SlackBlogs

Security Update: OpenSSL

2009-11-17T06:53:00.002+07:00

OpenSSL has been upgraded to fix security discussed on CVE-2009-3555. Along with these update, several applications gets upgraded and rebuilt (and even removed).

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Mon Nov 16 18:56:26 UTC 2009
a/openssl-solibs-0.9.8l-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Disables SSL renegotiation.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3555
(* Security fix *)

kde/mplayerthumbs-1.2-i486-2.txz: Removed.
mplayerthumbs has been merged into kdemultimedia in KDE 4.3.3.
It is recommended to reinstall kdemultimedia after removing this package.

l/seamonkey-solibs-2.0-i486-3.txz: Rebuilt.

n/nn-6.7.3-i486-3.txz: Rebuilt.
Patched to retrieve hostname from /etc/HOSTNAME, use gpg rather than pgp, and to use correct sizeof(long) depending on the system architecture.
Thanks to Aaron W. Hsu.

n/openssl-0.9.8l-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Disables SSL renegotiation.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3555
(* Security fix *)

xap/seamonkey-2.0-i486-3.txz: Rebuilt.
Restored header files needed to build vlc and other programs.

New Laptop

2009-11-14T21:45:00.003+07:00

Few days ago, i bought a new laptop, ASUS UL80vt. This is my second laptop after i bought the first one about four years ago. It was Acer Travelmate 4150NLCi. The old laptop is still working up to now, but there was some problem on the rotating pin which is used to rotate the lid. One of them is broken, so the lid is no longer stable even though it's still working.

On the afternoon, after finishing my class, i decided to find a new laptop and i found a good one. It come with a pre-installed Windows 7 Home Premium and with a quite high-end specifications. If you are curious, check the information on Amazon but my hard disk is 500 GB instead of 320 GB listed on the page.

At night, i removed all Windows 7 partition, including the recovery partition, as i have commited to fully using Slackware Linux on this laptop. The installation works normally, except for some problem post-installation, so i repeated the installation step and this time, it's working normally.

Everything is detected out of the box, except for VGA cards and wireless chipset. It uses Vidia G210M Graphics with 512MB DDR3 + Intel GMA 4500MHD (Switchable VGA), but the problem is that the switch button only works on Windows and not yet in Linux, since it hasn't been supported either by XOrg nor NVidia proprietary drivers.

It uses Intel WiFI Link 100 Series. When i looked at this page, it says that it has been supported, so i knew that the default kernel used in Slackware 13.0 (2.6.29.6) hasn't supported this chipset and the only solution is by upgrading the kernel, so i did compiled my kernel and using the latest one available (2.6.31.6). Luckily the latest NVidia driver 190.xx has supported this chipset and also this kernel version, so i had no problem with it. My effort was paid off, since right now, the wireless chipset is detected, but still, it doesn't support scanning. I even posted a post on LQ (it's marked as CLOSED now).

I browsed Google again and i realized that i haven't downloaded the microcode for this chipset, so i try to find it on Intel Wireless page and yes, it's there. The file i need is iwlwifi-1000-ucode-128.50.3.1.tgz. I only need to download, extract, and put the microcode in /lib/firmware and restart my laptop (or even better, only reload the module for this chipset) and now it's working great

The only problem now is activating the NVidia chipset rather than using Intel GMA as the primary VGA card. Let's hope the switch button will be implemented as soon as possible in Linux.

libgtkmozembed gone in the latest seamonkey

2009-11-12T15:28:00.002+07:00

The latest seamonkey package has removed a shared library called libgtkmozembed. This shared library is still available on the previous seamonkey build, so Pat rebuilt the package which has this library removed.

If you still need libgtkmozembed for any other application, you might reconsider to use Seamonkey 1.1.18 rather than upgrading to Seamonkey 2.0. I don't use Seamonkey on daily basis, so i have no problem using 1.1.18 instead of having problem with other applications due to removal of libgtkmozembed.

