Recent Entries

Bonding an Ethernet and a Wifi interface in failover mode: does ifenslave work?

Has anyone here used ifenslave or something similar on Linux to bond together an ethernet interface and a wifi interface in failover mode? (That is, only use the wifi when the ethernet interface is down - that's for a laptop that I'd like to use ethernet on when at my desk, and wifi when out and about, like example 31.3 in https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-aggregation.html, only for Linux.) Some of the write-ups I found on the Internet mention dissimilar interfaces, but neither they nor the ifenslave(8) manpage mention failover, only round-robin.

Entry tags:

kindle,
wine

Kindle for PC under wine?

I have been using version 1.11.2 of Kindle for PC for a while (on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with the distributions Wine 1.6 package) and never had problems, but now Amazon announced that versions older than 1.14 will stop working at the end of March. The current version 1.15 seems to install but then doesn't start. I tried updating Wine to the latest stable version 1.8 but still no luck. The winehq.org website mentions a bug when trying to run newer Kindle versions making it work with a workaround to start the app with taskset -c 0, but that doesn't work for me.

Also, strangely, earlier when I tried updating to 1.14 that version seemed to work initially, but then it refused to start without me having changed anything. I then downgraded back to 1.11 and things were okay again, but now I need to upgrade. I also tried 1.14 again, hoping that maybe it would work again (I still have that installer exe), but it's the same as 1.15.

Is there anything else I can try? I'd really like to be able to download ebooks from Amazon to my laptop properly and not just use the amazon "cloud reader" which I find obnoxious.

ETA (10th March): I solved my problem (I hope). I had luck with installing and running the current Kindle app via "PlayOnLinux" rather than doing it directly under Wine myself. Right now 1.15 starts and seems to run fine, at least it sees my library. So now I just hope it'll keep running and won't be a fluke like my earlier success that didn't last.

Current Mood: annoyed

Entry tags:

Linux Mint's download page compromised on Feb 20

Clement Lefebvre writes on the Linux Mint Blog:

"I’m sorry I have to come with bad news.

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn’t impact many people, but if it impacts you, it’s very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn’t affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.

How to check if your ISO is compromised?

If you still have the ISO file, check its MD5 signature with the command “md5sum yourfile.iso” (where yourfile.iso is the name of the ISO).

The valid signatures are below:

6e7f7e03500747c6c3bfece2c9c8394f  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-32bit.iso
e71a2aad8b58605e906dbea444dc4983  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso
30fef1aa1134c5f3778c77c4417f7238  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-32bit.iso
3406350a87c201cdca0927b1bc7c2ccd  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-64bit.iso
df38af96e99726bb0a1ef3e5cd47563d  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-oem-64bit.iso

If you still have the burnt DVD or USB stick, boot a computer or a virtual machine offline (turn off your router if in doubt) with it and let it load the live session.

Once in the live session, if there is a file in /var/lib/man.cy, then this is an infected ISO.

What to do if you are affected?

Delete the ISO. If you burnt it to DVD, trash the disc. If you burnt it to USB, format the stick.

If you installed this ISO on a computer:

Put the computer offline.
Backup your personal data, if any.
Reinstall the OS or format the partition.
Change your passwords for sensitive websites (for your email in particular).

Is everything back to normal now?

Not yet. We took the server down while we’re fixing the issue.

Who did that?

The hacked ISOs are hosted on 5.104.175.212 and the backdoor connects to absentvodka.com.

Both lead to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the name of 3 people over there. We don’t know their roles in this, but if we ask for an investigation, this is where it will start.

What we don’t know is the motivation behind this attack. If more efforts are made to attack our project and if the goal is to hurt us, we’ll get in touch with authorities and security firms to confront the people behind this.

If you’ve been affected by this, please do let us know."

Current Mood: creative

Entry tags:

Free branch versions of targetcli, rtslib, and configshell for Gentoo Linux

I spent the better part of today's evening preparing and testing .ebuild files (available in my GitLab repository) for the so-called ‘free branch’ versions of targetcli, rtslib, and configshell called targetcli-fb, rtslib-fb, and configshell-fb. The ‘free branch’ versions are the recommended way of setting up a iSCSI target on Linux, according to the Arch Linux wiki.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

filesystems,
usb

Revisited: Filesystem for large USB storage devices?

