- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

UK Government Offering Detailed Guides On ODF Adoption
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 10 Sep '15

10 Sep '15

After selecting ODF 1.2 last year as its standard format for editable documents, the UK Government has gone a step further to explain exactly how this standard is going to be implemented <http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2015/09/uk-government-backs-away-from-mic…>. A long way from the days when the US state of Massachusetts tried to do something similar, only to have its IT division outmaneouvred by backroom dealing <http://www.computerworld.com/article/2553645/enterprise-applications/inside…>.

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“Linux PC Repair”
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Sep '15

09 Sep '15

Clicked on one of those “You may need to fix Windows errors” ad links, just for fun. Took me to a page that says “System Information: Your machine is currently running: Linux. Reimage PC Repair is compatible with your operating system”. And there is a link to download an .exe file... And on the rest of the page: “Designed for: Windows XP, Vista , 7 , 8 , 8.1 & 10”, “Using Microsoft Technologies”, “McAfee Secure”, “Norton Secured”, blah-blah-blah...

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Raspberry Pi now has a $60 7-inch touchscreen display
by Peter Reutemann 09 Sep '15

09 Sep '15

"The Raspberry Pi Foundation today announced a touchscreen display for the small computer, on sale for $60 (or £48 in the UK). The display has an 800×480 resolution, 10-finger capacitive touch capability, and an adapter board that is used both to power the display and connect to the Raspberry Pi with a DSI ribbon cable. Using DSI keeps the Pi's HDMI port free, so people can use both the small touchscreen display and a big monitor or TV simultaneously. Some assembly is required, but later versions will come fully assembled." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/raspberry-pi-now-has-… 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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Mozilla: data stolen from hacked bug database was used to attack Firefox
by Peter Reutemann 09 Sep '15

09 Sep '15

"An attacker stole security-sensitive vulnerability information from the Mozilla's Bugzilla bug tracking system and probably used it to attack Firefox users, the maker of the open-source Firefox browser warned Friday." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/mozilla-data-stolen-from-hacked-bug… 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 Release of the Trinity Desktop Environment
by Peter Reutemann 06 Sep '15

06 Sep '15

'A new release of the Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) is out. TDE is "a computer desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems with a primary goal of retaining the function and form of traditional desktop computers" which translates into a fully functional KDE 3 style Desktop. Something is missing in the new generation of desktop environments, since some people (perhaps more than "some") feel at home with Gnome 2 or KDE i3. They have repositories for Debian and Ubuntu-based distros. I'm now using it on Ubuntu 15.04, amazed about how well-planned things were in the previous generation of DE. We may have gained some things with Gnome 3 and Plasma 5, but we lost a lot of good features too. TDE brings them back' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/09/06/030222 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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Automating the 3270 part of a Debian System z install
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

From <http://debblog.philkern.de/2015/08/automating-3270-part-of-debian-system-z.…>: “This will load the alternate kernel parameters file into the card reader, while still loading the original kernel and initrd files.” “(note the 80 character column limit)” Nope, not from the last century, but from the last month. This is how you run Linux on a “modern” IBM mainframe.

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Where to Download the Best Linux Games Without Any Hassle
by Peter Reutemann 02 Sep '15

02 Sep '15

"Not even a decade ago, native gaming on Linux was barely a conceivable reality save for a few open source cross-platform games. Today, it’s clear that the “no games on Linux” myth is dead. Sure, hardcore gamers will probably still choose Windows over Linux, but there’s more than enough evidence that many high-quality games can be played on Linux, and the number of available games is just going to keep increasing." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/where-to-download-the-best-linux-g… 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, Google, Amazon, others, aim for royalty-free video codecs
by Peter Reutemann 01 Sep '15

01 Sep '15

"Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Cisco, Intel, Netflix, and Amazon today launched a new consortium, the Alliance for Open Media. The group plans to develop next-generation media formats—including audio and still images, but with video as the top priority—and deliver them as royalty-free open source, suitable for both commercial and noncommercial content." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/09/microsoft-google-amaz… 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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LILO Development Coming To An End
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Sep '15

