Slackware has released two updates on -Current and one of them is marked as security update. Pidgin is upgraded to 2.9.0 and it travels back to Slackware 12.2. For some time, Pidgin package in previous Slackware version didn't receive any update, but for this update, i think it's quite severe so that Pat decided to upgrade it as well.
On -Current, gnutls is upgraded as well.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Security Update: Firefox
Firefox 5 has been released and now it's being included in Slackware 13.37 (comes in patches/ directory) and also in -Current, while the previous version gets an older Firefox version (3.6.18). This update is considered a security update.
Java Runtime and Development Kit are now upgraded to Update 26 as well. This should fix several problems mentioned on my previous post. Unfortunately, these updates goes only at -Current, so if you want to apply for previous version of Slackware, you will have to grab the source and recompile it on your own system.
Another improvements made to -Current is ghostscript, which is now upgraded to 9.02. Pat is welcoming any reports about this update suppose you find any problems with this new version. Some people has reported that this version has lots of improvements compared to the previous one, so he's considering to apply this in Slackware 13.37 as well if nothing goes wrong in -Current.
Java Runtime and Development Kit are now upgraded to Update 26 as well. This should fix several problems mentioned on my previous post. Unfortunately, these updates goes only at -Current, so if you want to apply for previous version of Slackware, you will have to grab the source and recompile it on your own system.
Another improvements made to -Current is ghostscript, which is now upgraded to 9.02. Pat is welcoming any reports about this update suppose you find any problems with this new version. Some people has reported that this version has lots of improvements compared to the previous one, so he's considering to apply this in Slackware 13.37 as well if nothing goes wrong in -Current.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
LibreOffice 3.3.3 for Stable Users
Eric has released the updated LibreOffice 3.3.3 branch for those who seeks for stability over new features in LibreOffice 3.4.0. It's still on the default location, but you should go to pkg/13.1/ directory as these packages are built in 13.1, although it **should** work on 13.37 as well 
Give it a try and see if it has a compatibility problem when running on top of Slackware 13.37
You can get them from below's repository:
Give it a try and see if it has a compatibility problem when running on top of Slackware 13.37
You can get them from below's repository:
- http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/pkg/13.1/
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/pkg/13.1/
- http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/pkg/13.1/
- http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-libreoffice/pkg/13.1/
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
PAE Support on VirtualBox
This morning, i decided to upgrade one of my virtual machine running Slackware 13.37 into -Current. I started by editing /etc/slackpkg/mirrors and switch to Slackware-Current tree and i start updating by issuing
I skipped slackpkg install-new since there are no new packages yet at this moment. I also installed the new kernel, 2.6.38.7 on this virtual machine.
Once i make sure everything is properly set up, i restarted the machine (it has been running for about 34 days non stop), and waited until it boots. Since it's a headless system, i have no interaction until the OpenSSH daemon is started and then i can login to that system. On my case, after waiting for 20 seconds or so, i tried to connect to the system, but i have no login prompt. I waited another 10 seconds and still no responds.
At this time, i realize there is a problem with the new kernel, so i fired up KRDC and loggin using VRDE extension on the VirtualBox and i saw that it requires PAE support on VirtualBox. I haven't enabled this when i set up this virtual machine, so i had to enable it in order to make it bootable again since the new kernel configuration in Slackware-Current enables HIGHMEM64G support which also enables PAE automatically.
So i shut down the virtual machine and i issued:
VBoxManage modifyvm SlackVM2 --pae on
This enables PAE support and afterwards, it boots normally again
I hope you will take notice when you decided to move on to -Current using VirtualBox
slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade-allI skipped slackpkg install-new since there are no new packages yet at this moment. I also installed the new kernel, 2.6.38.7 on this virtual machine.
Once i make sure everything is properly set up, i restarted the machine (it has been running for about 34 days non stop), and waited until it boots. Since it's a headless system, i have no interaction until the OpenSSH daemon is started and then i can login to that system. On my case, after waiting for 20 seconds or so, i tried to connect to the system, but i have no login prompt. I waited another 10 seconds and still no responds.
At this time, i realize there is a problem with the new kernel, so i fired up KRDC and loggin using VRDE extension on the VirtualBox and i saw that it requires PAE support on VirtualBox. I haven't enabled this when i set up this virtual machine, so i had to enable it in order to make it bootable again since the new kernel configuration in Slackware-Current enables HIGHMEM64G support which also enables PAE automatically.
