Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Month: October 2013 (Page 1 of 2)

Security release: OpenJDK 7u45

October 21, 2013 / / 6 Comments

Somewhat unexpected, since I was toying with other packages (pondering pipelight, updating kdelibs) and started to read a new book after finishing one that I have mixed feelings about… there was an announcement of OpenJDK 7u45, which is a security release.

Using the IcedTea 2.4.3 build harness, this release synchronizes the OpenJDK code with the upstream “Update 45 Build 31” tag. Please update your installed openjdk or openjre packages with this new version, since it fixes a lot of security issues (again):

  - S8006900, CVE-2013-3829: Add new date/time capability
  - S8008589: Better MBean permission validation
  - S8011071, CVE-2013-5780: Better crypto provider handling
  - S8011081, CVE-2013-5772: Improve jhat
  - S8011157, CVE-2013-5814: Improve CORBA portablility
  - S8012071, CVE-2013-5790: Better Building of Beans
  - S8012147: Improve tool support
  - S8012277: CVE-2013-5849: Improve AWT DataFlavor
  - S8012425, CVE-2013-5802: Transform TransformerFactory
  - S8013503, CVE-2013-5851: Improve stream factories
  - S8013506: Better Pack200 data handling
  - S8013510, CVE-2013-5809: Augment image writing code
  - S8013514: Improve stability of cmap class
  - S8013739, CVE-2013-5817: Better LDAP resource management
  - S8013744, CVE-2013-5783: Better tabling for AWT
  - S8014085: Better serialization support in JMX classes
  - S8014093, CVE-2013-5782: Improve parsing of images
  - S8014098: Better profile validation
  - S8014102, CVE-2013-5778: Improve image conversion
  - S8014341, CVE-2013-5803: Better service from Kerberos servers
  - S8014349, CVE-2013-5840: (cl) Class.getDeclaredClass problematic in some class loader configurations
  - S8014530, CVE-2013-5825: Better digital signature processing
  - S8014534: Better profiling support
  - S8014987, CVE-2013-5842: Augment serialization handling
  - S8015614: Update build settings
  - S8015731: Subject java.security.auth.subject to improvements
  - S8015743, CVE-2013-5774: Address internet addresses
  - S8016256: Make finalization final
  - S8016653, CVE-2013-5804: javadoc should ignore ignoreable characters in names
  - S8016675, CVE-2013-5797: Make Javadoc pages more robust
  - S8017196, CVE-2013-5850: Ensure Proxies are handled appropriately
  - S8017287, CVE-2013-5829: Better resource disposal
  - S8017291, CVE-2013-5830: Cast Proxies Aside
  - S8017298, CVE-2013-4002: Better XML support
  - S8017300, CVE-2013-5784: Improve Interface Implementation
  - S8017505, CVE-2013-5820: Better Client Service
  - S8019292: Better Attribute Value Exceptions
  - S8019617: Better view of objects
  - S8020293: JVM crash
  - S8021275, CVE-2013-5805: Better screening for ScreenMenu
  - S8021282, CVE-2013-5806: Better recycling of object instances
  - S8021286: Improve MacOS resourcing
  - S8021290, CVE-2013-5823: Better signature validation
  - S8022931, CVE-2013-5800: Enhance Kerberos exceptions
  - S8022940: Enhance CORBA translations
  - S8023683: Enhance class file parsing

I tested as usual whether jMol and Minecraft were still working (they do) and became quite annoyed about Orcacle’s java checker refusing to recognize the new OpenJDK. At least, all other test URLs work fine, like this one at javatester.org. Stupid Oracle.

I told you to get the packages! So, get them already. They have been compiled on Slackware 13.37 and are useable on 13.37 as well as 14.0 and -current! Get them preferably from a mirror site (faster downloads):

Further packages that are recommended/required:

  • Optional: If you want a Java browser-plugin you must install icedtea-web (OpenJDK itself does not contain such a plugin).
  • Required: The rhino package is a dependency of the openjdk/openjre package. It contains the JavaScript engine for OpenJDK.

Note that you should only install one of the two packages, either openjdk or openjre, do not install both at the same time or things will break! The openjdk package contains the jre (java runtime) as well as the java development kit.

Eric

Education and Open Source

October 18, 2013 / / 29 Comments

I really need to rant and fume a bit about the dutch education system – and I will end with some free promotion for an Open Source centered conference in my own city.

I have a son, he is in Secondary School now. But even in Primary School, he was exposed to a Microsoft-dominated IT infrastructure. He would work on texts in MS Word, and create presentations in MS PowerPoint or even MS Visio.

