- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

The State Of systemd In Debian
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 07 Jul '16

07 Jul '16

Presentation from DebConf, slides and video <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-systemd-Status-2016>.

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Yet Another Next-Generation Filesystem
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

As if btrfs and ZFS aren’t enough, here’s another next-generation filesystem being developed for Linux: <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Bcachefs-Still-Rolling>. It apparently originated from “Bcache”, which was a filesystem developed for use on SSDs.

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32 bit
by Ian Young 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

See also Linux Mint 18 in 32-bit version, and Bodhi complete with Enlightenment. NOW WHAT ABOUT TRIMMING THOSE POSTS!!! OTHERWISE I MAY BE FORCED TO DIG OUT SOME ARCHAIC INTERNET ETIQUETTE FAQ AND POST IT IN FULL ALL IN CAPS. Just joshing people. But puhleeze???! A word for Michelle and the quest for perfection. Sometimes in this life there is a dichotomy between what we wish for and what we can actually accomplish. Maybe near enough is good enough. Is there actually such a thing as complete security on the internet? Possibly, but probably not for the average citizen. "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." Scott McNealy, formerly of Sun Microsystems. Sad but probably true.

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puppy or qubes
by Michelle 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

Well, I give up. I have tried for months and invested dozens of hours to get a machine that runs qubes and it hasn't happened. So would somebody be willing to go into say pb tech with different live puppy's on stick (or DVD) and finding what computers run it. Puppy was the distro I was wanting to run on my brand new computer I bought last year. I have been told that it is hard to find a new computer that won't rtun puppy. My new computer didn't. Hopefully it is just a freak. So if you are prepared to do that, could you then let me know at least two of those computers that should be able to run qubes according to the hardware specifications at the qubes website. If nobody is prepared to do that it is more than fine. I will just buy a computer that runs a windows legacy os.

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post trimming
by Ian Young 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

Oh dear, it's a storm of my making, albeit in a teacup. Much of the time posts on wlug are brief and often evoke no responses. As it happens of late there have been some of greater length which have had replies including the full body of all the foregoing, This has lead to my occasional ire as I scroll on ever downwards through the screeds of text previously seen looking for some gem of wisdom only to finally find the dreaded "Me too" or something equally unmemorable. Call me a grinchy grouch but is this sort of thing effective communication? Lies back on the couch .... Let me tell you about my days on dialup when every word cost 10 cents ... have i mentioned my Scottish ancestry? OMG, apologies to all Scots. If you can't say anything nice then say nothing as my old dad (from Glasgow) was wont to say. ~ ttfn Ian Y

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Why Dotfiles Need To Die
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

“Hidden” files and directories are outnumbering non-hidden ones 6:1 in my home directory: ldo(a)theon:~> ls -A ~/ | grep -c '^\.' 215 ldo(a)theon:~> ls -A ~/ | grep -vc '^\.' 35 ldo(a)theon:~> ls -A ~/ | wc -l 250 Quite a few applications are starting to adopt the XDG Base Directory Spec <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/>, but it just can’t happen fast enough...

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Any Old Machines Going Spare?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jul '16

06 Jul '16

Te Whare O Te Ata (the Fairfield community centre) has a group of four public-access machines that are not getting any younger. Does anybody have any machines they don’t need any more, that they could donate as (slightly) newer replacements? I think all of us who volunteer there are on this list, so I think you might as well respond to the list, at least to begin with. Then we can take it from there. Thanks for any help.

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Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” released!
by Peter Reutemann 05 Jul '16

05 Jul '16

Already happened on June 30th, but here it is anyway... Announcement for MATE: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3052 And for Cinnamon: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3051 Just installed MATE version, replacing my Ubuntu MATE edition. Gone is my disappearing mouse cursor when suspending, feels much snappier, better touchpad support too. At least 2 thumbs up! ;-) 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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32 bits
by Ian Young 05 Jul '16

05 Jul '16

Arch and Manjaro have 32 bit options. Slackware 14.2 just released is available for 32 bit. Porteus has a fresh release pending for 32. The recent Fedora 24 has 32 bit iso. So it's not over yet. One snag however is hardware limitations on 32 bit machines. It may be possible to run a current browser on less than 2 gigs of RAM but I find it is not enjoyable. So it partly depends on what one wants to do iwth that golden oldie.