So i shut down the virtual machine and i issued:
VBoxManage modifyvm SlackVM2 --pae on
This enables PAE support and afterwards, it boots normally again
I hope you will take notice when you decided to move on to -Current using VirtualBox
Security Update: Fetchmail
Slackware has released a new package to fix security vulnerabilities in Fetchmail package. This update is not only for -Current, back it travels back up to Slackware 8.1. It shows how Slackware maintain a release for a long period compared to other distributions.
In -Current, Seamonkey packages are upgraded as well. The latest beta has been superceeded by a final version of 2.1. Along with fetchmail update, getmail is also upgraded to the latest version.
In -Current, Seamonkey packages are upgraded as well. The latest beta has been superceeded by a final version of 2.1. Along with fetchmail update, getmail is also upgraded to the latest version.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Important Java Update
As you probably know, Oracle has released an update for Java 6 SE (JDK/JRE) Update 26 which contains a security fixes according to the release notes and more detail information can be seen on Oracle's website here and here. You might ask, why Slackware hasn't release any update for this packages on -Stable and also on -Current?
Actually there's someone who asked me this question few days ago via email. At first, i didn't see the security fixes mentioned at the release note, so i said to him that Slackware's policy is not to update any packages in -Stable unless there's a security vulnerabilities (moreover when they have CVE entries). He sent me another page (which was those two URL in Oracle's website above) that described the cumulative update for for JDK/JRE package and it affects previous Java 6 Update 25 and it has 17 CVEs
. Yes, 17 CVEs, but some (or most) of it only exists on Windows platform, so i don't mind about it too much.
Later on, i found out that Slackware's policy is not to update blob packages (like those JDK/JRE) in -Stable releases (Thanks to Pat for the info). It will be updated on -Current only. Users of -Stable releases will have to work on their own to fix this problem. Actually, it's super duper easy to do that. As you know, users can always get the SlackBuild script on the source/ directory and get the source for the new JDK/JRE package and edit the VERSION line to build the new package for their own need. It's that simple
Since it contains quite a lot of security fixes, it's recommended to upgrade to the latest version if you happened to use Java applications or often browsing to websites which uses Java applet frequently.
Actually there's someone who asked me this question few days ago via email. At first, i didn't see the security fixes mentioned at the release note, so i said to him that Slackware's policy is not to update any packages in -Stable unless there's a security vulnerabilities (moreover when they have CVE entries). He sent me another page (which was those two URL in Oracle's website above) that described the cumulative update for for JDK/JRE package and it affects previous Java 6 Update 25 and it has 17 CVEs
. Yes, 17 CVEs, but some (or most) of it only exists on Windows platform, so i don't mind about it too much.Later on, i found out that Slackware's policy is not to update blob packages (like those JDK/JRE) in -Stable releases (Thanks to Pat for the info). It will be updated on -Current only. Users of -Stable releases will have to work on their own to fix this problem. Actually, it's super duper easy to do that. As you know, users can always get the SlackBuild script on the source/ directory and get the source for the new JDK/JRE package and edit the VERSION line to build the new package for their own need. It's that simple
Since it contains quite a lot of security fixes, it's recommended to upgrade to the latest version if you happened to use Java applications or often browsing to websites which uses Java applet frequently.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Monitor Traffic Usage Using darkstat
Sometimes, we wanted to monitor our network traffic usage daily or even hourly. There are a lot of tools out there and most of them are based on RRD Tools, which is a great application, but it adds more maintenance as there are more packages to install in order to satisfy the requirements.
What i need is a simple application that shows the traffic usage and i need it displayed on a web based interface so i can monitor it anywhere as long as there's a browser and Internet connection without having to login to that machine and following the log files.
I searched a bit and doing trial and error and finally i made up my mind that i picked darkstat. It's simple, no hassle, and it solves my needs.
INSTALLATION
CONFIGURATION
There's not much to configure actually. You can start darkstat by issuing darkstat -i ethX (replace X with your ethernet device)
By default, it will bind to port 667, so you can have a look on the stats by browsing to http://youripaddress:667
If you want to bind it to other port, just add -p portnumber parameter, for example darkstat -i eth0 -p 4444
There are some filtering in darkstat, but in most cases, you want to have a look on all traffic, so we skip this step. If you need more information about filtering the output, check the man page for darkstat.
