Category: Linux Software

  • Knoppix 5

    It’s hard to believe it’s time for a version 5 of knoppix, but … I guess it is. I was just booting up Knoppix 4 in a qemu session last night and already several days behind 5… Anyway, Knoppix 5 was released on June 2nd. I saw the note the day after the Ubuntu dapper release, but never got to do a post. (It’s actually 5.0.1 available for download – the 5.0 release was released at CeBiT). Anyway, there are DVD and CD iso’s and bittorrent downloads are available. You might look here for a list of torrent download links.

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  • Firefox 1.5.0.4 RPMS for Mandriva 2006

    Just an update to let you know I’ve recompiled the src rpm’s from Cooker for Mozilla 1.5.0.4 (For Mandriva 2006) and am uploading them to a subdirectory in http://www.averyjparker.com/wp-content/downloads/firefox/. (Look for the Mozilla-Firefox-1.5.0.4 subdirectory… thought it would be fairly obvious.) Anyway, I’ve put the src rpm in a subdirectory mysteriously named src… and the devel rpms in their own directory. As always the rpms are without guarantee/warranty expressed or implied. They’ve worked for me (I’m typing this now from 1.5.0.4 under Mandriva…) If you find them useful – great. Updating this and this post to reflect updates.

  • Firefox 1.5.0.4 out….

    I haven’t seen news to this yet, just found it on Mozilla.com, but the 1.5.0.4 release of firefox seems to have been released sometime today. (1.5.0.4 of Thunderbird was announced earlier today.) I don’t know how quick Google is at directing to the new version of firefox, but I’ll include a link in this message for those of you that don’t have it…. Firefox is a very nice customizable, free (open source) web browser that I’ve found many people prefer to Internet Explorer for a number of reasons….

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  • Ubuntu 6.06 LTS release

    Probably the biggest news so far today, at least in linux circles is the official release of the Dapper Drake…. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support) (and kubuntu and edubuntu all…). I’ve been playing with an install based on the Release Candidate (and now upgraded to even include KDE 3.5.3….. I’m really impressed that there were kde 3.5.3 packages available for Dapper Drake 1) before the official release which only officially includes 3.5.2 and 2) almost simultaneous to the KDE announcement. Anyway…. (Almost all links are to the US mirrors…) Kubuntu download images are avialable as is the shipit free cds for kubuntu and shipit free cds for ubuntu and the various ubuntu cd image downloads………….

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  • Konqueror and Google Maps

    After I did my “Kiosk” upgrade to KDE 3.5.2 I was really interested to see if Konqueror would finally work with Google Maps, of course, the problem isn’t with Konqueror it’s with the browser detection. Konqueror uses something called khtml to render web pages. It’s really a fairly good/standards compliant ACID test passing engine. So much so that Apple thought they would base Safari on it. The problem is that some websites recognize “Safari” in the User agent and say, “sorry, we don’t support you” if the browser user agent claims Konqueror….

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  • Mandriva Kiosk

    Some time back I had seen a quick reference to Mandriva Kiosk as some new Mandriva version of the “Click and Run” repository of Linspire. I finally got a chance to give it a try with the upgrade of KDE to 3.5.2 (Mandriva 2006 had shipped with the 3.4.x series of KDE.) Anyway, I found the process to make it work fairly straightforward. I installed the 4 required packages (new versions could only be found on the kiosk webpage – none of the urpmi sources, even updates new about the newest version of mdkonline, or urpmi/gurpmi…) Once those were done and konqueror restarted, I gave a click at installing kde 3.5.2 and off it went.

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  • Google Picasa for Linux

    One of the big stories out today… Google has released an “early beta” version of Picasa for linux. I first saw the news from the ZDNet Googling Google blog. There are deb, rpm and bin downloads available. The Official Google blog gives a few more details, for instance… this “magic” is made possible by a “carefully tested version of wine”. Also, they solicit feedback in the Google Labs Picasa for Linux group. I think this is very good news for linux users.

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  • More discussion on the Firefox 1.5.0.3 “image bug”

    There’s quite a bit more discussion on a DOS bug in Firefox 1.5.0.3, the link goes to a site where they’ve confirmed the issue and there is a link there to a POC, so be cautious. It turns out that using javascript, image tags can be made to have a mailto: link which can automatically launch tons of instances of whatever default mailhandler a system has (essentially one for each image tag.) Right now, this sounds more like a Denial of Service risk, as I don’t see at this point any evidence that anything WORSE could be done than really freezing up the system with too many copies of the mail program open.

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  • Firefox 1.5.0.3 RPMS for Mandriva 2006

    I’m in the process of uploading an update to the mozilla firefox 1.5 rpms for Mandriva 2006 that I have posted previously on the site. They should be browsable at http://www.averyjparker.com/wp-content/downloads/firefox/. In that directory you’ll see the source rpm I built from, then a subdirectory for firefox-1.5.0.3 with the main rpms and a subdirectory of THAT with the devel rpms.

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  • Netcubicle, you’re personalized network based linux desktop..

    As they say on their site “Experience Linux without the hassles of installation and adminstration.” Inqub has a new product out called Netcubicle which basically is this…. for $4.50 a month, you can have a Gigabyte of storage and a linux desktop accessible from most any computer in the world. (Or command line SSH access too.) Apparently it’s based on Ubuntu/Kubuntu (They say gnome/kde are both available). The KDE Dot calls it a KDE Desktop Hosting Service.

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