- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Debian’s Reproducible Binary Project Reaches 83% Mark
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 24 Feb '15

24 Feb '15

For a while now, Debian has been running a project to try to allow anyone to independently confirm that a particular Debian package was indeed built from a particular set of sources, by being able to reproduce the exact build steps themselves. (The security rationale for wanting to do so should be obvious.) As you can imagine, this is seriously non-trivial to achieve, since the least little difference in the version of your compilers or libraries can cause the binaries to differ, maybe not in any important way, but the idea is to end up with no differences at all. The Register has a report on the status of the project here <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/23/debian_project/>. More background here <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/02/msg00007.html>.

1 0

Linus Torvalds Debuts First Linux 4 Release Candidate
by Paul Wilson 24 Feb '15

24 Feb '15

"The Linux 3.x kernel family is no more. Long Live Linux 4! The Linux 3.x kernel family first officially debuted <http://www.datamation.com/open-source/linux-3.0-debuts-with-xen-integration…>on July 22, 2011. Linux 3.0 was the first major version change for Linux since the 2.6 kernel debuted in December of 2003. While Linux 2.6 was a major milestone that signified a break with the past, Linux 3.0 really was just the renumbered Linux 2.6.40 kernel. In the same manner the Linux 4.0 kernel is the continuation of Linux 3.x and is the renamed Linux 3.20."

1 0

How I upgraded my garden’s ugly drip system with a sexy OpenSprinkler
by Peter Reutemann 23 Feb '15

23 Feb '15

"After a few hours of work alongside an electrical engineering buddy this week, my home garden drip system became powered by a Raspberry Pi. I can control the entire thing locally from my iPhone and, to be frank, it’s pretty flippin’ cool." -- source: http://goo.gl/sDPGsr Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

“SSL hijacker” behind Superfish debacle imperils large number of users
by Peter Reutemann 21 Feb '15

21 Feb '15

I know, this is not strictly Linux related, but scary nonetheless and worthy of sharing, IMHO: "Thursday's revelations that Lenovo PCs ship with adware that intercepts sensitive HTTPS-protected traffic have focused intense scrutiny on Superfish, the company that markets the intrusive software. But lost in the furor is the central role a company called Komodia plays in needlessly exposing the passwords and other sensitive data of not just Lenovo customers but also a much larger base of PC users." -- source: http://goo.gl/KhA4KT Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Empire of the Gates
by Ian Young 20 Feb '15

20 Feb '15

Better snap back to reality. On Arstechnica I see the following data as of 11/2014. OS share worldwide -- Windows allsorts 91.28%, OS X 7.27, all others [weeps] 1.45. Windows breakdown XP 13.57%, Vista 2.65, Win 7 56.41, Win 8 6.55, Win 8.1 12.1. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/you-can-offer-people-windows-10-for-… All hail his Billness. Though the figures for systems other than desktops must show a different story, and in phone and tablet world Windows is pretty well a joke apart from some misguided corporate purchases. (I stand to be corrected on that). Meanwhile back in the day, I had GEOS installed and it was passable. Even ran it within OS/2, freaky or what? Speaking of OS/2 last time I looked there were still some zealots keeping it working after a fashion. -quote- Unfortunately, OS/2 had a crucial flaw in its design: a Synchronous Input Queue (SIQ). What this meant was that all messages to the GUI window server went through a single tollbooth. If any OS/2 native GUI app ever stopped servicing its window messages, the entire GUI would get stuck and the system froze. OK, technically the operating system was still running. Background tasks continued to execute just fine. You just couldn’t see them or interact with them or do anything, because the entire GUI was hung. Some enterprising OS/2 fan wrote an application that polled the joystick port and was supposed to unstick things when the user pressed a button. It rarely worked. Ironically, if you never ran native OS/2 applications and just ran DOS and Windows apps in a VM, the operating system was much more stable. -quote- http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triump… And now we return to our normal programme and wonder whether Linux v4 is soon to arrive. 19 million lines in the kernel and counting. http://linuxgizmos.com/is-linux-heading-toward-the-big-4-0/

2 1

Raspberry π 2 Ships Half Million In First Two Weeks
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Feb '15

20 Feb '15

The next-generation Raspberry π seems to be doing rather well right out of the starting gate <http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2395948/raspberry-pi-2-sales-top-5…>. Meantime, while total sales of both old- and new-generation π models have wildly exceeded expectations, there is some dispute over the Foundation’s claim that it has become the best-selling British PC maker ever <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/18/raspberry_pi_5_million_sold/>.

