● 12.01.14

● Links 1/12/2014: Linux 3.18 RC7, Devuan Debated

Posted in News Roundup at 8:00 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Kernel Space

• Linus did his 3.18-rc7 release just minutes ago. Activity surrounding Linux 3.18 is beginning to calm down although the nasty lockup issue still has yet to be solved. Linus noted in today’s announcement that the lockups appear either due to watchdog and possibly RCU code — and that the issue also still seems present for Linux 3.17.

• Things are calming down nicely, and everything looks pretty normal. In fact, if it wasn’t for the pending issues with odd watchdog (and possibly rcu) lockups I’d be pretty happy. As it is, that isn’t a regression from 3.17, but is still very disturbing.

• At the same time, with the holidays coming up, and the problem _not_ being a regression, I suspect that what will happen is that I’ll release 3.18 on time in a week, because delaying it will either mess up the merge window and the holiday season, or I’d have to delay it a *lot*.

• We’ll see. Maybe DaveJ will be able to bisect it a bit now that the false lead of “3.17 was ok” has been shown to be wrong (right now it looks like the problem seems to have crept in between 3.16 and 3.17).

• Annoying, because as mentioned, other than that we seem to be doing well. The rc7 patch looks very normal, with two thirds being drivers (spread all over: usb, networking, staging, thermal, gpu, sound..) and half of the remaining being arch updates (mostly mips, arm, powerpc). The remaining is mainly networking and some filesystem fixes (nfsd and btrfs).

• Linus

Graphics Stack

• Mesa 10.4 is being released as soon as next week and continuing in usual tradition this new version brings a lot of exciting changes for users of the open-source Linux hardware graphics drivers.

• Emil Velikov has released the third weekly release candidate to Mesa 10.4 that’s expected to be officially released in December.

• The Linux 3.19 kernel that’s a few weeks out still from officially being under development is quite heavy on the changes.

Benchmarks

• With the official Fedora 21 release due out soon and the release candidate being available this weekend, I ran some basic performance benchmarks comparing the speed of Fedora 21 64-bit to that of Ubuntu 14.10 on an Intel Xeon workstation.

• Fedora 21 Workstation was compared to Ubuntu 14.10 using the x86_64 version of each and maintaining the default settings. Fedora 21 is shipping with the Linux 3.17 kernel, GNOME Shell 3.14.2, X.Org Server 1.16.2, Mesa 10.3.3, and GCC 4.9.2. The package versions this time around aren’t too far off from the Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn release from back in November with the main change being the use of the Linux 3.16 kernel.

Applications

• As part of the KDE desktop, KolourPaint looks much like the versions of MS Paint that would have been released with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

• Package managers aren’t magic, they’re a set of well-understood technical tools, with tradeoffs and limitations like every other system out there. I hope we can move past our differences, recognize issues in existing technology, and build something great together.

Instructionals/Technical

Aping Microsoft

• A new version of Wine (Wine is not an emulator), 1.7.32, has been released and is now available for download. The devs have made a number of very important improvements, including to the Mono engine, which has been updated.

• ReactOS, the open-source OS that’s long been striving for binary compatibility with Windows applications and drivers, has landed its new explorer shell as a Thanksgiving present.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• A few weeks ago I blogged about the new KWayland module in our workspace modules. Back then I also mentioned the server component of KWayland and that it’s not part of the 5.1 release. Yesterday I finally committed a change to install the library and the header so that starting with Plasma 5.2 the server component is also available. This is a good point in time to explain what the server library is and what can be done with it.

• Kexi has improved quite a bit since the last time, especially in Reports. We’re close to supplementary 2.8.7 release within Calligra, then 2.9 will follow and Qt5/KF5-based 3.0 with a shiny mask.

• Quantum OS (formerly known as Quartz OS for a brief time) is a new Linux distribution mostly focused around providing a clean, very attractive desktop experience. This latest Linux desktop project is focused on providing a Qt5-based desktop that complies with Google’s Material Design concepts.

Distributions

Screenshots

Arch Family

• While I’ve ran benchmarks of the Arch-based Manjaro Linux distribution in the past and found it a convenient way to play with Arch and overall a nice distribution, it seems for users running it day in and day out aren’t entirely satisfied with the update strategy of Manjaro.

Red Hat Family

• In this lightning talk presentation, Rikki tells us some of the tips and tricks she’s learned from running social media over the last six years. One example, be sure to share relevant, interesting, and accurate information.

