Planet Ubuntu Users

Philip Newborough: Ubuntu On The BBC

Sun, 18 May 2008 15:03:32 +0000

In case anyone does not know, the BBC News 24 channel has a technology programme named Click. The Click website describes the show as, "The BBC's flagship technology programme"; so expect a fairly mainstream show featuring technology news and gadget reviews. Anyhow, Andrew kindly reminded me that this week Click contains a special on free [as in beer] software. Ubuntu Hardy Heron and OpenOffice.org are clearly spotted in the programme, which has to be a good thing :) If you missed the show, you can watch it online with the BBC's iPlayer.

Also, while I am on the subject of the BBC, is it not about time the BBC made their online services more Linux friendly? As a fully paid up license holder I am somewhat frustrated with the BBC's continued support of Windows Media Player and Real Player media formats, neither of which are particularly well supported on Linux. In fact, these days I rarely use the BBC website as it frustrates me so :(

Tags: advocacy, bbc, rants, ubuntu

Sense Hofstede: Back to old motherboard

Sun, 18 May 2008 10:38:12 +0000

Because I needed access to my harddisk for school I placed my old motherboard back. I just wanted to use my computer and data again and since that wasn’t going to succeed with my new motherboard(I couldn’t disable AHCI like someone suggested in my previous post: Inactive. Probably because it isn’t activated at all.). Fortunately I hadn’t sold it yet and Linux/GNU is really flexible and can cope with the hardware changes. Windows can’t get near such a good hardware recognition! It should work again now if only I wouldn’t have overwritten the partition with a fresh Ubuntu installation(which I’m not using anymore at the moment.). I hope the bug will be fixed very soon, since it’s such a waste when all this shiny new stuff is just ‘collecting dust’ like we say in Dutch. If I find a sollution I’ll let you know!

Richard Harding: Help free me from Subversion

nospam@example.com (Rick Harding) — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:48:49 +0000

I've been trying find more and more places to use a distributed version control system in my daily work. I eventually want to move all of my personal svn repos to bzr or hg, but for now I wanted to see if I could use something with work's svn repositories. I've heard that bzr has this bzr-svn thing that allows you to work with a svn repo. This seemed ideal. I mean I can't convert stuff for work. I don't want to try to svn co something, add a .bzr or .hg dir to it and try to use both systems on a set of code. This bzr-svn seems ideal. You point bzr at a svn repo and it'll check it out. You can work on it, commit, work offline, everything. When you're ready you bzr push and it commits to the svn repo as one nice changeset. How sweet is this?

So the couple of tricks go like this. When you checkout a svn repo you might need to prefix the url with svn+. This gives bzr a hint that this is a svn repo. The first checkout is VERY slow, but it's got to transform all of the changesets so projects with more history will take longer. It makes sense and is a one time deal so it's not too painful. Making changes from there is just normal bzr usage. You've got a bzr repo in your lap. Once you commit your changes and you're ready to submit the changes to the original svn repository you just run bzr push. The first time you run it you'll have to provide the url you used to check it out, after that it'll do something like 'using saved url xxxx'.

So now I can managing feature branches locally. It's really a cool idea if you have an existing svn repo and you don't want to have to hand out accounts for creating/merging branches and such. Definitely check it out if you're stuck working with existing subversion repositories.

Sense Hofstede: Inactive

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:56:18 +0000

Maybe you’ve wondered why I seemed so away the past few days. That’s because I’ve got some new computer parts. And those parts don’t work like I want them to. I’ve ordered three things:

-Motherboard: Asus M3N78-EH
-Graphics card: Asus EN9600GT HTDI
-PSU: Spire Jewel 420W

It all started when wanted a better graphics card than the onboard Geforce 6150. I just bought the Asus EN9600GT for my old Asus M2NPV-VM. But it ended wrong, like I described here:Asus Asus EN9600GT + Asus M2NPV-VM = no signal.