5 14

A History Of Photoshop
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

Quite a few articles around to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Photoshop 1.0, but this one at The Register <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/19/feature_25_years_of_adobe_photoshop/> seems to offer the most background detail. And some nice (or not-so-nice) examples of its use...

2 1

Microsoft's First Azure Hosted Service Is Powered By Linux
by Peter Reutemann 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

"Canonical, through John Zannos, VP Cloud Alliances, has proudly announced that the first ever Microsoft Azure hosted service will be powered by Ubuntu Linux. This piece of news comes from the Strata + Hadoop World Conference, which takes place this week in California. The fact of the matter is that the news came from Microsoft who announced the preview of Azure HDInsight (an Apache Hadoop-based hosted service) on Ubuntu clusters yesterday at the said event. This is definitely great news for Canonical, as their operating system is getting recognized for being extremely reliable when handling Big Data. Ubuntu is now the leading cloud and scale-out Linux-based operating system." -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/02/19/1830232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Arduino Ructions
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

Seems like the Arduino founders have split to go their separate ways <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150217/10345530055/is-arduino-heading-t…>. The unfortunate thing is that there are now lawsuits to try to decide who has exclusive rights to the “Arduino” name. Whatever happens, it seems likely there will continue to be more than one company making products that are “Arduino” in every way, if not in name. This is nothing new in open-source software, though it may be a first for open-source hardware.

1 0

Seymour Cray’s Only Surviving Talk
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

Seymour Cray, who was practically “Mister Supercomputer” through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, gives a talk at Los Alamos discussing the pending introduction of the legendary Cray-1 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtOA1vuoDgQ>. The date given in the title is 1976, but he repeatedly makes remarks in the talk that point to the year actually being 1974. He says the new machine will be installed at LANL the following year (actually it went in in 1976).

1 0

How to rool the world by Bill G
by Ian Young 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

Become the main supplier of an OS for PCs while IBM snoozes, replete with profits from existing business. Adopt the 386 processor while IBM messes about with the 286 perhaps because of sunk investment in that CPU. Make deals with the hardware makers they can't refuse and shut out any competition. Introduce the first GUI to become widely used on the machines soon to become predominant in desktop computing. Leave the superior OS/2 in the dust, and get IBM to sell Windows. Excel. Actually first came to fame on the Mac iirc, and rapidly drove out just about all other spreadsheets in its Windows guise. On its coattails came all the other applications we know today as MS Office, effectively wiping out all competitors. Get networking in the box with Windows and crush Netware and eventually Novell with it. And so it went until perhaps MS became like IBM in the 1980s and failed to see the next big thing on several occasions, or at least failed to achieve the same level of dominance as in the past in new fields. 2 cents is the suggested donation, I'll pass the hat around.

2 1

Re: [wlug] PC-BSD: Set For Serious Growth?
by Chris O'Halloran 19 Feb '15

19 Feb '15

On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 21:40:02 +1300, Peter Reutemann wrote: > 'Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a > serious > -- source: http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/15/02/16/2355236 > > NB: Mentioning "Linux + Year of the Desktop" is always bait for a > flamewar. But... Did anyone ever use PC-BSD as their primary OS > (work/home)? Willing to share some insight? > > Cheers, Peter Perhaps people have to consider why they use Linux on the desktop at all (and why others than don't at present would). I think its people with a technical interest that use Linux on the desktop, either because they are familiar with it on servers, are passionate about the 'freeness' of it or the ease (including cost) with which they can set up a development environment. I think the big players like Apple and Microsoft would have to make some serious stuff-ups for the rest of population to go through the hassle of switching OSes on their current desktops. While many of the FOSS applications (GIMP/LibreOffice/Firefox) run just fine on Windows (and possible Mac too I don't know), they also reduce the imperative to shift entirely to Linux or BSD. And the only thing I see that really could shift the corporate environment is a server based Office(Document/Spreadsheet/Mail) solution that was so compelling, that eventually system administrators started to wonder if there was any point in sticking exclusively to an MS Desktop. Cloud computing, Smart TVs and the advent of Android and iPhone have certainly helped computer *users* become more comfortable with alternative OS and user interfaces. -- Chris

2 1

FreeBSD-Current Random Number Generator Broken
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '15

