Ubuntu Weblogs

Pavel Rojtberg: Does anyone need Epiphany?

Pavel — 2009-07-02T12:05:25+00:00

Now that Google Chrome is finally coming to Linux we have a simple and fast Webkit browser. It is also opensource and uses GTK. So where is the need for Epiphany? One may say that it might better integrate with the rest of GNOME, but currently Empiphany is about just as integrated as Chrome and I guess it would be easier integrating Chrome wih GNOME than making Epiphany a good browser…

Pavel Rojtberg: 4 Years Later

Pavel — 2009-07-02T12:00:17+00:00

Nearly 4 years ago Jon Smirl, the author of the experimental Xegl server wrote a nice summary about the state of linux graphics. He did that after realizing that it take much more time than he could out into Xegl in order to fix the linux graphics, so it is a realistic summary.

The interesting thing is that in his vision he described an X server which would run without root privileges and use OpenGL for all its drawings. Number one on his todo list though was a memory manager for DRM, which would enable all the nice stuff.

Well it seems that coming with Karmic we will finally see that first step done; most of the users(Intel and AMD) should get a nice in kernel memory manager which will be visible by Kernel Mode Setting. So what can we expect next?

This diagram shows the dependencies of the various features. (Source) Green is what we should get with Karmic. The graphics-memory manager in kernel allows moving mode setting there too, so the resolution is set only once during bootup (flicker-free). Since the graphics card is now controlled from one hand it also allows dynamic power management to be done and does not require root privileges for X, which results in better security. Memory management also allows giving 3D applications their private front buffer, so they dont conflict when rendering. (RDR, Redirected Direct Rendering) Which is basically the core of DRI2. It also allows supporting memory related OpenGL features like VBOs or FBOs(Vertex/Frame Buffer Object) which brings the compliance level of MESA up to OpenGL 1.5.

Theoretically everything up to OpenGL3 could be implemented now, but since of the old design of MESA everything would have to be implemented for each driver over and over again. That is why Gallium3D was created. It is a intermediate level API which abstracts from the hardware by just offering a state tracking interface. On top of that it is possible to implement more sophisticated APIs like OpenGL, OpenCL or a Video Decoding API like VDPAU. These implementations can then be shared across all drivers which are built on the Gallium3D architecture.

Well it is still a way to go until we get these grey boxes, which Windows and Mac basically already had 4 years ago…

Isabelle Duchatelle: Last Epiphany release with a gecko back-end..

2009-07-01T14:42:19+00:00

.. Is Epiphany 2.26.3. Yay for webkit :)

Reference

http://blogs.gnome.org/epiphany/2009/07/01/gecko-end-of-life/

Peng Hardin: Running GNU/Linux and seeing CrunchBang in your kernel list? We’ve got a fix for it.

2009-07-01T13:54:38+00:00

[Updated to include a response from corenominal himself with one final fix some may need. -Peng]

I usually don’t look at the Grub kernel list when I boot my Ubuntu box, but last month I noticed that all of the kernels in my list showed “crunchbang” rather than “Ubuntu 9.04″. I did some searching and found a thread on the Ubuntu Forums about the issue and dstew made a great comment that helped me track down the problem.

It turns out it came from Philip Newborough’s PPA , which I have in my Third-party sources list. Philip, aka corenominal, has some great packages in his PPA, some of which Nanci has written about previously. If you have his PPA in your /etc/apt/sources.list you may have gotten update notices for grub or one of the other apps he has packages for. If you accepted his grub package you may have unconsciously had your /boot/grub/menu.list updated.

This is because Philip is one of the driving forces behind CrunchBang Linux, a GNU/Linux distro based on Ubuntu but designed to be faster, not to mention prettier (as their wiki states, “Finally, unlike Ubuntu, CrunchBang Linux isn’t brown ” ) and has several CrunchBang packages in his PPA. While I can’t confirm this with 100% certainty, I suspect the change got made when I accepted grub - 0.97-29ubuntu50-1crunchbang1 as an update.