01 Sep '15

<http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LILO-Bootloader-EOY> Is anybody still using LILO (the “LInux LOader”)? That was the Linux-specific bootloader from the early days, before GRUB (the “GRand Unified Bootloader”) came on the scene. I remember one difference was that LILO compiled its configuration into the bootloader binary at installation time. That way, if you made any errors in the configuration, you usually discovered that immediately. Whereas with GRUB, you only found this out when your machine failed to boot. Though with GRUB 2 commonplace nowadays, I haven’t felt the need to configure anything as yet. It seems smart enough to figure it out all by itself. :)

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"Hack" Typeface Is Open Source, Easy On the IDEs
by Peter Reutemann 31 Aug '15

31 Aug '15

"Ars Technica writes that "At SourceFoundry.org this week, programmer Chris Simpkins debuted the 2.0 version of Hack, an open-source typeface designed specifically for use in source code." The revamped font is" characterized by a large x-height, wide aperture, and low contrast design in order to be "highly legible" at common coding text sizes," and the font specimen shows how legible it is right down to downright tiny sizes, though Simpkins says the sweet spot is between 8 and 12 pixels. " -- source: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/08/30/1733217 Very subtle differences in comparison to "monospace", from a quick comparison: - the dash "-" is longer - the "*" has five points rather than six - the "i" looks more like an "l" (not so sure about this change, though) - the stroke inside the zero is more pronounced Using Hack in a terminal seems a bit clearer than monospace. Here's a howto for Mint on installing a new font: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/29 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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Fake EFF site serving espionage malware was likely active for 3+ weeks
by Peter Reutemann 31 Aug '15

31 Aug '15

"A spear-phishing campaign some researchers say is linked to the Russian government masqueraded as the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an attempt to infect targets with malware that collects passwords and other sensitive data." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/fake-eff-site-serving-espionage-mal… 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 MAGPI ISSUE 37 - SEPTEMBER 2015
by Peter Reutemann 30 Aug '15

30 Aug '15

Featured in The MagPi Issue 37: * Build a Raspberry Pi digital home Eight projects to build tomorrow’s home, today * Stream live from your PC Use the hottest PC software anywhere in your house * Build a fridge monitor Everyday engineering brought to life with your Pi * Build a computer vision sequencer Mike Cook continues his Pi Bakery project series * The Fallout Pip-Boy How one man made sci-fi fact, just in time for Fallout 4! -- source: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/37/ PDF can be downloaded for free. 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 NZ Herald’s Data Blog
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Aug '15

30 Aug '15

Discovered this through a mention on the “Media Watch” program on RNZ National <http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/201762824/min…>. Harkanwal Singh is a “data journalist”, who uses data analysis techniques to put together news stories. His group has already published some interesting analyses, such as broadband affordability, school deciles, traffic crashes and other things. <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/data-blog/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=1503710>

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Linux Kernel 4.2 Released
by Peter Reutemann 30 Aug '15

30 Aug '15

"The Linux 4.2 kernel is now available. This kernel is one of the biggest kernel releases in recent times and introduces rewrites of some of the kernel's Intel Assembly x86 code, new ARM board support, Jitter RNG improvements, queue spinlocks, the new AMDGPU kernel driver, NCQ TRIM handling, F2FS per-file encryption, and many other changes to benefit most Linux users." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/08/30/1949211 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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KDE Is Broken In Debian Unstable
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Aug '15

29 Aug '15

Looks like KDE is in the middle of a major transition in Debian Unstable at the moment. Yesterday I did an update on my backup machine, and found that I had no window manager after logging into the GUI. This morning I did another update, and was presented with a new “flat” look after a GUI login. Checking my package versions, I believe I have some parts of KDE 5, but not all (yet). I might do another update this evening. Luckily my backup machine can still fulfil most of its functions without a GUI...