18 Feb '15

'The FreeBSD random number has been discovered to be generating possibly predictable SSH keys and SSL certificates for months. Time to regenerate your keys and certs if using FreeBSD-Current. A message to the freebsd-current mailing list reads in part: "If you are running a current kernel r273872 or later, please upgrade your kernel to r278907 or later immediately and regenerate keys. I discovered an issue where the new framework code was not calling randomdev_init_reader, which means that read_random(9) was not returning good random data. read_random(9) is used by arc4random(9) which is the primary method that arc4random(3) is seeded from."' -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/02/18/2026258 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 1

Google Chrome Will Adopt HTTP/2 In the Coming Weeks, Drop SPDY Support
by Peter Reutemann 18 Feb '15

18 Feb '15

''Google today announced it will add HTTP/2, the second major version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), to Google Chrome. The company plans to gradually roll out support to the latest version of its browser, Chrome 40, "in the upcoming weeks." At the same time, Google says it will remove support for SPDY in early 2016. SPDY, which is not an acronym but just a short version for the word "speedy," is a protocol developed primarily at Google to improve browsing by forcing SSL encryption for all sites and speeding up page loads. Chrome will also lose support for the TLS extension NPN in favor of ALPN. -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/09/2320244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 1

PC-BSD - ubiquitous in world of future - or not
by Ian Young 18 Feb '15

18 Feb '15

Some years ago I had a brief dabble with PC-BSD. It was brief because every time I attempted to boot a live DVD the system would fail to boot or run only for a few minutes before crashing. The same equipment had no trouble with various Linux distros. That was then of course and the project continues to exist so presumably some people have managed to run it. However I will stick my neck out and say that imho PC-BSD is a most unlikely candidate for world domination .... Any one seen it in action? I think when I tried it there were issues like limited support for USB, and driver support still lags behind Linux.

2 1

next meeting of lug topics
by Ian Young 17 Feb '15

17 Feb '15

Saw some mention of Kali distro as a topic at next meeting. Not sure where this has gone, but no problem for me sharing the time as required. Will stick with the Android x-86 idea, and maybe dispense with Puppy developments if need be. In latest news the live CD of Android I downloaded boots on a Compaq laptop and appears somewhat usable on that machine.

3 2

PC-BSD: Set For Serious Growth?
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '15

17 Feb '15

'Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a serious desktop OS contender by year 2020, since Linux so far has failed to grasp any serious market share. He writes, "Consider this: In the past 10 years has the distribution you run changed significantly in what it offers over other distributions? I think you'll find the answer is largely no. I do have to give a shout out to openSUSE for the OBS, but otherwise I've used my desktop in the same exact way that I have always used it within the continuity of distribution X,Y, or Z since I started using them. Distributions simply aren't focused on desktop features, they're leaving it up to the DEs to do so." He continues, "PC-BSD on the other hand in fitting with the BSD mindset of holistic solutions is focused on developing desktop features and is moving rapidly to implement them." What do you think?' -- source: http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/15/02/16/2355236 NB: Mentioning "Linux + Year of the Desktop" is always bait for a flamewar. But... Did anyone ever use PC-BSD as their primary OS (work/home)? Willing to share some insight? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 1

End of the m0n0wall project
by Peter Reutemann 17 Feb '15

17 Feb '15

"m0n0wall has served as the seed for several other well known open source projects, like pfSense, FreeNAS and AskoziaPBX. The newest offspring, OPNsense (https://opnsense.org) aims to continue the open source spirit of m0n0wall while updating the technology to be ready for the future. In my view, it is the perfect way to bring the m0n0wall idea into 2015, and I encourage all current m0n0wall users to check out OPNsense and contribute if they can." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/security/end-of-the-m0n0wall-project.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Will The Next Linux Kernel Be Called 4.0?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

Apparently Linus Torvalds is running a poll <http://lwn.net/Articles/633231/> to decide whether to continue with the 3.xx version numbering or start from 4.0.

1 0

Fwd: Re: Inkscape Version 0.91 Released
by Chris O'Halloran 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 20:16:44 +1300, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> wrote: >> I just downloaded and built it from source. To those accustomed to I'm using it on Windows8 machine at work. I like the pdf export to latex option. It periodically crashes but still very useable - just not as stable as the previous 'stable' version. Cheers all

1 0

Fwd: Re: Removing Libsystemd0 From a Live-running Debian System
by Chris O'Halloran 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:52:45 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.nz> wrote: > > To those who may not understand the background to this, systemd is a > project, headed by Lennart “PulseAudio” Poettering, to modernize the Thanks for that Lawrence.