But I ordered it again, but now with a motherboard capable of PCIe 2.0 and a better PSU that has the PCIe plug, so I won’t have to sacrifice two IDE power plugs. A plus I discovered later was that the new PSU is much more silent than my old Q-Tec Dual Fan Gold 400W.

But after I connected all placed all cards in the slots and all cables in their ports, which went a lot better than my previous motherbord where the 9600GT blocked one of the IDE ports, I discovered that there was some kind of problem. First I thought it was the same as I had with my old motherboard, but updating the BIOS, nor disabling APIC solved it. It just wouldn’t boot.

What’s happening is that it can’t discover the SATA harddisk good. It does find it, but something times out, it checks again, times out again, until I end up into a BusyBox. Somehow it just can’t find/mount the harddisk. But it can read the initrd file, which is very strange.
I wanted to test the computer and installed hardy on an old IDE harddisk, but after that I discovered that the onboard ethernet connection doesn’t work. I can connect the cable and nm-applet does try to connect, but DHCOFFER times out. The spare PCI ethernet card I tried didn’t connect the cable at all, so that one’s probably broken. So I’ve got no internet, and no data, since my computer is the only computer in the house that supports SATA. I tried to boot Windows, which was installed on the IDE harddisk before I installed Ubuntu on it, but it doesn’t work. Windows refuses to boot when you change the motherboard and you’re required to reinstall it.

I’ve reported two bugs describing my problems, but I have no idea of how to download the updates when everything is solved, because the Live CD and the version it provides don’t work. This are the reports:

bug #231162
bug #231159

This is the reason that you probably haven’t seen me for a while now. This computer doesn’t contain my data nor has an IRC client installed. And I have to share it with my sister and mother. On top of that it runs WIndows XP and thanks to SP3 the nVidia drivers don’t work anymore, so the screen rendering is very slow.

I hope to be back as soons as possible, but maybe the only way to do that is to put my old motherboard back! And that would be a waste, so I’m refusing to do that. :P

(A question: my graphics card has some kind of thing at the top that looks like the thing that you put into the slot when inserting a PCI(e) card. I can’t describe it better, I hope you understand it. ;) I’m just curious.)

David Thomas: Ubuntu Security Notice another win for Linux.

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:32:56 +0000

What is that I say, a win for Linux? Look now that all the nay-sayers, pundits, and critics have had a chance to chime in lets look at the big picture. The openssh vulnerability is not something to take lightly and I’m not it’s just I think allot of noise was made for something I think was handled much better than any Microsoft vulnerability ever has. Notifications were sent from multiple sources, Canonical made sure Launchpad was protected, and the forums (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian) went into over drive letting everyone know what to do. If it was a Debian based distribution it was made perfectly clear you needed to install the security updates. Friends, family, and colleagues let me know, my local Ubuntu LoCo, and other LUG’s were all over it too. Once it was known, the openssh vulnerability was was fixed. I’ve never seen Microsoft handle anything they way this was. This issue did not make me think Linux was less of a system on the contrary I now know the decision to move to Linux was the right thing to do. Again it’s the community that really makes Linux shine, we care about each other, or at the very least Linuix users really do believe in if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Yep, I’d call that a win.

Dan Munckton: Working on the Ubuntu PS3 Port

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:15:44 +0000

I am relatively new to the Ubuntu PS3 Port team. I joined about a month before Hardy was released when I was told by Gouki that there really wasn’t any development happening on it because it was a community maintained port just like the PowerPC port now is too. I just felt I had to do something - Ubuntu on the PlayStation3 is just too compelling for me to sit back and watch it bit-rot!

One of the first things that needed doing was to update the bootloader (otheros.bld) as the old Gutsy one wasn’t able to boot Hardy’s kernel. Once this was achieved (thanks to some great mentoring by a very busy Colin Watson and others) I was able to upgrade to Hardy and start fire-fighting.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to fix things in time for Hardy’s first release. X was crashing and trying to choose the wrong video driver (both now fixed), and the Kernel (still) has a memory allocation problem (fix on the way). There are various other problems waiting to be resolved, and a few suggested features too, but we’ll get to them all in good time.

