One of the things I didn’t mention in my first skype post was the “getting skype to work with linux” bit… The version available via urpmi in Mandrake was 1.2, so I installed it (before I had the usb audio phone) and gave a try. It gave consistent errors trying to access the audio device (/dev/dsp). I looked and it seems that the older 1.2 version used OSS exclusively for this and had LOT’S of problems. I did find that version 1.3 that can use either OSS or ALSA seemed to work flawlessly on the three systems I tested. (Two of them Mandriva 2006 and the test box Ubuntu 6.06.1) The testbox didn’t have a sound card prior to the usb phone, the other two had built in sound and that is what was tested.
Category: Linux Tech Support
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Encrypting wireless traffic
Incidents.org has been running their security tip a day this month and I really liked this one. It’s essentially a way to encrypt your wireless traffic using ssh. That’s something I’ve covered here before, but it’s worth reminding that it’s possible and a good idea.
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Helixplayer to include Windows media file viewer
WMV and WMA file formats (Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio) have been one of those sore spots for desktop linux. Yes, I KNOW mplayer and other players can handle them. (If the codecs are installed.) (and wine can run media player) But, there have been licensing issues there. The fact is, distributions that are strict about their “open source only” policy have a situation where those formats don’t work out of the box. That appears as though it will change soon as Real Networks includes open source codecs for those formats in it’s Helixplayer. DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be supported in the helixplayer project.
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Dapper Drake update
It looks as though Ubuntu has released the first maintenance release in the Dapper Drake life cycle. So, now 6.06.1 can be downloaded. (In analagous terms this might be considered the first service pack). Many updates have been incorporated into the bootable install cds which should cut the amount of download updates a new install would need right out of the box. http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06.1/ (Ubuntu), http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/6.06.1/ (Kubuntu), http://releases.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/6.06.1/ (Edubuntu), http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/6.06.1/release.1/ (Xubuntu).
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Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 RPMS for Mandriva 2006
I finally got the Mandriva 2006 rpms rebuilt for Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6. I ‘ve been running it for a bit and it and all seems well. Of course, this is always at your own risk. http://www.averyjparker.com/wp-content/downloads/firefox/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.6/
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Updated Clamav RPMS for Mandrake 10.0 (clamav 0.88.4)
You can find updated rpms for Mandrake 10.0 of the recent clamantivirus update at http://www.averyjparker.com/wp-content/downloads/clamav-0.88.4/.
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Evolution error “summary and folder mismatch even after a sync”
In my wife’s profile on the desktop she said she was getting an error message sending and receiving messages so…. when doing a send/receive of mail I saw evolution giving an error message of “summary and folder mismatch even after a sync”. It seemed to download mail ok, it was just nagging for some reason. I’m thinking it may be a bug, but there’s a pretty quick and easy workaround. I found someone suggest deleting the following files .evolution/mail/local/*summary….. (look in /home/youruser/.evolution/mail/local and delete ALL files that end in summary.)
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HDR – High Dynamic Range – Images under linux
HDR – recently I heard someone talking about this with regards to digital imaging. The idea is that you have three identical images (landscapes) taken from a stationary (tripod) camera. The only difference is the exposure times vary. Together you can blend them to create a more impressive final picture. Yes, I just talked about fake photos and digital imaging. This, to me, is in a different class of photo editing…. enhancement(?) – well… anyway. There are a number of ways to do this, photoshop, I understand has support for doing this and it’s possible under linux as well with the Gimp.
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Quick way to make a text only banner image
Linux.com has a great writeup on making banner images quickly and easily from the command line (or a script). The catch here is that text is the content for the image. Under linux that will require the following programs…. enscript and convert. Of course since this can be done from the command line, it can be scripted which might make an easy way to display email addresses without allowing address harvesting among other things… Anyway, here’s a summary…
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Clamav 0.88.4 and prior DoS
According to incidents.org a denial of service vulnerability has been noted in all versions of clamav prior to 0.88.4 (inclusive). At incidents last report the download for 0.88.4 was back after disappearing for a while which seemed to indicate a fix, however. I wasn’t aware 0.88.4 had been released before today (?). It looks as though http://www.clamav.net/ has perhaps a re-release of 0.88.4? that fixes it? Clamav is a popular open source antivirus scanning engine.
–UPDATED AND CORRECTED – looking at the Secunia advisory version 0.88.3 and 0.88.2 are vulnerable others may be – and I suspect that 0.88.4 is the version that will fix it – so it looks as though 0.88.4 will be the fixed version. AGAIN – it looks as though 0.88.4 FIXES the DoS vulnerability.