1 0

Inkscape Version 0.91 Released
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

"Four years since the last major Inkscape release, now news is out about version 0.91 of this powerful vector drawing and painting tool. The main reason for the multi-year delay is that they've switched from their old custom rendering engine to using Cairo now, improving their support for open source standards. This release also adds symbol libraries and support for Visio stencils, cross platform WMF and EMF import and export, a native Windows 64-bit build, scads of bug fixes, and much more. Check out the full release notes for more information about what has changed, or just jump right todownloading your package for Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/01/31/1914255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 3

Removing Libsystemd0 From a Live-running Debian System
by Peter Reutemann 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

"The introduction of systemd has unilaterally created a polarization of the GNU/Linux community that is remarkably similar to the monopolistic power position wielded by Microsoft in the late 1990s. Choices were stark: use Windows (with SMB/CIFS Services), or use UNIX (with NFS and NIS). Only the introduction of fully-compatible reverse-engineered NT Domains services corrected the situation. Instructions on how to remove systemd include dire warnings that "all dependent packages will be removed", rendering a normal Debian Desktop system flat-out impossible to achieve. It was therefore necessary to demonstrate that it is actually possible to run a Debian Desktop GUI system (albeit an unusual one: fvwm) with libsystemd0 removed. The reason for doing so: it doesn't matter how good systemd is believed to be or in fact actually is: the reason for removing it is, apart from the alarm at how extensive systemd is becoming (including interfering with firewall rules), it's the way that it's been introduced in a blatantly cavalier fashion as a polarized all-or-nothing option, forcing people to consider abandoning the GNU/Linux of their choice and to seriously consider using FreeBSD or any other distro that properly respects the Software Freedom principle of the right to choose what software to run. We aren't all "good at coding", or paid to work on Software Libre: that means that those people who are need to be much more responsible, and to start — finally — to listen to what people are saying. Developing a thick skin is a good way to abdicate responsibility and, as a result, place people into untenable positions." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/15/1959209 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 2

Live Patching Now Available For Linux
by Peter Reutemann 13 Feb '15

13 Feb '15

'It provides a basic infrastructure for function "live patching" (i.e. code redirection), including API for kernel modules containing the actual patches, and API/ABI for userspace to be able to operate on the patches (look up what patches are applied, enable/disable them, etc). It's relatively simple and minimalistic, as it's making use of existing kernel infrastructure (namely ftrace) as much as possible. It's also self-contained, in a sense that it doesn't hook itself in any other kernel subsystem (it doesn't even touch any other code). It's now implemented for x86 only as a reference architecture, but support for powerpc, s390 and arm is already in the works (adding arch-specific support basically boils down to teaching ftrace about regs-saving).' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/12/1853215 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Upcoming features of Fedora 22
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

New features to be included in Fedora 22 release currently scheduled for around May 2015 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Upcoming-Features-of-Fedora-22-472955.shtml Regards Paul Wilson

1 0

Re: [wlug] Kali Linux 1.1.0 Released
by Eric Light 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

That sounds awesome, I'd personally LOVE to hear more on that. Peter, Ian, does that suit you guys? Ryan - The next wlug meeting is Monday, February 23, 7:30 PM, in MS4.G.02. Can Baden make it? *excite* Thanks Eric. Yup we do use some of the tools from time to time. If you are interested, we can arrange for my grad student Baden to talk about (and demo) some of the tools. Only catch is that he is busy with his thesis writing now - due next week. Ryan On 12 Feb 2015 15:44, "Eric Light" <eric(a)ericlight.com> wrote: > I'm definitely not suitable - I have *no idea* what I'm doing. > > Let me check with Ryan and see if there's anyone doing the Masters of > Cybersecurity who would be interested though... > > Ryan? We're just a small group of geeks, but if any of your guys use > Kali, it would be awesome to have a quick demo :) > > Eric > > -------------------------------------------- > Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? > A: http://five.sentenc.es > > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> > wrote: > >> > ... No, really, it looks like there's a lot of new stuff in the 1.1 >> version. >> > I'm experimenting with it here in my "free time". >> >> Ian Young volunteered to present some distros at the next meeting (Feb >> 23). Do you or Paul feel like demoing Kali? >> >> Cheers, Peter >> -- >> Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ >> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 >> _______________________________________________ >> wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz >> Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug >> > >

2 1

Owncloud 8 Released
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

"ownCloud <https://owncloud.org/>, a free software alternative to proprietary web services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and others that you can install on your own server, has reached version 8.0.0." "http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/owncloud-8-server-released-with.html" I Have been running v7 on Fedora 21 Server for about 8 weeks works great, this is a really nice solution if you are looking at running your own cloud and don't want to dive into openstack. Regards Paul Wilson

