- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Exploit for local Linux kernel bug in circulation - Update
by Peter Reutemann 19 May '13

19 May '13

"Back in April, the Linux kernel developers fixed an incorrectly declared pointer in the Linux kernel. However, it appears that they overlooked the potential security implications of such a bug – particularly the fact that it is possible to gain access to almost any memory area using a suitable event_id. The developers only got into gear and declared the bug as an official security hole (CVE-2013-2094) after an exploit was released that proves that normal, logged-in users can gain root access this way. " -- source: http://h-online.com/-1863892 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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Ubuntu Developers Revisit Replacing Firefox With Chromium
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '13

16 May '13

"Expressed shortcomings of switching to Google's Chromium open-source web-browser is that data migration from Firefox isn't too obvious, extensions don't migrate between browsers, Chromium isn't supported on all architectures (e.g. PowerPC), the browser doesn't work with the Orca screen reader and doesn't integrate well for accessibility reasons, there is no native PDF plug-in, and Chromium is said to have worse performance under memory pressure. There were also some concerns expressed about differences with WebApps in Chromium. ... It looks like the switch to Chromium will happen in the name of a better user experience for the desktop with Chrome/Chromium now arguably surpassing Firefox in its features and performance while pushing Chromium as the default leads to a more consistent experience across Ubuntu form factors from phones/tablets to the desktop." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/16/2037212 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 camera module now available
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '13

16 May '13

"After being in development since late last year, the Raspberry Pi camera module is available to purchase and the software to support it is now built into Raspbian." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1863706 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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50 million Apache OpenOffice downloads in a year
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '13

16 May '13

"Just a few days after the one year anniversary of the release of the first version of OpenOffice from the Apache Foundation (Apache OpenOffice 3.4) on 8 May 2012, the project can now boast 50 million downloads of the open source office suite. More than 80% of these downloads have come from Windows users, with the rest of the downloads spread between Mac OS X and Linux. Over time, the percentage of Windows users has slightly increased at the expense of Mac OS X, with Linux usage hovering steady under 5%." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1864812 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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Crunchbang mirror
by Ian Young 16 May '13

16 May '13

Anybody know of a mirror for Crunchbang? They used to list one but it's all torrents now. From time to time various kindly people have offered mirrors, but the surviving ones I've found lately are no longer current.

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Unity 8, Mir To Be Experimental Choice In Ubuntu 13.10
by Peter Reutemann 16 May '13

16 May '13

"For those Linux enthusiasts wishing to toy with the Mir Display Server and Canonical's next-generation Unity 8 interface, they will be made optionally available for desktop users with the Ubuntu 13.10 release due out in October." -- source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM3MzY 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 Yorker opens Strongbox - a Tor-based anonymous drop site
by Peter Reutemann 15 May '13

15 May '13

"The magazine's anonymous drop site is based on DeadDrop, developed by the late Aaron Swartz. Anonymity is in part ensured by only accepting connections via the Tor project's network. ... The project is available to fork fromGitHub. Although the project was designed to make secure dead-drop systems available to all, at this point the developers do say that expertise is needed to safely deploy it and the actual code still needs more work. With the first implementation now running at the New Yorker, the software will see practical use and hopefully fulfil its design goals." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1863768 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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Ubuntu to stop Brainstorm
by Peter Reutemann 14 May '13

14 May '13

'The collaborative ideas site is to finally close, having been left behind by changes to how Canonical design the Ubuntu operating system. Meanwhile, the company is to return the "Community" button to the top of its pages.' -- source: http://h-online.com/-1862298 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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Canonical plans dogfood-capable phones by the end of May
by Peter Reutemann 12 May '13

12 May '13

"Canonical's developers are going to dogfood the Ubuntu phone just as soon as some important features get added to the current installable images. Ubuntu VP Rick Spencer is setting out to get that done by the end of May." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1859877 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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LinuxDevices.com Vanishes From the Web
by Peter Reutemann 10 May '13

10 May '13

"Embedded Linux pioneer LinuxDevices.com departed from the web earlier this week. The site became a collateral casualty of the aquisition of eWEEK by Quinstreet in February 2012, as part of a bundle of Ziff Davis Enterprise assets. Quinstreet immediately fired all the LinuxDevices staffers and ceased maintaining the site. A few days ago, the site's plug was finally pulled and it is now gone from the Web, save for a few pages on the WayBack Machine. For more than a decade, LinuxDevices played a pivotal role in serving and fostering an emerging embedded Linux ecosystem, and it was well respected by the embedded Linux community at the time it was acquired by QuinStreet. Unfortunately, the site did not mesh well with QuinStreet's B2B market focus. Fortunately, its spirit remains alive and well at LinuxGizmos.com, a site recently launched by LinuxDevices founder Rick Lehrbaum." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/05/09/2243250/linuxdevicescom-vanishe… 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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CrunchBang - Debian + Openbox
by Peter Reutemann 09 May '13

09 May '13

"CrunchBang is a Debian GNU/Linux based distribution offering a great blend of speed, style and substance. Using the nimble Openbox window manager, it is highly customisable and provides a modern, full-featured GNU/Linux system without sacrificing performance. The primary aim of the CrunchBang project is to produce a stable distribution offering the best possible out-of-the-box Openbox experience. To achieve this goal, CrunchBang pulls many base packages directly from Debian's repositories, which are well-known for providing stable and secure software. Packages from CrunchBang's own repositories are then customised and pinned to the system to produce what is known as the CrunchBang distro." -- source: http://crunchbang.org/about 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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Ubuntu Developing Its Own Package Format, Installer
by Peter Reutemann 08 May '13

