- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Touch-panel PCs run Raspbian on Raspberry Pi CM3
by Peter Reutemann 25 Aug '17

25 Aug '17

'Comfile has launched two IP65 protected, resistive touch panel PCs with 7- and 10.2-inch 800 x 480 displays, built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3. In February, Saelig Co. announced distribution of Janz Tec’s Raspberry Pi 3-based emPC-A/RPI3 industrial controller. Now, Saelig has launched North American distribution of Korea-based Comfile’s ComfilePi line of touch panel computers built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 (CM3) computer-on-module version of the Raspberry Pi 3.' -- source: http://linuxgizmos.com/touch-panel-pcs-run-raspbian-on-raspberry-pi-cm3/ 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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You Can Help Purism Build the Secure Open Source Linux-based Librem 5 Smartphone
by Peter Reutemann 24 Aug '17

24 Aug '17

'Thankfully, consumers are starting to wake up and become more aware of security and privacy, and some companies, such as Purism, are designing products to safeguard users. The company's laptops, for instance, run an open source Linux-based operating system, called "PureOS" with a focus on privacy. These machines even have hardware "kill switches" so you can physically disconnect a webcam or Wi-Fi card. Today, Purism announces that it is taking those same design philosophies and using them to build a new $599 smartphone called Librem 5. The planned phone will use the GNOME desktop environment and PureOS by default, but users can install different distros too. Sound good? Well you can help the company build it through crowdfunding. "Purism, the social purpose corporation which designs and produces popular privacy conscious hardware and software, has revealed its plans to build the world's first encrypted, open platform smartphone that will empower users to protect their digital identity in an increasingly unsafe mobile world. After 18 months of R&D to test hardware specifications and engage with one of the largest phone fabricators, Purism is opening a self-hosted crowdfunding campaign to gauge demand for the initial fabrication order and add the features most important to users," says Puris' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/08/24/147204 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 .NET Core 2.0 For Linux Released; Redhat Will Bundle Microsoft's .NET
by Peter Reutemann 24 Aug '17

24 Aug '17

'Microsoft recently released Visual Studio 15.3 for Windows and Visual Studio 7.1 for Mac with .NET core 2.0. In addition to porting Microsoft Code and SQL Server to Linux, they have ported .NET. Redhat will bundle .NET in their software offerings instead of relying on Mono. .NET core is Microsoft's open-source .NET platform which is not based off Mono and available for Linux, Mac, and Windows here.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/23/2046234 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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Spyware backdoor prompts Google to pull 500 apps with >100m downloads
by Peter Reutemann 23 Aug '17

23 Aug '17

'At least 500 apps collectively downloaded more than 100 million times from Google's official Play Market contained a secret backdoor that allowed developers to install a range of spyware at any time, researchers said Monday. The apps contained a software development kit called Igexin, which makes it easier for apps to connect to ad networks and deliver ads that are targeted to the specific interests of end users. Once an app using a malicious version of Igexin was installed on a phone, the developer kit could update the app to include spyware at any time, with no warning. The most serious spyware installed on phones were packages that stole call histories, including the time a call was made, the number that placed the call, and whether the call went through. Other stolen data included GPS locations, lists of nearby Wi-Fi networks, and lists of installed apps.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/08/500-google-play-apps… 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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Sky Versus The Newspapers
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Aug '17

22 Aug '17

Sky TV, in its latest annual report, is blaming its poor performance on “piracy”, specifically “the newspaper industry”. [CEO John] Fellet, in the company's annual report, said media outlets were taking clips from "the best parts" of Sky sport content and placing them on their websites without permission. Fair Dealing provisions in the Copyright Act allow news outlets to use a copyrighted work in the context of reporting current events. <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11908731>

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Moreutils – A Collection Of More Useful Unix Utilities
by Peter Reutemann 22 Aug '17

22 Aug '17

'We all know about GNU core utilities that comes pre-installed with all Unix-like operating systems. These are the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities of the GNU operating system. The GNU core utilities contains the commands, such as cat, ls, rm, mkdir, rmdir, touch, tail, wc and many more, for doing the day-to-day operations. Since these commands are part of Core Utilities, you don’t have to manually install them. Among these utilities, there are also some other useful collection of Unix utilities which are not included in any Unix-like operating systems. Meet moreutilis, a growing collection of the unix tools. The moreutils can be installed on GNU/Linux, and various Unix flavours such as FreeBSD, openBSD and Mac OS.' -- source: https://www.ostechnix.com/moreutils-collection-useful-unix-utilities/ 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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Solus 3 Released
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '17

