- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Murdock On The Birth Of Debian
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

Noted Free Culture rapporteur Glyn Moody recalls his 1999 interview with late Debian founder Ian Murdock about the genesis of the project: <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/the-birth-of-debian-i…>. As Murdock told me in 1999, the problems arose from the fact that "the fellow who was doing [SLS] was trying to do everything himself. And so I looked on that and I thought, well, you know, if Linux has taught us anything it's that that kind of model is sub-optimal. What we really ought to do is we ought try to take the model that Linux has pioneered, intentionally or not, and try to get the same benefits from that for building the system around it."

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Microsoft's Latest Patent Aggression Comes Under Fire From the EFF, Former GNU/Linux Company the Patent's Target
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

'MICROSOFT, which is connected to many patent trolls (includingIntellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest), is still busy suing companies. Microsoft has a long history of patent aggression, including patent litigation against Linux (not just threats thereof). As longtime readers of this site may know, this and only this was the raison d’être of this Web site. “…since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.” –Joe MullinAs we noted the other day, referring tothe original from the EFF, Microsoft is now attacking a company that once dominated word processing. Microsoft allegedly engaged in competition crimes against this company, leading to decades of expensive litigation. This company also pioneered some important GNU/Linux efforts until Microsoft shut these down with a mysterious deal (which we wrote about on several occasions around 2007). Well, Microsoft is now trying to drive this company into bankruptcy, using patents. What’s the name of this company? Corel. We have a whole category about Corel (with 51 articles, as well as leaked court documents). History is important here and it’s imperative that people properly study Corel to truly grasp how severe this situation really is.' -- source: http://techrights.org/2015/12/31/patent-aggression-against-corel/ 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 Leap of Faith -- Replacing Ubuntu Server with openSUSE Leap
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

"I run a local file and media server, which is a very important part of my digital life -- it hosts all of my files. Everything. I have been using an Ubuntu 14.04 server running on a self-assembled PC. But, it’s a big, noisy system and generates too much heat. So, I planned to move to smaller form factor, such as System76's Meerkat." -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/systems-management/874378 -- Meerkat link: https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat Cheers, Peer -- 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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Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock
by Peter Reutemann 31 Dec '15

31 Dec '15

"With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the 'ian' in Debian." source: https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html 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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Inside Red Star OS
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Dec '15

30 Dec '15

North Korea has developed its own Linux distro, chock-full of features to allow every action of its users to be tracked. Some researchers have been taking it apart to see how these features work. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/29/north_korea_red_star_os/>

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The Guardian Project
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Dec '15

25 Dec '15

Just been watching the latest in the “Rebel Geeks” series on Al Jazeera. Today the episode was called “A Bigger Brother” <http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelgeeks/2015/12/bigger-brother-15121…>, centred around the use of an open-source Android app called CameraV. The aim of this app is to record video along with a whole heap of corroborating metadata (GPS coordinates, local wi-fi networks etc) to make the footage credible enough, in particular proof enough against accusations of tampering, to be used as evidence in court. This is particularly important where the video is documenting crimes committed by people in positions of power and trust, such as the police. They used a nice term for this: “sousveillance” (watching done by ordinary people from below), as compared to the more usual “surveillance” (watching by those in privileged positions from above). One interesting comment made in the program was that the phone needs to look like it is not capturing video while the app is running, because in a place like Rio De Janeiro, the cops will grab phones away from people who they think are filming them. I did some digging around on GitHub, and found that this app is part of the Guardian Project, and they have a whole bunch of other useful-looking tools related to encryption, privacy and so on <https://github.com/guardianproject> They also have a website <https://guardianproject.info/>.