The solution

There are a few things you can do to get rid of the “CrunchBang” on your boot menu. The first is to roll back grub to the previous, official Ubuntu Jaunty, package. Open Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager), and once it opens do a search for Grub (Edit > Search or Ctrl-F). Once you find grub select it and to go Package > Force Version. You will want to select the highest version that doesn’t include “crunchbang”. On my system the version I want is version 0.97-29ubuntu53 (jaunty), but your system may be different. Now apply the change you made by either clicking the icon on the toolbar (it’s a green check mark, but your theme may be different), using Edit > Apply Marked Changes, or by using the Ctrl-P shortcut. Once the change has been made, go ahead and lock the version on grub by selecting the package and using Edit > Lock Version. That way you won’t be prompted to apply that upgrade again in the future. At this point I strongly recommend that you disable his PPA until you know there’s an update in his packages that you know you need. While it may not be needed, I recommend at least logging out and back in to finalize the changes you just made, although you will need to reboot to actually see if the changes show up in your boot list.

Unfortunately I’m seeing that this process doesn’t actually undo the changes to your /boot/grub/menu.list, the file used to present you with the kernel options at boot time. If you have the application Starup Manager (SUM), you can you can run that to at least verify that the kernel carries the identifier “Ubuntu 9.04″ rather than “CrunchBang”. When I opened /boot/grub/menu.list in the Text Editor (gedit) to see if the change had been made my kernel list still showed “CrunchBang” (which is what prompted this post in the first place), but once I ran SUM it showed that my kernels did carry the “Ubuntu 9.04″ name. Once I closed SUM the menu.list, which I still had open in gedit, had been updated on my hard drive, and sure enough the kernels now showed the identifier “Ubuntu 9.04″. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but I’m glad it did.

If that doesn’t resolve things for you, or if you don’t use SUM, you will need to open /boot/grub/menu.list in a text editor with administrative permissions (backing up the current file first!) by running this in a terminal window:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.list

Scroll down to where you see ## ## End Default Options ##. Below that is the list of kernels available for booting into. Change the title on each kernel listing to change “CrunchBang” to “Ubuntu 9.04″, or whatever you want the title to read, then save the file and close the window. The next time you boot your computer look at the kernel menu and you should see that the options no longer carry the moniker CrunchBag.

I have emailed Philip about this, and if he gives me information to pass along I’ll add it.

Update 2:30 PM: I got a response from Philip and he didn’t realize putting the packages on his PPAwould cause problems, and he’s pulled them. As far as this particular issue, you definitely want to roll back to the official version of grub, as detailed above. For after that I’ll quote Philip’s email.

Regarding fixing up your grub boot list, if you have already rolled back the package, you should be able to run the following command to remove the CrunchBang references:

sudo update-grub

Apologies again for the boob.

That should take care of any issues you’re still experiencing. If anyone runs into Philip someplace, I’d buy him a pint. He’s definitely earned it for all the good work he’s done for the Linux community, whether you use any package from his PPA or not.

Thanks again, Philip. You rock.

Alan Lord: How to run Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

2009-07-01T13:32:53+00:00

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 was released yesterday. It isn’t (at the time of writing this) available for install through the repos on Ubuntu Jaunty. I guess it will be backported at some stage but should you want to play about with it, here is how I did it so as not to (hopefully) break anything else… [Note: you should probably back up your profile directory before going any further. Something like this should do it: cp -a ~/.mozilla ~/firefox-3.0-backup]

I downloaded the Linux tarball and unpacked it. I moved this directory (called firefox) to my local bin dir:

mv firefox ~/bin/firefox-3.5

This command assumes you are in the same directory as the tarball you just extracted and have a local bin directory. If not just do mkdir ~/bin first.

Then I started the current Firefox Profile Manager and created a new profile just for 3.5 to test (I didn’t want any conflicts or updates to my existing firefox 3 add-ons). To check that you are using the right path for the existing installed Firefox you can do a command like which -a firefox which will give you the full path to any firefox executables on your system and in your path.:

/usr/bin/firefox -no-remote -ProfileManager

Follow the Profile Manager dialogues to create a new profile – I called mine 3.5 amazingly. Exit the profile manager (don’t start firefox or else you’ll end up with the existing firefox also using the 3.5 profile).

Now you can run the 3.5 version of Firefox by typing the following command:

~/bin/firefox-3.5/firefox -no-remote -P 3.5

The -no-remote switch ensures that we start a clean instance of FF from these commands. If you already have an instance of FF running and you do not use this switch, you’ll get another window tied to the same, already running, firefox process. This also affects trying to start firefox remotely over X as I discovered quite some time ago.

