- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Data Recovery From Accidentally Deleted Files or Crashed Drives in Ubuntu
by Peter Reutemann 20 Mar '14

20 Mar '14

"This tutorial will help you to recover data from accidentally deleted data from Linux-file systems. This is a very drastic mistake by any user/admin which costs for huge penalties. This script will be a boon for newbies/expert for data management. I will be using TestDisk for data-recovery. Here I have simplified the task with the help of a script." -- source: http://bit.ly/1d1I6GT Testdisk itself actually runs on many operating systems (DOS, Windows, Linux, Mac): http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk 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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OpenSUSE 13.2 To Use Btrfs By Default
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '14

19 Mar '14

"OpenSUSE has shared features coming to their 13.2 release in November. The big feature is using Btrfs by default instead of EXT4. OpenSUSE is committed to Btrfs and, surprisingly, they are the first major Linux distribution to use it by default. But then again, they were also big ReiserFS fans. Other planned OpenSUSE 13.2 features are Wayland 1.4, KDE Frameworks 5, and a new Qt5 front-end to YaST." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/03/19/2125243 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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Enlightenment E19 To Have Full Wayland Support
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '14

19 Mar '14

"Full Wayland support has been added to Enlightenment 0.19. Building upon earlier Wayland support, Enlightenment can now act as its own Wayland compositor by communicating directly with the kernel's DRM drivers instead of having to rely upon Weston. The Wayland support is still considered experimental but it's now the first Linux desktop with full Wayland support." -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03/19/1344224 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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Malware Attack Infected 25,000 Linux/UNIX Servers
by Peter Reutemann 19 Mar '14

19 Mar '14

"Security researchers from ESET have uncovered a widespread attack campaign that has infected more than 25,000 Linux and UNIX servers around the world. The servers are being hijacked by a backdoor Trojan as part of a campaign the researchers are calling 'Operation Windigo.' Once infected, victimized systems are leveraged to steal credentials, redirected web traffic to malicious sites and send as many as 35 million spam messages a day. 'Windigo has been gathering strength, largely unnoticed by the security community, for more than two and a half years and currently has 10,000 servers under its control,' said Pierre-Marc Bureau, security intelligence program manager at ESET, in a statement. There are many misconceptions around Linux security, and attacks are not something only Windows users need to worry about. The main threats facing Linux systems aren't zero-day vulnerabilities or malware, but things such as Trojanized applications, PHP backdoors, and malicious login attempts over SSH. ESET recommends webmasters and system administrators check their systems to see if they are compromised, and has published a detailed report presenting the findings and instructions on how to remove the malicious code if it is present." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/03/18/2218237 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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Saturday Linux workshop
by Bruce Kingsbury 18 Mar '14

18 Mar '14

I'll be running another Saturday Linux Workshop this weekend; March 22nd, 2014 10:00 am - 2:00 pm *Te Whare O Te Ata* 60a Sare Cres Hamilton, 3214 07 8557804 This is a GNU/Linux-focused workshop where people can bring their PCs, Laptops, Pi's, Android devices etc for trouble-shooting and to learn or try out new skills. All visitors welcome - light lunch provided - gold coin donation appreciated *NEW: the community house has upgraded to UFB. Now you can download your favorite distro faster than ever!*

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '14

18 Mar '14

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting next week on Monday and Lawrence D'Oliveiro will talk about: - Using Android: UI conventions, vendor customization - Structure of Android: Linux kernel, use of processes and user IDs, Toolbox Shell - Programming Android: app (APK) structure, Java & Dalvik, Bionic runtime, privilege model, SDK, NDK (for C/C++ code), platform APIs, OpenGL-ES - Hacking Android: AOSP, alternative ROMs http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/161631632/ 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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HamPUG: Hamilton Python User Group
by Peter Reutemann 18 Mar '14

18 Mar '14

Hi everyone For more local Python stuff in and around Hamilton (and the Waikato), we've set up a mailing list called "HamPUG": http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/hampug Scheduled meetings will appear on meetup.com and on this mailing list. Feel free to subscribe! :-) 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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CASE STUDY: NZ fruit distributor freshens up with Linux
by Peter Reutemann 14 Mar '14