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HTTP Error Code 451 Approved For Censored Web Pages
by Peter Reutemann 21 Dec '15

21 Dec '15

'The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) has finally approved the new 451 status code for HTTP error messages involving web pages which have been repressed or removed for legal or political reasons. The initiative was proposed in 2013, and gained interest from various groups, such as Lumen (formerly Chilling Effects), who see the potential of the Bradbury-inspired code to help develop comprehensive indexes of censorship on the internet. Mark Nottingham, chair the IETF HTTP Working Group, says, "It'll be an RFC after some work by the RFC Editor and a few more process bits, but effectively you can start using it now."' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/21/1549258 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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Raspbian Levels the Field With Latest Update
by Peter Reutemann 18 Dec '15

18 Dec '15

"During all the Pi Zero hype and showcasing, most of us probably didn't realize that the Raspbian OS got a much needed update. While this update isn't a major release, it still contained some amazing features. If you are running Raspbian Jessie, then take a moment to read over this article so you won't be left out in the cold. I'll go over the best parts of the update and also provide install instructions on how to get all this on your current Raspbian install." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/raspbian-levels-the-field-with-lat… 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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Items From Blender Conference 2015
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Dec '15

17 Dec '15

I saw from Peter’s posting that Blender got one of the “top 10 open source projects” awards on opensource.com this year. And they had their Blender Conference 2015 about a month ago. A couple of notable related articles I found on opensource.com are “Teaching Teens 3D Animation With Blender” <https://opensource.com/life/15/12/blender-interview-tom-haines-3dami> where this nonprofit called 3Dami offers a free, intensive 7-day course to selected students. Quote on the (much-maligned) Blender interface: Many do prefer to use Blender outside our events. Once you have got over the bump of its interface being different to other software, you soon learn just how insanely fast it is—its interface is different for a very good reason, and its hard to accept the slow down of using other software. Some students actually learn that lesson during our event: More than a few have turned up moaning that we aren't using a certain piece of software beginning with "M," but they usually get why we use Blender by the time they leave. I do know that one of our students is making money using Blender, and I expect others to join them given time. Another one, relevant to a University research setting, is “Visualize Astrophysics Data With Blender” <https://opensource.com/life/15/11/blender-conference-interview-jill-naiman-…>. Besides Blender, this also builds on a Python-based astrophysics simulation framework called “yt”. (Aside: the more we become accustomed to being able to use keyword searches to find everything online, the more annoyed some of us become with short names that are hard to search for. Is this good or bad? Discuss.) I suspect there are bits there that could be adapted to other kinds of physical simulation. More presentations to see here: <https://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderFoundation/videos>

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end of year: best of open source
by Peter Reutemann 16 Dec '15

16 Dec '15

Top 10 open source projects of 2015 https://opensource.com/business/15/12/top-10-open-source-projects-2015 Bossies 2015: The Best of Open Source Software Awards http://www.infoworld.com/article/2984437/open-source-tools/bossies-2015-the… 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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AMD Goes Open Source, Announces GPUOpen Initiative, Linux Compiler, Drivers
by Peter Reutemann 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

'AMD announced today that the company is releasing a slew of open-source software and tools to give game developers, heterogeneous applications, and HPC applications deeper access to the GPU and GPU resources. AMD and their Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) are looking for ways to ease game development, so developers can more easily re-use code and port their games from consoles over to the PC. With GPUOpen, game developers will have direct access to GPU hardware, as well as access to a large collection of open source effects, tools, libraries and SDKs, which are being made available on GitHub under an MIT open-source license. As part of the effort, the company is also releasing a new HCC C++ compiler which will be a tool in enabling developers to more easily leverage the resources of discrete GPU hardware in heterogeneous systems. The HCC complier also allows developers to convert CUDA code to portable C++. According to AMD, internal testing shows that in many cases 90 percent or more of CUDA code can be automatically converted into C++ with the final 10 percent converted manually in the widely popular C++ language. An early access program for the "Boltzmann Initiative" tools is planned for Q1 2016.' -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/12/15/1429257 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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Collabora and OwnCloud Announce LibreOffice Online
by Peter Reutemann 15 Dec '15

15 Dec '15

'Collabora Productivity, a UK-based consulting company, has collaborated with ownCloud Inc. to release a developer edition of online LibreOffice, which they call CODE (Collabora Online Development Edition). "The office suite implementation runs on ownCloud server. That's where all the processing and heavy lifting is done. The rendering happens at the client side. Currently there are three apps: writer (equivalent to MS Word), spreadsheet (Excel) and presentation (PowerPoint). At the moment users can create new documents and edit them. Other functionality, such as collaborative editing, is in the pipeline."' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/12/15/1849234 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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Finding Differences Between Binary Files
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Hi folks. As mentioned in passing last night, diff(1) isn’t much help for tracking down differences between two non-text files: all it will say is the files differ. However, there is a way to get detail on the differences, and that is to use a hex dump command like xxd(1) to produce text output from those binary files, and diff that text output instead. Thus, instead of diff binfile1 binfile2 you do diff <(xxd binfile1) <(xxd binfile2) This will quickly narrow down runs of changed bytes, and possibly even small sections of inserted or deleted bytes as well.