Fedora

Debian Family

• The thing I personally find the most annoying is when someone thinks what someone else says is inappropriate and says so, it seems like the inevitable response is to scream censorship. When people do that, I’m pretty sure they don’t know what the word censorship actually means. Debian/Ubuntu/Insert Project Name Here resources are not public spaces and no government is telling people what they can and can’t say.

• Users of Debian and its derivatives can soon expect to find systemd 217.

• Systemd 217 brings many features and is currently the latest systemd stable release. Systemd 217 brought its experimental user console daemon, support for job timeouts, logind enhancements, udev updates, KDBUS handling improvements, and a plethora of other work.

• This week, Bruce Byfield used his blog to talk about Debian’s place in Linuxland. He points out that of the 285 distros on Distrowatch, 132 are based on Debian and 67 on Ubuntu. What this means, if I understand how Mr. Byfield is slicing the cake, is that there are 199 distros based on Debian, since all Ubuntu derivatives are based on Debian by proxy.

• Last month we wrote about a group of administrations planning to fork Debian GNU/Linux over not liking its direction due to adopting systemd over Upstart or SysVInit. The Debian administrators have made good on their word and announced the Devuan fork of Debian.

• The vivid difference of opinion over Debian’s future direction has ended with a new fork of the Linux distribution.

• The dispute centred on plans to replace the sysvinit init system management toolkit with systemd, a similar but less-Linux-specific set of tools.

Derivatives

• Simply put, it isn’t. To look at our standing on Distrowatch, ranging from the teens to the mid-40s, we are still viable; remarkably viable for a distro with a community of its size. Again, Debian 8 Jessie just froze: Once the 1,100 or so bugs are worked out of Debian 8 Jessie and it is released to the world, there will be a CrunchBang 12 Janice somewhere along the line.

Canonical/Ubuntu

• One of the things that Ubuntu Touch will definitely need once it’s launched on mobile devices is a solid navigation app and modRana seems to be the first that will make it.

• Ubuntu OS doesn’t really have that much of a presence in the smartphone market even though ROMs have been released for compatible devices like the Nexus 4 but Canonical hopes to change that through partnerships with OEMs that will put Ubuntu OS on smartphones from the get go. Chinese manufacturer Meizu has formed one such partnership with Canonical and it has confirmed that its first Ubuntu powered smartphones are coming in early 2015.

• Because Ubuntu packs in the repositories its own semi-customized version of Firefox that comes with a custom Google-powered start page, Google will remain the default search engine of Firefox for Ubuntu, if Firefox is installed from the official repositories.

• Meizu has confirmed that the first Meizu MX smartphone running Ubuntu will be release in the first quarter of 2015.

• As you may know, Canonical has been added a few stability enhancements already to the RTM (release-to-manufacturer) branch of Ubuntu Touch, still based on Ubuntu 14.04, adding new features only to the development branches which uses Ubuntu 14.10 as code base.

Flavours and Variants

• Codenamed “Rebecca”, the Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon edition has been released, and brings many new improvements, featuring a brand new, more stable and polished Cinnamon than ever, a Ubuntu 14.04 software base and Linux Kernel 3.13.

• I was very impressed with Linux Mint 17.1. The common feature upgrades and bug fixes add real value to this distribution. The changes in Update Manager, the Login Screen, Language Settings, Kernel Menu, and artwork should please almost all Linux Mint users. And the huge range of background wallpapers, along with the slideshow feature make it a great choice for those who want frequent changes to the look of their Linux Mint systems.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

Tizen

• Here is another story about Samsung, India and the elusive Tizen Smartphone or the the Samsung Z1 SM-Z130H/DS to be precise. We were expecting a Samsung Tizen Smartphone to be released this month in india, but that hasn’t managed to materialize and the latest rumour is that it will be released next month.

Android

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

• Last week Jolla launched the Jolla Tablet with Sailfish OS 2.0 that’s set to take the waters next year. The Jolla Tablet launched via crowd-funding and thus far it’s been wildly successful. Given the success, Jolla has added some stretch goals to the campaign that ends in December.

Free Software/Open Source

• Santa is so named because it keeps track of binaries that are both “naughty and nice” said Google.

Events

• Coreboot has been ported to work on another Intel motherboard. This new support target is for older Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors but the motherboard can still be purchased via retail channels and sells for only about $70 USD.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• Oracle has recently added the Virtualbox package for Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn to their main repository, permitting the users to easily stay up to date with their favorite virtual machine emulator.

• This weekend I spent time on preparing for the ODF Plugfest again. The test software ODFAutoTests now has many more tests.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• The Libtool Team is pleased to announce the release of libtool 2.4.4.