Although initially the plan was to try and have an installable/usable Hardy by 8.04.1 in July, I think focus will probably be on Intrepid from now on. Getting fixes back into critical components such as the kernel and X for Hardy in time would be tough as this is considered an “unmaintained port” in Hardy.

So far working on this project has been a great experience for me. I am gaining a very broad knowledge of all aspects of how Ubuntu works, and also how Linux works on the PS3. I highly recommend any folks who are using Ubuntu on PS3 and have Debian/Ubuntu dev experience please jump on the development mailing list and look out for ways to contribute.

A status update has just been posted to the dev list today. I’ve tried to outline as best as I can the current state of the project.

Thanks to everyone upstream, downstream (ubuntu-ps3-dev, ubuntu-x, kernel-team), and in the community who has helped out so far!

Tibun Beings: Debian Live USB

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:34:28 +0000

Today I decided to install GNU/Linux on a pen drive, and after some looking around I decided to go with an easy solution. I didn't want to create anything new, just test drive a distribution running on a flash disk.

After a couple of searches I found http://www.pendrivelinux.com/, which is a great site with tutorials on how to run several distributions on a pen drive, including, but no limited to, Debian and Ubuntu. Image running a full Ubuntu install on a Sony Micro Vault; it doesn't get better than that.

After some digging around I decided to give their .IMG a try, which includes Debian with Gnome. No add-ons. Just the operating system with the desktop environment. After following the tutorial I had a bootable USB disk with 'live persistent' boot option, so that changes are saved.

The next step is to remaster Ubuntu 8.04, remove and install some software, and have a custom 'remastered' Ubuntu version for the USB pen drive.

Tom Dryer: Test Drive Flash Player 10 Beta in Ubuntu

Fri, 16 May 2008 17:00:58 +0000

Adobe has released the Flash Player 10 Beta simultaneously for Linux, Mac, and Windows. This version includes performance improvements, new 3D transformations, Adobe Pixel Bender filters, streaming video improvements, and new text layout capabilities.

Websites very likely won’t be taking advantage of these new features until the stable release is out, so Adobe has a page of demos you can try.

Two large complaints about Flash on Linux are fullscreen video and 64-bit support. Neither have been resolved in this release. Playback of fullscreen video (which causes low framerates and high CPU usage) seems to be only slightly improved. I have found that there is a general performance increase.

If you want to try Flash Player 10 you can download and install it yourself, but here are some terminal commands that you can copy and paste to get going quickly:

Remove your existing Flash plugin, if you have one installed. This command will remove Flash 9 if you installed it from Ubuntu’s repository:
sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree
Download and extract the Flash Player 10 Beta to your home directory:
wget -O - http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_install_linux_051508.tar.gz | tar xz -C ~
The user plugins folder may not exist yet, try to create it but ignore any errors if the directory already exists:
mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins/
Copy the Flash plugin the the Firefox plugins directory to install it:
cp ~/install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
Remove the directory that was downloaded (if you get a warning about deleting a write-protected file, press y and Enter to continue):
rm -r ~/install_flash_player_10_linux

Restart Firefox to enable the new plugin.

And here’s how to uninstall it:

Remove the new plugin:
rm ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
Reinstall Flash 9 from the repositories (if you wish):
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

Nick Bauermeister: Compiz-Check 0.4 released

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:26:14 +0000

I have just released another version of Compiz-Check

The changes from 0.3 to 0.4 were too many to post them in the Changelog section of the project's homepage, so I decided to post them on a separate blog entry.

What's new

The Script has not changed visually, but has gotten a makeover "under the hood". Various parts have been rewritten or generally enhanced.