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Raspberry π As A Thin Client?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Citrix has posted a demo of a Raspberry π giving smooth performance running a thin client OS. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/14/vdi_comes_to_the_raspberry_pi/> A game-changer for VDI?

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MIT Creates Tor Alternative That Floods Networks With Fake Data
by Peter Reutemann 13 Dec '15

13 Dec '15

"An anonymous reader writes with word that MIT researchers "created an alternative to Tor, a network messaging system called Vuvuzela that pollutes the network with dummy data so the NSA won't know who's talking to who." Initial tests show the systems overhead adding a 44-second delay, but the network can work fine and preserve anonymity even it has more than 50% of servers compromised." -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/13/1522224 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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Firefox OS smartphones are dead
by Peter Reutemann 12 Dec '15

12 Dec '15

The phone ecosystem just got smaller: "Mozilla is ending its plan to build an OS for smartphones. Today at Mozilla's "Mozlando" developer event, the company announced that it would stop developing and selling Firefox OS smartphones. " -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/firefox-os-smartphones-are-dead/ 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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How To Win Friends And Influence People
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Dec '15

12 Dec '15

And show your appreciation to open-source developers. <https://github.com/JuliaLang/IJulia.jl/issues/398> Or not...

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Is Your Son A Computer Hacker?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Dec '15

10 Dec '15

A guide for the perplexed. As in, if you weren’t perplexed before reading this, you will be after <http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html>. Watch out for that nasty Lunix and that devil incarnate, Linyos Torovoltos! Seems like there are some other similar gems to be found on that site, all dating from the early ’00s. Nice that they keep it online.

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Let's Encrypt Is Now In Public Beta
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

"As of today, Let's Encrypt is in Public Beta. If you're comfortable running beta software that may have a few bugs and rough edges, you can use it to instantly obtain and install certificates for any HTTPS website or TLS service." -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/03/2016238 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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It’s Here: The Internet Of Wrongs
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Dec '15

03 Dec '15

One of the presentations at the upcoming Kiwicon in Wellington is going to be about a device built out of a Raspberry π Zero using “nothing more than off-the-shelf components and "questionable life choices"”. It looks for attempts to connect to Instagram and other “social-media vanity” sites (including rugby), and blocks them by returning bogus responses. Quote: “It is exceptionally effective at selfie-drenched "music" festivals and coffee shops”. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/02/british_hacker_turns_raspberry_pi_z…>

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Why Algebraic Eraser may be the riskiest cryptosystem you’ve never heard of
by Peter Reutemann 30 Nov '15

30 Nov '15

"A potential standard for securing network-connected pacemakers, automobiles, and other lightweight devices has suffered a potentially game-over setback after researchers developed a practical attack that obtains its secret cryptographic key. Known as Algebraic Eraser, the scheme is a patented way to establish public encryption keys without overtaxing the limited amounts of memory and computational resources that often constrain so-called Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Developed by scientists from Shelton, Connecticut-based SecureRF, it's similar to the Diffie-Hellman key exchange in that it allows two parties who have never met to securely establish a key over an insecure channel." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/why-algebraic-eraser-may-be-the-mos… 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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When Is “Free Software” Not Free?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Nov '15

30 Nov '15

Linux kernel developer Matthew Garrett has posted some criticisms of projects like Mozilla, Red Hat and Ubuntu that develop or redistribute Free software, but tack on an “intellectual property rights policy”. Basically that means they claim ownership of certain logos and trademarks, so if you want to fully exercise your Four Freedoms, you have to strip those out before you are allowed to redistribute what you receive from them. <http://lwn.net/Articles/665175/> One particularly worrying thing is this comment from Garrett (mjg59) on the above article: Canonical refuse to tell you what changes you need to make to the packages in order to do so.

