Practical Technology

for practical people.

August 24, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

Pidgin 2.6.1: The best Linux IM client gets better

M (Instant Messaging) clients have become invisible. We use them all the time to ‘talk’ with co-workers, chat with friends, and ‘text’ with family members on their phone. That is, I do, anyway because my IM client Pidgin, works with every almost every IM client in creation and it makes chatting with anyone, anywhere mindlessly simple. And, with this newest version, limited voice and video support is built in as well.

Today, the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and video framework is rudimentary, but the promise is there. Today, you can only use voice and video over XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), an open IM XML standard on Linux. However, what’s important is that the framework is there. Adding voice and video to other IM protocols won’t be easy, but the big first step had been taken now.

Pidgin already has the IM clients down pat-AIM, Google Talk, IRC. MSN, Sametime, etc. etc. That said, I found that this version has faster overall performance and fewer hiccups.

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August 21, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Why openSUSE went for KDE

Usually, the major Linux desktop distributors offer both the major Linux desktop interfaces-KDE and GNOME. Some, like Canonical divide it into two separate distributions, Ubuntu for GNOME and Kubuntu for KDE, but they seldom offer a default choice. OpenSUSE. however, is taking that plunge and it’s decided on KDE.

It wasn’t an easy choice. As openSUSE Product Manager, Michael Löffler, explained in an e-mail to the openSUSE community, “The default desktop is an issue that many openSUSE users and contributors are passionate about.”

He’s got that right. I think that Linux attracts people who want the most control possible of their operating system and the idea of there being any default choice, no matter how good, rubs them the wrong way. The mere fact that there are dozens of Linux desktop distributions and several programs like SUSE Studio, which lets you easily roll your own distribution.

Knowing all that the openSUSE leadership bravely decided to “default [to] the radio button to KDE in the DVD installer. Therefore, with openSUSE 11.2 release, the KDE desktop will be installed if the user accepts the default setting. Users can also choose the GNOME desktop at this stage.”

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August 20, 2009
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Fixing Linux

Everything has security problems, even Linux. An old and obscure problem with the gcc compiler was recently discovered to have left a security hole in essentially every version of Linux that anyone is likely to be running. Here’s what you need to know about fixing it.

The problem itself was discovered by Brad Spengler, the hacker behind the open-source network and server security program, grsecurity. What he found was that in some network code, there was a procedure that included a variable that could be set to NULL (no value at all). Now, this didn’t appear to be a problem because the programmer also included a test which would return an error-message if the variable turned out to have a NULL value.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, the gcc code optimizer on finding that a variable has been assigned a NULL value removed the test! This left a hole, that didn’t exist in the original program. Using this hole, and code provided by Spengler, any cracker with sufficient access to a Linux computer could get into the computer’s memory and, from there, get into all kinds of mischief. For more on the down and dirty technical details, turn to Jonathan Corbet’s story, “Fun with NULL Pointers.”

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August 19, 2009
by sjvn01
0 comments

What’s really the safest Web Browser?

It’s hard to believe that people will actually believe the new NSS Labs report that claims Internet Explorer is safer than other Web browsers at blocking “Socially Engineered Malware” (PDF Link), but I have to remind myself of two things. One, not everyone reads the fine print, which reveals that Microsoft paid for this report. And, two, not everyone is an IT professional who follows this stuff for a living.

So, let’s get to it. Is IE (Internet Explorer) safer than the other browsers. Ah, in a word, no.

Internet Explorer 6, which according to the W3school Web browser survey, is still used by over 14% of all Web users is the least safe browser out there. How bad is it? There’s a group encouraging Web sites to tell you to dump IE 6. Heck, even Microsoft wants you to get rid of IE6 in favor of IE 7 or IE 8.

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August 19, 2009
by sjvn01
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Who writes Linux: Big Business

The Linux Foundation has just released a new report on who writes Linux (PDF Link) and, guess what? Linux isn’t written by lonely nerds hiding out in their parent’s basements. It’s written by people working for major companies-many of them businesses that you probably don’t associate with Linux.

To be exact, while 18.2% of Linux is written by people who aren’t working for a company, and 7.6% is created by programmers who don’t give a company affiliation, everything else is written by someone who’s getting paid to create Linux. From top to bottom, of the companies that have contributed more than 1% of the current Linux kernel the list looks like this:

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August 18, 2009
by sjvn01
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Moonlight 2 arrives and falls flat on its face

The other day, Novell’s Mono Project, announced the beta release of Moonlight 2. IN theory, this enables Linux users to watch Microsoft Silverlight encoded content. Of course, that begs the question: “What Silverlight content?”

Moonlight 2 beta sounds great. Novell states that it’s the equivalent of Microsoft Silverlight 2 and that it “gives users a platform to view and use Silverlight and Windows Media content on Linux.”

Specifically, Novell claims that “The Moonlight 2 beta offers Linux users improved functionality compared to Moonlight 1, including support for adaptive streaming of video and audio playback. This feature allows for better streaming of multimedia content based on the quality of the user’s connections.”

Better? I don’t think so. It failed for me much more often than not..

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