14 Mar '14

"Turners&Growers made the move to Suse Linux and IBM's DB2, while converting to Unicode, inside a short timeframe, but have no regrets to date." -- source: http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/540412 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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Google To Replace GTK+ With Its Own Aura In Chrome
by Peter Reutemann 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

"Google's Chromium team is working on an alternative of Gtk+ for the browser, called Aura. Elliot Glaysher, a Google developer explains, 'We aim to launch the Aura graphics stack on Linux in M35. Aura is a cross-platform graphics system, and the Aura frontend will replace the current GTK+ frontend.' The Free Software community is debating: is Google trying to do Canonical? Couldn't Google just switch to Qt, which is becoming an industry standard?" -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03/12/0147256 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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$2, 400 'Introduction To Linux' Course Will Be Free and Online This Summer
by Peter Reutemann 09 Mar '14

09 Mar '14

"Earlier this week, The Linux Foundation announced that it would be working with edX, a non-profit online learning site governed by Harvard and MIT, to make its "Introduction to Linux" course free and open to all. The Linux Foundation has long offered a wide variety of training courses through its website, but those can generally cost upwards of $2,000. This introductory class, which usually costs $2,400, will be the first from the Linux Foundation to run as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/03/08/2258208 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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KDE Releases Calligra Suite 2.8
by Peter Reutemann 08 Mar '14

08 Mar '14

"The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the release of version 2.8 of the Calligra Suite, Calligra Active and the Calligra Office Engine. Major new features in this release are comments support in Author and Words, improved Pivot tables in Sheets, improved stability and the ability to open hyperlinks in Kexi. Flow introduces SVG based stencils and as usual there are many new features in Krita including touch screens support and a wraparound painting mode for the creation of textures and tiles." -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03/08/0454245 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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New attack on HTTPS crypto might reveal if you're pregnant or have cancer
by Peter Reutemann 07 Mar '14

07 Mar '14

"As the most widely used technology to prevent eavesdropping on the Internet, HTTPS encryption has seen its share of attacks, most of which work by exploiting weaknesses that allow snoops to decode cryptographically scrambled traffic. Now there's a novel technique that can pluck out details as personal as someone's sexual orientation or a contemplation of suicide, even when the protection remains intact." -- source: http://bit.ly/1czsdHI 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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Computer History 6/6
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Mar '14

05 Mar '14

Some old classics there. But boy, have we come a long way since characters made out of spheres and cylinders...

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Computer History 4/6
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 05 Mar '14

05 Mar '14

And if you want to see how far computer graphics has come, try this one:

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Canonical Ports Chromium To The Mir Display Server
by Peter Reutemann 05 Mar '14