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Learn FPGAs With a $25 Board and Open Source Tools
by Peter Reutemann 27 Aug '15

27 Aug '15

"Hackaday has a 3 part tutorial with videos of using open source tools with a cheap ($25) FPGA board. The board isn't very powerful, but this could be the 'gateway drug' to FPGAs for people who don't want to spend hundreds of dollars and install 100s of megabytes of software and license keys just to get their feet wet. The videos are particularly good--like watching them over their shoulder. As far as I know, this is the only totally open source FPGA toolchain out there." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/08/27/226232 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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Ddrescue-GUI: Front-End for Ddrescue Command-line Tool
by Peter Reutemann 27 Aug '15

27 Aug '15

"DDRescue-GUI is a simple GUI application written in Python 2 and designed to provide users with an easy-to-use GUI (Graphical User Interface) front-end for the awesome GNU ddrescue command-line tool which dedicated to recovering data from hard drive, USB flash drive, cd, dvd corrupt." -- source: http://ubuntuportal.com/2015/08/ddrescue-gui-ubuntu.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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was: Engaging Newbies In Email Encryption and Network Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 26 Aug '15

26 Aug '15

Hi everyone Great to see people discussing topics on the mailing list! How about we have a discussion about email encryption (incl signing) and network privacy at the next meeting? If I remember correctly, Hieu's Pi presentation will be relatively short, so we should have plenty of time. 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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Happy Birthday, Linux! An OS At 24
by Peter Reutemann 26 Aug '15

26 Aug '15

"It has been 24 long years since the first ever release of the Linux project on August 25, 1991, which is the core component of any GNU/Linux distribution. With this occasion we want to remind everyone that Linux is everywhere, even if you don't see it. You use Linux when you search on Google, when you use your phone, when buy metro tickets, actually the whole Internet is powered by Linux. Happy Birthday, Linux!" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/08/25/1333201 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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Major Android remote-access vulnerability is now being exploited
by Peter Reutemann 25 Aug '15

25 Aug '15

"Based on anonymized data collected from users of an app designed to check for a newly revealed vulnerability in many Android devices, Check Point discovered that one application in the Google Play store is exploiting the vulnerability to gain a high level of access to the Android OS, bypassing user permissions—and bypassing Google’s security scans of Play applications to do so. Update: A Google spokesperson told Ars that the offending app has been suspended in the Play store. While the app was discovered installed on an infinitesimal percentage of devices checked by Check Point, it shows that the vulnerability caused by insecure OEM and cell carrier software meant to provide remote access to devices for customer service engineers has already been exploited by “legitimate” phone applications—and the method used to bypass Google’s security checks could be used for more malicious purposes on millions of devices. And there’s no easy way for Google or phone manufacturers alone to patch the problem." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/major-android-remote-access-vulnera… 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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Engaging Newbies In Email Encryption and Network Privacy
by Peter Reutemann 25 Aug '15

25 Aug '15

"All six parts of my series introducing beginners to PGP encryption and network privacy are now freely available. I hope it's useful for Slashdot readers to share with their less-technical acquaintances. There's an introduction to PGP, a guide to email encryption on the desktop, smartphone and in the browser, an introduction to the emerging key sharing and authentication startup, Keybase.io, and an intro to VPNs. There's a lot more work for us to do in the ease of use of communications privacy but this helps people get started more with what's available today." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/08/20/2041235 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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Which Other OS...
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Aug '15

25 Aug '15

After my latest laptop update: ldo(a)vodell:~> conv-date now '' Asia/Seoul Asia/Pyongyang Pacific/Auckland........: Tue Aug 25 17:58:22 NZST 2015 Asia/Seoul..............: Tue Aug 25 14:58:22 KST 2015 Asia/Pyongyang..........: Tue Aug 25 14:28:22 KST 2015 North Korea only announced its new time zone two weeks ago. What other OS could be this quick without any actual code patches?

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Mozilla sets plan to dump Firefox add-ons, move to Chrome-like extensions
by Peter Reutemann 23 Aug '15

23 Aug '15

"Back in July, Mozilla disclosed plans to modernize its Firefox browser. Today, the organization made those plans more concrete, with a tentative timeline for introducing long-desired improvements such as the creation of a process per tab—and with it, a timeline for the end of support for traditional Firefox add-ons. Mozilla has been working on a multi-process architecture for years. Called the Electrolysis project, work started in 2009, but was put on hold in 2011. Work was resumed in 2013, and it's finally getting near to a release. Over the next few months, Mozilla plans to flip the switch and enable Electrolysis in its various release channels. Tentatively, it'll be an opt-in feature in the beta channel from September 22nd, on-by-default in the beta channel from November 3rd, and on-by-default in the release channel from December 15th." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/mozilla-sets-plan-to-… 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 Core Gets Support For Raspberry Pi 2 GPIO and I2C
by Peter Reutemann 23 Aug '15

