Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Tag: flash (Page 11 of 13)

More Chromium, LibreOffice and Flash updates

March 14, 2014 / / 15 Comments

That sounds a heck of a lot like another post I wrote recently on this blog…  a little more than two weeks ago. The big guys made a move again, and this is what you get from me as a result.

Chromium

chromium_iconChromium (and of course Chrome) were updated to version 33.0.1750.149, with 7 security fixes. The Chrome binaries are equipped with an updated Flash Player plugin (12.0.0.77 which is also a security upgrade, see below).  These are the highlighted fixes (aka the biggest bounties paid):

  • [$4000][344881] High CVE-2014-1700: Use-after-free in speech. Credit to Chamal de Silva.
  • [$3000][342618] High CVE-2014-1701: UXSS in events. Credit to aidanhs.
  • [$1000][333058] High CVE-2014-1702: Use-after-free in web database. Credit to Collin Payne.

You will find the chromium packages (Slackware 14.1 and -current) here:

I also provide updated packages for chromium-pepperflash-plugin with the Fpash plugin binary taken from the official Chrome distribution.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2.2 (codenamed ‘Fresh’) packages for Slackware 14.1 and -current are ready too. The official announcement  considers LibreOffice 4.2.2 to be “the most feature rich version of the software, and is suited for early adopters willing to leverage a larger number of innovations“. However, the announcement continues with “For enterprise deployments, The Document Foundation suggests the more reliable LibreOffice 4.1.5 “Stable”.” Of course I have LibreOffice 4.1.5 packages, they are built on Slackware 14.0 and work well on Slackware 14.1 and -current. It’s your choice!

Package locations:

Linux Flash Player

As mentioned above in the Chromium section, Adobe released security updates of their Flash Player for all platforms. The Adobe security bulletin shows 11.2.202.346 as the new version for native Linux. Package location:

 

Note: a new version of pipelight has not yet been released, but if you want your Wine-installed Windows Flash player to be secure and safe as well, you can run the following command (as root – not as your normal user account like I wrongly advised before):

# pipelight-plugin --update

which will update the “/usr/share/pipelight/install-dependency” script. Next time you open a web page which loads pipelight, it will automatically upgrade your Windows Flash player in the wine-pipelight directory to the latest version.

Have fun! Eric

Chromium, LibreOffice, Pipelight, Flashplayer updates

February 25, 2014 / / 9 Comments

If you are subscribed to my repository’s RSS feed or if you are using slackpkg+ to keep your Slackware system updated, you will already have noticed and are probably already using the new packages – for the rest of you, here is the harvest of last week.

Chromium

chromium_iconChrome and Chromium were updated to version 33.0, bringing fixes for 28 security issues. The new version number is 33.0.1750.117 to be exact.

The most important fixes (for high-risk vulnerabilities) are:

  • [$2000][334897] High CVE-2013-6652: Issue with relative paths in Windows sandbox named pipe policy. Credit to tyranid.
  • [$1000][331790] High CVE-2013-6653: Use-after-free related to web contents. Credit to Khalil Zhani.
  • [$3000][333176] High CVE-2013-6654: Bad cast in SVG. Credit to TheShow3511.
  • [$3000][293534] High CVE-2013-6655: Use-after-free in layout. Credit to cloudfuzzer.
  • [$500][331725] High CVE-2013-6656: Information leak in XSS auditor. Credit to NeexEmil.

I have packages ready for the new chromium (Slackware 14.0, 14.1 and -current):

In the same locations you will also find updated packages for chromium-pepperflash-plugin and chromium-pdf-plugin. Both these packages contain binaries taken from the official Chrome distribution: respectively an Adobe Flash player and a PDF reader plugin. The Flash player is a security update (new version of the Pepper Flash plugin is 12.0.0.70), just like the other Flash player plugins I will mention further down.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2.1 packages for Slackware 14.1 and -current are ready too. The first minor increment in the 4.2 series took only 3 weeks, solving over 100 bugs which were introduced because of the relatively large amount of new code that was added since the prior 4.1 series. You can read more in the ChangeLog for 4.2.1.

Note that I ship my LibreOffice 4.1 and 4.2 packages with additional “libreoffice-dict-<language>” packages, containing dictionary and spellchecker support! If you are still running Slackware 13.37 there’s LibreOffice 3.6.7 for which I also have packages, and users of Slackware 14.0 are served well with LibreOffice 4.1.4 (I will compile packages for 4.1.5 shortly).