08 May '13

"While complementing Debian APT/DPKG, Canonical is now developing their own package format. The new package format has promised highlights of having no dependencies between applications, each package would install to its own directory, root support wouldn't always be required, and overall a more self-contained and easier approach for developers than it stands now for Debian/Ubuntu packages. The primary users of the new packaging system would be those distributing applications built on the Ubuntu Touch/Phone SDK. The initial proof-of-concept package management system is written in Python and uses JSON representation." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/08/2038243/ubuntu-developing-its-own-p… 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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Linux still "benchmark of quality" in this year's Coverity Scan
by Peter Reutemann 07 May '13

07 May '13

"While Linux stands out for its repeated performance as a quality code base, Coverity's defect scanning finds what may be an interesting pattern in mapping how projects grow and how that affects the flaw factor of the code." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1858366 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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Certificate bug in open source IPsec VPN
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '13

06 May '13

"The strongSwan open source IPsec VPN software potentially accepts invalid digital signatures and certificates for IPsec connections. The developers report that the issue affects versions 4.3.5 up to 5.0.3 – but only if the OpenSSL crypto backend is enabled using --enable-openssl; the default crypto libraries are not vulnerable." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1855695 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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Cinnamon 1.8 adds desklet support
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '13

06 May '13

'The now available Cinnamon 1.8 no longer relies on the GNOME Control Center and supports "desklets", which are similar to Android widgets. The developers say that the Nemo file manager now better integrates into the desktop environment .' -- source: http://h-online.com/-1857166 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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Care needed when combining Exim and Dovecot
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '13

06 May '13

"A commonly used method of coupling the Exim and Dovecot mail server programs results in a serious security issue. The cause is an officially recommended, but problematic configuration." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1856664 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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On the Heels of Wheezy, Aptosid Releases 2013-01
by Peter Reutemann 06 May '13

06 May '13

"Right on the heels of Debian's 7.0 ('Wheezy') release, the Aptosid team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the 2013-01 release. Aptosid is a rolling release built on top of Debian's most modern branch Sid, providing the most up-to-date kernel available with patches and stabilization not yet seen in mainline, along with many patched Debian packages, all while maintaining 100% compatibility with upstream Debian (unlike other distros based on Debian). If you think Debian Stable is too old to be useful, give Atposid a spin!" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/05/06/0111241/on-the-heels-of-wheezy-apt… 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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"Portal" Now Available On Linux
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '13

05 May '13

"Valve have released Portal for Linux through the Steam platform. If you have a copy of the Windows version you will automatically have a copy of it for Linux in your account. There are also rumors of Portal 2 coming soon." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/05/05/1840224/portal-now-available-on-li… 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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Debian 7 "Wheezy" released
by Peter Reutemann 05 May '13

05 May '13

"Up front, the new release brings a GNOME 3 front end to the community-driven Linux distribution, but the big changes are behind the scenes with multiple architecture support and cloud-enabling packages." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1856723 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 IPython Notebook
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '13

02 May '13

"The IPython Notebook is a web-based interactive computational environment where you can combine code execution, text, mathematics, plots and rich media into a single document. These notebooks are normal files that can be shared with colleagues, converted to other formats such as HTML or PDF, etc. You can share any publicly available notebook by using the IPython Notebook Viewer service which will render it as a static web page. This makes it easy to give your colleagues a document they can read immediately without having to install anything." -- source: http://ipython.org/notebook.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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The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail)
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '13

02 May '13

"This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu 13.04 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge." -- source: http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-13.04-raring-ringtail 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 and Linux Nanosats Shine Bright in Open Source Space Race
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '13

02 May '13

'Three Android-powered NASA "PhoneSat" nanosatellites deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere on April 27 after successfully completing their six-day mission. Meanwhile, the Android- and Linux-powered STRaND-1 nanosat, which was launched by the U.K.'s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and Surrey Space Centre on Feb. 25, is still orbiting, but has yet to phone home.' -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/716910-android-and-l… 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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AMD's Open Source Linux Driver Trounces NVIDIA's
by Peter Reutemann 02 May '13

02 May '13

"In a 15-way graphics card comparison on Linux of both the open and closed-source drivers, it was found that the open-source AMD Linux graphics driver is much faster than the open-source NVIDIA driver on Ubuntu 13.04. The open-source NVIDIA driver is developed entirely by the community via reverse-engineering, but for Linux desktop users, is this enough? The big issue for the open-source 'Nouveau' driver is that it doesn't yet fully support re-clocking the graphics processor so that the hardware can actually run at its rated speeds. With the closed-source AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce results, the drivers were substantially faster than their respective open-source driver. Between NVIDIA and AMD on Linux, the NVIDIA closed-source driver was generally doing better than AMD Catalyst." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/02/1421258/amds-open-source-linux-driv… 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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Lightworks for Linux now in open beta
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '13

01 May '13

"EditShare has opened the beta programme for the Linux version of its Lightworks editor for public testing. Lightworks is one of the oldest video editing packages still being developed, its initial release dating back to 1989." -- source: http://h-online.com/-1854081 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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Open Build Service 2.4 understands Arch Linux packaging
by Peter Reutemann 01 May '13

01 May '13

"The openSUSE developers have released version 2.4 of the Open Build Service that powers the openSUSE Build Service. New features include support for Arch's PKGBUILD format and AArch 64" -- source: http://h-online.com/-1853966 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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