1 0

Kali Linux 1.1.0 Released
by Paul Wilson 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

"After almost two years of public development (and another year behind the scenes), we are proud to announce our first point release of Kali Linux - version 1.1.0. This release brings with it a mix of unprecedented hardware support as well as rock-solid stability. For us, this is a real milestone as this release epitomizes the benefits of our move from BackTrack to Kali Linux over two years ago." http://www.linuxscreenshots.org/?release=Kali%20Linux%201.1.0 For all those "Security Testers" out there this could be interesting.... Regards Paul Wilson

4 4

Firefox To Mandate Extension Signing
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

'In a recent blog post, Mozilla announced its intention to require extensions to be signed in Firefox, without any possible user override. From the post: "For developers hosting their add-ons on AMO, this means that they will have to either test on Developer Edition, Nightly, or one of the unbranded builds. The rest of the submission and review process will remain unchanged, except that extensions will be automatically signed once they pass review. For other developers, this is a larger change. For testing development versions, they’ll have the same options available as AMO add-on developers. For release versions, however, we’re introducing the required step of uploading the extension file to AMO for signing. For most cases, this step will be automatic, but in cases where the extension doesn’t pass these tests, there will be the option to request a manual code review."' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/210247 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Show your love for Free Software
by Peter Reutemann 12 Feb '15

12 Feb '15

'Every year on 14th February, the Free Software Foundation Europe asks all Free Software users to think about the hard-working people in the Free Software community and to show them their appreciation individually on this "I love Free Software"-Day. Like last year the campaign is dedicated to the people behind Free Software because they enable us to use, study, share and improve the software which enables us to work in freedom. This time the focus especially lies on the small contributions to the big picture of the Free Software community.' -- source: http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150209-01.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

VLC Acquiring Lots of New Features
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

"Two weekends ago an update for VLC media player was shared during a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM. Lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf covered VLC's continued vibrant development, as well as features that are coming for VLC 2.2 and VLC 3.0. VLC 2.2.0 will feature automatic, GPU-accelerated video rotation support, extension improvements, resume handling, support for new codecs/formats and rewrites to some of the existing formats, VDPAU GPU zero-copy support, x265 encoder support, etc. Further out is VLC 3.0.0, which is planned to have Wayland support, GPU zero-copy support for OpenMAX IL, ARIB subtitle support, HEVC / VP9 hardware decoding on Android, a rework of the MP4 and TS demuxers, and browsing improvements. The VLC FOSDEM 2015 presentation is available in PDF form. The VLC Git shortlog can be used to follow the development of the project." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/0515244 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Is Modern Linux Becoming Too Complex?
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

'Debian developer John Goerzen asks whether Linux has become so complex that it has lost some of its defining characteristics. "I used to be able to say Linux was clean, logical, well put-together, and organized. I can’t really say this anymore. Users and groups are not really determinitive for permissions, now that we have things like polkit running around. (Yes, by the way, I am a member of plugdev.) Error messages are unhelpful (WHY was I not authorized?) and logs are nowhere to be found. Traditionally, one could twiddle who could mount devices via /etc/fstab lines and perhaps some sudo rules. Granted, you had to know where to look, but when you did, it was simple; only two pieces to fit together. I've even spent time figuring out where to look and STILL have no idea what to do."' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/0444232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Elementary OS: Why We Make You Type "$0"
by Peter Reutemann 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

'Open source software can always be acquired without charge, but can still incur significant development costs. Elementary OS wants to make people aware of this, and have changed their website to suggest donating when downloading, and make users explicitly enter "$0" if they want a free download. This is the same strategy Canonical has used when offering Ubuntu. The Elementary OS blog explains: "Developing software has a huge cost. Some companies offset that cost by charging hundreds of dollars for their software, making manufacturers pay them to license the software, or selling expensive hardware with the OS included. Others offset it by mining user data and charging companies to target ads to their users. [...] If we want to see the world of open source software grow, we should encourage users to pay for its development; otherwise it'll be underfunded or developers will have to resort to backdoor deals and advertising. And nobody wants that future." Currently the only people who have received money for working on Elementary OS have been community members through their bounty program.' -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/02/11/1753219 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

libregraphicsworld.org
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 11 Feb '15

11 Feb '15

For those who don’t know about this site, but who make frequent use of open-source graphics software (GIMP, Inkscape, Blender etc), you will find all kinds of informative news articles here. There seems to be a new item about once a week. Some recent items: * Inkscape 0.91 released <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/inkscape-0-91-released> * Blender 2.73 as a 2D animation powerhouse (to add to all the other arrows in its quiver) <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/blender-2-73-grease-pencil> * A follow-up to the item Peter posted a few weeks back about Paris-8 University moving from Photoshop to Krita and other Free Software <http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/the-complete-story-of-paris-8-univ…>