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Fwd: [NZOSS OpenChat] GovHack
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jul '16

04 Jul '16

Apologies for cross-posting, but some people on this mailing list might be interested in this. Cheers, Peter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: DL Neil <NZOSS(a)etelligence.info> Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 7:03 AM Subject: [NZOSS OpenChat] GovHack To: NZOSS Open Discussion List <openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz> Noticed this public invitation of likely interest to mash-up artists and OpenData enthusiasts: GovHack is all about bringing together coders, artists, storytellers, observers, communicators and more, from the private, public, NGO and academic sectors. While the group of people is diverse, we’re united in a single purpose – working with government data to innovate and create. What is GovHack, anyway? It’s not about “cracking” government – it’s about bringing together the power of open data and all of us to build a better democracy and a more open government and society. Watch this short video to find out more :) This year, New Zealand’s second (ever) GovHack event will be taking place across the country over the weekend of 29 – 31 July, in: Whangarei Auckland Hamilton Hawke’s Bay Whanganui Wellington Christchurch Queenstown Dunedin. ... http://govhack.org.nz/ -- Regards, =dn ―― View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1mbHiTI4H5e8TQrmYTPFL4 Leave group mailto:openchat(a)groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net -- 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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Linux Mint 18 'Sarah' Released, Supports Generic GTK X-Apps
by Peter Reutemann 03 Jul '16

03 Jul '16

'The Linux Mint team announced the immediate availability of their latest release, Mint 18 "Sarah," in Cinnamon and MATE flavors. These follow on the heels of their respective beta versions, which have been out for nearly a month. "Linux Mint 18 is a long-term support release which will be supported until 2021," the team announces on MATE's "new features" page, adding they've improved their update manager, included support for the Debian syntax of "apt", and are working on the "X-Apps" project to "produce generic applications for traditional GTK desktop environments...to replace applications which no longer integrate properly outside of a particular environment."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/07/02/2045249 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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Council CIO - suit required
by Ian Young 29 Jun '16

29 Jun '16

I fear no ordinary mortal could hope for a job such as this -- only for people from suitland who can spout the appropriate babble and appear to have a suitable track record in positions of such awesomeness. This is the world of the 'solutions provider' and they always provide a Windows solution. After all, why not go with what you know? And then there is the investment by many IT people in gaining industry qualifications around aspects of Microsoft technology. It would be sad to see that go to waste. It's a mindset thing. And let's not forget that for most people (aside from a minority of Appleheads) Windows is computers, or Windows is always on such computers as they use. Then there are the computer makers who still provide the industry standard, ie Windows. (Behind the scenes MS is still twisting arms there as far as I know). Perhaps this being broken down somewhat in recent times by the advent of tablets & smartphones but I think in large part real work is still done on a Windows box. Hard to see how this can ever change without some as yet unforeseen paradigm shift. So much for the business world and governmental organisations; things are perhaps a bit different in academia especially in fields such as computer science. However the desktop for most users is still always Windows so far as I have seen. Those crazy academics have to be given some choice but IT staff generally prefer to provide a standardised Windows image. Yes, it's a Windows world. Luckily Linux is still around for those who can't get with the programme. Personally I find the latest versions of desktop Windows unusable. If Windows 8 and 10 are the answer it must have been a most peculiar question imho. But I digress. Should HCC ever adopt Linux I will eat my hat - or be astounded at any rate.

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A ZFS developer’s analysis of the good and bad in Apple’s new APFS file system
by Peter Reutemann 28 Jun '16

28 Jun '16

"Adam Leventhal: Apple announced a new file system that will make its way into all of its OS variants (macOS, tvOS, iOS, watchOS) in the coming years. Media coverage to this point has been mostly breathless elongations of Apple's developer documentation. With a dearth of detail I decided to attend the presentation and Q&A with the APFS team at WWDC. Dominic Giampaolo and Eric Tamura, two members of the APFS team, gave an overview to a packed room; along with other members of the team, they patiently answered questions later in the day. With those data points and some first-hand usage I wanted to provide an overview and analysis both as a user of Apple-ecosystem products and as a long-time operating system and file system developer." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of-the-good-… 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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Re: [wlug] Hamilton City Council - CIO position
by rowan schischka 28 Jun '16