The problems for parents would inevitably start when the kids were sent home with instructions to finish their school assignments at home, effectively forcing the parents to buy copies of MS Office Professional or “go illegal”. The LibreOffice suite did not exist back then, and OpenOffice was not able to cope with Visio files (and quite honesly, could not cope well with complex Word documents either). at the time, I used a web-based MS Office conversion tool to create PDF files of the stuff my son brought home for printing (because colour printing at school would cost money).

Asking the local IT guy about Linux based education possibilities or even opportunities (my own expertise counts for something, you’d think) would only return blank stares. Apparently Microsoft has invested serious money in SURFMarket (joint venture with KennisNet and SURF) to ensure that dutch educational institutes are being supplied with Microsoft software at bargain prices, so that there is no incentive to look for alternatives. Which is detrimental to the development of the children, because they are not learning about Information Technology… they are learning how to operate MS Office.

In comparison, look at the initiatives in the UK, where the government-funded BBC sparked the development of the Acorn computer (Acorn developed the ARM CPU -originally an acronym for Acorn Risc Machine), and a few years ago this concept was rebooted by a couple of awesome guys from the University of Cambridge in the form of the Raspberry Pi, an ideal target for Computer Education in primary school. I can only look at the British in envy, and seriously think that the dutch have made fatal errors in long-term strategic decisions regarding the education of new geneations.

Fast forward to Secondary School.

Every pupil in my son’s school is required to have access to a Windows computer at home. The only software used at school is Microsoft based. Luckily the Document Foundation has spent a tremendous effort at making the LibeOffice suite more interoperable with the Microsoft counterpart, so there are ways around the Windows office requirements at school.

However there is still one major stumbling block. An by major, I mean stupid policy-makers are apparently being bought. Our Secondary school, one of many similar schools, has moved its Student Registration and Management system to Magister. Magister is built on Microsoft’s Silverlight content creation sofrtware, which is of course not cross-platform.

On Linux, an open-source Silverlight implementation called Moonlight (part of Mono) has been available for a while but its development has ceased. Petitions (from school teachers even) to provide alternatives that would work on Linux and Mac computers have not been honoured. A lot of links prove how bad the situation is and I could easily produce a lot more (most are in dutch by the way).

I am forced to use Silverlight. That is bad, when you consider that the dutch government has pledged to promote the use of Open Software and Open Standards – first through ICTU‘s OSOSS program, and later through the NOIV program. When that program ended, the message was that the government would not divert from this strategy in future. Ha ha ha.

I have been using a Chrome plugin that renders Silverlight pages on-line but the company which ran the service has closed shop last year. I am now looking at Pipelight, which is a cross-browser plugin which uses a patched version of Wine to render Silverlight pages locally. Expect Slackware packages soon, if it impresses me sufficiently. I want to be able to monitor my son’s progress on my Slackware computer dammit!

I am not venting my anger just because I can not bear it any longer. I wanted to take the opportunity and do a bit of PR for an event that will be taking place in Eindhoven, mu home town. There is a lot to learn there about proper and effective use of Open Source and Open Standards in eduction.

t-dose-square If you are interested, consider visiting  T-DOSE in the weekend of 26-27 october. T-DOSE is a free yearly recurring conference to promote the use and development of Open Source Software. I did a talk about the history of Slackware at the 2009 edition (I was so terribly ill and ran on paracetamol… but the talk was OK). This year the conference will run a full “track” consisting of several talks related to education and Open Source – I do not even mention all of them:

And for those who are interested in hands-on experience on top of the talks, an Open Source Class Room demonstration enviroment will be available during the whole event.

It’s free entry people! And if you are planning to go, leave a note here and you may meet me during drinks.

Cheers, Eric

Two rebuilt KDE packages.

October 16, 2013 / / 1 Comment

kde44For your information:

I had to rebuild two packages for users of my KDE 4.11.2 on Slackware-current.Both are packages that are being used by a lot of people so I did not want to wait for the next release of KDE (scheduled for November 5th).

  1. ark: this package was broken after the update of the ‘libarchive’ package in Slackware-current
  2. calligra: actually I did not have calligra as part of my KDE 4.11.2 set. However it turns out that the new ‘marble’ package of KDE 4.11.2 breaks Calligra Words! Therefore I have added a rebuilt Calligra 2.7.3 to my KDE 4.11.2 set (the same package as you’ll find in Slackware-current… only this time with a working Calligra Words).

Get them from any of my ‘ktown’ mirrors:

Enjoy!

