- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Google Won't Enable Chrome Video Acceleration Because of Linux GPU Bugs
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"Citing 'code we consider to be permanently "experimental" or "beta,"' Google Chrome engineers have no plans on enabling video acceleration in the Chrome/Chromium web browser. Code has been written but is permanently disabled by default because 'supporting GPU features on Linux is a nightmare' due to the reported sub-par quality of Linux GPU drivers and many different Linux distributions. Even coming up with a Linux GPU video acceleration white-list has been shot down over fear of the Linux video acceleration code causing stability issues and problems for Chrome developers. What have been your recent experiences with Linux GPU drivers?" -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/03/04/1926233 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Bug In the GnuTLS Library Leaves Many OSs and Apps At Risk
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"According to this article at Ars Technica, '[A] bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn't be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers.' The coding error may have been present since 2005." -- source: http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/03/04/2150223 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Ars walkthrough: Using the ZFS next-gen filesystem on Linux
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

"There are lots of options for running ZFS, and very little of this walkthrough will really depend on your use of Ubuntu in particular or even Linux in general. You can always visit http://zfsonlinux.org directly for help with the initial installation if you prefer RHEL or Fedora or Arch or what have you--and if you're a BSD fan, ZFS is available from the base installer in either PC-BSD or in the latest 10.0 release of FreeBSD itself." -- source: http://bit.ly/1filf41 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Tor develops its own anonymous IM tool to hide chat from spying eyes
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The Tor Foundation is moving forward with a plan to provide its own instant messaging service. Called the Tor Instant Messaging Bundle, the tool will allow people to communicate in real time while preserving anonymity by using chat servers concealed within Tor's hidden network." -- source: http://goo.gl/BUjLY7 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Latvian hospital uses GNU/Linux
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The Children's Hospital in Riga, Latvia uses GNU/Linux for most of its tasks. Around 2003, the hospital deployed openSUSE on some of its machines and installed a basic HIS (Hospital Information System) on it. Later, they developed their own HIS, and moved their new services to Xen virtualization servers. (An HIS is a software used to manage all the data and operations of a hospital in an integrated fashion.) Currently, the hospital has about 600 workstations, and over half of them run Ubuntu." -- source: http://www.muktware.com/2014/02/latvian-hospital-uses-gnulinux/21851 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Raspberry Pi marks 2nd birthday with plan for open source graphics driver
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

'The Raspberry Pi Foundation, with help from chipmaker Broadcom, is laying out a path toward an open source graphics driver for the tiny computer. Broadcom today "announced the release of full documentation for the VideoCore IV graphics core, and a complete source release of the graphics stack under a 3-clause BSD license," Raspberry Pi creator Eben Upton wrote in a blog post.' -- source: http://bit.ly/1kKjhP2 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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The first Ubuntu 14.04 'Trusty Tahr' beta
by Peter Reutemann 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

"The first Beta of Trusty Tahr (to become 14.04 LTS) has now been released for testers and early adopters. This beta features images for Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu and the Ubuntu Cloud images. These are not to be used as stable systems but please do test for bugs to report. Always ensure your system is up to date before reporting bugs." -- source: http://lwn.net/Articles/588871/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Android Presentation
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

I suppose it’s time to start thinking about my presentation on Android development on 24th March. I’ll bring a couple of my own devices (must remember a USB cable as well...). If I can have access to the demo machine about an hour before the presentation, I can install the Android SDK on it—I normally put that just in my own user directory. However, I’ve found I have trouble accessing connected devices unless I launch the ADB server as root. I can pull down various bits of sample code off GitHub and developer.android.com. I’ve been able to do Java compilations with OpenJDK as a replacement for Sun JDK. I assume we can project the desktop machine display for everyone to see, but I’m not so sure how we do that with an Android device. (My devices may speak some version of MHL, if that helps.) Or we could run sample apps on an emulator on the desktop machine?

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Saturday Linux workshop
by Bruce Kingsbury 20 Feb '14

20 Feb '14

I'll be running another Saturday Linux Workshop tomorrow; February 22nd, 2014 10:00 am - 2:00 pm *Te Whare O Te Ata* 60a Sare Cres Hamilton, 3214 07 8557804 This is a GNU/Linux-focused workshop where people can bring their PCs, Pi's, Android devices etc for trouble-shooting and to learn or try out new skills. All visitors welcome - light lunch provided - gold coin donation appreciated

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Ubuntu store apps won't work across mobile and desktop in 14.04
by Peter Reutemann 14 Feb '14

14 Feb '14

One of Canonical's main goals in bringing Ubuntu to mobile devices is to create a converged platform across smartphones, tablets, and PCs. As such, a developer should be able to write an app that has a single code base yet runs on all three types of devices, presenting a different interface to the user on each form factor. ... Technically, this has already been achieved [with Unity 8]. ... The current goal is to get Unity 8 on the desktop in 14.10, "but we are always assessing our roadmap and reviewing what is realistic," Bacon wrote.' -- source: http://bit.ly/1jdrISm Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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