I have since created a launcher on the top panel to start FF3.5.

It seems to work OK and feels incredibly fast at loading pages, but trying to run anything that needs flash causes it to die horribly.

So although this isn’t perfect, it was a reasonably safe way to test and just try it out. YMMV of course and I really think we’d all probably be better just waiting for one of the MOTU “Gods” to deliver a 3.5 backport for Jaunty.

Tell Someone Else!

Paul Mellors: To much information…..

2009-07-01T12:48:47+00:00

I’ve just surprised myself with the amount of email addresses i currently have, i think i need to consolidate them and have one, currently i have

hotmail
gmail
yahoo
own hosted email [about 4 here]

Do i really need this many email addresses I think it’s time to close accounts

It’s a shame apps i use are linked to these, flickr for instance is linked to my yahoo account….picasa is linked to my gmail, is it time to go totally self hosted?

I’ve probably mentioned this sometime in the past so apologies if i’m repeating myself.

Picasa – Ubuntu

Stefano Forenza: 5 easy steps to flip a burger, 1 easy step to eat it

2009-06-30T23:39:16+00:00

2009 may not be the year of Linux on the desktop, but surely can be appointed as the year of Mono.

David Siegel, creator of GnomeDo felt constructive enough to share 5 easy steps to create a viable alternative to Mono.

Create a mailing list where people interested in replacing Mono and/or Mono-based applications can subscribe. A quick perusal of Google Blogsearch, Reddit, Digg, and Slashdot will turn up many vociferous individuals who appear to be willing to contribute. These people need to start working together instead of participating in the same fruitless arguments over and over again.

Interview stakeholders. Figure out why developers like me are using Mono; I love Mono and would be happy to tell you why.

Conduct a competitive analysis, evaluating Mono and technologies like it. Look at C with GObject, Qt, Etoile, GNUStep, Squeak and others. Document the strengths and weaknesses of these tools for creating Linux applications. How complete are they? Are they actively developed? Why do developers pick them? Why are they popular or unpopular?

Using this competitive analysis data, decide on the best existing alternative to Mono.

Using the data about why developers choose Mono, begin to address the deficiencies in the chosen alternative. The mailing list subscribers from step 1 should be eager to help — get them involved writing documentation, reference applications, libraries, and new language features.

It’s disappointing to see how much David misses the point. Other than marking everything against Mono as non serious, he just tackles the technical issues under this premise:

Recently, the noisy debate over whether Mono poses a real threat to Linux has gotten even noisier. I’m not a lawyer so I’m not going to comment on matters I don’t fully understand

Maybe he’s right when he says that people who don’t like Mono are not organized enough. Should we create some drawing ? Will that help people to understand ?

*** The issue with Mono is not technical ***

Sure we’d love to interview you coding starlettes about how much you like the beloved Mono, and yes, create mailing list and all that stuff. And stop talking about it and hey! creating a new language to replace it (how nice. Btw Vala, anyone ?)

But, ultimately, those 5 steps are just 5 ones to flip a burger and shift the discussion from the licensing side, to the technical side.

But here’s the good news, I feel constructive enough to give the Mono community 1 easier, single step to get everything done. And if you do, you can keep the Mono (how cool!).

Pressure Novell and Microsoft (as some of you work in both the companies) to change the agreement to look like this:

Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Google and its affiliates hereby grant to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this License) patent license for patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification. If you institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the implementation of the specification constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses for the specification granted to you under this License shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

Is that easy. Everybody wins. Even Microsoft.

If you don’t, don’t expect concerns to go away anytime soon. Doesn’t matter what the Ubuntu policy is, that’s not just a Canonical issue. It’s everybody’s.

2012 will be an interesting year. Then we laugh.

[image credits]

Sebastian Hilbert: How to build GNUmed packages for Ubuntu from Debian

Sebastian Hilbert — 2009-06-30T14:18:34+00:00

Packaging for multiple distributions and operating systems is quite some work. Our Ubuntu packages are based on the fine work of the Debian-med team.
I order to attract contributors to the GNUmed project (and to get some work off our backs :-) we have published a guide on how to build GNUmed packages for Ubuntu. Anyone willing to help us out is welcome to take a look at our Wiki.