23 Aug '15

"Ubuntu Core is a tiny Ubuntu distribution aimed at the Internet of Things, using a new transactional packaging format called Snappy rather than the venerable Debian packaging format. It recently gained support for I2C and GPIO on the Raspberry Pi 2, and a quick demo is given here." "Ubuntu's Core support site says that the support for Raspberry Pi 2 isn't yet official, but provides some handy tips for anyone who wants to try it out." -- source: http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/08/22/2214256 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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Please, OpenOffice, Die Already
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Aug '15

20 Aug '15

Well, maybe not in so many words, but some are saying <http://lwn.net/Articles/654776/> that OpenOffice has reached (i.e. declined) to the stage where it is getting in the way of people looking for a powerful Free Software office suite. They never hear of LibreOffice, find OpenOffice instead, and are disappointed with its (lack of) capabilities.

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Why Linux-Based Steam Machines Won’t Have A “Suspend” Function
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

Current proprietary game consoles typically have a “sleep” mode, to allow faster startups than booting from a complete power-off. It turns out <http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/08/steam-machines-wont-have-a-suspend-fu…> that Valve’s Steam machines are unable to offer such a facility, for quite a subtle technical reason <http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7855261&cid=50329207>: it’s because, when the Linux kernel wakes up from sleep, it forgets about all the USB devices it saw before, and rediscovers them all as though for the first time. This prevents applications (i.e. games) from preserving the state of devices like game controllers.

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No Meeting On 24th?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Aug '15

19 Aug '15

Is there a WLUG meeting on the fourth Monday of this month?

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IBM’s New “LinuxONE” Ubuntu Mainframe
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Aug '15

18 Aug '15

<http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/ubuntu-coming-to-main…> ... can "scale up to 8,000 virtual machines or hundreds of thousands of containers—currently the most of any single Linux system" ... And it won’t be limited to 26 drive letters.

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Windows 10 From a Linux User's Perspective
by Peter Reutemann 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

"I've spent quite a bit of time testing out Windows 10 on a secondary computer. And like any operating system upgrade, the change takes a bit to get used to. Since I feel more comfortable with Linux distributions than with Windows, I thought it would be interesting to see what Microsoft has done since Windows 7 and 8. In this article, I'll walk you through how I see Windows 10. What it did well, where it falls flat on its face and how this appears to a hardcore Linux enthusiast." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/windows-10-from-a-linux-users-pers… 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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Te Whare O Te ATA (Fairfield) computer lab
by Roderick Aldridge 11 Aug '15

11 Aug '15

Disappointing news about the computer lab in the annexe at Te Whare O Te Ata Fairfield/Chartwell Community House. The trustees have decided to use the annexe as a classroom. Manager Mike Rarere says the only practical option for the lab machines is for some of them (probably 6 or fewer) to be in the main lounge. The lounge schedule means that we could only have regular scheduled sessions on Monday and Friday mornings. Do you want to be involved in running this? It should be easier to do, although it is only a fraction of the former setup. Roderick Aldridge.

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LibreOffice under the hood: progress to 5.0
by Peter Reutemann 08 Aug '15

08 Aug '15

"Today we release LibreOffice 5.0.0, a new foundation for ongoing work over the next months and years. It also has a fine suite of new features for people to enjoy - you can read and enjoy all the great news about the user visible features from so many great hackers, but there are, as always, many contributors whose work is primarily behind the scenes, and a lot of work that is more technical than user-facing. That work is, of course, still vitally important to the project." -- source: https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2015-08-05-under-the-hood-5-0.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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EFF Releases Privacy Badger an Addon That Algorithmically Blocks Online Trackers
by Peter Reutemann 07 Aug '15

