Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Month: August 2012 (Page 1 of 2)

Updated glibc multilib packages for Slackware 14-rc4

August 31, 2012 / / 9 Comments

Hi folks

Another Release Candidate for Slackware 14… and that again brings a patched glibc package. I have updated my multilib version of glibc in my own repositoy (http://slackware.com/~alien/multilib/current/) or any of the usual mirrors.

Also note that IcedTea 2.3.2 was released in quick succession to the version 2.3.1 which fixed a critical flaw in OpenJDK7. I am sure that there are more fixes for more flaws in this new update, but I will have to investigate and then build you some new goodies.

Just now that I wanted to start compiling KDE 4.9.1. For that, at least I have time until wednesday when the new KDE will be officially announced.

Eric

OpenJDK 7u6_b30 with IcedTea 2.3.1 fixes 0day exploit

August 30, 2012 / / 19 Comments

 There is a 0-day (zero-day) exploit out for Java7 (both Oracle Java7 and OpenJDK 7).The attack is mounted through your web browser’s Java plugin.

People using Java6 are not affected by the exploit. This includes everybody who is running a stable version of Slackware. There is no more Java in slackware-current, except for a SlackBuild script which wraps the official Oracle Java7 binaries into a Slackware package. This would make your Java7 on slackware-current vulnerable.

People using OpenJDK7/icedtea-web are not vulnerable to a browser based attack since the icedtea-web browser plugin will prevent the privilege escalation. However, the OpenJDK 7u5_b21 package which I have is still flawed.

Unfortunately, Oracle is taking a long time to respond to this threat. Users of OpenJDK are better off. There was an update of the icedtea build framework. The new version 2.3.1 will build OpenJDK 7u6_b30 and that release has been patched for the exploit.

Get my packages (Slackware 13,37 and newer) for OpenJDK 7u6_b30 here:

You will find packages for icedtea-web (the mozilla-compatible brwoser plugin) too at those URLs, as well as the mandatory rhino package (the JavaScript engine). Without this, the OpenJDK will not work.

Notes:

  • You need to install either the JRE or the JDK package. Not both of them! If you are not a Java developer and never compile Java code, then you do not need the openjdk package and it will be sufficient to install the (much smaller) openjre package instead.
  • If you are migrating to OpenJDK after having used Oracle’s Java binaries, make sure that you have removed both “jre” and “jdk” packages. Run a command like “removepkg /var/log/packages/jdk-* ; removepkg /var/log/packages/jre-*” to get rid of both. Then install the openjdk or openjre package. Logout and log back in after this package removal/installation so that you will get the proper Java environment.
  • Test your java browser plugin online: http://javatester.org/version.html or http://www.java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp .

Good luck! Eric

Slackware 14 release candidate 3 plus multilib updates

August 25, 2012 / / 14 Comments

Slackware 14 is getting ever closer upon us. Yesterday, the third release candidate was made public:

Fri Aug 24 20:08:37 UTC 2012
This is Slackware 14.0 release candidate 3, and is hopefully the last stop
on our long road to a stable Slackware release soon.  After hearing that
the 3.4.x kernel series will have long term support, I tested 3.4.9 hoping
that it would prove stable enough to use that as the release kernel, but
there are problems with an oops in kernel/time/clocksource.c every few boots.
Given that the 3.2.x series has been very stable, it seems prudent to stick
with that for release, and 3.2.28 is going to be the release kernel.  So,
one more round of testing.  Let me know if there are any problems.  Thanks!

I had not paid good attention, so it took me a few seconds to realize that a rebuild of the glibc package was mentioned there. So, I proceeded with updating my QEMU virtual machine of slackware64-current and rebuilt my multilib versions of the glibc packages:

Sat Aug 25 07:47:10 UTC 2012
current/glibc-2.15-x86_64-5alien.txz:  Rebuilt.
current/glibc-i18n-2.15-x86_64-5alien.txz:  Rebuilt.
current/glibc-profile-2.15-x86_64-5alien.txz:  Rebuilt.
current/glibc-solibs-2.15-x86_64-5alien.txz:  Rebuilt.
current/glibc-zoneinfo-2012e_2012e-noarch-5alien.txz:  Rebuilt.
  Upgraded to tzcode2012e and tzdata2012e.
current/compat32-tools-2.2-noarch-2alien.tgz:  Improved handling of qt package
  in comvertpkg-compat32 (makes the resulting package a lot smaller by weeding
  out unneeded stuff). Thanks to Sebastien BALLET.

Get them here as usual – I suppose that by now you’re able to find the mirror sites?

I also refreshed the set of converted 32-bit packages in the “slackware64-compat32” subdirectory, so if you are lazy and don’t want to run the “massconvert32.sh” script you can just download and install/upgrade those.

The fact that I was not paying close enough attention was caused largely by the Slackware Documentation Project, which we kick-started a little over a week ago. In that week, there was an enormous amount of activities and judging by the “recent updates” page, people are still enthusiastic about it. I must say, not everybody was happy with the way I crafted the project – but hey! You could have started this project yourself in the last 19 years! Nobody was stopping you!

I did not want to wait for someone else and gave form and direction to my own ideas about a good multi-language documentation site. Enjoy it, contribute to it, make it so extraordinary that even non-Slackers will want to read it. It does not have to be difficult.