Additionally, there are some new checks introduced in this version:

Check if more than one graphics card is in use
Check for more than one running X server
Check if xcompmgr is in use
Check if Xfce's compositor is in use
Check if "Composite" has been disabled in the xorg.conf
Check if a driver not on the whitelist is able to run Compiz

Other enhancements and bugfixes include:

Made the script (even) more distribution independent, e.g.
- Extended $PATH at the beginning of the script
- Various workarounds for commands not found on any system
Enhanced distro detection (more distros and versions)
KDE4 detection
More (clearly explained) error descriptions, e.g.
- Error message for virtual machines
- Error message for missing rendering method
Additional status (SKIP) to make errors less confusing
More (optional) error fixes inside the script, e.g.
- Killing xcompmgr
- Restarting Xfwm without its compositor
- Explanation how to enable the composite extension

Feedback

Because of the number of changes, I'd like to use the opportunity to set this straight:

It would be impossible for me to test the script on every possible Linux install out there (let alone hardware setups), so I am reliant on your feedback.

Please report any issues back to me that you (or fellow users of your forum/blog) encounter with Compiz-Check.

Those bugs won't solve themselves, if I don't know about them.

Tibun Beings: New weblog (update)

Fri, 16 May 2008 04:19:24 +0000

I didn't feel like hosting my own weblog so I decided to change to Live Journal, which I've heard good things about. Wordpress is too Web 2.0 for me, so I think Live Journal will work. The problem is all these advertisements ... Damn, can't a site live without these intrusive things?

The domain name I was using for the weblog, debianubuntu.org, is available, and I'm looking for opinions on what to do with it. Any thoughts?

P.S.: Comments now open; Sorry, I'm still trying to figure all this out.

Tom Dryer: Extending the Gedit Text Editor with Plugins

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:00:47 +0000

GNOME’s default text editor, Gedit, includes a powerful plugin system similar to Firefox’s. There are useful plugins available for both programmers and regular users.

Enable, disable, and configure plugins from the Plugins tab in Gedit’s preferences dialog. There’s no need to restart Gedit, plugins are enabled immediately.

A small selection of plugins are installed by default with Gedit, and some are also even enabled. Here’s a few from the default selection to try:

External Tools - Let’s you run add items to the Tools menu that can run any commands you want that can also interact with your document. After enabling the plugin, click the Configure Plugin button to set up your new tools. Click the Help button for an explanation of how to write the commands.
File Browser Pane - Adds a simple file browser to the side pane. Show the side pane by selecting View->Side Pane. Switch between the standard side pane and the browser using the small tabs at the bottom. This plugin is good if you are working with a collection of files.
Python Console - Adds the interactive python console to the bottom pane (View->Bottom Pane to show it.)
Snippets - Insert commonly used pieces of text using a hotkey or a code that expands after pressing tab. Click the Configure Plugin button to open the editor. You can add different snippets depending on what programming language Gedit has detected.

There a whole bunch more plugins in an easily-installable package. Install it from the package gedit-plugins (click the link to install), or by running the command below in your terminal:
sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins

Here are a few that are available after installing that package:

Colour Picker - If you have done any web design, you probably have worked with hexadecimal colour codes by pasting them from an image editor. This plugin adds the Tools->Pick Color item, which opens GNOME’s colour picking dialog and pastes the hexadecimal code into the document.
Embedded Terminal - Like the Python Console plugin, but provides a complete terminal.
Session Saver - From File->Saved Sessions you will be able to save Gedit’s state and reload it. This is nice for getting restarted quickly on a project requiring multiple documents open at once.

There are many more plugins available that must be manually installed. Installation instructions may vary, but most of the time you will need to put the plugin’s files in ~/.gnome2/gedit/plugins.

The Gedit plugins page has a list of all the available plugins and documentation.

Jean Baptiste: The SSL/SSH disaster

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:23:22 +0000

Due to the recent security hole discovered in Debian, which has also concerned various distributions - of course including Ubuntu - for 2 years, I simply closed all my SSH and OpenVPN accesses.

I have had no time so far to check all the keys on my server. I prefer to stay on the safe side, though I have some reason to believe that my keys might not be so vulnerable : I generated them a long time ago, maybe before the Debian maintainer sad mistake.

