Linux Weekly News

LWN.net is a comprehensive source of news and opinions from and about the Linux community. This is the main LWN.net feed, listing all articles which are posted to the site front page.

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Google’s iron grip on Android (ars technica)

h, 2013-10-21 09:28

Here's a lengthy ars technica article describing the mechanisms by which Google maintains control of Android. "For some of these apps, there might still be an AOSP equivalent, but as soon as the proprietary version was launched, all work on the AOSP version was stopped. Less open source code means more work for Google's competitors. While you can't kill an open source app, you can turn it into abandonware by moving all continuing development to a closed source model. Just about any time Google rebrands an app or releases a new piece of Android onto the Play Store, it's a sign that the source has been closed and the AOSP version is dead."

Kategóriák: Linux

Kernel prepatch 3.12-rc6

v, 2013-10-20 10:06

Linus has released the 3.12-rc6 prepatch from the airport on his way to the kernel summit. "Nothing major happened last week., and the upcoming week is likely to be quiet too, since a lot of core maintainers will be in Edinburgh for the KS."

Kategóriák: Linux

Nftables pulled for 3.13

szo, 2013-10-19 14:33

For those who have been following nftables, the replacement firewall subsystem for the kernel: this code has just been pulled into the net-next tree. That means that, barring some sort of trouble, it will be merged in the 3.13 development cycle. This code is not ready to replace iptables yet, but the pace of the work should increase once this subsystem is in the mainline. Anybody wanting to try out nftables can see the quick howto page for instructions.

Kategóriák: Linux

Kernels 3.11.6 and 3.10.17

p, 2013-10-18 22:48

Just in time for the weekend, Greg Kroah-Hartman has released stable kernels 3.11.6 and 3.10.17, each with a host of important updates.

Kategóriák: Linux

Shuttleworth: Quantal, raring, saucy…

p, 2013-10-18 18:42

Mark Shuttleworth goes on the offensive against his critics before disclosing that Ubuntu 14.04 will be named "trusty tahr." "Mir is really important work. When lots of competitors attack a project on purely political grounds, you have to wonder what THEIR agenda is. At least we know now who belongs to the Open Source Tea Party ;) And to put all the hue and cry into context: Mir is relevant for approximately 1% of all developers, just those who think about shell development. Every app developer will consume Mir through their toolkit. By contrast, those same outraged individuals have NIH’d just about every important piece of the stack they can get their hands on… most notably SystemD, which is hugely invasive and hardly justified. What closely to see how competitors to Canonical torture the English language in their efforts to justify how those toolkits should support Windows but not Mir. But we’ll get it done, and it will be amazing."

Kategóriák: Linux

Friday's security updates

p, 2013-10-18 15:03

CentOS has updated kernel (C6: multiple vulnerabilities).

Debian has updated mysql-5.1 (multiple unspecified vulnerabilities).

Mageia has updated aircrack-ng (code execution), apache-mod_fcgid (code execution), chromium-browser-stable (stable update; multiple vulnerabilities), clutter (authentication bypass), libtar (code execution), nmap (MGA3: arbitrary file upload), quagga (code execution), quassel (MGA3: SQL injection), and torque (authentication bypass).

Mandriva has updated aircrack-ng (MBS1: code execution), apache-mod_fcgid (MBS1: code execution), clutter (MBS1: authentication bypass), libtar (code execution), quagga (MBS1: code execution), and torque (MBS1: authentication bypass).

Red Hat has updated java-1.7.0-oracle (many vulnerabilities) and rubygems (RHEL6: multiple vulnerabilities).

Scientific Linux has updated rubygems (SL6: multiple vulnerabilities).

Ubuntu has updated xorg-server, xorg-server-lts-quantal, xorg-server-lts-raring (multiple denial-of-service vulnerabilities).

Kategóriák: Linux

[$] The LPC Android microconference

cs, 2013-10-17 21:06

A number of upstream community developers and Google Android developers got together at the 2013 Linux Plumbers Conference discuss some of the non-graphics related out-of-tree or still-in-staging portions of the Android patch set. This discussion followed the Android graphics microconference held earlier in the day. This article contains a summary of the major issues discussed at this gathering.

Click below (subscribers only) for the full article by John Stultz.

Kategóriák: Linux

Wireshark switches to Qt

cs, 2013-10-17 18:54

Beginning with Wireshark 1.11.0 the project has switched its user interface library from GTK+ to Qt. "Both libraries make it easy for developers write applications that will run on different platforms without having to rewrite a lot of code. GTK+ has had a huge impact on the way Wireshark looks and feels and on its popularity but it doesn’t cover our supported platforms as effectively as it should and the situation is getting worse as time goes on." (Thanks to Matthias Berndt)

Kategóriák: Linux

Security advisories for Thursday

cs, 2013-10-17 17:49

CentOS has updated xorg-x11-server (C6: code execution).

Gentoo has updated Parallel-ForkManager (symlink attack) and polarssl (multiple vulnerabilities).

Mandriva has updated mysql (multiple unspecified vulnerabilities).

openSUSE has updated chromium (12.x: multiple vulnerabilities).