Package locations:

Pipelight

pipelight-logo The new pipelight release brings updates and fixes. More Windows browser plugins are supported, but being able to view Netflix will still be the major benefit for many of its users. Note that the update will also bring you the newest Flash Player version (fixing several security issues as already pointed out when I wrote about Chrome’s PepperFlash update). Together with the newest pipelight, I also created new packages for its wine-pipelight dependency, bringing the version of Wine to 1.7.13.

Let me remind you that in my original post about pipelight, you will find full installation and configuration instructions, as well as a troubleshooting section.

Package location:

 

Linux Flash Player

Of course there is the normal¨ Flash Player plugin for Linux as well – it received an update from Adobe just like its Chrome and Windows pendants. That same Adobe security bulletin mentions that the new version of the Linux browser plugin is 11.2.202.341. Package location:

Have fun! Eric

The week in review

February 6, 2014 / / 10 Comments

I have not been updating this blog for a couple of days, but that did not mean I was sitting on hy hands.

These are the package updates which landed in my various repositories during the last few days:

Calibre

calibreicoNearly every week I have been updating my Calibre packages whenever Kovid Goyal released a new version. Especially the last couple of releases are really exciting. Perhaps you noticed (if you are an ebook lover or even an ebook writer) that the Sigil EPUB editor’s progress had stalled, in fact the software’s development is dead. I did not really care because Sigil had switched its Qt dependency from 4 to 5 and Slackware does not contain Qt5, so new Slackware packages were out of the question anyway. Now, Calibre has been enhanced with an ebook editor. Visually and functionally the Calibre ebook editor application shows similarities to Sigil, however it is a completely different program, and it integrates perfectly into the Calibre GUI. You can invoke it directly by running “ebook-edit” from a terminal or using the “Edit E-book” menu item in your Desktop Environment.

Calibre can also run as a Web Server with an OPDS interface, ideal for when you have an ebook reader with a Wireless network interface – you can download books directly from your library without the need for a USB cable. But it needs to be hidden behind an Apache reverse proxy to make it safe enough to use on the Internet. I recently installed COPS however, which is built from the ground up to be a replacement Calibre OPDS PHP Server. After some discussion with the developer, I talked him into adding an online web-based EPUB reader which is based on Monocle, so that I can read my ebooks directly on my ChromeBook without the need for downloads or browser plugins.

 

LibreOffice

I already posted about my gripes with building the new LibreOffice 4.2.0. Well, I finally managed to make it work, and the resulting packages (for Slackware 14.1 and -current) are available. A significant bug was rapidly discovered in Calc when using a non-english language pack. It seems that other people suffered from this in earlier releases even, and not just on Slackware. Still, this is a release with many improvements. Read more about the new features and fixes on the announcement page. Interesting tidbit: LibreOffice 4.2 offers a new Start screen, with a cleaner layout that makes better use of the available space – even on small screens – and shows a preview of the last documents you opened.

Focus for the 4.2 cycle is performance and interoperability (yeah, when is it not) with MS Office.

Note that I ship my LibreOffice 4.1 and 4.2 packages with additional “libreoffice-dict-<language>” packages, containing dictionary and spellchecker support! If you are still running Slackware 13.37 there’s LibreOffice 3.6.7 for which I also have packages, and users of Slackware 14.0 are served well with LibreOffice 4.1.4.

Package locations:

 

Chromium

chromium_iconAnother update to Chrome/Chromium brings this open source version of Chrome to 32.0.1700.107, and interestingly enough (but I disregarded this) another update appeared one day later which “upgrades” Chromium to 32.0.1700.103. A comment to that blog announcement questions the effective downgrade but there is no answer yet from the developers.

The SlackBuild was modified a bit (thanks dugan!), in order to solve several bugs in the interaction with vBulletin, which is the software powering LinuxQuestions.org (hoster of the main Slackware user forum on the Internet).

I have packages ready for the new chromium:

 

VideoLAN Player

largeVLCThe VideoLAN team released version 2.1.3 of their VLC player yesterday.

This is another maintenance release of the “Rincewind” release, “fixing numerous bugs, and improves decoders, notably for the new formats (HEVC and VP9). Important fixes involve Audio and Video output management on most platforms“. 2.1.3 also “improves the demuxer and decoders for most formats, and the various interfaces“.

Where to find the new VLC packages:

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

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.