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Pi Zero: A full Raspberry Pi for just $5
by Peter Reutemann 28 Nov '15

28 Nov '15

"Have you ever wanted a Raspberry Pi but thought that £16/$25—roughly three packs of cigarettes—was a little exorbitant for a complete computer capable of running Linux? Well, I have good news: the Raspberry Pi Foundation has just released the Pi Zero, a single-board computer that costs just £4/$5." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/pi-zero-a-full-raspberry-pi-for-just… 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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Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Ship With Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS
by Peter Reutemann 27 Nov '15

27 Nov '15

"The current daily build of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) remains based on the Linux 4.2 kernel packages of the stable Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system, while the latest and most advanced Linux 4.3 kernel is tracked on the master-next branch of the upcoming operating system. In the meantime, the Ubuntu Kernel Team announced plans for moving to Linux kernel 4.4 for the final release of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/11/26/1920204 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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20 Years of GIMP
by Peter Reutemann 24 Nov '15

24 Nov '15

'Back in 1995, University of California students Peter Mattis and Kimball Spencer were members of the eXperimental Computing Facility, a Berkeley campus organization. In June of that year, the two hinted at their intentions to write a free graphical image manipulation program as a means of giving back to the free software community. On November 21st, 20 years ago today, Peter Mattis announced the availability of the "General Image Manipulation Program" on Usenet (later "GNU Image Manipulation Program"). Over the years, GIMP amassed a huge amount of new features designed for all kinds of users and practical applications: general image editing, retouching and color grading, digital painting, graphic design, science imaging, and so on. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, there is an update of the current stable branch of GIMP. The newly released version 2.8.16 features support for layer groups in OpenRaster files, fixes for layer groups support in PSD, various user interface improvements, OSX build system fixes, translation updates, and more.' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/11/22/2019259 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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Fwd: [Roundcube Announce] Roundcube Webmail 1.2-beta out now
by Simon Green 23 Nov '15

23 Nov '15

Good morning all, Roundcube 1.2-beta has been released, Among other enhancements, this release supports either server side or client side PGP encryption. As far as I know, this is the first open source web based e-mail client that does so. -- Simon -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Roundcube Announce] Roundcube Webmail 1.2-beta out now Date: 24/11/2015 5:15 am From: Thomas Bruederli <thomas(a)roundcube.net> We're proud to announce that the beta release of the next major version 1.2 of Roundcube webmail is out now for download and testing. With this milestone we introduce new features primarily focusing on security and PGP encryption: * PHP7 compatibility * PGP encryption * Drag-n-drop attachments from mail preview to compose window * Mail messages searching with predefined date interval * Improved security measures to protect from brute-force attacks And of course plenty of small improvements and bug fixes. The PGP encryption support in Roundcube comes with two options: Mailvelope -------------- The integration of this browser plugin [1] for Firefox and Chrome comes out of the box in Roundcube 1.2 and is enabled if the Mailvelope API is detected in a user's browser. See the Mailvelope documentation [2] how to enable it for your site. Read more about the Mailvelope integration and how this looks like in Alec's blog [3]. Enigma plugin ------------------- This Roundcube plugin adds server-side PGP encryption features to Roundcube. Enabling this means that users need to fully trust the webmail server as encryption is done on the server GnuPG and private keys are also stored there. In order to activate server-side PGP encryption for all your users, the 'enigma' plugin, which is shipped with this package, has to be enabled in the Roundcube config. See the plugin's README for details. Also read Alec's blogpost about the Enigma plugin and how it works [4]. Both encryption features are pretty new and not yet perfectly documented. We'd much appreciate your feedback and your contribution to the end-user documentation [5] or our wiki page [6]. IMPORTANT: with this version, we finally deprecate some old Roundcube library functions [7]. Plugin developers, please test your plugins thoroughly and look for deprecation warnings in the logs. These function will be removed in the final 1.2.0 release and can therefore render plugins dysfunctional. See the full changelog on trac.roundcube.net [8] and download the new packages from https://roundcube.net/download Please note that this is a beta release and we recommend to test it on a separate environment. And don't forget to backup your data before installing it! Enjoy and please share your experience either through our mailing lists or as comments in the blog posts mentioned above. Kind regards, Thomas [1] https://www.mailvelope.com [2] https://www.mailvelope.com/en/help#watchlist [3] https://kolabian.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/mailvelope-integration-pgp-encryp… [4] https://kolabian.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/enigma-plugin-pgp-encryption/ [5] http://trac.roundcube.net/wiki/Online_Help [6] http://trac.roundcube.net/wiki/Dev_Encryption [7] https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/blob/master/program/include/bc.p… [8] http://trac.roundcube.net/wiki/Changelog