Eric

SlackDocs logo courtesy of V. T.Eric Layton

Slackware documentation project

August 18, 2012 / / 27 Comments

In a recently started thread at LinuxQuestions, a discussion is flourishing about what the community can do to provide Slackware users with an up-to-date set of documentation for the distro, much like a community site as slackbuilds.org provides up-to-date and high-quality SlackBuild scripts.

The Slackware documentation we currently have is generally of good quality (lots of it is part of the Slackware DVD) but it is scattered all over the internet in sites like the SlackBook , slackbasics-i18n , SlackWiki , the LinuxQuestions wiki, and several small wiki’s and blogs maintained by volunteers. Having a centralized source of documentation much like the ArchWiki would be very beneficial to Slackware and its community.

The idea would be to start implementing a series of first steps (copied from one of my posts in the LQ thread):

  1. the wiki must be hosted somewhere with shell access to at least the admin team and with the possibility of managing a MySQL database as well as the apache webserver
  2. if that hosting costs money, some sponsor would have to be found since a monthly donation model will not work (look at all the sites asking for new money in order to survive)
  3. a team of site admins / editors would have to be assembled. The site admins do not necessarily have to be the editors – but we will need many more site editors than site admins
  4. the site must have a long-term purpose. The admins/editors will decide on that. Will the site be the definitive guide to Slackware? Will it replace the Slack Book? Do you want any affiliation with Slackware developers or will it be a 100% pure community effort? Will spin-off distros be covered and/or encouraged to participate?
  5. A high level structure of the Wiki will have to be erected ASAP. A style guide will have to be written so that the site will have a visual identity which permeates all articles. Think of article templates and a set of example pages as a demonstration of what a good article looks like
  6. decide on a license for the material. ArchWiki uses the GNU Free Documentation License, while I use the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license for my own Wiki.

A post by Woodsman (an experienced documentalist) added further concepts for keeping the participation barrier low:

Rather than use a style guide approach, consider a simple check list for editorial helpers:

  • Focus on basic grammar, but let people write as they are able.
  • Eliminate slang and colloquialisms that non English readers likely will not understand.
  • Ensure all acronyms and jargon are explained with the first usage.
  • Use a “bite-size” approach: encourage contributors to use subheadings to reduce an article into smaller sections.
  • The goal of an editorial review is to help the writer, not hinder or control the writer.

Kikinovak already reserved the slackdocs.org domain while Patrick Volkerding kindly agreed to the use of docs.slackware.com if the site would want to be affiliated with the distro.

I went ahead and erected a Dokuwiki instance on my taper server – http://taper.alienbase.nl/dokuwiki/ .

That URL is now depracated. The wiki is using the new domain name (since 21 august):

http://docs.slackware.com/

It is open for anyone who registers an account there. After you register an account there (click on the “login” at the top right and follow instructions), you can get a feel of the dokuwiki syntax by creating new pages below the playground namespace, so as not to disturb the real wiki content. Just create a new page by replacing the second “playground” with a name of your own liking, such as http://taper.alienbase.nl/dokuwiki/playground:foo . The wiki will comment that the page does not exist yet and that you can click “create this page”.

A Dokuwiki site may or may not be the end product but it never hurts to start off with a bit of practicing. Note that the Wiki supports multiple languages. So, even though we would start with english articles, these could be translated and become part of the same Wiki.

I also registered the #slackdocs channel at Freenode for those who want to communicate more directly than through blog and forum postings.

Have fun! I really like feedback!

Eric

New Libreoffice 3.5.6, and Slackware 14 RC2

August 17, 2012 / / 17 Comments

 I uploaded Slackware packages for the latest version of the LibreOffice 3.5.x series. LibreOffice 3.5.6 was released yesterday. I know (like I explained in my previous LibreOffice post) that there is a 3.6.0 release (and I even saw a 3.6.1 tag already) but I decided to hold off for a while and offer stability first on Slackware 13.37. Downloads at the usual locations:

 

 But do not despair. Slackware 14 is almost upon us. We are currently at Release Candidate 2 after most of the bug reports have been addressed. Some more tweaks are likely to follow but those should be minor. When Slackware 14 is finalized, I intend to build LibreOffice packages on the new platform – for version 3.6.x. Perhaps this version solves the landscape printing problems people are complaining about on LinuxQuestions (it’s not a Slackware problem by the way- all distros have this printing problem).

 

 And an activity I hope to pick up where I left it in april, is my own ARM port. After any Slackware release, there usually is a bit of quiet. That should allow me to build the remaining packages (and rebuild all those that were updated since april… a total of more than 900 I think) and get it running on some yet-to-decide ARM computer besides my own TrimSlice. I have been putting this off because I am a bit stuck at writing the installer and a proper kernel package. ARMedslack has a quite convoluted process for this and I want to see if I can simplify this. But… there is always something else to do instead of the boring stuff. I do have a working cross-compiler (I can create a new cross-compiler and “mini-root” for any Slackware release using just two commands) and a half-assed distributed compilation setup using distcc. I don’t want to use the ARMedslack x-toolchain here because it is a nice learning experience for me in cross-compiling.

Let’s hope I get so bored that I will jump into this again.

Eric

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