Amber Graner: Atlanta Linux Fest and Ubuntu Global Jam...

Just Me, Amber! — 2009-06-30T13:54:50+00:00

The Atlanta Linux Fest is going to be held on September 19, 2009 in Atlanta, GA! I am so excited to be attending but more important to me is I get to be part of the planning. All the behind the scenes stuff is awesome, and the folks that I am getting to work with from the Ubuntu GA LoCo are amazing! Wanna be part of the fun, them Click here to contact the organizers and let them know what you are thinking. Thanks in Advance and can't wait to see you there.

I'm also part of the Ubuntu NC LoCo and we are in the planning stages of meet-n-greets in 4 areas of the State, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Asheville, and Raleigh prior to the Ubuntu Global Jam. The goal is to get people talking face to face, but some faces and names the the IRC nicks and mailing list address, and see who is excited about what areas of Ubuntu. As the weekend of October 2-4, 2009 will be all things Ubuntu.:-) So if you are in NC and want to join in on the fun take a look at the Ubuntu NC LoCo Wiki, join the mailing list, forum discussions, or pop in IRC and say, "hi!" The more the merrier. :-)

All our stuff is in the house, and all but about 50 boxes are unpacked. Still haven't found all my clothes or half my shoes but all my kitchen stuff is available so meals can be cooked. All the furniture is at least in all the right rooms and the computers and TV's are working. All a plus in my book. Now it's on to picking out and hanging the window treatments, figuring out what paintings and art work go on what walls, etc... However, being back at home is a great feeling.

Now if I could just get back into my routine it would be sweet..in time, I know all in good time! Hope you all are having a great day more later... :-)

Sebastian Hilbert: GNUmed EMR client has been updated

Sebastian Hilbert — 2009-06-30T13:48:02+00:00

The client for the electronic medical record GNUmed has been updated to version 0.4.6. There are no database fixups to apply for this release. Packages are available through the Launchpad PPA at:

https://launchpad.net/~gnumed/+archive/ppa

Feedback is always welcome.

Paul Mellors: Linux Events

2009-06-30T06:55:23+00:00

I’ve decided that next year I’m going to attend at least one major linux show, after seeing numerous reports from SELF, LinuxTag, various FUDcons, it’s about time i went to one. Now i’m in the UK so where to go? Europe? the US? who knows, i’ve still got plenty of time to think about it

Kevin DuBois: Much Ado over Mono (Flowchart Included)

2009-06-29T17:30:31+00:00

If you monitor the free software blogosphere, you will have noticed some debate going on over the inclusion of Mono in some major distributions, and other major distributions specifically barring its use. Here’s my spin on it.

Let’s not debate exactly how good the language is. Let’s not debate how fast, how maintainable, or how efficient Mono may or may not be. That would devolve into some sort of “Ruby v. Python” argument that leads nowhere. I’ve enumerated the possible outcomes I can think of in this flowchart:

There are coders out there who “just like” Mono. Open source is all about having fun with what you’re doing, and to a lot of people out there, they have fun with Mono in a way that makes it rewarding for them to continue working with it. We don’t want to lose them. On the other side, Mono (and C#) does indeed have patent ties to Microsoft. While these patent ties might not amount to anything, they are somewhat of a “legal toehold” into the Linux ecosystem.

My personal final verdict? Mono should be treated by distribution makers as something that is “legally sticky” and should be included much in the sense that audio and video codecs, or flash are “included” in the distribution. For example, the mp3 codec is not distributed in large by most distributions, because its a legally sticky inclusion. Corporations own the rights to the mp3 codec, and distros make it easy to install the codecs, but don’t distribute it. This saves the distros from potential legal snafus. Just because “Mono” designates an ecosystem of programs doesn’t mean it has to treated any differently than “patent-sticky” codecs or plugins. Mono could be something that is easily installed (like flash nowadays, or A/V codecs), and even easily suggested by a GUI for the non-technical users who don’t understand what goes on under the hood. Caution like this won’t hurt the Mono community very much, and insulates Linux distros against potentially devastating patent claims. Seems like a win-win to me.