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Rebel Geeks: Meet Your Maker
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Nov '15

20 Nov '15

Some on this list should be interested in this series on Al Jazeera called “Rebel Geeks”. The episode this week featured Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino, at the Maker Faire in Shenzhen, China. It also talks about the Safecast project, which was a volunteer group that came together in the wake of the Fukushima disaster to provide radiation data more extensive than anything the Government was able to offer. You can watch it on-line here <http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelgeeks/2015/11/technology-maker-mov…>.

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Linux Mint 1.73 BETA
by Peter Reutemann 18 Nov '15

18 Nov '15

Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" BETA is out, using Cinnamon and MATE: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2937 http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2938 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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Open source projects rely on donated time—what motivates participants?
by Peter Reutemann 18 Nov '15

18 Nov '15

"Open source software packages like WordPress and Firefox have been major influences on modern computing. In statistics, open source software known as “R” has become the most popular environment for statistical computation and data analysis. A recent paper in PNAS studied the developers who make this software so successful to understand what motivates them and why they find contributing satisfying." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/open-source-projects-rely-on-donated… 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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The Dirk And Linus Show Comes To Seoul
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Snippets from <http://lwn.net/Articles/662106/>: Is there anybody out there who understands the entire kernel? Linus said that nobody does. There are some people who have a good overview of the whole kernel, and Linus, at least, generally knows who to blame for any specific problem. But with a project the size of the kernel it's not possible for anybody to have a deep understanding of the whole thing. ... With regard to how an aspiring kernel developer should start, Linus has always said the same thing: he can't tell developers what to do. It is important, instead, that developers work on things they *want* to do. ... How many kernel compiles has he done? It used to take about twelve minutes to compile a kernel; over time, the kernel has gotten bigger, but the hardware has gotten faster; the current time is about 22 minutes for an allmodconfig kernel. He does about ten builds per day during the merge window, a couple otherwise. Kernel development has been happening for about 8800 days; the bottom line, Linus guessed, was about 100,000 compiles. ... What about the Git project — what made that project successful? Linus gave a lot of credit to BitKeeper which, despite its licensing issues, changed how the kernel community did development. Git, of course, is an [Linus Torvalds] improvement on BitKeeper, but BitKeeper showed the benefits of distributed development when nobody else was working in that area. Once Git was around, its use by the kernel community helped it to spread quickly. Its immutable object model turned out to make it easy for service providers to use, enabling companies like GitHub. Ten years ago, developers were resistant to thinking about source-code management issues; Git forced them to look at it and to realize how much better distributed source-code management is. Git was not the first in this area, but it was the one that created wide awareness of a better way of doing things.

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WLUG AGM next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Hi everyone Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) is next week on Monday. Agenda (preliminary) - President's Report - Treasurer's Report - Election of 2016 Committee - Consumption of pizza http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/226192341/ 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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Calibrate your Monitor with these Open Source Tools
by Peter Reutemann 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

"What is seen on your display and what the image should look like can be two quite different things. If you value image quality and accuracy, calibration of your monitor will be important. Anyone involved in digital photography, graphic design or artwork will recognise the importance that their monitor is producing the best results, showing true colors and black levels. The following open source tools are invaluable for anyone looking for accurate color reproduction." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/calibrate-your-monitor-with-these-… 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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Sourceforge going mubar?!
by Ian Young 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

Anyone happen to know whether Sourceforge is more than usually impaired at the moment (messed up beyond all recognition)? Any download I attempt is extremely slow, this from two networks. And Australia seems to been excised from the map of mirrors. Don't even get me started on the wall to wall advertising, and the cumbersome process of displaying info on whatever project one is trying to d/l after a d/l has commenced.