It has been more than a year since my original posting (‘Filesystem for large USB storage devices?’), but the issue still exists. I did some research on this topic and found the following relevant links:

There has been a patch for ext[234] floating around since 2012 that would introduce mount options to enforce UID and GID similar how it already exists for vfat mounts. LWN has an article on this topic: http://lwn.net/Articles/497106/
Here is the discussion LWN is referring to: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file-systems.ext4/32276/
I wonder why nothing more happened here. There were some nay-sayers which seem to discourage the original patch author and eventually choked the discussion. Great job, guys :-P

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

caldav,
imap

Pragmatic solution on my previous CalDAV/IMAP posting

In a posting in November 2013, I argued for a ‘translation service’ from CalDAV to IMAP, i. e. a service that provides a CalDAV interface to the user, but transparently stores the calendar entries in any (read: third-party) IMAP account configured by the user.

Now, soon after my posting I stopped looking for solutions, as other RL matters popped up. However, the need for a synchronized calendar across different devices and family members still exists. Therefore, I restarted my search for a solution.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Wacom tablets

Are any of the currently sold low to mid price range Wacom tablets supported by Linux? My current one (an old Wacom Volito) doesn't really work anymore, and I wanted to buy a new one (not spending more than €100-150, preferably even less, I don't need a large or high end tablet, as long as I can use a pen and have pressure sensitivity), but the small Bamboo Pen & Touch, that is listed as supported on the linuxwacom project wiki, doesn't seem to be sold anymore, and actually all the listed tablets don't seem to be available anymore, and when I google for the successor models (such as Wacom CTH-480S-DEIT Intuos Pen&Touch, or Wacom CTL-480S Intuos Pen Small) and Linux I see only forum questions about the drivers not working for them. Am I misinterpreting this?

Has anyone here recently bought a graphics tablet? Is there *any* affordable Wacom tablet model I could buy right now that would work? I don't want to spend money and then have my tablet be a brick, I only have Linux computers.

Current Mood: anxious

Open Source Notetaking App

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for an (hopefully, though not absolutely required if something is amazing) open source notetaking app.

Some of my requirements:

( behind a cut to save screen space )

I was testing out RedNotebook and I liked it mostly. It lacked numbered lists though, and it's format rendering was a bit off. Plus it was organized by day, so any notes added on that day were on the same "page" and they had to be separated by simply lines and dates. I'd prefer to have each entry separate. There were not categories, etc. It also didn't use standard keyboard commands like ctrl-a, ctrl-e, ctrl-k.

I'm not interested in any online services. I've done some research.
( another cut for more info )

I am kind of new to all this and thus I could be overlooking something or not quite thinking about this correctly. I'm open to friendly advice and instruction.

My priorities are as follows:

One of the things I'm looking to do with this is make a events/food journal for my partner and I. Some way to catalogue our photos of outings and foods to refer to later. This is one of the most important aspects.

Secondary I also want to use it for keeping track of info for my MUD, like how to do goals, pricelists for items, convo snippets I may need to refer to, etc.

Then I would also like to be able to use it to do all sorts of journal like things, keep a book list, store research on projects, tutorials, etc.

I hope this is enough info, and that I followed all necessary protocols. Thank you for your time and attention.

Current Mood: restless

Entry tags:

Storing calendar events in IMAP, providing CalDAV interface

Recently, I faced the need for a synchronized calendar, i. e. a calendar synchronized between multiple devices (PC, smartphone, tablet) and maybe different persons (sharing a single calendar). Some of the big freemail providers like Google or Live/Outlook.com (Microsoft) offer online or web-based calendars. But those systems have limitations or issues such as residing in the U.S.A. (no protection for non-US citizen) or are tied to a certain application or non-standard protocol. So, there is need for a more generic solution.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: satisfied

Entry tags:

c++,
cmake

Unity Build using CMake

A quick pointer to a posting I wrote yesterday on unity builds. It is not only interesting for C/C++ software developers, but also people compiling such projects or distribution package maintainers (esp. Gentoo Linux ;-) ).

Current Mood: irritated

Entry tags:

filesystems,
usb

Filesystem for large USB storage devices?

Recently I purchased an external USB harddrive as a replacement for a failing old one. This device came with NTFS preconfigured, but as I plan to use the drive under Linux, I am looking for alternatives.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

PDFs with DRM

My local library "lends" ebooks, i.e. you download a PDF file but it will only open for two weeks and it only opens with the actual Acrobat Reader, not the non-proprietary PDF-viewers. I "borrowed" a Spanish grammar workbook, and it being a workbook I'd like to print the worksheets on my level to do them. And the ebook actually allows printing in the Acrobat Reader, but the result looks very low resolution and bad quality. Is this some perverted outgrowth of the DRM or can I do something, like fiddling with something in the Acrobat Reader, to make print output normal?

Entry tags:

wireless

wireless stopped working

I use Ubuntu 12.04 and the wireless used to work out of the box, but it has now stopped working. I did one of those regular, automated security package updates yesterday, so I assume the problems started with that. My wireless card is "Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727]" and I use that proprietary driver, broadcom-sta. I have tried de- and reinstalling the driver with that additional driver tool Ubuntu has but that doesn't change anything. It still shows the wireless networks in the menu, but when I click to connect to my router it just blinks for a while and then disconnects.