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Wed Nov 11 21:17:19 UTC 2009
l/seamonkey-solibs-2.0-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
xap/seamonkey-2.0-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
As of version 2.0, SeaMonkey no longer includes a shared libgtkmozembed library, so the pkgconfig and header files for this have been removed from the package to avoid confusion over why trying to compile programs that use it no longer works. There's not really any way to avoid this issue --it's either upgrade SeaMonkey and lose libgtkmozembed, or keep using version 1.1.18 and miss out on SeaMonkey security updates. If you really need libgtkmozembed, the seamonkey-1.1.18 packages will be retained in either /patches or /pasture for Slackware versions 13.0 and earlier.

Mozilla Packages Upgraded

2009-11-08T16:46:00.002+07:00

Two Mozilla packages (Mozilla Firefox and Seamonkey) are upgraded on the latest -Current batch. The Seamonkey is now using 2.0, a major update from 1.x, while Firefox remains stays with the latest update, 3.5.5 which bring stability updates instead of security update.

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Sun Nov 8 04:14:58 UTC 2009
l/seamonkey-solibs-2.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

xap/mozilla-firefox-3.5.5-i686-1.txz: Upgraded.
Upgraded to firefox-3.5.5.
This fixes some stability bugs.

xap/seamonkey-2.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

Phonon Package Restored

2009-11-08T06:31:00.004+07:00

On the last update, Pat removed Phonon package and it makes the sound system are unusable on some systems (including mine) and the system got muted. It turns out that Qt package is still missing Phonon files required by KDE. So the latest update brings those files back again by re-adding Phonon and rebuilt Qt with new option. This should bring the fix for everyone

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Sat Nov 7 22:09:46 UTC 2009
l/phonon-4.3.1-i486-2.txz: Added.
Phonon in Qt is missing support files needed by KDE, so this package restores the missing pieces. The Phonon library, include files, and pkgconfig files will remain in the Qt package, as those are the most up-to-date versions. This package will contain the xine and gstreamer backends and other files needed by KDE. The gstreamer backend source is taken from the newer sources in Qt, not from the standalone Phonon.
Sorry about the misfire last time... this stuff should work. :-)

l/qt-4.5.3_063bded-i486-3.txz: Rebuilt.
Use -phonon -no-phonon-backend options.

KDE 4.3.3 on Slackware-Current

2009-11-06T22:58:00.002+07:00

Slackware-Current has included KDE 4.3.3 on the latest batch of updates today. The latest Java (JRE and JDK) are also included on this update. One interesting thing is the removal of Phonon package which is the multimedia package for KDE. On my system, Amarok won't play any MP3 files again after removal of Phonon, so i finally tried to install it again and it worked.

My suggestion is that if you are running rsync, have a backup of phonon package just in case removing phonon broke your Amarok .

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Fri Nov 6 00:22:35 UTC 2009
a/less-418-i486-4.txz: Rebuilt.
Patched lesspipe.sh to handle files of the form *.{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,n}.gz that are not gzipped *roff. Thanks to Mark Post.

kde/kdeaccessibility-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeadmin-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeartwork-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-runtime-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-workspace-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebindings-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeedu-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdegames-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdegraphics-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdelibs-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdelibs-experimental-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdemultimedia-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdenetwork-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepim-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepim-runtime-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepimlibs-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeplasma-addons-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdesdk-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdetoys-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeutils-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdevelop-3.9.96-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdevplatform-0.9.96-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdewebdev-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/koffice-2.0.91-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/oxygen-icons-4.3.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kdei/*: Upgraded.

l/gst-plugins-base-0.10.25-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/gst-plugins-good-0.10.16-i486-1.txz: Added.

l/gstreamer-0.10.25-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/jre-6u17-i586-1.txz: Upgraded.
Upgraded to Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition Runtime Environment Version 6.0 update 17.

l/phonon-4.3.1-i486-1.txz: Removed.

l/qca-2.0.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/qt-4.5.3_063bded-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled to add the included version of the Phonon multimedia framework.

l/strigi-0.7.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

x/dejavu-fonts-ttf-2.30-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.

extra/jdk-6/jdk-6u17-i586-1.txz: Upgraded.
Upgraded to Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition Development Kit Version 6.0 update 17.