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Linux 4.4 Kernel To Bring Raspberry Pi Graphics Driver, Open-Channel SSD Support
by Peter Reutemann 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

"Linux 4.4-rc1 has been released. New features of Linux 4.4 include a Raspberry Pi kernel mode-setting driver, support for 3D acceleration by QEMU guest virtual machines, AMD Stoney APU support, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 support, expanded eBPF virtual machine programs, new hardware peripheral support, file-system fixes, faster SHA crypto support on Intel hardware, and LightNVM / Open-Channel SSD support." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/11/16/0313205 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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SUSE LEAP 421 live versions
by Ian Young 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

This looks interesting and not a large download. http://geckolinux.github.io/ And the inimitable man from Sweden has been at it again in a break from brewing up his Android and Pi versions. http://opsus.exton.net/

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Non-Copyleft Licences “Put The FOSS Community At Risk Of Collapse”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

HP’s CTO Martin Fink gave the closing keynote at the recent LinuxCon Europe conference. He argued that the proliferation of open-source software licences is (once again) having a bad effect on the health of software projects <http://lwn.net/Articles/660428/>. That much would not be so controversial, except he also claims that the use of non-copyleft “permissive” licences is adding to the problem. He justifies his argument thus: The Apache 2.0 license is currently the most widely used "permissive" license. But the thing that developers overlook when adopting it, he said, is that by using Apache they are also making a choice about how much work they will have to put into building any sort of community around the project. If you look at Apache-licensed projects, he noted, "you'll find that they are very top-heavy with 'governance' structures." Technical committees, working groups, and various boards, he said, are needed to make such projects function. But if you look at copyleft projects, he added, you find that those structures simply are not needed. The difference stems from the fact that in Apache-licensed projects, "you've always got people who are trying to go off and do their own proprietary thing." That makes their contributions to the open-source project difficult to integrate and often at odds with other participants. In a copyleft project, such as the kernel, "there is no incentive to try and carve out your own little area." As a result, contributors just do their work and the project advances. Certainly this statement of his is beyond dispute: “Copyleft is a simple, good thing: share and share alike.”

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Multics vs Unix
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