21 Aug '17

'The Solus Project is proud to announce the availability of Solus 3, the latest release of its Linux-based operating system, which builds on its curated rolling release model. Solus offers users a free and modern alternative to commercial operating systems and provides users a safe and reliable vehicle to guide, guard and enable the user's journey through a shifting tech world to their destination and beyond.' -- source: http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/solus-3-released-here-is-whats-new-in-so… 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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TheSSS (The Smallest Server Suite) 22.2 Debuts
by Peter Reutemann 21 Aug '17

21 Aug '17

'4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki informs Softpedia on Sunday about the release and general availability of TheSSS (The Smallest Server Suite) 22.2 independently-developed, 4MLinux-based server-oriented GNU/Linux distribution. [...] Those unfamiliar with TheSSS (The Smallest Server Suite) will be glad to learn that the project provides them with a live server suite that lets them run a full-featured Linux server without installing any package on their computer, directly from the bootable medium. TheSSS is a lightweight and fast server solution, and it's free.' -- source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/thesss-the-smallest-server-suite-22-2-debuts… 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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fdisk Versus parted
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 21 Aug '17

21 Aug '17

When the first hard drives appeared that were bigger than the 2TiB limit that the MBR partition format could cope with, it seemed like the only tool available that could manage partitions in the new GPT format was GNU parted. So you had to say goodbye to the old fdisk and sfdisk utilities, and learn a new way of setting things up. Well, it turns out that the old programs have been updated with new features, and they can now cope with setting up and using GPT-partitioned disks just fine. I particularly like the “sfdisk -d” command, which dumps out the partition table in a detailed format that can be backed up and then used for restoration later, if the disk’s partition table should somehow get corrupted. As far as I could see, parted never gave the exact numbers, down to the sector, that were necessary for this. Also, in the past day, two problems with parted have manifested themselves acutely to me: * All partitioning changes are made immediately, unlike fdisk. * Also unlike fdisk, it didn’t seem to notice if you were clobbering existing partitions, and would happily overwrite them. Each of these (mis)features might seem bad enough on its own, but putting them together is a recipe for woe. So in future, I think I am going to abandon parted and go back to fdisk and sfdisk.

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postmarketOS Pursues A Linux-Based, LTS OS For Android Phones
by Peter Reutemann 20 Aug '17

20 Aug '17

'Buy an iPhone and you might get 4-5 years of official software updates. Android phones typically get 1-3 years of updates... if they get any updates at all. But there are ways to breathe new life into some older Android phones. If you can unlock the bootloader, you may be able to install a custom ROM like LineageOS and get unofficial software updates for a few more years. The folks behind postmarketOS want to go even further: they're developing a Linux-based alternative to Android with the goal of providing up to 10 years of support for old smartphones... Right now postmarketOS is a touch-friendly operating system based on Alpine Linux that runs on a handful of devices including the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google Nexus 4, 5, and 7 (2012), and several other Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, and Sony smartphones. There are also ports for some non-Android phones such as the Nokia N900 and work-in-progress builds for the BlackBerry Bolt Touch 9900 and Jolla Phone. Note that when I say the operating system runs on those devices, I basically mean it boots. Some phones only have network access via a USB cable, for instance. None of the devices can actually be used to make phone calls. But here's the cool thing: the developers are hoping to create a single kernel that works with all supported devices, which means that postmarketOS would work a lot like a desktop operating system, allowing you to install the same OS on any smartphone with the proper hardware. One postmarketOS developer complains that Android's architecture "is based on forking (one might as well say copy-pasting) the entire code-base for each and every device and Android version. And then working on that independent, basically instantly incompatible version. Especially adding device-specific drivers plays an important role... Here is the solution: Bend an existing Linux distribution to run on smartphones. Apply all necessary changes as small patches and upstream them, where it makes sense."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/08/19/2359258 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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