KDE 4.3.3 Released

2009-11-04T07:05:00.003+07:00

A month has passed and now it's time for KDE to release their monthly updates to KDE 4.3.x series. The latest version of KDE is now 4.3.3 and it's a maintenance update which brings more translations and updates to many parts of KDE components.

The changelog will highlight the changes that happened since 4.3.2 release month ago. There hasn't huge change on this release as new features will be placed on KDE 4.4 which should be available on late January or early February 2010.

Let's hope it will be available on -Current soon.

New Poll

2009-11-03T14:50:00.002+07:00

Slackware 13.0 has been released for some time and i wanted to know how fast does Slackware installation. So that comes up to a question of the next poll: How long do you need to install a fresh copy of Slackware on your machine?

Please give your vote

Poll Result

2009-11-03T14:45:00.002+07:00

After two months since the last poll, finally it's a chance to announce the poll results. Two months ago, i asked what features that you think most interesting on Slackware 13.0. So here's the results:

Major Upgrade for Desktop Environment 48 (39%)
Newer Kernel for Better Hardware Support 41 (33%)
x86_64 porting 71 (58%)
Automatic Detection for X Org 39 (32%)
New .txz Format With Better Compression 60 (49%)
Improved Network Detection Through wicd 29 (23%)
Major Upgrade on Firefox 26 (21%)
Better Video Player with MPlayer 29 (23%)
Better Wireless Intel Driver 23 (19%)
Others (not mentioned in above options) 11 (9%)

We came up with x86_64 porting as the winner, followed by new .txz format with LZMA algorithm to reduce file size. It's no surprise, since x86_64 support has been requested by many people and there hasn't any official support for them until Eric came up and started this porting. Fred with his Slamd64 has done a great job in the past, but now, here comes the official porting from Patrick and the Slackware team.

Security Update: Firefox

2009-11-03T07:44:00.001+07:00

Like i mentioned before, Firefox will definitely be updated and the update has arrived today. You can grab them in the Slackware-Current and also in Slackware-Stable tree.

Here's the -Current changelog entry for today:

Mon Nov 2 20:41:16 UTC 2009
xap/mozilla-firefox-3.5.4-i686-1.txz: Upgraded.
Upgraded to firefox-3.5.4.
This fixes some security issues.
For more information, see:
http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox35.html
(* Security fix *)

Two Packages Upgraded

2009-11-01T09:17:00.003+07:00

There are two packages that gets upgraded today, PyQT and sip. Both resides in l/ directory.

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Sat Oct 31 21:40:29 UTC 2009
l/PyQt-4.6.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/sip-4.9.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

GCC Packages Upgraded

2009-10-31T16:13:00.002+07:00

GCC packages on testing/ are being upgraded to the latest one, 4.4.2. Please note that these packages are still considered unstable, so it's being placed under testing/ and not in d/. If you plan to use this packages, you are at your own, even though i believe the risk is quite minimum.

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Fri Oct 30 23:37:47 UTC 2009
testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-g++-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-gfortran-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-gnat-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-java-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

testing/packages/gcc-4.4.2/gcc-objc-4.4.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

QScintilla Rebuilt

2009-10-31T00:37:00.001+07:00

QScintilla package has been rebuilt to fix missing PyQt bindings. This is the only update for today, but i believe Firefox 3.5.4 will come out in no time, since it contains several security fixes for nasty vulnerabilities on 3.5.3. Just wait and see.

Security Updates: Poppler + xpdf

2009-10-29T14:53:00.002+07:00

Two security updates were released on Slackware-Current today. They are poppler and xpdf. Along with this two updates, several packages gets recompiled and updated as well.