This application doesn't add itself to the crontab or even at startup files, so if you wanted to run this application everytime your machine is booted, you can add this line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
What i need is a simple application that shows the traffic usage and i need it displayed on a web based interface so i can monitor it anywhere as long as there's a browser and Internet connection without having to login to that machine and following the log files.
I searched a bit and doing trial and error and finally i made up my mind that i picked darkstat. It's simple, no hassle, and it solves my needs.
INSTALLATION
- Download the latest version from their official website (3.0.714 at this moment)
- Download the SlackBuild script for darkstat
- Extract the SlackBuild script
- Edit the VERSION line to match the version you downloaded
- Switch to root and execute the SlackBuild script. The final package will be placed on /tmp (by default)
- Install the package using installpkg
- Finish the installation procedure
CONFIGURATION
There's not much to configure actually. You can start darkstat by issuing darkstat -i ethX (replace X with your ethernet device)
By default, it will bind to port 667, so you can have a look on the stats by browsing to http://youripaddress:667
If you want to bind it to other port, just add -p portnumber parameter, for example darkstat -i eth0 -p 4444
There are some filtering in darkstat, but in most cases, you want to have a look on all traffic, so we skip this step. If you need more information about filtering the output, check the man page for darkstat.
This application doesn't add itself to the crontab or even at startup files, so if you wanted to run this application everytime your machine is booted, you can add this line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
# Start DarkStat Monitoring ToolThat's it!!! So simple and you can even finish this tutorial in less than 5 minutes
/usr/sbin/darkstat -i eth0 -p 4444
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
New Linux NVidia Driver
NVidia has been working on a new driver for some time and they even release several Beta release, but now it has been unveiled to public that a new stable version is out. Please welcome 275.09.07. It brings a lot of bug fixes along with new extensions. Here are the highlights:
- Fixed a bug that caused desktop corruption in GNOME 3 after a VT-switch or suspend/resume cycle.
- Added support for the following GPUs:
GeForce GTX 560
GeForce GT 545
GeForce GTX 560M
GeForce 410M
GeForce 320M
GeForce 315M
Quadro 5010M
Quadro 3000M
Quadro 4000M - Fixed a bug that caused freezes and crashes when resizing windows in KDE 4 with desktop effects enabled using X.Org X server version 1.10 or later.
- Modified the X driver to request that hardware inform the audio driver whenever a display is disabled. This will allow the audio driver to generate the appropriate jack unplug events to applications.
- Added support for the GL_EXT_x11_sync_object extension. See the extension specification in the OpenGL registry here:
http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/EXT/x11_sync_object.txt for more details. - Improved performance of window resize operations in KDE 4 on systems with slow CPUs.
- Added support for hardware button based pairing to NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro. Single click button on the hub to enter into a pairing mode which pairs one pair of glasses at a time. Double click the same button on the hub to enter into a pairing mode which pairs multiple pairs of glasses at a time.
- Added unofficial GLX protocol support (i.e., for GLX indirect rendering) for the following OpenGL extensions:
GL_NV_framebuffer_multisample_coverage
GL_NV_texture_barrier - Added GLX protocol support (i.e., for GLX indirect rendering) for the following OpenGL extension:
GL_NV_register_combiners2 - Fixed a bug that caused the pop-out and external DVI displays to go blank on Lenovo ThinkPad W701 laptops.
- Fixed a bug that caused corruption on the menus in OpenOffice.org when the screen is rotated.
- Improved performance of certain memory allocations.
- Fixed a bug that caused Java2D widgets to disappear when Java is configured to render using FBOs.
- Fixed a bug that caused nvidia-settings to crash while saving the X configuration file on some Linux distributions.
- Added a new X configuration option "BaseMosaic" which can be used to extend a single X screen transparently across all of the available display outputs on each GPU. See "Appendix B. X Config Options" in the README for more information.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
KDE 4.6.4 Goes Public
The calendar has switched to June and it's time for the monthly maintenance update of KDE SC. Once again, Eric stepped up providing KDE 4.6.4 packages for Slackware 13.37 and -Current on his repositories, which has been mirrored on several other servers, including my server.