07 Aug '15

"Online tracking has become a pervasive invisible reality of the modern web. Most sites you load are likely to be full of ads, tracking pixels, social media share buttons, and other invisible trackers all harvesting data about your web browsing. These trackers use cookies and other methods to read unique IDs associated with your browser, the result being that they record all the sites you visit as you browse around the internet. This sort of tracking is invisible to most web users, meaning they never get the option to agree to or opt-out of it. Today the EFF has launched the 1.0 version of Privacy Badger, an extension designed to prevent these trackers from accessing unique info about you and your browsing." -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/08/07/0139241 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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Bye-Bye 32 Bits?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Aug '15

06 Aug '15

The Fedora project <http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-i686-Non-Blocking> has noticed that very few of its users seem to be on 32-bit systems nowadays. This was shown by a kernel bug that went undetected for two months, that prevented 32-bit x86 systems from even booting. Time to relegate 32-bit machines to the junk pile?

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New attack on Tor can deanonymize hidden services with surprising accuracy
by Peter Reutemann 03 Aug '15

03 Aug '15

"Computer scientists have devised an attack on the Tor privacy network that in certain cases allows them to deanonymize hidden service websites with 88 percent accuracy. Such hidden services allow people to host websites without end users or anyone else knowing the true IP address of the service. The deanonymization requires the adversary to control the Tor entry point for the computer hosting the hidden service. It also requires the attacker to have previously collected unique network characteristics that can serve as a fingerprint for that particular service. Tor officials say the requirements reduce the effectiveness of the attack. Still, the new research underscores the limits to anonymity on Tor, which journalists, activists, and criminals alike rely on to evade online surveillance and monitoring." -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/new-attack-on-tor-can-deanonymize-h… 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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Maybe don't smash your phone just yet
by Ian Young 30 Jul '15

30 Jul '15

Random browsing on the interwebs. Is this the year of a free cellphone OS? Alas I fear not. But we can dream. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/27/android_phone_text_flaw/ https://dot.kde.org/2015/07/25/plasma-mobile-free-mobile-platform Mentioned on the blog of Barry Kauler of Puppy Linux. Currently latest entry. http://bkhome.org/news/ Maybe you want an Android PC? http://www.slashgear.com/jide-tries-again-remix-mini-does-android-pc-153931… http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/07/17/jide-tech-is-back-on-kickstarter-wi…

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How To Test LaTeXila 3.17.0 on Ubuntu Linux
by Peter Reutemann 30 Jul '15

30 Jul '15

"LaTeXila is an editor for GNOME desktop environment, it is an open source application and lets you compile, convert and view documents on GNOME desktop. It can work with LaTeX commands and provides easier navigation through the document. It can also be installed on other desktop environments like Unity, KDE etc. Over the passage of time, it has become an important part of GNOME desktop environment. As you might already aware that GNOME dev team is working actively to announce the upcoming release 3.17.4, so in this process, GNOME development team has announced the availability of LaTeXila 3.17 now." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/how-to-test-latexila-3.17.0-on-ubuntu-l… 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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950 million Android phones can be hijacked by malicious text messages
by Peter Reutemann 27 Jul '15

27 Jul '15

'Almost all Android mobile devices available today are susceptible to hacks that can execute malicious code when they are sent a malformed text message or the user is lured to a malicious website, a security researcher reported Monday. The vulnerability affects about 950 million Android phones and tablets, according to Joshua Drake, vice president of platform research and exploitation at security firm Zimperium. It resides in "Stagefright," an Android code library that processes several widely used media formats. The most serious exploit scenario is the use of a specially modified text message using the multimedia message (MMS) format. All an attacker needs is the phone number of the vulnerable Android phone. From there, the malicious message will surreptitiously execute malicious code on the vulnerable device with no action required by the end user and no indication that anything is amiss.' -- source: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/950-million-android-phones-can-be-h… 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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WLUG meeting tomorrow
by Peter Reutemann 27 Jul '15

27 Jul '15

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting tomorrow: "Ian Stewart will talk about the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) and how to connect to it using thin clients and Raspberry Pi. Peter Reutemann will give the new Linux Mint release a quick spin." Details can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/223850397 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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SSH -> getting the originating IP of a client using RDP
by Eric Light 24 Jul '15