Here is the latest -Current changelog:

Wed Oct 28 22:50:35 UTC 2009
kde/kdegraphics-4.3.2-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against new libpoppler.

kde/koffice-2.0.83-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against new libpoppler.

l/babl-0.1.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/gegl-0.1.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/poppler-0.12.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Security fixes based on xpdf 3.02pl4 were integrated.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3603
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3604
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3605
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3606
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3608
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3609
(* Security fix *)

l/poppler-data-0.3.0-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded.

xap/gimp-2.6.7-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

xap/xpdf-3.02pl4-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
This update fixes several security issues that could lead to an application crash, or execution of arbitrary code.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3603
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3604
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3605
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3606
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3608
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3609
(* Security fix *)

KDE 4.3.2 on Slackware-Current

2009-10-23T07:56:00.002+07:00

KDE 4.3.2 has been included on -Current, thanks to Pat, Vincent Batts, Robby Workman, Piter Punk,
and Eric Hameleers. Along with these updates, there are several packages that gets upgraded too.

Here's the latest -Current changelog:

Thu Oct 22 22:09:40 UTC 2009
New KDE and other updates. Thanks to Vincent Batts, Robby Workman, Piter Punk, and Eric Hameleers for the help!

ap/gphoto2-2.4.7-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/guidance-power-manager-4.3.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/k3b-1.68.0-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kaudiocreator-r1038308-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeaccessibility-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeadmin-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeartwork-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-runtime-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebase-workspace-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdebindings-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeedu-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdegames-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdegraphics-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdelibs-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdelibs-experimental-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Added.

kde/kdemultimedia-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdenetwork-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepim-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepim-runtime-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdepimlibs-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeplasma-addons-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdesdk-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdetoys-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdeutils-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdevelop-3.9.95-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdevplatform-0.9.95-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kdewebdev-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/koffice-2.0.83-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/konq-plugins-4.3.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/kopete-cryptography-1.3.0_kde4.3.1-i486-1.txz: Added.

kde/ktorrent-3.2.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kde/oxygen-icons-4.3.2-i486-1.txz: Added.

kde/skanlite-0.3_kde4.3.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

kdei/*: Upgraded.

l/PyQt-4.6-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/QScintilla-2.4-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/akonadi-1.2.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/alsa-lib-1.0.21a-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/eigen2-2.0.6-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/libgphoto2-2.4.7-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/qt-4.5.3_063bded-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/sip-4.9-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

l/wv2-0.4.1-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

xap/MPlayer-r29789-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

extra/wicd/wicd-1.6.2.2-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

Webcam Under Skype

2009-10-20T09:09:00.003+07:00

For some time, i have been trying to enable my webcam under Skype on my Slackware box. I know that it's possible, since i have seen many people able to do that on their machine. The wait is now over, as i have managed to enable it today, thanks to this thread on LQ.

First of all, you need to build libv4al which is available from Slackbuilds. Once you have built the package, make a new file under /usr/bin (or anyplace you like). Let's call it webcamSkype (or whatever suits you) and paste this


#!/bin/bash
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /opt/skype/skype

On my system, i put Skype under /opt/skype, so when you place Skype on different directory, you should change the path according to your system. Don't forget to make the script executable by running:


chmod +x /usr/bin/webcamSkype

Next, edit your shortcut using menu editor (assuming you are using KDE) and change the path to Skype binary into /usr/bin/webcamSkype.

If you want to make sure the webcam works, just use Options > Video Devices and click on the test button on the right top of the window. If it works, you can start video call using Skype with your friends, relatives, and colleagues

Fixed Icon Problem

2009-10-19T13:19:00.002+07:00

Today, Pat has rebuilt the shared-mime-info package which fixed the icons problem that were broken yesterday. It's the single package that gets released today.

Here's the single changelog entry for today:

Sun Oct 18 23:09:03 UTC 2009
l/shared-mime-info-0.70-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Fixed the install script to run update-mime-database for each user on the system, fixing an issue with missing or broken icons.