Even though there hasn't been any confirmation whether KDE SC 4.7 will be included in the next Slackware release or not (due to the packaging policy), Eric has made clear that he likes KDE and he will keep maintaining KDE SC 4.6.x series for the time being.
So, without further ado, start grabbing KDE SC 4.6.4 while it's hot from the kitchen
There are several places than you can visit, but if you live in Indonesia, it would be faster if you grab it from Indonesian mirror :
Kudos to Eric Hameleers and also to KDE team
Even though there hasn't been any confirmation whether KDE SC 4.7 will be included in the next Slackware release or not (due to the packaging policy), Eric has made clear that he likes KDE and he will keep maintaining KDE SC 4.6.x series for the time being.
So, without further ado, start grabbing KDE SC 4.6.4 while it's hot from the kitchen
There are several places than you can visit, but if you live in Indonesia, it would be faster if you grab it from Indonesian mirror :
- http://alien.slackbook.org/ktown/4.6.4/
- rsync://alien.slackbook.org/alien-kde/4.6.4/
- http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.4/
- rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/alien-kde/4.6.4/
- http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.4/
- rsync://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-kde/4.6.4/
Kudos to Eric Hameleers and also to KDE team
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
LinuxToday Effect
I was browsing LinuxToday this morning and i was kinda surprised to see my previous post would come up on that site. It's the post about KDE's Future on Slackware. It seems that the news about Slackware and KDE is quite hot, so that some people decided to post it on LinuxToday.
And the result is a big load of traffic coming to this blog on that day. Luckily, this blog is hosted at Google's infrastructure, so i don't have to have to pay additional cost for the high load and not getting a LinuxToday effect (just like Slashdot Effect) I usually gets around 400-600 pageviews everyday based on Blogspot's stats, but on the day it was posted, the traffic went up exponentially just like the screenshot below
And the result is a big load of traffic coming to this blog on that day. Luckily, this blog is hosted at Google's infrastructure, so i don't have to have to pay additional cost for the high load and not getting a LinuxToday effect (just like Slashdot Effect) I usually gets around 400-600 pageviews everyday based on Blogspot's stats, but on the day it was posted, the traffic went up exponentially just like the screenshot below
Sunday, June 5, 2011
LibreOffice 3.4.0 for Slackware 13.37
LibreOffice 3.4.0 has been released yesterday and for those who uses Slackware Linux distribution, you can enjoy the package which is built for Slackware 13.37 from AlienBOB. There are several places where you can download from:
http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-libreoffice/
Please note that LibreOffice 3.4.0 is more likely intended for contributors and power users, even though Eric has mentioned that Slackware users are most likely power users
. If you still like the stable version and not taking the risk (and fun of a new version), you can still have 3.3.x series which will still be maintained by LibreOffice and also Eric himself for some time until the upstream decided to abandoned 3.3.x series.
Enjoy LibreOffice and thanks to Eric Hameleers for his hard work compiling them for Slackware users
http://slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/slackbuilds/libreoffice/
http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/alien-libreoffice/
Please note that LibreOffice 3.4.0 is more likely intended for contributors and power users, even though Eric has mentioned that Slackware users are most likely power users
. If you still like the stable version and not taking the risk (and fun of a new version), you can still have 3.3.x series which will still be maintained by LibreOffice and also Eric himself for some time until the upstream decided to abandoned 3.3.x series.Enjoy LibreOffice and thanks to Eric Hameleers for his hard work compiling them for Slackware users
Saturday, June 4, 2011
KDE Future on Slackware
There has been a hot discussion on KDE's packager mailing list about KDE's new policy of splitting up the big packages into several small packages as you can see as in KDE's FTP site. In the past, KDE only break them into several packages, depending on the category, such as kdeadmin, kdemultimedia, kdepim, etc.
What's the impact? Well, for Slackware's KDE maintainer point of view, this breaks almost every SlackBuild script that they have created in the past, since now they have to rework it again from the scratch and that would requires a lot of time and efforts to create the best SlackBuild script in order to compile KDE into Slackware's native packages. Eric Hameleers aka AlienBOB wrote this on his blog and it refers to the discussion on KDE's mailing list where the discussion happened (it was on another private mailing list, but this one is the public mailing list for the release team).
