Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Day: April 16, 2015

VLC 2.2.1 “Terry Pratchett”

April 16, 2015 / / 28 Comments

largeVLCThe first incremental update for the VLC 2.2 series is available now. The version 2.2.1. fixes a lot of bugs; numerous crashes (FLAC, SPC), codec issues (VP9, Atrac3, AAC), regressions and several issues (Resume, MP4 chapters, MKV over network). And it addresses some security issues too which makes this a recommended updgrade.

The source release was several days ago but the VideoLAN team has waited with the official announcement in order to double-check that this release does not contain unwelcome surprises.

In memory of Terry Pratchett, the famous writer of fantasy books who passed away recently, this release has been dedicated to him. VLC 2.2.1 has been nicknamed “Terry Pratchett (Weatherwax)“.

Where to find my latest VLC packages:

Rsync access is offered by the mirror server: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/ .

For BluRay support, read a previous article for hints about the aacs keys that you’ll need.

Note  I compiled the packages on Slackware 14.1 which is the cause of one bug in the package if you use it on Slackware-current: the ProjectM visualisation plugin does not work because of a libGLEW library version error. I have not yet been able to find a fix for it, but the impact is fairly minor so I let it pass.

My usual warning about patents: versions that can not only DEcode but also ENcode mp3 and aac audio can be found in my alternative repository where I keep the packages containing code that might violate stupid US software patents.

Have fun! Eric

Chromium: the answer to life, the universe and everything

April 16, 2015 / / 10 Comments

Chromium and Widevine:

chromium_iconGeeks and Sci-Fi fans, as well as otherwise properly educated people, will recognize the blog title for what it is.

Chrome 42 is released. Big jump: a major version change. Mostly changes under the hood again it seems. The Chrome binaries for this version contain a new version of the PepperFlash plugin, which I have extracted for use with the chromium browser – see my earlier blog. The packages for Slackware 14.1 and -current are available for download so that you can enjoy the latest Chromium browser (and its optional Widevine plugin) in your trustworthy Slackware environment.

In the  Chrome Releases blog you can read the announcement for Chrome/Chromium 42 to the Stable Channel (full version is 42.0.2311.90).

The new packages for my chromium and chromium-widevine-plugin packages both have version 42.0.2311.90 – indicating that they should be used together. The Widevine plugin reports itself as version “1.4.7.796” in chrome://plugins – same version as in my chromium-dev 43 package.

You don’t have to install the Widevine plugin. Chromium without Widevine plugin is a pure and open source browser, even the Widevine “adapter module” inside the Chromium package is open source. The Widevine library itself is a closed-source Content Decryption Module (CDM) which therefore is not part of the Chromium package but separately packaged (after extracting it from Google’s binary download of the Chrome browser with the same version number). You would typically want to install the plugin if you have a Netflix subscription and want to watch your movies in a Chromium browser.

Download locations:

Have fun! Next on the blog: new packages for VLC, the VideoLAN media player!

Eric

April 15 Java security update: OpenJDK 7u79

April 16, 2015 / / 4 Comments

icedtea A new release of IcedTea  is available. Version 2.5.5 of the “Java build framework” will create OpenJDK 7 “Update 79 Build 14” (resulting in a Slackware package openjdk-7u79_b14).

The release announcement can be found on the blog of release maintainer Andrew Hughes. The update synchronizes OpenJDK with Oracle’s April ’15 security updates. This will be Oracle’s final update to the Java 7 codebase. I expect that the next release of Icedtea will give us OpenJDK 8.

A list of  CVE’s is associated with the new release. Here are all security fixes mentioned in the post:

The new Java is properly detected by the java tester page at http://javatester.org/version.html but Oracle’s Java version tester at http://java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp only mentions that this version of Java is no longer supported (it wants us all to move to Java 8 on Windows I guess):

openjdk_7u79

Note about usage:

Remember that I release packages for the JRE (runtime) and the JDK (development kit) simultaneously, but you only need to install one of the two. The JRE is sufficient if you only want to run Java programs (including Java web plugins). Only in case where you’d want to develop Java programs and need a Java compiler, you are in need of the JDK package. Get them here.

The Java package (openjre as well as openjdk) has one dependency: rhino provides JavaScript support for OpenJDK.

Optionally: If you want to use Java in a web browser (which supports NPAPI plugins – this excludes Chrome & Chromium but you’ll be OK with all Mozilla [-compatible] browsers) then you’ll have to install my icedtea-web package too. While Oracle’s JDK contains a browser plugin, that one is closed-source and therefore Icedtea offers an open source variant which does a decent job.

If you want to compile this OpenJDK package yourself, you need to install apache-ant additionally. Note that the previous requirements of xalan & xerces packages have been dropped; ant will provide all required build functionality on its own now.

Have fun! Eric

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