Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Month: May 2017 (Page 1 of 2)

New VLC packages fix security hole in subtitle renderer

May 26, 2017 / / 4 Comments

largeVLCThere was a recent upheaval about hundreds of millions of computers being at risk of being taken over completely by remote hackers. Not a kernel bug this time, but a weakness in the way that media players deal with subtitle files during video playback.
In particular, the KODI (XBMC) mediaplayer and VLC player were mentioned in a blog post by CheckPoint Software Technologies. Luckily, the developers of these multimedia players were informed well in advance of the public disclosure, so both KODI and VLC have updated their code and made new releases which plug the security hole. As the CheckPoint blog post mentions, vlc-2.2.5.1 fixes this vulnerability.

I released 2.2.5.1 packages for VLC (Slackware 14.2 and -current) yesterday, and when I was about to write a blog post about this security issue, I discovered that there was a VLC release 2.2.6, fresh from the press. Therefore I built new packages,  this time for Slackware 14.1 as well, and those were just uploaded to my repository.
Between my previous 2.2.4 packages and these new ones, almost 11 months passed… and I only skipped a single release (2.2.5). Like I have said in the past, development has slowed down because the team is not getting bigger but the VLC for Android is getting a lot of attention (and therefore resources). Not a problem in itself I think. I am still using VLC daily, to play audio and (less frequently) watch videos. The only thing I am waiting for (which should be in release 3.x) is proper detection and playback of UPnP media sources in the local network.

One thing to mention still: after the Fraunhofer patents on MP3 encoding expired last month, it is now perfectly legal to release software that is able to encode MP3 audio. The ffmpeg in Slackware-current, and my own ffmpeg packages, were already updated and include the LAME library. My new VLC packages are now all capable of MP3 audio encoding as well.
The AAC audio format is still patented and therefore, the AAC encoding capability is only available in my ‘restricted‘ packages.

Where to find the new VLC packages:

Rsync access is offered by the mirror server: rsync://bear.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 that I only built packages for Slackware 14.1, 14.2 & -current. I stopped creating packages for Slackware 14.0 and earlier because of the effort it takes to build 4 packages for every Slackware release.

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

 

LibreOffice 5.3.3 packages for Slackware 14.2 and -current

May 23, 2017 / / 27 Comments

libreoffce_logoAlmost two weeks ago the Document Foundation released LibreOffice 5.3.3. I silently uploaded Slackware-current packages for libreoffice-5.3.3 last week already and then concerned myself with some work on Plasma 5. And now, I have finally compiled a new LibreOffice for Slackware 14.2 as well, replacing the version 5.2.5 packages that I had in my repository.

So, you who run a stable Slackware release can finally taste LibreOffice’s Collaborative editing too. I briefly considered building LO 5.2.7 packages instead (it’s the ‘stable’ branch after all), but decided against that. If you really want to stick to a 5.2 release, just don’t upgrade…
Read about the new features in LO 5.3 if you want:  http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/new-features/.

The libreoffice packages for Slackware can be downloaded from a mirror like this one: http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/.

Have fun! Eric

More May updates for Slackware’s Plasma 5 addon

May 22, 2017 / / 13 Comments

Early May I published updates for my ‘ktown’ repository, mainly focused on Plasma5 whose packages I updated to 5.9.5 because this is the last release before moving to 5.10 next month. But there were new releases for Frameworks and Applications after that date, so I did a second May update: KDE 5_17.05_02.
It contains: KDE Frameworks 5.34.0, Plasma 5.9.5 and Applications 17.04.1 with Qt 5.7.1.

NOTE: I will no longer be releasing Plasma 5 packages for 32bit Slackware 14.2.

What’s new in KDE 5_17.05_02?

The remainder of this post is almost identical, every time I write about a new Plasma 5 release for Slackware. It contains the installation/upgrade instructions and other helpful remarks. If you are new to Plasma 5 for Slackware, I recommend reading on. Otherwise you are already knowledgeable, so have fun! You can stop reading now.

Non-ktown packages you probably want anyway

There are a couple of *runtime* dependencies that I did not add to the ‘ktown’ repository, but you may want to consider installing them yourself because they enable functionality in Plasma 5 that you would otherwise miss:

  • vlc: will give phonon another backend to select from.
  • freerdp: access RDP servers through krdc.
  • (only for Slackware 14.2) ffmpeg: used by several KDE programs.

All of the above can be found in my regular package repository.

In order for kdenlive to reach its full potential, you might want to consider replacing Slackware’s ‘ffmpeg‘ package by my version with extended functionality: more supported codecs including AAC and H.264 encoders.

Multilib considerations

If you install a 32bit program on a 64bit Slackware computer with multilib and that program needs legacy system tray support (think of Skype for instance), you will have to grab the 32-bit version of Slackware’s ‘libdbusmenu-qt’ and my ktown-deps package ‘sni-qt’, and run the ‘convertpkg-compat32 -i‘ command on them to create ‘compat32’ versions of these packages. Then install both ‘libdbusmenu-qt-compat32‘ and ‘sni-qt-compat32‘.
Those two are mandatory addons for displaying system tray icons of 32bit binaries in 64bit multilib Plasma5.