Broken shared-mime-info Package

2009-10-18T11:27:00.004+07:00

Shortly after updating to the latest -Current, i got a new bug, which caused pidgin to lost it's icon, both in system tray and also in the application. I couldn't see my emoticons and my avatar. Another report was found in LQ which happened in wicd-client icon.

The problem *may* lies in shared-mime-info package, which is upgraded in the last batch of update. I tried to revert it back to the previous version 0.60 and the problem is now gone. So for now, don't update the shared-mime-info package after there's a fix from Pat on the next update unless you want to see some application got broken with missing icons.

Update (6:37 PM): Robby Workman mentioned a solution pointed by Andrew Brouwers in IRC about shared-mime-info which likely caused the problem. A quick solution is to run this command as root:
update-mime-database /usr/share/mime

I have tried the solution and yes, it worked here, so you can now safely upgrade your shared-mime-info package and run above command to fix the problem.

and this command as each users:
update-mime-database $HOME/.local/share/mime

I have tried this solution and yes, it worked here. So i guess you can upgrade your shared-mime-info package and make sure you ran above command to avoid the problem.

Security Updates: Pidgin + GnuTLS

2009-10-18T09:54:00.003+07:00

Two security updates has been released today which are Pidgin and GnuTLS. Special for Pidgin, it has been upgraded to 2.6.3, but without vv support, as there are no libnice and farsight2 available on -Current which are the requirements to enable vv (voice and video) support on Pidgin 2.6.3.

Along with those updates, several packages also gets recompiled and upgraded too. Here's the latest changes in -Current changelog:

Sat Oct 17 23:56:15 UTC 2009
a/hdparm-9.27-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

ap/hplip-3.9.4b-i486-3.txz: Rebuilt.

ap/linuxdoc-tools-0.9.56-i486-6.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against perl-5.10.1.

ap/mysql-5.1.39-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Added --with-innodb option. This was omitted from the last package version since ./configure --help no longer lists --with-innodb or --without-innodb, but evidently the option is still supported (and needed).
Thanks to Amritpal Bath.

d/git-1.6.5-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Compiled against perl-5.10.1.

d/subversion-1.6.5-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Compiled against perl-5.10.1.

l/pilot-link-0.12.3-i486-10.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against perl-5.10.1.

l/shared-mime-info-0.70-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

n/gnutls-2.8.4-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
This contains a correct fix for the NUL in CN/SAN SSL vulnerability.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-2730
(* Security fix *)

n/irssi-0.8.14-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against perl-5.10.1.

n/net-snmp-5.5-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.

n/obexftp-0.23-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Recompiled against perl-5.10.1.

n/php-5.2.11-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Changed a ./configure option from --with-pdo-sqlite=shared to --with-pdo-sqlite=shared,/usr to use the system sqlite library.
Thanks to Jeff MacLoue.

n/samba-3.4.2-i486-2.txz: Rebuilt.
Fixed missing libnss_winbind.so.2 and libnss_wins.so.2.
Thanks to oneforall.

xap/imagemagick-6.5.6_10-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
Compiled against perl-5.10.1.

xap/pidgin-2.6.3-i486-1.txz: Upgraded.
This update fixes an issue where a remote user can cause libpurple-based clients to crash.
For more information, see:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2009-3615
(* Security fix *)

Rsync Slackware-Current

2009-10-17T22:50:00.002+07:00

This morning, i started to use rsync to mirror Slackware-Current tree from Indonesian mirror site. I used Eric's rsync script located here, but i modified the script a little bit to exclude several more directory which i don't need.