Slackware 14.1 RC1

October 16, 2013 / / 10 Comments

Slackware_BlueOrb

The die-hards rejoice, cynics think “ain’t it dead yet” and hopefully lots of fresh Linux lovers will be attracted by the announcement in the ChangeLog.txt of the availability of Slackware 14.1 RC1 (announcement copied in full):

Mon Oct 14 22:09:17 UTC 2013
And with this batch of updates and fixes (clearing the rest of the
important stuff from the TODO list), we have arrived at Slackware 14.1
release candidate 1! Please test and report any remaining issues.
UEFI (with the exception of Secure Boot, which will have to wait until
we have real hardware) should be fully implemented in the installer now,
which will detect and warn about common problems, set up the EFI System
Partition under /boot/efi, and install ELILO and a UEFI boot entry
automatically. There’s a new README_UEFI.TXT file with detailed
instructions for installing 64-bit Slackware on UEFI (32-bit won’t
support native UEFI due to the mismatch between 64-bit UEFI firmware and
a 32-bit kernel, so Legacy BIOS will be the only way to install 32-bit
Slackware on UEFI). Several useful netfilter and networking utilities
have been added (thanks to Robby Workman and /dev/rob0 for these).
With this batch of updates, everything should be considered frozen
(including the kernel) unless there’s a good reason to change something.
Enjoy! See you all for the release, hopefully soon. 🙂

Although Slackware looks like it is becoming ever more marginalized in the DistroWatch page hit ranking, that site did publish a short news update about our release candidate. Thanks!

The DVD ISO images (32-bit and 64-bit) which I create (automatically) for Slackware-current after every update to the ChangeLog.txt are mentioned too in that Distrowatch news blurb, so there’s hope that more people will download one of those (slightly over 2GB in size) and give Slackware a try. And with support for UEFI there are suddenly a lot more computers where Slackware can be installed.

Personally, I think that Slackware 14.1 is going to be another stellar release. It has been maturing a lot: the development cycle has been longer than ever, mostly due to the fact that Patrick wanted UEFI support to work with minimal fussing. And that is hard to achieve when you do not own UEFI hardware. Advantage of all this maturing is that a lot of sofware has been added to the distro, and many existing packages have been upgraded during the past few weeks.

Enjoy this Release Candidate. I am running it (with my own KDE 4.11.2 packages) and is is super solid – as can be expected.

If you are running Slackware 14.0 (or even 13.37 still) and are considering a move to 14.1 after its release, now is the time to check our article about upgrading your system to a new release on the Slackware Documentation Wiki. Be prepared!

Cheers, Eric

Libreoffice 4.1.2 packages and the blog is back up

October 9, 2013 / / 15 Comments

harrierOh my. The server which hosts my blog, as well as sbopkg.org, rlworkman.net, the SlackBuilds.org mailing lists and several more personal web sites, and on top of that is also known as “mirrors.slackware.com“, lost both of its RAID-configured drives. One drive is completely dead but Robby Workman was able to rescue much of the data on the other drive. It’s still a mystery as to why two disk drives failed at the same second, and accusing fingers are being pointed at the on-board SATA controller of the server.

Fortunately, Robby managed to install Slackware anew, and configure it back to operational status. Only a lot of mirror data is still not available but that is being sucked back in from other Internet mirror servers, so I expect that full services will be restored pretty soon.

My blog and Wiki are fully restored but I have switched to a backup twice a day (I used to backup once a day) just to be on the safe side…

TekLinks, the company which hosts the server in its datacenter, has provided full support in order to get the server back up and running again as fast as possible, thanks for that!

 

And now, on to the topic which I could not write aboout since the blog was down (but Willy helped with that) 🙂

I finally managed to re-write the libreOffice.SlackBuild for the 4.1 releases. It took a while to get everything right, and get the various language dictionaries properly split off into their own packages. Just when I had built libreoffice-4.1.1 there was a source release of 4.1.2 so I never made my 4.1.1 packages public and instead went for the newest release.

If you want to read more about the improvements of the 4.1 release, you should read the official announcement of 4.1.0. The main focus is on interoperability (with the arch rival MS Office of course). More detail is to be found in the “4.1 new features and fixes” article.

LibreOffice 4.1.2 packages for Slackware can now be obtained from my 14.0 package repository – they will work on Slackware-current just as well. Note that there are now additional “libreoffice-dict-<language>” packages!

If you are still running Slackware 13.37 you should stick with LibreOffice 3.6.7 for which I also have packages.

They are also available from several mirrors. Remember, the mirror sites usually have a bigger bandwidth available than the master site! If you are a mirror administrator, and want to be added to the list, contact me.

Here is the shortlist:

You can subscribe to the repository’s RSS feed if you want to be the first to know when new packages are uploaded.

Cheers, Eric

« Older posts

© 2024 Alien Pastures

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