2 2

Stuff seems to run Ubuntu/nginx
by Peter Reutemann 10 Feb '15

10 Feb '15

What http errors can tell you about a website ;-) Stuff seems to use Ubuntu/nginx as you can see in the attachment. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 1

New Multi-Purpose Backdoor Targets Linux Servers
by Peter Reutemann 09 Feb '15

09 Feb '15

'A new multi-purpose Linux Trojan that opens a backdoor on the target machine and can make it participate in DDoS attacks has been discovered and analyzed by Dr. Web researchers, who believe that the Chinese hacker group ChinaZ might be behind it. "First, Linux.BackDoor.Xnote.1 sends information about the infected system to the server. It then goes into standby mode and awaits further instructions. If the command involves carrying out some task, the backdoor creates a separate process that establishes its own connection to the server through which it gets all the necessary configuration data and sends the results of the executed task," the researchers explained.' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/02/09/1829255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Linux Versus Linux
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 09 Feb '15

09 Feb '15

Another long-heralded Android competitor, Tizen, gets a head-to-head comparison gallery here <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/tizen-versus-android-in-pictures/>.

1 0

Xfce Getting a New Version Soon
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

'It looks like the release of Xfce 4.12 is finally about to materialize. It has been about two and half years since the last stable release. There is now a concerted effort underway to ship a new release of this lightweight GTK+2 desktop environment out around the end of February or early March. "As we have discussed the status and progress of core components with many of you individually, we feel confident that the state of Xfce is good enough to polish some final edges and push more translations until then," wrote Simon Steinbeiß on the xfce4-dev mailing list. The official list of showstopper bugs does not look too bad either. However, looking at the long time between releases certainly makes one think if the project could have use for some extra resources.' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/08/1431250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Xenon Flashes Can Make New Raspberry Pi 2 Freeze and Reboot
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

"Unfortunately for Raspberry Pi 2 owners who are trying to photograph their devices, ... the Raspberry Pi 2 has been found to be Xenon flash sensitive. Any camera with a Xenon flash aimed at the device is causing the device to freeze for a few seconds before rebooting." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/02/08/0643254 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

The First Ubuntu Phone Is Here, With Underwhelming Hardware
by Peter Reutemann 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

'A few days ago, Fast Company reviewer Jay Cassano was enthusiastic about Ubuntu's approach to apps for its new phone OS: namely, not relying on them, and instead interfacing seamlessly with existing websites and protocols. Now, new submitter ablutions (4006541) writes with a less than glowing review at The Daily Dot of the actual hardware that the OS is launching on. A sample that conveys the gist: "Let's start with the good stuff: It sports a 4.5-inch multi-touch screen and a respectable 8-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel lens on the front. That's pretty much it. The list of negatives is a bit longer."' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/08/0034236 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

IEEE Computer Society YouTube Channel
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Feb '15

08 Feb '15

A large collection of videos here <https://www.youtube.com/user/ieeeComputerSociety/videos>. Some interesting-looking ones (none of which I’ve watched yet): Eben Upton on the (original) Raspberry π <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVU5QBg5l6g> Linus Torvalds, 2014 Computer Pioneer Award <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMmo0Nyleg4> Computing Conversations: Andrew Tanenbaum on MINIX <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS_LFeZA7p8>. And no doubt lots more I’ve missed. :)

1 2

Ubuntu smartphone as seen on BBC
by Ian Young 07 Feb '15

07 Feb '15

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31148661 --snip-- An Ubuntu-powered smartphone is coming to the market a year and a half after a previous attempt to launch a model via crowdfunding failed. .... The Ubuntu handset can run apps written in either the HTML5 web programming language or its own native QML code. However, its operating system effectively hides them away. Instead of the traditional smartphone user interface - featuring grids of apps - it uses themed cards that group together different facilities. --unsnip-- Chocolate fish for first person to bring one to a meeting?