So, here's my modified script:
VERSION=${VERSION:-current}
TOPDIR="/home/willysr"
RSYNCURL="kambing.ui.ac.id::slackware"

echo "Syncing version '$VERSION' ..."

if [ ! -d ${TOPDIR}/slackware-$VERSION ]; then
echo "Target directory ${TOPDIR}/slackware-$VERSION does not exist!"
exit 1
fi

cd ${TOPDIR}/slackware-$VERSION
rsync $1 -vaz --delete --exclude "pasture" --exclude "source" --exclude "isolinux" --exclude "patches" --exclude "usb-and-pxe-installers" --exclude "extra/source" --exclude "slackware/kdei" --exclude "testing/source" ${RSYNCURL}/slackware-$VERSION/ .

3D Games on Slackware

2009-10-15T10:40:00.002+07:00

This week and last week, i have been trying to download several 3D games for Linux and i tried to played them on my new desktop. I have downloaded Assault Cube, Nexuiz, and Alien Arena. Those three games are FPS-based game, so if you are familiar with Counter Strike, then you will not have problem playing it.

The three of them doesn't need to be installed, as it comes with a wrapper script to execute the game. In case of Assault Cube, you may need to install openal which is available through SlackBuilds project. Also, don't forget to install VGA driver in order to enable 3D acceleration. I used NVidia on my desktop.

Another Slackware 13.0 Installation

2009-10-12T07:11:00.003+07:00

On Saturday night, i perform another Slackware 13.0 installation on one of my student's laptop. He has used Ubuntu 9.04, but he wanted to try using Slackware 13.0, so he parked his laptop at my house, so i can do one night installation and configure everything.

The installation process works perfectly and it's done under 25 minutes. Yeah, i know this is longer than my own installation which is under 15 minutes, but i did the installation while working other things, so there's some idle on it. By default, everything works and no major changes is required, but i did add some packages which i compiled from SlackBuilds to make the system even better.

Another good record for Slackware 13.0 installation

Slackware 13.0 on Desktop

2009-10-06T23:08:00.003+07:00

I have just completed my Slackware 13.0 installation under 15 minutes. As usual, i did a normal installation, but i choose expert menu which enables me to select the packages i wanted to install one by one. I did unselect some packages, but it's not that much.

After installation, i created normal user and upgrade to the latest -Current packages. Everything was done under 30 minutes and i'm ready to use the new Slackware 13.0 on my desktop. This would be my main system at home where i do most of my work, so i do really need a solid, stable, secure, and simple system to work with and i'm proud that Slackware 13.0 is qualified to be my first choice.

To be honest, this is my first 13.0 Slackware installation on my own system. I never install Slackware 13.0 before on my own system. In most cases, i help my students to install Slackware on their laptops. Everything works here. My NVidia, sound card, webcam, everything works as i expected.

By the way, i tried to use the new ext4 as my default filesystem and i think it has did a great job combined with 4 GB of RAM. I haven't been able to recompile the kernel to include the PAE extension in order to identify all of the RAMs, but i will have quite luxury time next week.

Faster and Better Amarok

2009-10-06T11:49:00.002+07:00

Thanks to the new update of Amarok 2.2.0 in -Current, Amarok now runs faster and better than before. It loads faster, mostly when loading the playlist. While the interface hasn't changed too much, but i think the performance does change quite a lot.

In short, i'm happy with this version. Thanks to Pat who decided to give an update on Amarok

Fixing MySQL Problem During Upgrade

2009-10-04T23:26:00.004+07:00

If you follow Slackware-Current, you might notice that MySQL has been upgraded into 5.1.39, which is now the GA version from MySQL, replacing the previous GA version, 5.0.xx. Like always, changes in GA might have some configuration changes which requires manual modification into the configuration files. This is the same thing i had when i upgrade to 5.1.39 in -Current today.

Normally, after the upgrade is finished, i only need to restart the MySQL daemon and everything will work, but not on this case. I posted on LQ and i got the solution less than one day. The problem lies on my /etc/my.cnf file which still has skip-federated option. It is no longer an option in 5.1.39, so when i start the server, it failed and it won't start.

The solution is to comment this line or remove it and restart your MySQL daemon by issuing /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld stop and /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld start.

It will work again

Again, LQ has done a great job on helping other Slackware users