Mathieu Trudel: Ottawa Linux Symposium 2009 in Montreal - interesting tidbits

matt — 2009-06-29T16:32:00+00:00

Hey, it seems Canonical is a sponsor for the Linux Symposium 2009!

Thanks Canonical for helping out and contributing to events around here too!

Does that mean we'll see some Ubuntu rock stars at the conference? :)

Senthil Kumaran S: Pidgin 2.4.x Yahoo connectivity

2009-06-29T06:39:38+00:00

Recently Yahoo changed the way in which we connect to the IM, which broke Pidgin clients in Debian Lenny and Ubuntu systems, specifically pidgin client version 2.5.7 and below. We can correct it by doing the following if you don't want to upgrade your clients to something latest,

Go to your yahoo account settings in Pidgin. You'll see two tabs at the
top. Go to the second tab(advance). There you'll find, "scs.msg.yahoo.com"
and a few other web addresses change it to *cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com*.

Thanks to Vipin M of AU-KBC who gave this piece of info via ILUGC mailing list.

Stefano Forenza: MS makes everybody happy

2009-06-28T23:25:18+00:00

In Europe Windows 7 will cost 41% to 100% more than in the US.

Thanks to Microsoft for keeping everyone happy:

MS can recover the cash from the last EU anti-trust bill
Linux will get a big push
The EU anti-trust will have new excuses for a new bill

A new cycle begins ! Thanks Microsoft !

Yung-Chin Oei: Ksplice Uptrack: a quick-test on Ubuntu 9.04 Live

2009-06-28T00:21:13+00:00

I’ve been using Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop for ages, and never had any reason to upgrade from there – “it just works, I’m done upgrading” is what I’d smugly tell people… Now, I’ve found a big reason to upgrade: Ksplice, which I mentioned the other day, put a new service up:

Ksplice Uptrack is a new service that lets you effortlessly keep your systems up to date and secure, without rebooting.

Once you’ve completed the easy installation process, your system will be set up to receive rebootless updates instead of traditional, disruptive updates. [...]

Ksplice, Inc. is proud to make this service freely available for the latest version of the world’s most popular desktop Linux distribution: Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

No more reboots, and still applying security patches as soon as they become available. That’s worth the dist-upgrade hassle.

For now, all I did was running a quick test. I had a USB stick with Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 lying around, so I booted from that, hooked up the wifi (man, connecting is fast with NetworkManager 0.7-something – another reason to upgrade…), downloaded ksplice-uptrack.deb, and installed it on the Live system (you also need network connectivity to fetch some dependencies from the Ubuntu repository). This is what you get:

There’s a little tray-icon (the one resembling a “K”…) informing you that kernel updates are available, and clicking it opens an update window. Nothing exciting to see here, actually.

Still not very exciting. The whole thing is very understated, almost disappointingly so – I mean, something this cool should look cool, shouldn’t it?

…. and everything still works after this. In fact, I’m typing this post from the Live system with the (supposedly) updated kernel. I tried shutting the lid on my D630, and it nicely went into ACPI suspend. And came back up.

Wicked.

(Small disappointment: it seems Firefox crashed between suspend and resume. Did it a second time, and again Firefox died. Third time: no problems. Not sure if this has anything to do with anything, so for now pretend I didn’t mention it.)

Cool stuff, seriously. This will be in 10.04 by default, I’ve no doubt. In case you’re looking, here’s one guy eager to work on that!

One more thing: in their FAQ they suggest a little test to demonstrate that the thing actually does something. I tried their suggestion and ran their test-thing a couple of times. But I’m off to bed now, so here’s the output, and I’ll leave calculating whether the difference before/after updates is statistically significant to you…