It is going to be pretty easy now, for those who are motivated, to get access to the ssh server running keys generated during the 2 last years…

I recommend this article which summarize pretty well the situation. You may also use this tool, which checks if your keys are vulnerable :

# perl dowkd.pl file ~/.ssh/*.pub

It find it funny to think that I chose to use certificates for security (avoiding brute force attacks).
What’s less funny is the pure disaster for the reputation of Debian.

I already noticed in the past that some companies switched their servers from Debian to Red Hat because of such security problems. They claimed about some security holes being patch much too slowly and about the lack of official support to rely on in such a crisis.
This kind of news is not going to enforce trust from companies.

I myself will think twice in the future about what system to use when I design my networks.

David Thomas: Is Splashtop the future of computing?

Thu, 15 May 2008 15:44:33 +0000

So just what is Splashtop? It’s an embedded version of Linux that can be contained on a flash-based chip somewhere on the motherboard or on a special partition on your hard-drive. The goal is to have you up and doing things seconds after you push your power button.

Sounds like a great idea and it looks like ASUS is starting to ship motherboards with this technology today.

I sure wish they had a Live CD or something so we could play around with it. It really is a great idea, another one of those why didn’t I think of that products.

David Thomas: Back from vacation at Disney World and Tux Racer is all over.

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:26:19 +0000

So I’m back form vacation and what did I see Tux Racer at every Arcade in the Parks. That’s right an Arcade version of our favorite bird….and it sure was fun to play.

Tom Dryer: Convert DVDs for iPhone or iPod Touch with HandBrakeCLI

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:00:18 +0000

I’m close to my goal of being able to manage my iPod Touch completely without iTunes on Ubuntu. HandBrakeCLI (HandBrake’s command line interface) for Linux encodes excellent quality video, and although it runs in the terminal is simple to use.

Previously I was successful in converting DVDs for playback on my iPod using the HandBrakeGTK GUI, which doesn’t install in Ubuntu 8.04, has broken presets, and has now been abandoned.

I haven’t found a Ubuntu package for HandBrakeCLI, but this isn’t a problem as the program is a single executable file available from HandBrake’s downloads page. You can download and extract it yourself, or follow these instructions in the terminal:

Download the latest version of HandBrakeCLI for Linux. This command will download and extract version 0.9.2 (the latest as I write this):
wget -O - http://handbrake.fr/rotation.php?file=HandBrake-0.9.2_i386.tar.gz | tar xz -C ~
Mark the file as executable:
chmod +x ~/HandBrakeCLI
Move the HandBrakeCLI executable to /usr/bin to install it (will ask for your password):
sudo mv ~/HandBrakeCLI /usr/bin

Now you should be able to run HandBrakeCLI system-wide.

Before you can convert a DVD, first you need to be able to play it. If the DVD is encrypted and you haven’t set up playback of encrypted DVDs in Ubuntu, see my post on this topic before proceeding.

HandBrakeCLI’s presets mean it’s pretty simple to create a video that will play on the iPod Touch/iPhone. Here’s the most basic command:
HandBrakeCLI -i /media/cdrom -o mymovie.mp4 --preset="iPhone / iPod Touch"

And here’s an explanation of what’s going on:

-i /media/cdromSelects the input source, in most cases this will be your disk drive.
-o mymovie.mp4The output file.
--preset="iPhone / iPod Touch"The preset to use, see this wiki page for more presets.

This is my preferred command at the moment:
HandBrakeCLI -i /media/cdrom -o mymovie.mp4 --preset="iPhone / iPod Touch" --longest -b 256

Here I have added a more few options: longest to make sure the longest segment of video is the one I am encoding, markers to make it so I can browse chapters on my iPod (doesn’t seem to work) ([update] markers are included in the preset), and b 256 to override the bit-rate to a much lower value. These settings result in reasonable quality and shrink a two and three quarter hour movie to under half a gigabyte.

Once you let HandBrake go, it should work until you see the Rip done! message. This will take some time depending on your CPU (multi-cores are used) and DVD drive speed.

The HandBrake wiki has a good page with more information about the CLI:
http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide

If you haven’t got your iPhone/iPod Touch syncing in Linux, I’ve got a post for this. Want to encode non-DVD video for your iPhone? I’ve got a guide for this as well.