Installing or upgrading Frameworks 5, Plasma 5 and Applications

This upgrade should be relatively straightforward if you already have Plasma 5 installed. See below for install/upgrade instructions. For users who are running slackware-current, the most crucial part is making sure that you end up with Slackware’s packages for ‘libinput‘ and ‘libwacom‘. I had those two packages in the ‘current’ section of my repository for a while (they are still part of the ‘14.2’ section) but Slackware added them to the core OS. Failing to install the correct (i.e. Slackware) packages, may render your input devices (mouse and keyboard) inoperative in X.Org.

As always, the accompanying README file contains full installation & upgrade instructions. Note that the packages are available in several subdirectories below “kde”, instead of directly in “kde”. This makes it easier for me to do partial updates of packages. The subdirectories are “kde4“, “kde4-extragear“, “frameworks“, “kdepim“, “plasma“, “plasma-extra“, “applications“, “applications-extra” and “telepathy“.

Upgrading to this KDE 5 is not difficult, especially if you already are running KDE 5_17.05. You will have to remove old KDE 4 packages manually. If you do not have KDE 4 installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware’s own KDE 4 packages manually. Luckily, KDE 5 is mature enough that there’s almost nothing left from old KDE 4 that you would really want.

What I usually do is: download all the ‘ktown’ packages for the new release to a local disk. Then run “upgrade –install-new” on all these packages. Then I check the status of my Slackware-current, upgrading the stock packages where needed. The slackpkg tool is invaluable during this process of syncing the package installation status to the releases.

Note:

If you are using slackpkg+, have already moved to KDE 5_17.05 and are adventurous, you can try upgrading using the following set of commands. This should “mostly” work but you still need to check the package lists displayed by slackpkg to verify that you are upgrading all the right packages. Feel free to send me improved instructions if needed. In below example I am assuming that you tagged my KDE 5 repository with the name “ktown” in the configuration file “/etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf“):
# slackpkg update
# slackpkg install ktown (to get the newly added packages from my repo)
# slackpkg install-new (to get the new official Slackware packages that were part of my deps previously)
# slackpkg upgrade ktown (upgrade all existing packages to their latest versions)
# slackpkg upgrade-all (upgrade the remaining dependencies that were part of my repo previously)

And doublecheck that you have not inadvertently blacklisted my packages in “/etc/slackpkg/blacklist“! Check for the existence of a line in that blacklist file that looks like “[0-9]+alien” and remove it if you find it!

Recommended reading material

There have been several posts now about KDE 5 for Slackware-current. All of them contain useful information, tips and gotchas. If you want to read them, here they are: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/kde5/

A note on Frameworks

The KDE Frameworks are extensions on top of Qt 5.x and their usability is not limited to the KDE Software Collection. There are other projects such as LXQT which rely (in part) on the KDE Frameworks, and if you are looking for a proper Frameworks repository which is compatible with Slackware package managers such as slackpkg+, then you can use these URL’s to assure yourself of the latest Frameworks packages for Slackware-current (indeed, this is a sub-tree of my KDE 5 repository):

The same goes for Frameworks for Slackware 14.2 (change ‘current’ to ‘14.2’ in the above URLs).

Where to get the new packages for Plasma 5

Package download locations are listed below (you will find the sources in ./source/5/ and packages in /current/5/ and  /14.2/5/ subdirectories). If you are interested in the development of KDE 5 for Slackware, you can peek at my git repository too.

Using a mirror is preferred because you get more bandwidth from a mirror and it’s friendlier to the owners of the master server!

Have fun! Eric

OpenJDK security updates Jun’17

May 19, 2017 / / 3 Comments

icedteaFor all lovers and haters of Java: new releases are available for OpenJDK versions 7 as well as 8. On the blog of release manager Andrew Hughes (aka GNU/Andrew) you can find announcements for IcedTea 2.6.10 (which builds OpenJDK 7) and 3.4.0 (which builds OpenJDK 8). The new OpenJDK 7 and 8 releases include the official April 2017 security fixes.

You may think what you want about Java, but it is an important piece of software tech and ubiquitous, so I will keep releasing Slackware packages for as long as I can. My package support goes back to Slackware 13.37 which is the oldest release I personally recommend – if you are using an even older release, it’s probably because your hardware is very old or weak… in that case, you do not want to use something like Java anyway.

Here is where you can download the Slackware packages:

The “rhino” package (implementation of the JavaScript engine used by OpenJDK) is an external dependency for OpenJDK 7, you can find a package in my repository. It is not needed for OpenJDK 8 because that contains its own internal implementation of a JavaScript engine, called Nashorn.

Note about usage:

My Java 7 and Java 8 packages (e.g. openjdk7 and openjdk… or openjre7 and openjre) can not co-exist on your computer because they use the same installation directory. You must install either Java 7 or Java 8.

