FSLog » Updates http://www.fslog.com Free Software Blog Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:47:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 GPL Version 3 out http://www.fslog.com/2007/06/30/gpl-version-3-out/ http://www.fslog.com/2007/06/30/gpl-version-3-out/#comments Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:19:48 +0000 cnu http://fslog.com/2007/06/30/gpl-version-3-out/ GPL Version 3GNU General Public License has been atlast updated to version 3 after nearly a year of drafts and lot of arguments. It was release yesterday – which is also the release date of Apple’s iPhone. The final text of GPLv3 is accompanied with a rationale document explaining the few changes since the “Last Call” draft. The final text of LGPLv3 is available as well. The GPL FAQ has already been updated with additional information and will be improved over the next few weeks. AGPLv3, FDLv2, and SFDL are still being revised.

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2007/06/30/gpl-version-3-out/feed/ 2 Bug in Ubuntu Breezy exposes root password http://www.fslog.com/2006/03/14/bug-in-ubuntu-breezy-exposes-root-password/ http://www.fslog.com/2006/03/14/bug-in-ubuntu-breezy-exposes-root-password/#comments Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:31:05 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=207 In actual there is no user account called root in Ubuntu. A normal user can become root by using the sudo command. But in Breezy, the first user’s password is can be easily found by any user reading the file /var/log/installer/cdebconf/questions.dat. This bug is present only in Breezy (5.10) and not in Dapper(6.04) the yet to be released version.
There are two packages – base-config and passwd which needs to be upgraded to prevent this problem. A standard system upgrade will fix this problem.
If you are upgrading from 5.10 to 6.04 then you need to upgrade your passwd package to the newest version.
ubuntu, breezy, dapper, root+user

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2006/03/14/bug-in-ubuntu-breezy-exposes-root-password/feed/ 0 Ubuntu 6.04 Alpha 4 – Dapper Flight 4 released http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/19/ubuntu-604-alpha-4-dapper-flight-4-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/19/ubuntu-604-alpha-4-dapper-flight-4-released/#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:02:17 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=185 Ubuntu Linux 6.04 Alpha 4 has been released and it has got many improvements like

  • new graphical installer splash using gfxboot
  • a new kernel version with special builds for various types of servers
  • speed improvements all around
  • new versions of all sorts of software

Aside from GNOME 2.14 and Espresso, most of what is in Dapper now will be in the final release in April.

ubuntu, gnome, espresso, linux, kernel,gfxboot

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/19/ubuntu-604-alpha-4-dapper-flight-4-released/feed/ 0 Firefox 1.5.0.1 released http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/02/firefox-1501-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/02/firefox-1501-released/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:27:23 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=151 Firefox 1.5.0.1 was released and it offers many stability and security updates.

Here’s what’s new in Firefox 1.5.0.1:

  • Improved stability.
  • Improved support for Mac OS X.
  • International Domain Name support for Iceland (.is) is now enabled.
  • Fixes for several memory leaks.
  • Several security enhancements.

Due to the automatic update feature in 1.5, I just had to use the Check for updates feature in the Help menu. Beware not all your extensions may not work in the new update.

firefox, browser, mac+os

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/02/firefox-1501-released/feed/ 1 WordPress 2.01 released http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/wordpress-201-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/wordpress-201-released/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:49:55 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=146 WordPress 2.0 made big waves at the blogging world, and soon everyone upgraded to the new wordpress blog engine. But, there were some bugs and sometimes I felt that the older 1.5 version was better. But, the import tool for Blogger was really nice and I love it. Exactly 1 month after version 2.0 was released, the 2.01 version has been released. The wordpress development team has squashed out 114 bugs. To summarize:

  • You can now specify an upload directory, and whether to use date-based storage or not.
  • Caching has been fixed under certain PHP enviroments.
  • Permalinks have been fixed for weird enviroments as well.
  • XML-RPC uploading works.
  • Compatibility with older versions of PHP.
  • Several WYSIWYG fixes and cleanups.
  • Imports now use much less memory.
  • Now works with MySQL 5.0 in strict mode.