1 0

Samba issues
by David Nicholls 04 Feb '15

04 Feb '15

Hi guys. I am having an issue with my fresh samba setup. I built a 14.04.1 LTS Ubuntu server and set up a single mount point (/media/data) and pointed 3 separate internal hard drives to it (eg it contains directories "music_drive", "tv_drive" & "movie_drive"). I turned "/media/data" into a samba share. Annoyingly permissions look fine but I cannot seem to be able to either see the share on my network from other machines or connect to it. Even using the servers IP address. Any advice? Or am I just missing something obvious. My config is below. samba.conf # # Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux. # # # This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the # smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed # here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which # are not shown in this example # # Some options that are often worth tuning have been included as # commented-out examples in this file. # - When such options are commented with ";", the proposed setting # differs from the default Samba behaviour # - When commented with "#", the proposed setting is the default # behaviour of Samba but the option is considered important # enough to be mentioned here # # NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command # "testparm" to check that you have not made any basic syntactic # errors. #======================= Global Settings ======================= [global] passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u max log size = 1000 browseable = yes workgroup = RIMFALL passdb backend = tdbsam obey pam restrictions = yes map to guest = bad user unix password sync = yes os level = 20 server role = standalone server printing = cups load printers = no netbios aliases = ook preferred master = yes available = yes default = lspace panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d wins support = true netbios name = ook security = user server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu) passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* . pam password change = yes syslog = 0 dns proxy = no log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m usershare allow guests = yes ## Browsing/Identification ### # Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of # server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field # Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section: # WINS Support - Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable its WINS Server # wins support = no # WINS Server - Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client # Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both ; wins server = w.x.y.z # This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS. #### Networking #### # The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to # This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask; # interface names are normally preferred ; interfaces = 127.0.0.0/8 eth0 # Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the # 'interfaces' option above to use this. # It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is # not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself. However, this # option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly. ; bind interfaces only = yes #### Debugging/Accounting #### # This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine # that connects # Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB). # If you want Samba to only log through syslog then set the following # parameter to 'yes'. # syslog only = no # We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything # should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log # through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher. # Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace ####### Authentication ####### # Server role. Defines in which mode Samba will operate. Possible # values are "standalone server", "member server", "classic primary # domain controller", "classic backup domain controller", "active # directory domain controller". # # Most people will want "standalone sever" or "member server". # Running as "active directory domain controller" will require first # running "samba-tool domain provision" to wipe databases and create a # new domain. # If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what # password database type you are using. # This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix # password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the # passdb is changed. # For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following # parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan << kahan(a)informatik.tu-muenchen.de> for # sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge). # This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes # when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in # 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'. # This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped # to anonymous connections ########## Domains ########### # # The following settings only takes effect if 'server role = primary # classic domain controller', 'server role = backup domain controller' # or 'domain logons' is set # # It specifies the location of the user's # profile directory from the client point of view) The following # required a [profiles] share to be setup on the samba server (see # below) ; logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U # Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory # (this is Samba's default) # logon path = \\%N\%U\profile # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client # point of view) ; logon drive = H: # logon home = \\%N\%U # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored # in the [netlogon] share # NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention ; logon script = logon.cmd # This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix # password; please adapt to your needs ; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u # This allows machine accounts to be created on the domain controller via the # SAMR RPC pipe. # The following assumes a "machines" group exists on the system ; add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -g machines -c "%u machine account" -d /var/lib/samba -s /bin/false %u # This allows Unix groups to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. ; add group script = /usr/sbin/addgroup --force-badname %g ############ Misc ############ # Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration # on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name # of the machine that is connecting ; include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m # Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges # for something else.) ; idmap uid = 10000-20000 ; idmap gid = 10000-20000 ; template shell = /bin/bash # Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders # with the net usershare command. # Maximum number of usershare. 0 (default) means that usershare is disabled. ; usershare max shares = 100 # Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create # public shares, not just authenticated ones #======================= Share Definitions ======================= # Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit) # to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each # user's home directory as \\server\username ;[homes] ; comment = Home Directories ; browseable = no # By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the # next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them. ; read only = yes # File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; create mask = 0700 # Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; directory mask = 0700 # By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone # with access to the samba server. # Un-comment the following parameter to make sure that only "username" # can connect to \\server\username # This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes ; valid users = %S # Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) ;[netlogon] ; comment = Network Logon Service ; path = /home/samba/netlogon ; guest ok = yes ; read only = yes # Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store # users profiles (see the "logon path" option above) # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) # The path below should be writable by all users so that their # profile directory may be created the first time they log on ;[profiles] ; comment = Users profiles ; path = /home/samba/profiles ; guest ok = no ; browseable = no ; create mask = 0600 ; directory mask = 0700 [printers] comment = All Printers available = no writable = no printable = yes path = /var/spool/samba guest ok = no create mask = 0700 browseable = no # Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable # printer drivers [print$] guest ok = no writable = no path = /var/lib/samba/printers comment = Printer Drivers # Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers. # You may need to replace 'lpadmin' with the name of the group your # admin users are members of. # Please note that you also need to set appropriate Unix permissions # to the drivers directory for these users to have write rights in it ; write list = root, @lpadmin [lspace] valid users = david, steff, tracey, smbguest, @sambashare guest account = comment = Lspace media share writeable = yes force group = sambashare path = /media/data read list = smbguest write list = david, steff, tracey