Remember that I release packages for the JRE (runtime environment) 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.

Plugin support in Web Browsers:

If you want to use Java in a web browser then you’ll have to install my icedtea-web package too. Oracle’s JDK contains a browser plugin, but that one is closed-source. Therefore Icedtea offers an open source variant which does a decent job.

Note that icedtea-web is a NPAPI plugin – this prevents the use of Java in Chrome & Chromium because those browsers only support PPAPI plugins. Formally, Mozilla have also ceased to support the NPAPI plugins. For instance Firefox 52 and newer does not support NPAPI plugins, although Firefox ESR 52 still supports them. If you can’t do without, then you can use Java plugins with the Pale Moon browser, which is based on an older Firefox codebase and maintained independently.

Have fun! Eric

liveslak 1.1.8 and new ISO images

May 12, 2017 / / 16 Comments

blueSW-64pxNot much news of late about my ‘liveslak‘ scripts. I occasionally tweak them but the modifications these days are fairly minor. I stamped a new version on the repository this week: liveslak 1.1.8 on the occasion that I wanted to generate and upload a fresh series of Slackware-current based Live ISO images. After all, liveslak is meant to be a showcase of what Slackware-current is all about, and with the recent updates to kernel, gcc, glibc and more, a refresh was more than welcome.

The Slackware Live Edition ISOs are based on liveslak 1.1.8 and Slackware-current dated “Tue May  9 23:33:37 UTC 2017“.

If you already use a Slackware Live USB stick that you do not want to re-format, you should use the “-r” parameter to the “iso2usb.sh” script. The “-r” or refresh parameter allows you to refresh the liveslak files on your USB stick without touching your custom content.

New in the ISOs

The new ISOs are based on the latest slackware-current with Linux kernel 4.9.27, gcc 7.1.0 and glibc 2.25.

The SLACKWARE variant contains exactly that: the latest slackware-current and nothing else. Ideal for testing and for checking out the status of its development.

The XFCE variant contains a stripped down Slackware with a minimalized package set but still quite functional. The small size is also accomplished by excluding all documentation and man pages, and the localizations for the languages that are not supported in the boot menu. This ISO is small enough that you can burn it to a ’80 minutes’ CDROM (700 MB).

The MATE variant (a Slackware OS with KDE 4 replaced by Mate) contains packages from the repository at http://slackware.uk/msb/current/ which is Mate 1.18.

The PLASMA5 variant (Slackware with KDE 4 replaced by Plasma 5) comes with the latest Plasma 5 release “KDE-5_17.05” as found in my ktown repository. Additionally you will find several packages from my regular repository: chromium (with flash and widevine plugins), vlc, ffmpeg, libreoffice, palemoon, qbittorrent, openjdk and more. This ISO also contains the LXQT and Lumina Desktop Environments. Both are light-weight DE’s based on Qt5 so they look nice & shiny.

The liveslak scripts support three more variants out of the box: CINNAMON, DLACKWARE and STUDIOWARE. There’s no ISO image for the Cinnamon and Dlackware variants this time. The Studioware variant is new, and you will find the download location for an ISO further down (in the “Download the ISO images” section).

What happened between liveslak 1.1.6 and 1.1.8

  • A boot-time tweak ‘nsh’ was added so that you can disable freetype’s new sub-pixel hinting if you are no fan of how the fonts look in slackware-current by default now.
  • I ensured that the XFCE ISO will again fit on a CDROM medium. Apparently the recent updates in Slackware cause packages to swell up. This reduction in ISO size required the sacrifice of quite a few packages (many X bitmap fonts, the TTF Sazanami font, the XFCE weather plugin, and GhostScript).
  • Studioware was added as a supported Live variant. From their web site: “Studioware is a project aimed at providing build scripts and packages of the best open source audio, video and photo editing software available for Slackware Linux.“
  • The liveslak scripts will now download everything they need, including a local copy of the Slackware package tree if that’s missing.

Download the ISO images

This time, the ISO variants I uploaded for Slackware Live Edition are: SLACKWARE (64bit & 32bit), XFCE (64bit & 32bit), PLASMA5, MATE. These ISO images (with MD5 checksum and GPG signature) have been uploaded to the master server (bear) and should be available on the mirror servers within the next 24 hours.

There is another Slackware Live ISO, but it is not hosted by me – I simply do not have the free space for it. It’s the STUDIOWARE Live ISO and you can find it at http://studioware.org/iso.php . It’s filled with many audio, video and photography manipulation applications and you should definitely give it a try!

Read more about liveslak

This blog has quite some posts about the Slackware Live Edition. Check them out: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/live/ – they contain lots of insight and helpful tips.
And this was the original post (which has been edited later on so it could become a proper landing page for curious visitors): http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/slackware-live-edition/

Download liveslak sources

The liveslak project can be found in my git repository: http://bear.alienbase.nl/cgit/liveslak/ . That’s all you need to create a Slackware Live ISO from scratch. Documentation for end users and for Live OS developers is available in the Slack Docs Wiki.

Have fun! Eric

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