Oracle has updated kernel (OL6: two vulnerabilities).

Red Hat has updated kernel (RHEL6: two vulnerabilities).

Scientific Linux has updated kernel (SL6: two vulnerabilities).

Kategóriák: Linux

Ubuntu 13.10 review (ars technica)

cs, 2013-10-17 15:51

Ars technica has a lengthy review of the Ubuntu 13.10 release. "Unity 8 is expected to arrive on the desktop in Ubuntu 14.04, at which time Unity 7 will likely be retired from further development. Due to the imminent transition to Unity 8 and Mir, Ubuntu 13.10 is sort of like the calm before the storm. It ships with the familiar old Unity 7 and Xorg—which are reliable but headed for deprecation. As Canonical’s attention is almost entirely dominated by the major technical changes coming in the near future, there wasn't a whole lot of work that surfaced in 13.10—the assortment of new features is pretty thin."

Kategóriák: Linux

Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) released

cs, 2013-10-17 15:05

The Ubuntu 13.10 release is out. "Ubuntu 13.10 introduces the first release of Ubuntu for phones and Ubuntu Core for the new 64-bit ARM systems (the "arm64" architecture, also known as AArch64 or ARMv8), and improved AppArmor confinement. In addition to these flagship features there are also major updates throughout." See the release notes for more information.

Kategóriák: Linux

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 17, 2013

cs, 2013-10-17 01:42

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 17, 2013 is available.

Kategóriák: Linux

Slides and videos from the 2013 Linux Plumbers Conference

cs, 2013-10-17 00:03

The Linux Plumbers Conference organizers have put up a page of slides and videos from the 2013 event. There is a lot of interesting material to be found there for those of us who could not attend the conference — or even for those who were there.

Kategóriák: Linux

[$] Rationalizing Python packaging

sze, 2013-10-16 21:42

The Python language comes with a long list of nice features, in keeping with the language's "batteries included" mantra. One battery that is noticeably absent, though, is a comprehensive mechanism for the building, distribution, and installation of Python packages. That leaves packagers and users having to choose between a variety of third-party tools or just giving up and solving the whole problem themselves. The good news is that Python 3.4 is likely to solve this problem, but Python 2 users may still have to go battery shopping on their own.

Kategóriák: Linux

Wednesday's security advisories

sze, 2013-10-16 16:52

openSUSE has updated gpg2 (11.4: denial of service).

Oracle has updated xorg-x11-server (OL6; OL5: code execution).

Red Hat has updated xorg-x11-server (code execution).

Scientific Linux has updated kernel (SL5: denial of service) and xorg-x11-server (code execution).

Ubuntu has updated icu (multiple vulnerabilities).

Kategóriák: Linux

[$] A new direction for power-aware scheduling

k, 2013-10-15 20:52

Power-aware scheduling attempts to place processes on CPUs in a way that minimizes the system's overall consumption of power. Discussion in this area has been muted since we last looked at it in June, but work has been proceeding. Now a new set of power-aware scheduling patches shows a significant change in direction motivated by criticisms that were aired in June. This particular problem is far from solved, but the shape of the eventual solution may be becoming a bit more clear.

Click below (subscribers only) for the full article from this week's Kernel Page.

Kategóriák: Linux

PyPy's new garbage collector

k, 2013-10-15 18:35

The PyPy status blog has a detailed description of the new incremental garbage collector adopted by this performance-oriented Python interpreter project. "The main issue is that splitting the major collections means that the main program is actually running between the pieces, and so it can change the pointers in the objects to point to other objects. This is not a problem for sweeping: dead objects will remain dead whatever the main program does. However, it is a problem for marking. Let us see why."

Kategóriák: Linux

Tuesday's security updates

k, 2013-10-15 17:28

openSUSE has updated libvirt (12.3; 12.2: multiple vulnerabilities).

Slackware has updated gnupg (denial of service), gnupg2 (denial of service), gnutls (multiple vulnerabilities), libgpg (denial of service), and xorg (code execution).

Kategóriák: Linux

Why Android SSL was downgraded from AES256-SHA to RC4-MD5 in late 2010 (op-co.de)

h, 2013-10-14 21:34

A site called "op-co.de" has a look at how Android chooses SSL ciphers and an explanation why a shift was made to a less secure cipher in the 2.3 release. "So what the fine Google engineers did to reduce our security was merely to copy what was there, defined by the inventors of Java!"

Kategóriák: Linux

Security advisories for Monday

h, 2013-10-14 17:01

CentOS has updated libtar (C6: code execution).

Debian has updated drupal6 (multiple vulnerabilities), libapache2-mod-fcgid (code execution), libxml2 (denial of service), and systemd (multiple vulnerabilities).

Fedora has updated elinks (F18; F19: does not properly verify SSL certificates), gnupg (F19: multiple vulnerabilities), gnupg2 (F19: denial of service), kernel (F19: denial of service), polarssl (F19; F18: insecure RSA private key), qemu (F19: privilege escalation), xen (F18; F19: information leak), xinetd (F19: privilege escalation/code execution), and zabbix (F18; F19: man-in-the-middle attacks).