The syslog shows me this after I try connecting:( Read more... )

Does anyone know what went wrong and how I can fix this?

ETA: I found this post on an Ubuntu forum by someone who had the same problem with this wireless chip after the recent update and switching my wireless driver over from the "wl" one to the "brcmsmac" one seems to have restored my wireless as well. The key on my laptop indicating wireless doesn't work with this driver like it did before, but the wireless itself works now. Now I only have to make sure that this will be the driver that's loaded automatically, at least until this kernel/firmware incompatibility is fixed in another update.

Current Mood: frustrated

Entry tags:

ArchLinux – How I Got There and What I Found

I have been using ArchLinux for almost three months now on my work (desktop) laptop. After using Gentoo Linux for more than three years on the previous machine, I thought it would be time to try something new.

In this posting, I would like to share my experiences on Arch compared to other distributions I am/was using.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: awake

Entry tags:

linux

The perfect setup?

I think we've all heard the gripes about Unity on Ubuntu. So I thought I'd share my configuration for those that want to try it out.

Ok, so here's the "recipe" for you to roll your own Unity-free Ubuntu.
1 start with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS distro.

2 install Cinnamon desktop like so, in the terminal type :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

3 install MDM [mint] login manager instead of GDM [gnome] login manager.

again in the terminal type;

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mdm mint-mdm-themes

4. configure MDM login manager from Menu>Administration>Login Window. Set Cinnamon as default. [and whatever other tweaks&theme you want for your login screen].

You can go ahead and uninstall Unity, but leave gnome as cinnamon does use sections of it.. plus it's handy to have a backup. Cinnamon itself, unlike gnome, is fully customisable and works well with the new kernal. Compiz also works well with it.

Current Mood: creative

Entry tags:

Google Web Fonts on your Desktop

Eager to get as many fonts as possible, but the fonts should be still legal and of high quality? If you are a web developer, you may already know Google's Web Fonts. Google provides you with CSS snipplets that allow you to integrated those fonts into you own webpages. Of course, Google does not own those fonts, but instead uses publicly available fonts which were released under the Apache license or the Open Font License.

You can not only used those fonts for you webpages, but on your own machine as well. All fonts are available for download through a Mercurial repository. If cloning the Mercurial distributed repository is not an option for you (e. g. it is quite large), you can fetch all fonts through the web interface. To simplify this task, I wrote a small Bash script (plus some Perl magic and Curl) to fetch all font files, available at my Gitorious repository. Gentoo Linux users can use the ebuild media-fonts/googlewebfonts.

Enjoy more than 1000 font files of a total size of more than 150 MB!

Current Mood: accomplished

DropBox Alternatives For Linux

Thought I might as well share my investigations: http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/942632.html

(no subject)

Hi it's me again...

So i've had to do a clean reinstall, and i've gotten most of my programs back the way I like 'em.

Except now I'm trying to install chinese ttf fonts, and they had installed fine and showed up perfectly in Openoffice the last time, and now they don't show up properly at ALL. :(

Is there a way to do that? Or must I update openoffice/the system further before I can install my chinese fonts?

Current Mood: ecstatic

Entry tags:

gimp

Gimp 2.8

Anyone else play with Gimp 2.8? I grabbed it yesterday and, for the half hour I used it to make a very basic image, I'm absolutely loving it! If I get some time, I might write up a full review, but...

Layer folders!

And single window mode (and, even better, the option to switch between single and multi window mode)!

Seriously, if you use Gimp with any regularity, check it out if you haven't already.

Entry tags:

Help out a newbie Xubuntu user?

Hi everyone! I've read through the entries about Linux and netbooks, and thanks to everyone who has shared their knowledge.

I have a post at my personal journal about my Acer netbook and having just installed Xubuntu. I'm hoping I can get tips from people in this community as to how I can, well, prettify my system a little.

I'm also interested in your recommendations for word processing apps. Xubuntu came with Abiword, which I have used a handful of times. Are there other programs that are better? (Background: I've been a Windows and Microsoft Word ever since I left DOS and PFS First Choice as a high schooler, and I am, generally speaking, a fan of Microsoft Word, in that it's never given me problems.) I don't want to bog my system down with more program than it can handle, given that I have 1 GB of memory and a 1.66 GHz processor, but I definitely want to know my options.

And while we're at it, what about blog clients? I'm using DW, LJ, and WordPress, so something that can handle all of those would be great, but any of the three would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance! So far I'm loving my Linux experience, and I'm already planning to fix my mom's laptop by installing Ubuntu on it for her. :)