• GCC 5 already boasts an incredible amount of new compiler features as laid out now over dozens of Phoronix articles, but there’s even more abound for this major compiler update due out in 2015.

Project Releases

• For those in the US not busy with Thanksgiving today, the Qt 5.4 release candidate is now available for testing.

• Version 3.6 of XenOrchestra, an open-source web interface to the Xen Server, is now available with various additions.

• Version 1.3.1 of the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) was released this week, a year and a half since the release of FLAC 1.3.0.

Public Services/Government

• The overhaul of government service delivery in Limerick, Ireland’s third-largest city, proceeds in concert with the introduction of free and and open source software, says Bilauca Mihai, part of the change management team for Limerick, both the city and the county.

Openness/Sharing

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Programme (FAO) has announced a coalition of partner agencies to develop a new data crunching tool to help national governments, development and relief organizations in their efforts to prevent and respond to crises such as animal diseases, plant pests and even conflict.

Open Access/Content

• One of most important ways of helping to promote open access is for major research organizations to make it a condition of their funding. Two of the pioneers in this respect were the Wellcome Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which made open access a requirement in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

• [...]

• Now, this is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation making this announcement, not Bill Gates, but it’s hard to believe he doesn’t know about and approve of the move. After all, it represents a very high-profile boost for the idea that making things freely available for anyone to “transform and build upon” is better than locking things up so that neither of those is possible. So the natural question is: when will Gates admit the same is true for software too?

Programming

• Planet Money points out that in this golden age of computer hobbying, American culture strongly implied that this hobbying was only for boys. They tell an anecdote of a sister who had to get the key from her brother every time she wanted to use the computer because it was locked in his room. There’s also just general stories of parents bringing home computers for boys (and not so much for girls) because of this computer boy stereotype exemplified by Weird Science and WarGames and computer ads.

Leftovers

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Many of those who’ve come together here to protest have been loyal supporters of President Daniel Ortega since he was part of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) junta that overthrew the Somoza dynasty in 1979. They backed him when the Sandinistas tried to establish their own Cuban-inspired dictatorship. They backed him in his war against the CIA-trained Contra rebels in the 1980s. And when the country started holding legitimate elections in the 1990s, they backed him in his bid to build the FSLN into a powerful political party that eventually returned him to the presidency—a position he does not look like he’ll give up any time soon. But right now these Sandinistas are absolutely enraged by plans to evict them from their lands to make way for his latest and by far most grandiose project: the Interoceanic Canal.

• When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today

• Bakhit, 36, is a Jordanian comic book author and entrepreneur who creates Middle Eastern stories that are an alternative to terrorist ideologies. His field research has included surveys of children in poor neighborhoods in and around the Jordanian capital of Amman and in Syrian refugee camps.

• The US has always dodged questions about the legality of its drone strikes by arguing on grounds of efficiency. These targeted strikes, it claims, always kill the intended targets and minimise civilian casualties. This rationale, as many suspected, has turned out to be false. According to research done by NGO Reprieve, drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen have ended up killing 28 unknown people for every targeted militant. This will come as no surprise to critics of drone strikes who have always maintained that poor intelligence all but guarantees that many civilians will end up being killed by these supposedly pinpoint weapons. The US has tried to elude its responsibility for civilian deaths by classifying any male of military age as a militant unless it is specifically proven he is a civilian. This is a kind of casual racism which assumes anyone in the tribal areas of Pakistan got what they had coming. For the US, Fata is packed with militants and anyone it targets there must surely be a militant. It has bombed wedding parties and funerals but always claimed that its precision strikes went after only militants.

• U.S. fighter planes and drones have conducted 819 strikes, compared to 157 from the 10 other countries, states the detailed report obtained last week by FoxNews.com.

• Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan vowed to track down the perpetrators of the bomb blasts that killed more than 100 people at the central mosque in the city of Kano.

• The “Global Terrorism Index,” published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, reported last week that fatalities due to terrorism have risen fivefold in the 13 years since the 9/11 attacks, despite the U.S.-led “war on terror” that has spent $4.4 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and anti-terrorist operations elsewhere. But it’s not really “despite” those wars. It’s largely because of them.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• A surge of Arctic air has left much of the continental U.S. shivering in unusually bitter November cold. But this early foray into winter weather is just a small blip in the overall global picture, which is of a warming world that is still on track to see 2014 set the mark for hottest year on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.

Finance

• When Black Friday devours Thanksgiving, capitalism consumes one of its sustaining myths.