Not only it breaks the SlackBuilds script, but it also causes more burden to the maintainer to maintain the packages. The situation is similar with what happened in GNOME in the past. They required a lot of efforts to maintain the packages since they were split into a lot of small packages, thus requiring the maintainer to track every released version. If you don't believe me, take a look on GSB-3.0's ChangeLog and you will understand. It's a rolling release, means it continues to change over time, unlike KDE which usually release set of changes on a monthly period. IMHO, a rolling release has it's own benefit, but for the maintainer, it would be a nightmare as they have to catch up with the latest update all the time.
So, what will happen with KDE on Slackware in future releases? We still don't have a definite answer yet, as the discussion on KDE's mailing list still on progress and also we have a discussion at LQ where Pat, Eric, and most of Slackware users shares their thoughts. If you have any ideas, thoughts, please post it on LQ as well.
One positive reaction from Pat is the fact that KDE is his favorite DE at this moment and i really hope that it would remain the same in the future. I personally a KDE lover as well and i don't really want KDE to be removed from Slackware just like what happened with GNOME on Slackware 10.2.
What's the impact? Well, for Slackware's KDE maintainer point of view, this breaks almost every SlackBuild script that they have created in the past, since now they have to rework it again from the scratch and that would requires a lot of time and efforts to create the best SlackBuild script in order to compile KDE into Slackware's native packages. Eric Hameleers aka AlienBOB wrote this on his blog and it refers to the discussion on KDE's mailing list where the discussion happened (it was on another private mailing list, but this one is the public mailing list for the release team).
Not only it breaks the SlackBuilds script, but it also causes more burden to the maintainer to maintain the packages. The situation is similar with what happened in GNOME in the past. They required a lot of efforts to maintain the packages since they were split into a lot of small packages, thus requiring the maintainer to track every released version. If you don't believe me, take a look on GSB-3.0's ChangeLog and you will understand. It's a rolling release, means it continues to change over time, unlike KDE which usually release set of changes on a monthly period. IMHO, a rolling release has it's own benefit, but for the maintainer, it would be a nightmare as they have to catch up with the latest update all the time.
So, what will happen with KDE on Slackware in future releases? We still don't have a definite answer yet, as the discussion on KDE's mailing list still on progress and also we have a discussion at LQ where Pat, Eric, and most of Slackware users shares their thoughts. If you have any ideas, thoughts, please post it on LQ as well.
One positive reaction from Pat is the fact that KDE is his favorite DE at this moment and i really hope that it would remain the same in the future. I personally a KDE lover as well and i don't really want KDE to be removed from Slackware just like what happened with GNOME on Slackware 10.2.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Slackware Goodies Shipment
Since last week, Slackware goodies that we (Indonesian Slackware Communities) has arrived safely at my house even though it took longer than i thought (6 days instead of 3 days) and since then, i began to distribute them to the buyers around Indonesia (Palembang, Makassar, Jakarta, Surabaya, Cirebon, Magelang, Kalimantan).
Since i used TIKI and it has a tracking number, it's so easy to track the progress of the shipment, just like what we used for international shipping from Slackware Store by using UPS. Right now, only five shipments left. Two will be delivered since the receiver will take it today, and the rest will be delivered by today or tomorrow at most since it has been shipped since like two days ago.
I'm so relieved that all the shipment has arrived safely, since i had a bad experience when i bought Smashing Magazine. They sent it using air mail and it didn't arrive until they decided to resent the book using upgraded shipping method that provide tracking number
Again, thanks to Theresa from Slackware Store for taking care our orders and also for Indonesian Slackware Community. I hope the new SlackwareT-Shirt fits you well
Since i used TIKI and it has a tracking number, it's so easy to track the progress of the shipment, just like what we used for international shipping from Slackware Store by using UPS. Right now, only five shipments left. Two will be delivered since the receiver will take it today, and the rest will be delivered by today or tomorrow at most since it has been shipped since like two days ago.
I'm so relieved that all the shipment has arrived safely, since i had a bad experience when i bought Smashing Magazine. They sent it using air mail and it didn't arrive until they decided to resent the book using upgraded shipping method that provide tracking number
Again, thanks to Theresa from Slackware Store for taking care our orders and also for Indonesian Slackware Community. I hope the new SlackwareT-Shirt fits you well
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