28 Jun '16

>You can apply for the position via the council web-site<http://%20 https://hamilton.careercentre.net.nz/job/chief-information-officer-cio-/ham…>. It is also advertised on seek< http://www.seek.co.nz/job/31234386?pos=12&type=standard&engineConfig=&userq… >. Im applying but doubt ill get it. whoever gets that contract i'd like to put my hand forward to help. -- Kind Regards Rowan Schischka

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Re: [wlug] wlug Digest, Vol 300, Issue 19
by Wayne Luxton 27 Jun '16

27 Jun '16

On 25/06/16 12:00, wlug-request(a)list.waikato.ac.nz wrote: > Send wlug mailing list submissions to > wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wlug-request(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > > You can reach the person managing the list at > wlug-owner(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of wlug digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. a Debian-based OS for Nexus 5 phone (Ian Young) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2016 03:12:45 +0000 > From: Ian Young <gnomician(a)gmail.com> > To: wlug <wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz> > Subject: [wlug] a Debian-based OS for Nexus 5 phone > Message-ID: > <CA+e9D2Ev-OSuWxA98heFdjbERzTJYgZbiFRAuiepOVS9FURZNw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Came upon this today - mentioned on Barry Kauler's blog (the Puppy Linux guy). > > ' have previously posted about MaruOS:" > http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00363 > > > http://maruos.com/#/ > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list > wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > https://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > End of wlug Digest, Vol 300, Issue 19 > ************************************* > Find this is brilliant news as have nexus 5 and was getting frustrated and scratchy about android and what they keep wanting or advertising. Something to do to keep my Parkinson's brain in action. Would like to compare notes with any other local enthusiast -looking to create an intergrated work system with production of posters. Wayne - thanks you guys I am not very active now days but keeping up with threads helps me check out what I need and widen potential

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Ubuntu-Based Peppermint 7 Released
by Peter Reutemann 26 Jun '16

26 Jun '16

'Softpedia reports on the newest version of Peppermint OS, "a lightweight, stable, elegant, and fast computer operating system based on GNU/Linux and Open Source technologies." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes their report: It's a bit earlier than expected, but the Peppermint OS 7 GNU/Linux distribution has been officially unveiled...based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system [with] a lot of packages from the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS distro, which means that it will also be a long-term support release.... "Along with the shift to the 16.04 (Xenial) code base, Peppermint 7 continues our policy of choosing the best components from other desktop environments, wherever that may be, and integrating them into a cohesive whole with our own software," reads today's announcement. "Team Peppermint" says they're switching to Firefox as their default browser for site-specific browser functionality (similar to Chrome's -app mode) after Google dropped their 32-bit version of Chrome and moved to PPAPI plugins "which effectively ends Flash support in 32-bit Chromium"... But you can also still choose Chrome or Chromium for site-specific browsing (and the OS comes in 32-bit and 64-bit editions).' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/06/25/216216 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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a Debian-based OS for Nexus 5 phone
by Ian Young 24 Jun '16

24 Jun '16

Came upon this today - mentioned on Barry Kauler's blog (the Puppy Linux guy). ' have previously posted about MaruOS:" http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00363 http://maruos.com/#/

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KDE Developers Have Been Working On Improved Windows Support
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

<http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDE-Windows-Improvements>: “... they've abandoned the concept of having a single KDE installer for Windows, but work on individual programs (and installers) for Windows has continued. Single application installers are their path forward for shipping KDE programs on Windows...” Also in the reader comments, Krita lead Boudewijn Rempt writes about whether more Windows users leads to more Windows developers contributing <https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/desktop-linux/879128-kde-dev…>: “... I've certainly had half a dozen Windows developers come to the #krita irc channel asking how to build Krita on Windows so they could help out hacking. The problem is that setting up a build environment on WIndows is really hard, and in fact, we build the Windows binaries on Linux... So they need extraordinary perseverance to start contributing or use a Linux VM. That's really something we should improve on next, but I have no idea how to make it any eas[i]er anymore.”