Tiago Sousa: Updates

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:28:58 +0000

After a long time without time, I’ve finally managed to update my Wordpress installation and theme. It’s now using the latest 2.5.1 and, I think, it looks neat:)

Also, after testing my SSH keys, I’ve found out that they were vulnerable due to a patch in Debian, which made the random number generator guesseable. If you’re running a ssh-server, in a Debian-based distribution, you should test if your keys are compromised.

ShareThis

Philip Newborough: I am not superstitious, but…

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:09:00 +0000

I am not overly superstitious, I have been known to walk under ladders, but yesterday had to be the 13th. It may not have been a Friday, but it was definitely the 13th. I know this because everything I touched exploded in my face, a slight exaggeration maybe, but seriously, if it could have gone wrong, it did go wrong. Even simple operations like creating tarballs was too much for me. My only consoling thought during my many mishaps was the fact that I was not suffering alone.

Some people blamed their boobs on magic, disturbances in the force and warps [glitches, surely?] in the Matrix:

Due to an almost magical series of administrative, record-keeping, and usability errors, the domain registration for A List Apart momentarily lapsed this morning.

It was like a disturbance in the Force, or a warp in the Matrix.

Others held their hands up, admitted to a serious problem and got on with the job of correcting it. Some people started throwing muck, while others helped out in a more constructive manner.

Of course, all of this nonsense pales into insignificance when you think about what is happening in meatspace. Still, yesterday was the 13th, I am glad today is the 14th.

Tags: 13th, boobs, life, ubuntu

Sense Hofstede: SSH keys

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:40:18 +0000

There is a lot of talking and blogging in the Debian and Ubuntu community about USN-612-1. It turned out that the random number generator from openssl isn’t that random.

I followed the intructions in this post: Weak SSH key? I found at the Ubuntu Planet to test if my keys were weak. But the commands in that post never returned anything, so I assumed that my key wasn’t vulnerable. But when I went to Launchpad to disable my other SSH key that I can’t check at the moment I found out that all my keyes were removed. When I asked at #launchpad @ freenode if all keys were removed I was told that only vulnerable keys were removed. So I checked the script for other commands and ./dowkd.pl indeed did gave a list of possible commands. When I ran ./dowkd.pl user the script did return that my key was vulnerable.

I’ve removed the content from ~/.ssh and am currently generating a new key. I hope this issue won’t cause any big problems in the future.

Tom Dryer: Enable Commercial DVD Playback in Ubuntu

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:00:53 +0000

Like Adobe Flash and proprietary media formats, playback of encrypted DVDs is something that Ubuntu can’t distribute in the default desktop. Adding support for playing your commercial DVD videos in Ubuntu isn’t a difficult task.

There’s a script included in Ubuntu that can install software for decrypting DVDs, run it by pasting the line below into your terminal:
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

If all went well, that script should have downloaded and installed the libdvdcss2 package for you.

Whenever you insert a DVD, the Totem Movie Player should launch and begin playing the disk. Unfortunately, Totem makes a really poor DVD player as it does not support DVD menus. It’s possible to install a different back-end for Totem to play DVD menus, but I just like to use the VLC media player instead. I’ve found that VLC does a fantastic job with DVDs.

Install VLC from the package vlc (click the link to install), or by running the command below in your terminal:
sudo apt-get install vlc

Open VLC from Applications->Sound & Video->VLC media player. To play a DVD, click File->Open Disk.

There’s a lot of options in this dialog, just make sure the disk type is set to DVD (menus), click OK, and the movie should begin to play.

Philip Newborough: Ubuntu Security Notice: openssl

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:33:29 +0000

This is one of those security notices which on first glance appears to be serious enough to take a second glance. I have therefore republished the entire notice:

=========================================================== 
Ubuntu Security Notice USN-612-1               May 13, 2008
openssl vulnerability
CVE-2008-0166
===========================================================

A weakness has been discovered in the random number generator used
by OpenSSL on Debian and Ubuntu systems.  As a result of this
weakness, certain encryption keys are much more common than they
should be, such that an attacker could guess the key through a
brute-force attack given minimal knowledge of the system.  This
particularly affects the use of encryption keys in OpenSSH, OpenVPN
and SSL certificates.