• Since the financial crisis of 2009, the number of billionaires has more than doubled, to 1,645, showing that while those at the top have recovered quickly, the benefits of economic growth are not being reaped by the vast majority. Even more staggering, the world’s richest 85 people hold the same amount of wealth as half the world’s poorest population. The consequences of extreme inequality are harmful to everyone. It not only deprives millions of people better life chances, it fuels crime, conflict, and corruption. “Failure to tackle inequality will leave hundreds of millions trapped in poverty unnecessarily.”

• At a technology fair in Moscow last month, European executives faced the new reality of doing business in Russia since the West imposed sanctions: the number of companies at the international showcase had shrunk by half from a year ago.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• In October 2014, Aldo Guerrero of Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting (FAIR) reported that individuals with connections in the corporate and financial sectors dominate the executive boards of public television stations. FAIR conducted a study to determine trustee occupations, specifically to discover their corporate connections. They researched the boards of five major public television stations in the United States: WNET of New York City/Newark, WGBH of Boston, WETA of Washington, DC, WTTW of Chicago, and KCET of Los Angeles. The study reveals that 84% of the boards’ 182 members have corporate backgrounds, and 138 members are “executives at elite businesses.” The report also provides the percentage of corporate and non-corporate board members for each television station. WTTW and WNET had the highest percentage of corporate members, 92%.

Privacy

• The failure of the USA Freedom Act in the Senate earlier this month was a disappointment to many in favor of reforming the National Security Agency. The bill, far from perfect, and certainly incomplete in its scope was thought of by some as a possible first step. To others, it was a way for Congress to pass something that merely looked like reform.

• In May, 2013, a British Army soldier, Lee Rigby, was killed on a suburban London street by two Muslim British citizens, who said they were acting to avenge years of killings of innocent Muslims by the British military in, among other places, Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the attackers, Michael Adebolajo, had also been detained and tortured in 2010 in Kenya with the likely complicity of Her Majesty’s Government. The brutal attack on Rigby was instantly branded “terrorism” (despite its targeting of a soldier of a nation at war) and caused intense and virtually universal indignation in the UK.

• The former Twitter account @JbJabroni10 has a long history of harassment on Twitter against people involved in the net freedom movement, and notably against myself (@puellavulnerata) and Tor developer Runa Sandvik (@runasand). Over the last four and a half months, some ‘journalists’ from Pando have been whipping up a harassment campaign against us, relying heavily on getting a cluster of associated trolls to make the most unsupportable accusations they are unwilling to make themselves, and then retweeting them. The target of this doxxing, @JbJabroni10, was a prominent member of that network, and has been frequently retweeted by the Goebbelsesque propagandist @YashaLevine in recent weeks. Since he has deleted all his accounts and certain other members of the Pando mob have been pretending he is some sort of fallen hero (see fig. 1, 2), this is being written to document the evidence against him, all his known sockpuppets and as much of his history as it has been possible to recover.

• The military and government throws research money around with reckless abandon. That no more means they created Tor than it means they created the Internet back in the 1970s. A lot of that research is pure research, intended to help people. Not everything the military funds is designed to kill people.

• There is no single “government”. We know, for example, that while some in government paid Jacob Appelbaum’s salary, others investigated him for his Wikileaks connections. Different groups are often working at cross purposes — even within a single department.

• [...]

• Dissidents use Tor — successfully. We know that because the dissidents are still alive. Even if it’s a secret conspiracy by the U.S. government, it still does what its supporters want, helping dissidents fight oppressive regimes. In any case, Edward Snowden, who had access to NSA secrets, trusts his own life to Tor.

• Chrisy Bossie built a $100,000-a-year gemstone e-commerce business by sharing information about her products on her company’s Facebook page several times a week.

• Through public speeches and secret meetings, FBI Director James Comey has been pushing to stop companies like Apple and Google from encrypting users’ phone data. Two former Navy SEALs say that the policy that the FBI and the Justice Department are pursuing would hurt men and women in uniform and possibly even our allies by forcing them to use insecure devices and services for communication.

• While FBI director James Comey discusses all the inevitable horrors encrypted phones are poised to wreak on the nation’s youth, those in the encryption business are pointing out how encrypted phones make things safer for our nation’s military.

• The UK has the sad distinction of leading the way in the West when it comes to playing up the terrorism threat to justify the introduction of disproportionate surveillance laws. One of the favorite rhetorical tricks employed here is to invoke the “capabilities gap”: this refers to the fact that the security services are unable to capture all communications in the same way they once could. But it’s a misleading comparison.

• [...]

• The parallels between the UK and Soviet Russia become more painfully apparent by the day.