 

Adobe’s Flash Player plugin

adobe_flash_8s600x600_2There was a minor version number update today, for Adobe’s Flash Player Plugin for web browsers. The update is accompanied by a security bulletin “apsb14-04”

Packages for Mozilla compatible browsers are here (and the update to pepperflash plugin for Chromium should follow shortly):

Icedtea-web

A new release of the web browser plugin for OpenJDK is available since today. Version 1.4.2 finally makes Oracle’s Java version tester page work again (remember that you now have to explicitly allow the plugin to start inside your Firefox or Chromium browser):

java_is_working_7u51_b31

Get the packages at http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/icedtea-web/

 

 

KDE

The latest  KDE Sofware Compilation is 4.12.2 which is available now and it accompanied by Plasma Workspaces 4.11.6. Mostly bug fix release, you should have no issues upgrading.

Contrary to what I had told before, I have built these packages on Slackware 14.1. I am running them on all my Slackware-current boxes without issues. The difference between Slackware 14.1 and -current is not so big yet, which is the rationale behind my decision to use Slackware 14.1 as the compilation platform this one time (for maximum compatibility). You will find all the installation/upgrade instructions that you need in the accompanying README file. That README also contains basic information for KDE recompilation using the provided SlackBuild script.

You are strongly advised to read and follow these installation/upgrade instructions!

My packages can be found in the ‘ktown’ repository which I maintain for KDE packages:

 

This concludes the week in review. I just finished baking a fresh loaf of bread and the smell makes me mad. Have to wait until the morning (it’s still hot and the time is just past midnight).

loaf-800

Remember:
You can subscribe to the repository’s RSS feed (RSS for ktown and RSS for multilib available too) if you want to be the first to know when new packages are uploaded.

Have fun! Eric

Flash security updates too (and chromium on the horizon)

January 15, 2014 / / 6 Comments

adobe_flash_8s600x600_2 I mentioned “Patch Tuesday” in my previous post and also mentioned Adobe in passing. The reason is, they made new versions available of their Flash Player Plugin for web browsers. Several security issues have been addressed, you can read all about those in their bulletin “apsb14-02”

I packaged both the flashplayer-plugin 11.2.202.335 for Mozilla based browsers, and the pepperflash plugin 12.0.0.41 for (Chrome and) chromium. The former is well-known (you can use it with your Firefox) and the second one has been extracted from the Chrome RPM and re-packaged as a plugin for my chromium package for Slackware.

Packages are here:

 

chromium_icon I am still working on a new chromium 32.0.1700.77 package (the same version as the latest stable version of Chrome) but since the Chromium team have not (yet) released any official source tarball I had to find out how to create such a tarball. The above pepperflash plugin works perfectly with my current chromium-31.0.1650.67 package!

But the finished 64-bit package works OK so far, still testing:

Old:  chromium_about_31.0.1650.67

New: chrome_about_32.0.1700.77  chromium_about_32.0.1700.77

I’ll start the 32-bit SlackBuild after I finish typing.

Oh yeah if you want to package the new google-chrome yourself, you will have to apply this diff to the google-chrome.SlackBuild in the Slackware tree, else your desktop menu icon is fubar:

--- extra/google-chrome/google-chrome.SlackBuild 2012-08-01 20:48:31.000000000 +0200
+++ google-chrome.SlackBuild 2014-01-15 21:34:38.425845534 +0100
@@ -105,9 +105,6 @@
# Install a .desktop launcher:
 sed -i -e "s#Icon=google-chrome#Icon=/opt/google/chrome/product_logo_256.png#" \
- $PKG/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome.desktop
-mkdir -p $PKG/usr/share/applications
-ln -s /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome.desktop \
 $PKG/usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

 mkdir -p $PKG/install

Have fun! Eric

 

Last week’s harvest

May 18, 2013 / / 13 Comments

I was a bit too busy and tired to write something on my blog during the past week, but now that it is weekend again, there is room for some updates.

Flash Player Plugin

There was yet another security update for Adobe’s Flashplayer Plugin. I updated my package to the latest version. Note that if you are using my Steam Client package, you will probably have installed the flashplayer-plugin in order to see all the news in the Steam Store. If you are on a 64-bit Slackware platform with multilib, you should not just update the 64-bit flashplayer-plugin but also convert the 32-bit package into a “compat32” version and upgrade the 32-bit package you will already have installed for Steam:

# convertpkg-compat32 -i flashplayer-plugin-11.2.202.285-i386-1alien.txz
# upgradepkg --install-new /tmp/flashplayer-plugin-compat32-11.2.202.285-x86_64-1aliencompat32.txz

KDE

The kdelibs package in my ktown repository (KDE 4.10.3) has been patched to prevent application crashes. Coincidentally this patch has also been applied to the kdelibs package in slackware-current.