This vulnerability only affects operating systems which (like
Ubuntu) are based on Debian.  However, other systems can be
indirectly affected if weak keys are imported into them.

We consider this an extremely serious vulnerability, and urge all
users to act immediately to secure their systems. (CVE-2008-0166)

This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of
Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu.

== Who is affected ==

Systems which are running any of the following releases:

 * Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty)
 * Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy)
 * Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy)
 * Ubuntu "Intrepid Ibex" (development): libssl <= 0.9.8g-8
 * Debian 4.0 (etch) (see corresponding Debian security advisory)

and have openssh-server installed or have been used to create an
OpenSSH key or X.509 (SSL) certificate.

All OpenSSH and X.509 keys generated on such systems must be
considered untrustworthy, regardless of the system on which they
are used, even after the update has been applied.

This includes the automatically generated host keys used by OpenSSH,
which are the basis for its server spoofing and man-in-the-middle
protection.

The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the
following package versions:

Ubuntu 7.04:
  libssl0.9.8                     0.9.8c-4ubuntu0.3

Ubuntu 7.10:
  libssl0.9.8                     0.9.8e-5ubuntu3.2

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS:
  libssl0.9.8                     0.9.8g-4ubuntu3.1

Seriously, it is time to update your SSH keys.

Tags: ssh, ubuntu

Philip Newborough: Brightness GTK+ Theme

Tue, 13 May 2008 11:31:07 +0000

Yesterday I published Darkness Returns, a GTK+ and Openbox theme. Today, in an effort to move more CrunchBang Linux material onto my site and wiki, I am publishing Brightness, another GTK+ and Openbox theme. I no longer use this theme myself, but I know some users have stated they prefer the theme which was used in CrunchBang Linux 7.10.2 [I guess you cannot please all of the people all of the time.] Personally, I prefer the increased contrast between application and data provided by Darkness Returns, but there you go.

As with Darkness Returns, Brightness uses the Clearlooks GTK+ engine. I have made the theme available on my wiki. I have used the theme under Openbox with no known issues. I have not tested the theme under GNOME.

Regarding the origin of the theme, if I remember correctly, I used the Gilouche theme as basis to work from. Even though I prefer to use a darker theme, I still really like the openSUSE artwork, it is professional and consistently good.

Tags: artwork, crunchbanglinux, openbox, themes, ubuntu

Dan Munckton: Hello Planet!

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:51:58 +0000

Hi folks. This is my first post to Planet Ubuntu Users. Thanks to Gouki for letting me on board.

As well as blogging about general Ubuntu stuff I’ll also be talking about the Ubuntu PS3 Port project which I’m currently obsessed with.

Tom Dryer: Stop GNOME from Asking to Import Photos from Your iPhone or iPod Touch

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:00:50 +0000

GNOME will detect an iPhone or iPod Touch as a camera, and ask you if you want to import pictures every time it’s plugged in.

The Always perform this action doesn’t work for ignoring the dialog, so how can you stop it from being trigged whenever you plug in your iPod? Open System->Preferences->Removable Drives and Media. Under the heading for digital cameras, deselect the option for importing digital photos.

Of course, you can change behavior for many different devices in this dialog. If you’ve got another device, there are even more options available: open the file browser, click Edit->Preferences, and select the Media tab.

Sense Hofstede: VirtualBox: Part II

Mon, 12 May 2008 14:35:25 +0000

In my previous post(VirtualBox: Part I) I talked about VirtualBox, which I wanted to use in order to test Intrepid. Now the 2.6.24.17 kernel modules for VirtualBox are in hardy-proposed repositories I can use it. I installed Hardy Heron and updated it to Intrepid Ibex by editing /etc/apt/sources.list manually, because there isn’t an upgrade button available yet in update-manager, not even when you pass the option ‘-d’.