Some users complain that wordpress doesn’t provide the support found in other proprietary blogging softwares(like Movabletype). In my opinion, the users in the IRC channel of wordpress(#wordpress) are very helpful and I was able to correct a small problem within minutes. What is your opinion on this and have you experienced any problem with any of the blogging softwares?

wordpress, wordpress+2,movabletype,mt, wp, blog, weblog, blog+software

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/wordpress-201-released/feed/ 0 Nmap 4.0 released http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/nmap-40-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/nmap-40-released/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:47:37 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=144 Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is an free open source utility for network exploration, administration, and security auditing. It uses IP packets in novel ways to determine which hosts are available online (host discovery), which TCP/UDP ports are open (port scanning), and what applications and services are listening on each port (version detection). It can also identify remote host OS and device types via TCP/IP fingerprinting. Nmap offers flexible target and port specifications, decoy/stealth scanning for firewall and IDS evasion, and highly optimized timing algorithms for fast scanning. Nmap runs on all popular operating systems, including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and OpenBSD. Download command-line or graphical versions of Nmap and its documentation from Insecure.Org. There are many substantial changes after the previous stable release 3.50 and it is recommended to install the new version. Are there any other tools that your would recommend for securing your system?

nmap,nmap+4.0, security, linux, unix, network

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2006/02/01/nmap-40-released/feed/ 0 Firefox 1.5 released http://www.fslog.com/2005/12/02/firefox-15-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2005/12/02/firefox-15-released/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2005 18:53:00 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=68 Firefox 1.5 has been finally released to public and claims to be faster and provides better web experience.
Here is a nice review of Firefox 1.5 at 1337tech.

Linux kernel 2.6.14 was released after two months of development.
Here are some new features added to the new kernel.

  • HostAP – HostAP is one the most popular 802.11 device drivers for linux. It works with cards utilizing the Prism 2/2.5/3 chipset and support Host AP mode, which allows a wireless card to perform all the functions of an access point.
  • FUSE – Filesystem in USEr space provides a simple interface for userspace programs to export a virtual filesystem to the linux kernel. FUSE also aims to provide a secure method for non privileged users to create and mount their own filesystem implementations.
  • Linux port of the Plan9′s 9P protocol – 9P, or the Plan 9 Filesystem Protocol, is a network protocol developed for the Plan 9 distributed operating system as the means of connecting the components of a Plan 9 system (site).
  • Relayfs – Basically relayfs is just a bunch of per-cpu kernel buffers that can be efficiently written into from kernel code. These buffers are represented as files which can be map’ed and directly read from in user space. The purpose of this setup is to provide the simplest possible mechanism allowing potentially large amounts of data to be logged in the kernel and ‘relayed’ to user space.

There are many more added features to the new kernel.

Tech Tags:
]]> http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/31/linux-kernel-2614-released/feed/ 0 MySQL 5 released http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/26/mysql-5-released/ http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/26/mysql-5-released/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2005 01:50:00 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=27 MySQL 5 is ready for production use. Here is the snip from MySQL web site…

“MySQL 5.0 is the most ambitious release in MySQL’s history. MySQL 5.0
delivers the enterprise features the community has been asking for,
including Stored Procedures, Triggers, Views, Information Schema, XA
Distributed Transactions, and new Storage Engines. We also added
Strict SQL Mode to eliminate some of the ‘Gotchas’. Plus, MySQL 5.0
builds on our reputation for Reliability, Performance, and Ease of
Use.”

Visit http://dev.mysql.com for more info.
Here are some MySQL and Postgresql gotchas one may be interested in reading.

If you find a bug in the newly released MySQL 5.0, then can win an iPod Nano.

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/26/mysql-5-released/feed/ 0 Easy Ubuntu 2.3 http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/24/easy-ubuntu-23/ http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/24/easy-ubuntu-23/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:16:00 +0000 cnu http://www.fslog.com/?p=20 Easy Ubuntu is an easy way to make Ubuntu usable in few minutes. This is a beginner’s tool using a graphical interface.

Easy Ubuntu allows you to:

  • Add extra repositories for installing a lot of additional software.
  • Install multimedia codecs for reading all videos, musics and DVDs.
  • Activate the “audio preview” feature in Nautilus.
  • Install the most needed Firefox plugins: Flash, Java, Real, videos. Adds Microsoft fonts, GNOME’s Firefox buttons, officials Firefox icons.
  • Install archiving support for RAR and ACE.
  • Install the most used peer-to-peer softwares: aMule (a clone of eMule) and Azureus (for Bittorent).
  • Install the Skype voice-over-IP software. (Warning: at this time Skype is not packaged for Breezy so install don’t work)
  • MSN: Install AMSN cvs with webcam support.
  • Num lock: Active the num lock at system startup.
  • Replace the GNOME foot logo with Ubuntu’s logo.
  • Install the NVIDIA or ATI driver for 3D support.

I guess everyone using Ubuntu must get this and install. Really how easy life has become with free sotwares.

]]> http://www.fslog.com/2005/10/24/easy-ubuntu-23/feed/ 0