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ wget -O demo.c http://www.ksplice.com/uptrack/2009-06-demo.c
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ gcc demo.c -o demo
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo cpufreq-selector -c 0 -g performance
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
performance
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo cpufreq-selector -c 1 -g performance
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 23
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T8100  @ 2.10GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2101.000
cache size      : 3072 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm ida tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips        : 4189.64
clflush size    : 64
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 23
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T8100  @ 2.10GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 2101.000
cache size      : 3072 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm ida tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips        : 4189.57
clflush size    : 64
power management:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 6(msec)
# ...hmmm, wait, this is a Live system...
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cd /mnt/
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ sudo mkdir test
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ sudo chmod a+rwx test
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ cd test/
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ cp /home/ubuntu/demo .
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 49(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 54(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 64(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 60(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 75(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 72(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 62(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 65(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 80(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 52(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ sudo uptrack-remove --all -y
The following steps will be taken:
Remove [cdoprpi1] Performance regression in filesystem buffer code.
Remove [9xoc5qmo] Possible erroneous memory overcommit in program start.
Remove [ll9q1ymc] Multiple bugs in filesystem core.
Remove [ovniqwxh] CVE-2009-1192: Information leak in the agp subsystem.
Remove [hrxbvh0e] CVE-2009-1265: Integer overflow in the af_rose maximum user frame size.
Remove [uzolzfa2] CVE-2009-1337: kill the wrong capable(CAP_KILL) check.
Remove [xgqc9vy4] VGA console corrupts non-ASCII characters.
Remove [pdfrn6qa] Denial of service by evading CPU time limits.
Remove [c8ueseae] Symbolic link filenames under eCryptfs can produce alarming warnings in dmesg.
Removing [cdoprpi1] Performance regression in filesystem buffer code.
Removing [9xoc5qmo] Possible erroneous memory overcommit in program start.
Removing [ll9q1ymc] Multiple bugs in filesystem core.
Removing [ovniqwxh] CVE-2009-1192: Information leak in the agp subsystem.
Removing [hrxbvh0e] CVE-2009-1265: Integer overflow in the af_rose maximum user frame size.
Removing [uzolzfa2] CVE-2009-1337: kill the wrong capable(CAP_KILL) check.
Removing [xgqc9vy4] VGA console corrupts non-ASCII characters.
Removing [pdfrn6qa] Denial of service by evading CPU time limits.
Removing [c8ueseae] Symbolic link filenames under eCryptfs can produce alarming warnings in dmesg.
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 816(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 805(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 793(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 786(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 785(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 787(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 791(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 787(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 786(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 785(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ sudo uptrack-upgrade -y
The following steps will be taken:
Install [c8ueseae] Symbolic link filenames under eCryptfs can produce alarming warnings in dmesg.
Install [pdfrn6qa] Denial of service by evading CPU time limits.
Install [xgqc9vy4] VGA console corrupts non-ASCII characters.
Install [uzolzfa2] CVE-2009-1337: kill the wrong capable(CAP_KILL) check.
Install [hrxbvh0e] CVE-2009-1265: Integer overflow in the af_rose maximum user frame size.
Install [ovniqwxh] CVE-2009-1192: Information leak in the agp subsystem.
Install [ll9q1ymc] Multiple bugs in filesystem core.
Install [9xoc5qmo] Possible erroneous memory overcommit in program start.
Install [cdoprpi1] Performance regression in filesystem buffer code.
Installing [c8ueseae] Symbolic link filenames under eCryptfs can produce alarming warnings in dmesg.
Installing [pdfrn6qa] Denial of service by evading CPU time limits.
Installing [xgqc9vy4] VGA console corrupts non-ASCII characters.
Installing [uzolzfa2] CVE-2009-1337: kill the wrong capable(CAP_KILL) check.
Installing [hrxbvh0e] CVE-2009-1265: Integer overflow in the af_rose maximum user frame size.
Installing [ovniqwxh] CVE-2009-1192: Information leak in the agp subsystem.
Installing [ll9q1ymc] Multiple bugs in filesystem core.
Installing [9xoc5qmo] Possible erroneous memory overcommit in program start.
Installing [cdoprpi1] Performance regression in filesystem buffer code.
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 61(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 56(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$ ./demo
time to write 100 lines is 47(msec)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt/test$

Posted in UbuntuWeblogsOrg Tagged: Jaunty Jackalope, ksplice, Ksplice Uptrack, reboots, Security, software updates, ubuntu 9.04

Stefano Forenza: Clever windows management for Gnome

2009-06-27T18:13:10+00:00

I’ve just come across this mockup for Gnome 3, and I find it pretty cool

Not that everything is desiderable but you can find some clever concepts in there:

colored decoration basing on the application (so alikes look alike)
notice how the maximized window contains the systray.
easy and drag and drop based minimize and move-to-desktop.