24 Jul '15

Hey all This is a total edge case, but I thought it may be interesting to some. We have thin clients, which RDP to a Windows Terminal Server, through which users SSH (using PuTTY) into our Linux server. This isn't flexible (for good reasons which I won't go into here). However, to talk properly to our new EFTPOS units, we need to know the IP of the thin client. Of course, through SSH you only get the IP of the client, which is the Terminal Server. Here's how I fixed it: 1) Add the following line to /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and restarted ssh: * AcceptEnv CLIENTNAME* 2) Added the following to the Windows login script: * REG ADD HKCU\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions\DG\ /v Environment /d "CLIENTNAME="%CLIENTNAME% /f* 3) Result: * ~ $ env | grep CLIENTNAME CLIENTNAME=eric-lmde* >From there, we can do what we needed with the EFTPOS! Eric -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es

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Troubleshooting Over The Phone
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jul '15

23 Jul '15

I just helped someone unbork their Ubuntu system over the phone. It was reporting “disk full”, without being more specific than that. I got him to open up a terminal window, and use the “df” and “du” commands to narrow down the directory that was filling up the disk. Sometimes /tmp gets filled up with stuff, but in this case it was /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/. I have had an instance of high disk usage on that directory myself, a while back. I think it’s where apt keeps partially-downloaded repo index files, though I’m not sure why—is it to retry downloading the rest? But when the problem hits, it just seems to fill up with failed downloads. So I carefully led him up to executing the command “sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*”, and that cleared the problem. The main thing I was careful with was spelling out the commands phonetically, and getting him to read them back to me. But imagine having to do this with a GUI, over the phone. I don’t think I would even try...

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Why Debian Returned To FFmpeg
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Jul '15

23 Jul '15

<http://lwn.net/Articles/650816/> What impresses me about this is, even though the Debian package maintainer is also a libav developer, he “...in the end, could not bring himself to say that he was sure libav was the better choice.” With regard to the commit statistics, it seems like much of the activity in FFmpeg commits is wholesale copying of code from libav. But so what? If sticking with FFmpeg gives you the best of both worlds, why bother separately including packages for libav at all?

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meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

Hi everyone We have a WLUG meeting coming up next Monday: "Ian Stewart will talk about the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) and how to connect to it using thin clients and Raspberry Pi. Peter Reutemann will give the new Linux Mint release a quick spin." Details can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/223850397 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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On Being Pro-GPL
by Peter Reutemann 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

'Christopher Allan Webber, recently returned from OSCON, shares his thoughts on the GPL and why he dislikes people pitting one type of software license against another. He says, "I am not only pro-copyleft, I am also pro-permissive licensing. The difference between these is tactics: the first tactic is towards guaranteeing user freedom, the second tactic is toward pushing adoption. I am generally pro-freedom, but sometimes pushing adoption is important, especially if you're pushing standards and the like. But let's step back for a moment. One thing that's true is that over the last many years we've seen an explosion of free and open source software... at the same time that computers have become more locked down than ever before! How can this be? And notice... the rise of the arguments for permissive/lax licensing have grown simultaneously with this trend. ...The fastest way to develop software which locks down users for maximum monetary extraction is to use free software as a base. And this is where the anti-copyleft argument comes in, because copyleft may effectively force an entity to give back at this stage... and they might not want to. ... Copyleft's strings say, 'you can use my stuff, as long as you give back what you make from it.' But the proprietary differentiation strategy's strings say, 'I will use your stuff, and then add terms which forbid you to ever share or modify the things I build on top of it.' Don't be fooled: both attach strings. But which strings are worse?"' -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/07/21/2256243 Personally, I'm a pro-GPL person. Simply because I don't like software getting locked down and nothing flowing back to the community. Especially, when open source is so community centred. 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 Document Format 1.2 Becomes ISO/IEC Standard
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Jul '15

21 Jul '15

Only four years after its creation, ODF 1.2, the native format for the current version of LibreOffice, has been officially accepted as ISO/IEC standard 26300:2015 <https://blog.documentfoundation.org/2015/07/17/open-document-format-odf-1-2…>. By the way, if you try downloading the specs from the links on that page, you will be confronted by copyright warnings forcing you to click an “accept” button. You can get the same thing from here <http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office#technical> without the nonsense.