I’ve been reading the introductory “Multics Concepts and Utilization” book <http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/honeywell/multics/F01_multicsIntroCo…> over at Bitsavers. Multics (the “MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service”) was, for its time, an extremely ambitious operating system project. It was first introduced in 1965, in the form of a series of papers at the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference of that year <http://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1965/5066/00/index.html>. Of course, it took far too long (7 years) to reach production quality. In that time, a small group of researchers at AT&T Bell Labs grew tired of waiting, and decided to create their own, less ambitious system, which they called “UNIX” as a tongue-in-cheek homage to “Multics”. And the rest, as they say, is history. But, nevertheless, Multics remained an influential system. There are even some present-day fans of it gathered at <http://multicians.org/>. Apparently they have got the OS booting on an emulator of the original GE 645 hardware. Though it was mostly written in a high-level language (PL/I), Multics was never a portable OS; to support its advanced virtual-memory and security features, it required special processor hardware support which was not common in those days. Even today, Multics has some features which can be considered innovative and uncommon. It may be true that, for example, SELinux can match all of its security capabilities and more. But some aspects of its file-protection system seem, to me, to make sharing of data between users a bit easier than your typical Linux/POSIX-type system. For a start, there seems to be no concept of file “ownership” as such. Or even of POSIX-style file protection modes (read/write/execute for owner/group/world). Instead, all file and directory access is controlled via access-control lists (ACLs). Directories have a permission called “modify”, which effectively gives a matching entity (user, group, process) owner-type rights over that directory; except that more than one entity can have that permission at once. Thus, a group of users working on a common project can all be given this “modify” access to a shared directory for that project, allowing them all to put data there, read it back again, control access to it, delete it etc on a completely equal basis. Contrast this with POSIX/Linux, where every file has to have exactly one owner; even if they create that file in a shared directory, it still gives the creating user a special status over that file, that others with write access to the containing directory do not have. (Multics also offers a separate “append” permission, that allows the possessor to create an item in a directory, without having the ability to remove an item once it’s there.) One radical idea introduced in Unix was its profligate use of multiple processes. Every new command you executed (except for the ones built into the shell) required the creation of a new process, often several processes. Other OSes tended to look askance at this; it seemed somehow wasteful, perhaps even sinful to spawn so many processes so readily and discard them so casually. The more conventional approach was to create a single process at user login, and execute nearly all commands within the context of that. There were special commands for explicitly creating additional processes (e.g. for background command execution), but such process creation did not simply happen as a matter of course. Gradually, over time, the limitations of the single-process approach became too much to ignore, and the versatility of the Unix approach won over (nearly) everybody. Multics, however, is of the old school. More than that, the process even preserves global state, including static storage, in-between runs of programs, and this applies across different programs, not just reruns of the same one. For example, in FORTRAN, there is the concept of a “common block”. If you run two different programs that both refer to the same common block, then the second one will see values left in the block by the first one. To completely reinitialize everything, you need to invoke the “new_proc” command, which effectively deletes your process and gives you a fresh one. One common irritation I find on POSIX/Linux systems is the convention that every directory has to have an entry called “.”, pointing to itself, and one called “..”, pointing to its parent. This way these names can be used in relative pathnames to reach any point in the directory hierarchy. But surely it is unnecessary to have explicit entries for these names cluttering up every directory; why not just build their recognition as a special case into the pathname-parsing logic in the kernel, once and for all? That way, directory-traversal routines in user programs don’t have to be specially coded to look for, and skip these entries, every single time. Multics doesn’t seem to have this problem. An absolute pathname begins with “>” (which is the separator for pathname components, equivalent to POSIX “/”), while a relative pathname doesn’t. Furthermore, a relative pathname can begin with one or more “<” characters, indicating the corresponding number of steps up from the current working directory. Unlike POSIX “..”, you can’t have “<” characters in the middle of the pathname, which is probably not a big loss. It is interesting to see other features which are nearly, but not quite, the same as, corresponding features in Unix. For example, there is a search path for executables, to save you typing the entire pathname to run the program. However, this does not seem as flexible as the $PATH environment-variable convention observed by Unix/POSIX shells. In particular, it does not seem possible to remove the current directory from the search path, which we now know can be a security risk. Another one is the concept of “active functions” and “active strings”. These allow you to perform substitutions of dynamically-computed values into a command line. However, they are not as general as the Unix/POSIX concept of “command substitution”, where an entire shell command can supply its output to be interpolated into another command. Instead of having a completely separate vocabulary of “active functions” which can only be used for such substitutions, Unix/POSIX unifies this with the standard set of commands, any of which can be used in this way. There are other features of Multics that others more familiar with it might want to see mentioned (the single-level store concept, where “everything is a memory segment”, versus Unix “everything is a file”? I/O redirection based on “switches”—symbolic references to files, versus Unix integer “file descriptors”?). But then, this long-winded essay would become even longer-winded :). So if you are interested in this particular piece of computing history, feel free to follow up the links above. In summary, Multics is very much a museum piece, not something you would want to use today for regular work—not in its original form. But I think there are still one or two ideas there that we could usefully copy and adapt to a present-day OS, particularly a versatile one like Linux.

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Does The TPP Allow Prohibition Of The GPL?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

Some are suggesting that article 14.17 of the TPP, which begins “No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party...”, could be interpreted to override the requirement of the GPL to provide source code. <http://lwn.net/Articles/663817/>

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File-encrypting ransomware starts targeting Linux Web servers
by Peter Reutemann 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

"Malware researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web have recently discovered a new malware program for Linux-based systems that they've dubbed Linux.Encoder.1." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/security/file-encrypting-ransomware-starts-target… 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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Unhashable: Why Fingerprints Are Weaker Security Than Passwords
by Peter Reutemann 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

"Fingerprints aren't terribly secure; you leave them on almost everything you touch. Many people won't realize that fingerprints can be captured and reproduced from casual photographs. It's actually worse than that. The very method with which fingerprints are stored is much weaker than passwords. Fingerprints cannot be hashed. By their very nature, each read of your fingerprint will be a little different, which breaks the hashing method. They can only be stored using encryption, which requires the same master password each time a new print read is compared to the stored key — a much weaker method than salted hashes. This more easily opens fingerprint credentials up to theft and brute forcing." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/11/10/228223 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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SUSE Leap reviewed
by Ian Young 10 Nov '15

10 Nov '15

Thanks for the interesting review. But you didn't say whether NetworkManager was functional. Just joshing :) I'm going to assume it does work because lightning couldn't strike twice right? And you didn't mention Fluxbox. I seem to recall it was once an option. Or am I thinking of FVWM?