05 Mar '14

"Months after Intel ported the Chromium open-source web browser to Wayland, Chromium is now running on Ubuntu's Mir. The Mir display server port ended up being based on Wayland's Chromium code for interfacing with Google's Ozone abstraction framework. The Ubuntu developer responsible for this work makes claims that they will be trying to better collaborate with Wayland developers over this code." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/03/05/1240226 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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Google Won't Enable Chrome Video Acceleration Because of Linux GPU Bugs
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"Citing 'code we consider to be permanently "experimental" or "beta,"' Google Chrome engineers have no plans on enabling video acceleration in the Chrome/Chromium web browser. Code has been written but is permanently disabled by default because 'supporting GPU features on Linux is a nightmare' due to the reported sub-par quality of Linux GPU drivers and many different Linux distributions. Even coming up with a Linux GPU video acceleration white-list has been shot down over fear of the Linux video acceleration code causing stability issues and problems for Chrome developers. What have been your recent experiences with Linux GPU drivers?" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/03/04/1926233 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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Bug In the GnuTLS Library Leaves Many OSs and Apps At Risk
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"According to this article at Ars Technica, '[A] bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers.' The coding error may have been present since 2005." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/03/04/2150223 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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Ars walkthrough: Using the ZFS next-gen filesystem on Linux
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"There are lots of options for running ZFS, and very little of this walkthrough will really depend on your use of Ubuntu in particular or even Linux in general. You can always visit http://zfsonlinux.org directly for help with the initial installation if you prefer RHEL or Fedora or Arch or what have you--and if you're a BSD fan, ZFS is available from the base installer in either PC-BSD or in the latest 10.0 release of FreeBSD itself." -- source: http://bit.ly/1filf41 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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Tor develops its own anonymous IM tool to hide chat from spying eyes
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The Tor Foundation is moving forward with a plan to provide its own instant messaging service. Called the Tor Instant Messaging Bundle, the tool will allow people to communicate in real time while preserving anonymity by using chat servers concealed within Tor's hidden network." -- source: http://goo.gl/BUjLY7 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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Latvian hospital uses GNU/Linux
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The Children's Hospital in Riga, Latvia uses GNU/Linux for most of its tasks. Around 2003, the hospital deployed openSUSE on some of its machines and installed a basic HIS (Hospital Information System) on it. Later, they developed their own HIS, and moved their new services to Xen virtualization servers. (An HIS is a software used to manage all the data and operations of a hospital in an integrated fashion.) Currently, the hospital has about 600 workstations, and over half of them run Ubuntu." -- source: http://www.muktware.com/2014/02/latvian-hospital-uses-gnulinux/21851 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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Raspberry Pi marks 2nd birthday with plan for open source graphics driver
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

'The Raspberry Pi Foundation, with help from chipmaker Broadcom, is laying out a path toward an open source graphics driver for the tiny computer. Broadcom today "announced the release of full documentation for the VideoCore IV graphics core, and a complete source release of the graphics stack under a 3-clause BSD license," Raspberry Pi creator Eben Upton wrote in a blog post.' -- source: http://bit.ly/1kKjhP2 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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The first Ubuntu 14.04 'Trusty Tahr' beta
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The first Beta of Trusty Tahr (to become 14.04 LTS) has now been released for testers and early adopters. This beta features images for Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu and the Ubuntu Cloud images. These are not to be used as stable systems but please do test for bugs to report. Always ensure your system is up to date before reporting bugs." -- source: http://lwn.net/Articles/588871/ 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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Android Presentation
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

I suppose it’s time to start thinking about my presentation on Android development on 24th March. I’ll bring a couple of my own devices (must remember a USB cable as well...). If I can have access to the demo machine about an hour before the presentation, I can install the Android SDK on it—I normally put that just in my own user directory. However, I’ve found I have trouble accessing connected devices unless I launch the ADB server as root. I can pull down various bits of sample code off GitHub and developer.android.com. I’ve been able to do Java compilations with OpenJDK as a replacement for Sun JDK. I assume we can project the desktop machine display for everyone to see, but I’m not so sure how we do that with an Android device. (My devices may speak some version of MHL, if that helps.) Or we could run sample apps on an emulator on the desktop machine?

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Saturday Linux workshop
by Bruce Kingsbury 20 Feb '14

20 Feb '14

I'll be running another Saturday Linux Workshop tomorrow; February 22nd, 2014 10:00 am - 2:00 pm *Te Whare O Te Ata* 60a Sare Cres Hamilton, 3214 07 8557804 This is a GNU/Linux-focused workshop where people can bring their PCs, Pi's, Android devices etc for trouble-shooting and to learn or try out new skills. All visitors welcome - light lunch provided - gold coin donation appreciated

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Ubuntu store apps won't work across mobile and desktop in 14.04
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '14

14 Feb '14

One of Canonical's main goals in bringing Ubuntu to mobile devices is to create a converged platform across smartphones, tablets, and PCs. As such, a developer should be able to write an app that has a single code base yet runs on all three types of devices, presenting a different interface to the user on each form factor. ... Technically, this has already been achieved [with Unity 8]. ... The current goal is to get Unity 8 on the desktop in 14.10, "but we are always assessing our roadmap and reviewing what is realistic," Bacon wrote.' -- source: http://bit.ly/1jdrISm 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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