• The revelation comes after a BND employee was arrested in July on suspicion of selling secret documents to a CIA contact. Rather than report the contact to their allied German counterparts, the US spy agency was reported to have paid the agent €25,000 (£20,000) for 218 documents classified as confidential or top secret.

Civil Rights

• A teenage boy working at Buckingham Palace revealed he was groomed and sexually abused by a VIP paedophile ring there.

• The lad was also assaulted at the Royal Family’s Scottish retreat Balmoral, according to shocking Home Office files, reports the Sunday People.

• In a heartbreaking note, the boy – then just 16 – told how he was the victim of “exploitation of the highest order”.

• The chilling claims could now be the subject of a police investigation into ­historic allegations of child sex abuse in the 1970s and 80s – linked to MPs and powerful figures.

• There are some significant revelations. The committee notes that the US government had filed reservations to the Convention on Torture at the time of ratification, indicating that some practices condemned by the treaty would continue, and that the Obama administration has refused to alter this “restrictive interpretation” of the anti-torture treaty or introduce a prohibition of torture into federal law.

• A new report from the United Nations Committee Against Torture released Friday expressed “deep concern at the frequent and recurrent police shootings or fatal pursuits of unarmed black individuals,” as well as “the alleged difficulties to hold police officers and their employers accountable for abuses.”

• Britain’s security and intelligence agencies were last night rocked by claims that they bugged Scotland Yard detectives who were investigating the agencies’ own alleged malpractice.

• A Yard spokesman yesterday confirmed that police are investigating the allegations – which stem from documents disclosed in court by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

• If substantiated, the claims – set out in a letter to Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe from Cori Crider, a director of the human rights charity Reprieve – would mean that one arm of the State supposed to keep the country safe from terrorism spied on another, the Metropolitan Police.

• Britain’s surveillance body, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), could be tapping underwater cables connecting Ireland to the global web, according to a new document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and released by German media.

• It’s not just our nation’s legislators that enjoy a “revolving door” — one that moves them from Congress to the private sector and back again, to the mutual benefit of legislators and certain industries… not so much the rest of America.

• John McGahan, the Lincoln Police Department’s 2013 Officer of the Year who resigned this year after Internal Affairs accused him of using excessive force, is now working at the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.

• It has been over 50 years after the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and Native Americans (both Indians and Alaska Natives) still do not possess equal access to voting polls, as Stephanie Woodward reports for In These Times.

• Unequal voting access has produced lower voting turnout among Natives for two distinct reasons. The first being that voting polls lie off of reservations. This creates a myriad of extra costs including travel funds and loss of income. Many natives cannot afford the gas money needed to get to these polls as well as taking a half day off of work. The other sanction upon Native voting is fear. There have been accounts of numerous hate crimes, murders, and even police brutality against Natives in the surrounding areas off of reservations. This along with the language barrier cause the few Natives who can afford the travel expenditures to avoid voting for fear of the repercussions.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Cuban also offered up a Q&A session with the Washington Post because, Post writer Nancy Scola informs us, “there’s nothing that Cuban dislikes more than untested conventional wisdom” (aka the need for net neutrality rules). Most of us by now know the U.S. broadband market isn’t free or functional — it’s a broken duopoly, slathered in a layer of regulatory capture, preying on a captive audience incapable of voting with their wallets.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• The recent picture “Fury,” a Brad Pitt war movie, and the yet-to-be-released “Annie” and “Still Alice” have appeared on file-sharing sites, said the person, who sought anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter. The website TorrentFreak, a news site on file-sharing, said “Fury” was the second-most-downloaded film at one site.

• Kim Dotcom has successfully fended off an American government bid to put in him back in a New Zealand jail for allegedly violating his bail.

• “That was a good win today, but also another attempt by the US government to get my liberty removed—it’s unbelievable,” Dotcom told Ars by phone late Sunday night.

• Following an initial investigation and complaint filed by Rights Alliance in 2012, this week the admin of a Sweden-based torrent site learned of his fate. Dismissing claims that the site had been sold four years earlier, a court sentenced the 40-year-old to a five month jail sentence.

• Former Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde was released from prison earlier this month. Today he looks back at his tough time in prison and to the fights ahead, including the battle for a free and open Internet. Peter sees data as the oil of the 21st century and likens the fight against piracy to the invasion of Kuwait.

• YouTube’s ContentID system gets mocked quite frequently for bogus takedowns, which happen with unfortunate frequency. The latest, as pointed out by YouTube star Total Biscuit is that Blizzard’s own damn YouTube channel for World Championship Series StarCraft, WCSStarCraft, was down for at least 40 minutes earlier today.

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