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WLUG meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jun '16

22 Jun '16

Hi there We have a meeting next Monday: 'systemd', which has replaced SYSTEMV 'init' in nearly ALL current Linux distributions, seems to go against the fundamental philosophy of Linux/Unix - Doug Mcllroy, the inventor of Unix pipes, summarized the Unix/Linux philosophy as follows: "This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well..." systemd has a 'finger-in-all-pies' approach & seems quite complex. Let's discuss pros and cons of systemd. http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/231330392/ 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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Linux’s RPM/deb split could be replaced by Flatpak vs. snap
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

'Linux developers are going to have more than one choice for building secure, cross-distribution applications. Ubuntu's "snap" applications recently went cross-platform, having been ported to other Linux distros including Debian, Arch, Fedora, and Gentoo. The goal is to simplify packaging of applications. Instead of building a deb package for Ubuntu and an RPM for Fedora, a developer could package the application as a snap and have it installed on just about any Linux distribution. But Linux is always about choice, and snap isn't the only contender to replace traditional packaging systems. Today, the developers of Flatpak (previously called xdg-app) announced general availability for several major Linux distributions, with a pointer to instructions for installing on Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, and Ubuntu.' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/here-comes-flatpak-a-… 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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Microsoft: Nearly One In Three Azure Virtual Machines Now Are Running Linux
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

"Microsoft's self-professed Linux love is helping the company in the cloud. During his keynote at DockerCon 2016 in Seattle today, Azure Chief Technology Officer Mark Russinovich showed off some of the new and upcoming ways Microsoft is adding more container support to its cloud and server products. He also revealed a couple of new interesting datapoints. In the past year, Russinovich said, Microsoft has gone from one in four of its Azure virtual machines running Linux to nearly one in three. The other two-thirds of Azure customers are running Windows Server in their virtual machines. Russinovich showed off the promised Windows Server support that officials said would be coming at some point to the company's Azure Container Service (ACS). Microsoft made Azure Container Service generally available in April 2016, but for Linux containers only. Last year, company execs said Microsoft also would bring Windows Server support to ACS." -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/06/21/1754243 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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New World’s Fastest: 10-Million Core Supercomputer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Jun '16

21 Jun '16

<http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/10-million-core-super…> Not Intel-compatible, uses a home-grown 64-bit RISC chip architecture. According to this <http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/06/20/look-inside-chinas-chart-topping-new…>, it achieves 3 times the power efficiency of the x86 machines near the current top of the supercomputing league. According to the Ars article, the previous supercomputer king of the hill, “Tianhe-2 had been the world's fastest in six consecutive rankings, which are released twice a year”. So I think the record for staying the longest at the top still remains with the old NEC Earth Simulator, which was number one for maybe two years.

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Unprotected NFC Tags in MacDonald’s NZ & Australia Restaurants
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

Anybody could store any URL into these tags. Would customers who see these pop up on their phones think it was a legitimate MacDonald’s promotion and go to those sites? <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/filetophish_insecure_nfc_tag_relics…>

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New 'Hardened' Tor Browser Protects Users From FBI Hacking
by Peter Reutemann 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

'According to a new paper, security researchers are now working closely with the Tor Project to create a "hardened" version of the Tor Browser, implementing new anti-hacking techniques which could dramatically improve the anonymity of users and further frustrate the efforts of law enforcement... "Our solution significantly improves security over standard address space layout randomization (ASLR) techniques currently used by Firefox and other mainstream browsers," the researchers write in their paper, whose findings will be presented in July at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in Darmstadt, Germany. The researchers say Tor is currently field-testing their solution for an upcoming "hardened" release, making it harder for agencies like the FBI to crack the browser's security, according to Motherboard. "[W]hile that defensive advantage may not last for too long, it shows that some in the academic research community are still intent on patching the holes that their peers are helping government hackers exploit."' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/19/2249239 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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Under new management, SourceForge moves to put badness in past
by Peter Reutemann 19 Jun '16

19 Jun '16

"It has been six months since the company formerly known as Dice (DHI Group) sold off Slashdot Media—the business unit that runs Slashdot and SourceForge—to BIZX, LLC, a San Diego-based digital media company. Since then, the new management has been moving to erase some of the mistakes made under the previous regime—mistakes that led to the site becoming a bit of a pariah among open source and free software developers." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/under-new-management-… 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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