Slackware Dependencies

A nice and fast tool to discover and query dependencies between Slackware packages is sbbdep which stands for “Slack Build Binary Dependencies”. Its author, a4z, released version 0.2.0 last week. I use this tool to assist me when determining the build order of packages for my ARM port.

ARM Port

Speaking of which, there is an interesting thread going on on LinuxQuestions, regarding ARMedslack and the Raspberry Pi. Someone who goes by the nick “Ahau” and comments on my blog from time to time, is working on a hard-float port to the armv6 hardware platform – the heart of the Raspberry Pi. He is using my ARM source tree for this, has given me good feedback which resulted in bug fixes, and his ultimate goal is to create a new ARM version of Porteus. The most recent part of the LQ discussion centered around my decision to split the libtinfo library (terminfo) out of the libncurses(w) library. This is the ncurses developers’ intention for the future, however it causes issues when compiling software which is not querying the system properly and assuming that only libncurses(w) is required for linking.

I had nearly decided to revert my decision and integrate libtinfo again into libncurses(w) when ponce pointed out a patch which I had already seen in Fedora’s ncurses package source. Perhaps I will apply that patch to my ncurses package because it seems to resolve all the linking issues we have been running into lately.

LibreOffice ARM?

And more good news – it took two days of compiling because I forgot to enable distcc, but I managed to create LibreOffice packages for my ARM port, using the SlackBuild script with which I already compiled LibreOffice 4.0.3 for x86 and x86_64 platforms last week (I needed one additional patch to work around the newer boost-1.53 which I have in my ARM tree). I have not had the chance to install the packages and run the LO Writer to see if I created working binaries… but the build log did not show errors which is promising!

Desktop Environments other than KDE or XFCE

Long ago, I created a package for razor-qt which is a minimal (lightweight may be the better word) desktop environment based on Qt. In other words, it looks beautiful (by not using GTK) and does not have the sluggishness people complain about when they run that other Qt based desktop environment (KDE). I was thinking about what I would have to add to a filesystem image for the ARM ChromeBook which I should finally get ready and distribute… I do have KDE packages, but KDE felt like just a bit overweight for the ChromeBook. I do not really like XFCE (don’t get me wrong, technically and functionally it’s not bad at all, but GTK does not have any visual appeal to me) and therefore I felt compelled to re-visit razor-qt.

Razor-qt does not come with its own window manager, instead it allows you to pick one of the available window managers it finds on your computer when it starts for the first time. Razor-qt will work well with KDE’s window manager KWin, but it works best with OpenBox. And since that is not part of Slackware, I added an openbox package as well to my repository (which was the moment that I found out I had never released my original razor-qt package… no idea how I could have forgotten that).

I decided that I am going to build armv7hl packages for razor-qt and openbox so that the ChromeBook has a nice and fast, good-looking desktop environment next to XFCE. They will be uploaded to my separate “alien” subdirectory of the ARM package tree, where I will upload the LibreOffice packages as well.

KDE Display Manager

The KDE Desktop Environment is transitioning to Plasma Workspaces 2. Two changes are worth mentioning because they will have a big impact: Many “user-interface centric” applications will be re-written in QML (Qt Modeling Language). More importantly, the X.Org display server of old will be abandoned for the Wayland protocol server. Wayland gives you a 3D-enabled display server from the start, instead of the current practice of running a 3D compositor (KWin, compiz) as an extension under the 2D X.Org display server. Future support of Wayland requires a rewrite of KWin (KDE’s window manager) but also forced a decision to say goodbye to the KDE Display Manager (KDM) which is the graphical login program which greets you when you boot Slackware in Runlevel 4. A blog post by Aaron Seigo gives a lot of insight in the process that preceeded this decision.

It looks like SDDM (Simple Desktop Display Manager) is a contender for replacing KDM in a future release of KDE. Initially, SDDM had a hard dependency on PAM, but thankfully the developer is friendly towards Slackware. After a short discussion on Google+ he created a preliminary “pam-less” version which I tested. Those tests went OK and the changes were added to the main source. So it is with pleasure that I announce the package which I added to my repository. You can already try it out, if you just add a couple of lines to Slackware’s “/etc/rc.d/rc.4” script. Directly below the line that says:

echo "Starting up X11 session manager..."

you add:

# ----8<----------------------------------------------------------------
# Use Simple Display Desktop Manager
 if [ -x /usr/bin/sddm ]; then
 exec /usr/bin/sddm
 fi
# ----8<----------------------------------------------------------------

Enjoy!

Eric

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Alien Pastures

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