4 12

Android tethering: fix IP address of client using Mac ID?
by Peter Reutemann 03 Feb '15

03 Feb '15

Hi there Just playing around with Android tethering / wifi hotspot on my phone. One question that I have is, how do I fix the IP address that my phone assigns to a client when acting as an access point? Is there an App that I can use to tie a client's Mac ID to certain IP address, like you can usually do with "regular" wireless access points? Thanks. Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 2

The Linux Foundation Offers a Self-Paced SysAdmin Course
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '15

02 Feb '15

"The Linux Foundation has announced the launch of its new self-paced Essentials of System Administration course (LFS201), which comes bundled with a Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator exam. The full schedule of all 2015 Linux Foundation training courses is also now available." -- source: http://ostatic.com/blog/the-linux-foundation-offers-a-self-paced-sysadmin-c… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

2 1

Major Release LibreOffice 4.4 Announced
by Peter Reutemann 02 Feb '15

02 Feb '15

'The Document Foundation today announced the latest and "most beautiful" LibreOffice ever. LibreOffice 4.4 is the ninth major release for the project and brings with it lots of design and functionality improvements. Redesigned toolbars, menus, status bars, rulers and new theme selector are among the goodies for users. Michael Meeks said today that this release not only improves the visible features but also the foundations underneath.' -- source: http://ostatic.com/blog/major-release-libreoffice-4-4-announced Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

OpenSSH Will Feature Key Discovery and Rotation For Easier Switching To Ed25519
by Peter Reutemann 01 Feb '15

01 Feb '15

"OpenSSH developer Damien Miller has posted about a new feature he implemented and committed for the next upcoming 6.8 release of OpenSSH — hostkeys(a)openssh.com — an OpenSSH extension to the SSH protocol for sshd to automatically send all of its public keys to the client, and for the client to automatically replace all keys of such server within ~/.ssh/known_hosts with the fresh copies as supplied (provided the server is trusted in the first place, of course). The protocol extension is simple enough, and is aimed to make it easier to switch over from DSA to the OpenSSL-free Ed25519 public keys. It is also designed in such a way as to support the concept of spare host keys being stored offline, which could then seamlessly replace main active keys should they ever become compromised." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/02/01/0533208 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Dell Continues Shipping Fresh Linux Laptops
by Peter Reutemann 01 Feb '15

01 Feb '15

"In its latest move, Dell will be bringing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to its top-of-the-line Precision M3800 workstation laptop and the latest model of the Dell XPS 13. Both systems will be running Ubuntu 14.04.1. According to Barton George, Dell's Director of Developer Programs, programmers had been asking for a better, officially-supported Ubuntu developer laptop. This came about from a combination of the efforts of Dell software engineer Jared Dominguez and enthusiastic feedback. Specs of M3800: 15.6" LCD @ 3840x2160, Intel i7 quad core CPU, NVIDIA Quadro GPU, up to 16 GB RAM. The bad news is, as Dominguez explained on his blog, this version of the M3800 doesn't support its built-in Thunderbolt 2 port out of the box. However, thanks to the hardware-enablement stack in Ubuntu, starting with upcoming Ubuntu 14.04.2, you will be able to upgrade your kernel to add some Thunderbolt support." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/01/31/180203 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

1 0

Everybody’s Gone Flat
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 31 Jan '15

31 Jan '15

A tour through the new standard theme for KDE Plasma 5.2 <https://dot.kde.org/2015/01/27/plasma-52-beautiful-and-featureful>. And you thought it was just Apple and Microsoft and Google doing it: looks like anything resembling depth or gradients or shadows is completely out of fashion nowadays...

2 1

Microsoft Puts Money Into Android
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Jan '15

30 Jan '15

Microsoft is reportedly going to invest in Cyanogen Inc <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/microsoft-to-invest-in-cyanogen-hope…>. If you remember, the people behind the well-regarded CyanogenMod custom build of Android decided to become a commercial operation recently. There are even phone makers putting CyanogenMod straight onto their phones at the factory, in preference to official Google Android.

1 0