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Fwd: Re: Customs Minister Wants Right To Demand Passwords From Device Users
by Chris O'Halloran 20 Jul '15

20 Jul '15

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 12:59:12 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > I would say this relevant to everybody in New Zealand or visiting New > Zealand, Linux user or not. > > “Powers that would require a person to provide a password or access > to > their electronic device will be useless if their material is instead > stored online, Customs Minister Nicky Wagner admits. It's interesting in the sense that normally you're not obliged to say anything that might incriminate yourself. David Bain didn't have to give his version of events.

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Customs Minister Wants Right To Demand Passwords From Device Users
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Jul '15

19 Jul '15

I would say this relevant to everybody in New Zealand or visiting New Zealand, Linux user or not. “Powers that would require a person to provide a password or access to their electronic device will be useless if their material is instead stored online, Customs Minister Nicky Wagner admits. However, Ms Wagner insists such a change to legislation is necessary and will still enable Customs to catch people with illegal material.” <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11480…>

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ARM Support Comes To SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
by Peter Reutemann 16 Jul '15

16 Jul '15

"SUSE announced partner program expansion to include support for 64-bit ARM server processors. This expansion makes available to partners a version of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 that allows them to develop, test and deliver products to the market using 64-bit ARM chips. To simplify partner access, SUSE has also implemented support for ARM and AArch64 into its openSUSE Build Service. This allows the community to build packages against real 64-bit ARM hardware and the SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 binaries." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/07/15/1720216 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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What the GNOME Desktop Gets Right and KDE Gets Wrong
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jul '15

14 Jul '15

'Eric Griffith at Phoronix has provided a fresh perspective on the KDE vs. GNOME desktop debate after exclusively using GNOME for the past week while being a longtime KDE user. He concluded his five-page editorial (which raises some valid points throughout) by saying, "Gnome feels like a product. It feels like a singular experience. When you use it, it feels like it is complete and that everything you need is at your fingertips. It feels like the Linux desktop. ... In KDE, it's just some random-looking window popup that any application could have created. ... KDE doesn't feel like cohesive experience. KDE doesn't feel like it has a direction its moving in, it doesn't feel like a full experience. KDE feels like its a bunch of pieces that are moving in a bunch of different directions, that just happen to have a shared toolkit beneath them." However, with the week over and despite his criticism, he's back to using KDE.' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/13/1548237 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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Speed-Ups, Small Fixes Earn Good Marks From Ars For Mint 17.2
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jul '15

13 Jul '15

'Ars Technica reviews the newest release from Linux MInt -- version 17.2, offered with either the Cinnamon desktop, or the lighter-weight MATE, which feels like what Gnome 2 might feel in an alternate universe where Gnome 3 never happened. Reviewer Scott Gilbertson has mostly good things to say about either variety, and notes a few small drawbacks, too. The nits seem to be minor ones, though they might bite some people more than others: Mint, based on Ubuntu deep down, is almost perfectly compatible with Ubuntu packages, but not every one, and this newest version of Mint ships with the 3.16 kernel of Ubuntu 14.04, which means slightly less advanced hardware support. (Gilbertson notes, though, that going with 3.16 means Mint may be the ideal distro if you want to avoid systemd.) "This release sees the Cinnamon developers focusing on some of what are sometimes call "paper cut" fixes, which just means there's been a lot of attention to the details, particularly the small, but annoying problems. For example, this release adds a new panel applet called "inhibit" which temporarily bans all notifications. It also turns off screen locking and stops any auto dimming you have set up, making it a great tool for when you want to watch a video or play a game." More "paper cut" fixes include improved multi-panel options, graphics-refresh tweaks, a way to restart the Cinnamon desktop without killing the contents of a session, graphics-refresh tweaks, and other speed-ups that make this release "noticeably snappier than its predecessor on the same hardware."' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/07/12/1720236 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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Question - ping -f
by Eric Light 13 Jul '15

13 Jul '15

Hi guys I'm investigating a flaky printer, and was running ping -f to see when it went down. I got the following: PING prn37.forlongs.local (10.7.140.37) 56(84) bytes of data. ..................................................... ..................................................... ..................................................... .......E............................................. ... what the heck is the 'E'? I can't find it in the man pages. Eric -------------------------------------------- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es

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