But after the update the X Server wouldn’t start. I think it has something to do with the libxfont bug I triaged earlier this month: bug #226156.

I’ll try again later. But at least VirtualBox works!

Noumaan Yaqoob: Ubuntu Stories

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:36:56 +0000

Ubuntu Story is a new web site promoting Ubuntu by sharing the stories of people who use Ubuntu as their operating system. The web site has a beautiful design that highlights the key benefits of using Ubuntu Linux. These key benefits are:

Flexibility
Speed
Simplicity
Appearance
Stability
Freedom
Security
Community

Most user stories revolve around these benefits. They are the main reason for many people to switch from Windows/Mac/other Linux distros to Ubuntu Linux. I have talked many people about Ubuntu. I tried to convert my friends, family and neighbours to Ubuntu. I noticed that it is appearance, visual appeal and simplicity that impresses new users at first. Once they have used Ubuntu for a month they start loving it for security, stability and freedom.

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Philip Newborough: Darkness Returns GTK+ Theme

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:23:22 +0000

It occurred to me this morning that I have been using the same GTK+ theme for a couple months. I consider this fact to be a result; I have comfortably settled into using a theme and I had not fully realised it, that has to be a good sign! While I enjoy playing around with the look 'n' feel of my desktop, I can not help but think it is a waste of time and I should be doing something more constructive; therefore, this morning's realisation comes as something of a relief.

The theme I have settled into using is called Darkness Returns. I named it so because CrunchBang Linux was originally distributed with a dark theme, then it changed to a light theme, before moving back to a dark theme for the last release; hence, Darkness Returns — pure genius :)

Darkness Returns is based on the Clearlooks GTK+ engine. It is not actually as dark as some dark themes, instead it is more of a halfway house between the lightness and the darkness; maybe I should have named it "Sitting On The Fence"? Anyhow, a couple of people have asked me for the theme and so I have made it available on my wiki. More screenshots of the theme can also be seen on my wiki: CrunchBang Linux 8.04.01 Screenshots. Feel free to use and abuse :)

Tags: artwork, crunchbanglinux, openbox, themes, ubuntu

Isabelle Duchatelle: I’m roughly 10.009009 times evil _

Sun, 11 May 2008 22:02:21 +0000

Completely useless, and yet essential. Now you know :evil:

Planet Ubuntu Users

Philip Newborough: Ubuntu On The BBC

Sense Hofstede: Back to old motherboard

Richard Harding: Help free me from Subversion

Sense Hofstede: Inactive

David Thomas: Ubuntu Security Notice another win for Linux.

Dan Munckton: Working on the Ubuntu PS3 Port

Tibun Beings: Debian Live USB

Tom Dryer: Test Drive Flash Player 10 Beta in Ubuntu

Nick Bauermeister: Compiz-Check 0.4 released

What's new

Feedback

Tibun Beings: New weblog (update)

Tom Dryer: Extending the Gedit Text Editor with Plugins

Jean Baptiste: The SSL/SSH disaster

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David Thomas: Back from vacation at Disney World and Tux Racer is all over.

Tom Dryer: Convert DVDs for iPhone or iPod Touch with HandBrakeCLI

Tiago Sousa: Updates

Philip Newborough: I am not superstitious, but…

Sense Hofstede: SSH keys

Tom Dryer: Enable Commercial DVD Playback in Ubuntu

Philip Newborough: Ubuntu Security Notice: openssl

Philip Newborough: Brightness GTK+ Theme

Dan Munckton: Hello Planet!

Tom Dryer: Stop GNOME from Asking to Import Photos from Your iPhone or iPod Touch

Sense Hofstede: VirtualBox: Part II

Noumaan Yaqoob: Ubuntu Stories

Philip Newborough: Darkness Returns GTK+ Theme

Isabelle Duchatelle: I’m roughly 10.009009 times evil *_*

Isabelle Duchatelle: I’m roughly 10.009009 times evil _