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OpenSUSE Leap 42.1 Released
by Peter Reutemann 09 Nov '15

09 Nov '15

"In what they're calling the first "hybrid" distribution release, the openSUSE project have announced the availability of openSUSE Leap 42.1. Built on a core of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP1 packages but including an up-to-date userspace (KDE Plasma 5.4.2, GNOME 3.16, and many other DEs), Leap aims to provide a stable middle ground between enterprise releases which are quickly out of date, and the sometimes unstable community distros. DVD/USB or Network Install ISOs are available for download now. For those who do prefer the bleeding edge, the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution is also available." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/11/05/0246248 Sounds like an interesting concept... 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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Creative Commons case study on William Mckee
by William Mckee 06 Nov '15

06 Nov '15

Hello, Creative Commons NZ did a case study on me. It mentions my Linux usage for creating artwork. Here is the article: http://nzcommons.org.nz/artist-william-mckee-discusses-creative-commons-ope… Cheers, William.

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Latest SUSE
by Ian Young 06 Nov '15

06 Nov '15

This sounds good -- but does NetworkManager work? It would be interesting to find out. I had problems with an earlier SUSE version as I mentioned at a LUG meeting. If anyone has an iso I would like a copy. ~ Ian Y

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unbreakable encryption may be illegal
by Ian Young 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

Some may not have seen this, presumably by now as seen on TV and across the web. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11970391/Interne…

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The World’s Most Frustrating Linux Install
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 03 Nov '15

03 Nov '15

Following on from their attempt to crowdsource a Pokemon game session, video-streaming site Twitch has now tried the same for an installation of Arch Linux. Guess which was the most popular command people tried to enter? <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/02/crowdsourced_linux_installation_cri…>

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Hacking tool swipes encrypted credentials from password manager
by Peter Reutemann 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

"Using a password manager is one of the biggest ways that average computer users can keep their online accounts secure, but their protection is pretty much meaningless when an end user's computer is compromised. Underscoring this often ignored truism is a recently released hacking tool that silently decrypts all user names, passwords, and notes stored by the KeePass password manager and writes them to a file. KeeFarce, as the tool has been dubbed, targets KeePass, but there's little stopping developers from designing similar apps that target virtually every other password manager available today. Hackers and professional penetration testers can run it on computers that they have already taken control of. When it runs on a computer where a logged in user has the KeePass database unlocked, KeeFarce decrypts the entire database and writes it to a file that the hacker can easily access." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/hacking-tool-swipes-encrypted-crede… 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 4.3 Released As Stable; Improves On Open-Source Graphics, SMP Performance
by Peter Reutemann 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

"The Linux 4.3 kernel was released as stable today. The Linux 4.3 kernel brings Intel Skylake support, reworked NVIDIA open-source graphics support, and many other changes with the code count hitting 20.6 million lines of code." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/11/02/0130233 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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EFF Asks Appeals Court To "Shut Down the Eastern District of Texas"
by Peter Reutemann 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

'The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have asked a federal appeals court to make big changes to the rules governing venue in patent cases. The two public interest groups are seeking to file an amicus brief (PDF) which attacks the Eastern District of Texas as being one of the "most notorious situations of forum shopping in recent history."' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/11/01/0239203 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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GNU Hurd 0.7 and GNU Mach 1.6 Released
by Peter Reutemann 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

"Halloween brought us GNU Hurd 0.7, GNU Mach 1.6, and GNU MIG 1.6. The new Hurd comes with filesystem driver improvements, provides a new rpcscan utility, and the Hurd code has been ported to work with newer versions of GCC and GNU C Library. The Mach microkernel has updates for compiler compatibility, improvements to the lock debugging infrastructure, the kernel now lets non-privileged users write to a small amount of memory, timestamps are now kept relative to boot time, and there are various bugfixes. MIG 1.6 is a small update which improves compatibility with newer dialects of C programming language. Specific details on all of the updates can be found in the full release announcement." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/11/01/1333247 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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