Notice how the maximized window includes the systray

What do you think ?

John Paulett: Install Eclipse Galileo (3.5) on Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04)

2009-06-27T02:13:40+00:00

Eclipse 3.5, codenamed “Galileo,” was released this week! While there is a team actively working on building an Ubuntu deb package, they do not yet have a package yet for Eclipse 3.5.

I put together some super simple instructions for installing Eclipse 3.5.

I am going to perform a per-user installation into my home-directory. If multiple people use eclipse on the same computer, you may want to modify these instructions to install into /opt/. I am going to put the installable in ~/bin/packages/eclipse3.5.

First, create the installation directory (change according to your own tastes)

mkdir ~/bin
mdir ~/bin/packages
cd ~/bin/packages

Now download the appropriate tar.gz file from eclipse. I am going to grab them from Amazon’s Cloudfront.

For 64-bit Ubuntu:

wget http://d2u376ub0heus3.cloudfront.net/galileo/eclipse-java-galileo-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

For standard 32-bit Ubuntu:

wget http://d2u376ub0heus3.cloudfront.net/galileo/eclipse-java-galileo-linux-gtk.tar.gz

Now unzip, and rename the directory (I want multiple version of Eclipse):

tar xzvf eclipse-java-galileo-linux-gtk*.tar.gz 
mv eclipse eclipse3.5

Great, almost there. I am going to create a file so that I can launch eclipse from the command line. Create a new file ~/bin/eclipse, and in that file, put:

#/usr/bin/bash
`~/bin/packages/eclipse3.5/eclipse -vmargs -Xms128M -Xmx512M -XX:PermSize=128M -XX:MaxPermSize=512M &> /dev/null` &

(You can later change these values if you get out of memory issues from Eclipse.)

Lastly, make the file executable:

chmod u+x ~/bin/eclipse

Install plugins
Yet again, Eclipse has changed its update manager (each time it gets better). I am going to add a few plugins for Python, Clojure, and Mercurial.

If you go to Help > Install new software, click the “Available Software Sites” link, and add your update sites. For me they include:

http://pydev.sourceforge.net/updates/
http://clojure-dev.googlecode.com/svn/updatesite/
http://www.vectrace.com/eclipse-update/

Add Icon to the Panel
I like having an icon on my panel to quickly launch Eclipse, like so:

To do so, right click on your panel in a place with no other panel tool. Select “Add to Panel” then create a “Custom Application Launcher”. You can enter ~/bin/eclipse as the command to run, and if you click the icon on the left, you can use the Eclipse icon in ~/bin/packages/eclipse3.5/.

Leave a comment if you run into issues or have a better method!

You can also see my previous instructions for Eclipse 3.4, if you run into any issues–there were lots of great comments!

Stefano Forenza: Ubuntu Wiki lock-in

2009-06-26T00:53:46+00:00

This comes from the Fedora planet, more specifically AdamW:

I may be missing something here (be great if I am), but it seems to me that the content of the Ubuntu Wiki - which contains some great stuff - is not licensed under one of the common ’shareable’ licenses, like CC, GFDL or OPL. Neither the front page nor any of the several random pages of content I checked has a license declaration that I could find, and the “Legal information” link in the footer takes you to the general ubuntu.com legal info page. So as far as I can tell, the license on that page - which is basically “for anything other than personal non-commercial use, apply to Canonical” - applies. That’s a bit unfortunate, and against the open source spirit of collaboration, if it’s true. I had a couple of people check my sanity on this one, and asked in #ubuntu-doc, and no-one could find anything to the contrary.

I got onto this by looking at the Ubuntu debugging procedures page, which is great. We’re looking at improving the Fedora wiki pages on what information to include when reporting bugs on particular components, and it would make sense to just re-use the Ubuntu community’s work here rather than spend time re-do it all ourselves which could more usefully be spent elsewhere. But if I’m right, we can’t.

If anyone knows that I’m wrong here (or can explain why there isn’t a less restrictive license, if I’m right), please do comment. Thanks!

That’s pretty odd, and I’m sure Canonical will clear up the issue pretty fast once they become aware of it. They demonstrated they’re able to correct their own mistakes.

Here’s just one more guy waiting for the issue to be solved in favor of our beloved fedora friends.