybersecurity who would be interested though... > > Ryan? We're just a small group of geeks, but if any of your guys use > Kali, it would be awesome to have a quick demo :) > > Eric > > -------------------------------------------- > Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? > A: http://five.sentenc.es > > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> > wrote: > >> > ... No, really, it looks like there's a lot of new stuff in the 1.1 >> version. >> > I'm experimenting with it here in my "free time". >> >> Ian Young volunteered to present some distros at the next meeting (Feb >> 23). Do you or Paul feel like demoing Kali? >> >> Cheers, Peter >> -- >> Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ >> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 >> _______________________________________________ >> wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz >> Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug >> > >

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Owncloud 8 Released
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

"ownCloud <https://owncloud.org/>, a free software alternative to proprietary web services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and others that you can install on your own server, has reached version 8.0.0." "http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/owncloud-8-server-released-with.html" I Have been running v7 on Fedora 21 Server for about 8 weeks works great, this is a really nice solution if you are looking at running your own cloud and don't want to dive into openstack. Regards Paul Wilson

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Kali Linux 1.1.0 Released
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

"After almost two years of public development (and another year behind the scenes), we are proud to announce our first point release of Kali Linux - version 1.1.0. This release brings with it a mix of unprecedented hardware support as well as rock-solid stability. For us, this is a real milestone as this release epitomizes the benefits of our move from BackTrack to Kali Linux over two years ago." http://www.linuxscreenshots.org/?release=Kali%20Linux%201.1.0 For all those "Security Testers" out there this could be interesting.... Regards Paul Wilson

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Firefox To Mandate Extension Signing
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

'In a recent blog post, Mozilla announced its intention to require extensions to be signed in Firefox, without any possible user override. From the post: "For developers hosting their add-ons on AMO, this means that they will have to either test on Developer Edition, Nightly, or one of the unbranded builds. The rest of the submission and review process will remain unchanged, except that extensions will be automatically signed once they pass review. For other developers, this is a larger change. For testing development versions, they’ll have the same options available as AMO add-on developers. For release versions, however, we’re introducing the required step of uploading the extension file to AMO for signing. For most cases, this step will be automatic, but in cases where the extension doesn’t pass these tests, there will be the option to request a manual code review."' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/210247 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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Show your love for Free Software
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

'Every year on 14th February, the Free Software Foundation Europe asks all Free Software users to think about the hard-working people in the Free Software community and to show them their appreciation individually on this "I love Free Software"-Day. Like last year the campaign is dedicated to the people behind Free Software because they enable us to use, study, share and improve the software which enables us to work in freedom. This time the focus especially lies on the small contributions to the big picture of the Free Software community.' -- source: http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150209-01.html 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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