Monthly Archives: April 2012

Fedora 17 before it is released


I decided to take the plunge and run Fedora 17 before it’s officially launched in May.  My system has been running Fedora 16 x86-64 since the launch last November and I must say that it has been solid – including the GNOME 3.x stuff.

What I did was the following:

a) Updated the system fully – “yum update -y”

b) Ensure that “preupgrade” is installed – “yum install preupgrade -y”

c) Run the “preupgrade” command and let it set the system up.  This last step could take a few hours depending on your Internet speed. This was exactly what I did in November as well when I went from Fedora 15 to Fedora 16.

When it finally completed the preupgrade, I rebooted the machine, then it went through the final install and, viola, all was good. The key apps I need to use on a daily basis – mutt, msmtp, Firefox, Chromium, x-chat, Thunderbird, vlc, twinkle, calibre, virt-manager all worked as before. Or so I thought.

For what it’s worth, all of them work with the exception of vlc which will play ogg, mp3 but fails to play flv and mp4 (complains that it needs h264 codecs). I thought it should be there, but I guess something might not have been properly updated.  Oh well. Not the end of the world really. Everything else works.

The version of the kernel right now is:

[harish@vostro ~]$ uname -a
Linux vostro.sin.redhat.com 3.3.4-1.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Apr 27 18:39:03 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I did, however, encounter an interesting problem when I rebooted the machine to the newest kernel – my wifi did not come on. For a moment I thought something broke. I rebooted the machine from a liveUSB running Fedora 16 and the wifi worked so it is not hardware issue.  What I had to do was to use the “Fn + F7″ key combination (to turn on and off the wireless in the machine) and bingo, the wifi came back on.  My machine is a Dell Vostro v13.

[harish@vostro ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
07:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100

and

[harish@vostro ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 10f1:1a1e Importek Laptop Integrated Webcam 1.3M
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp. BCM2046B1 USB 2.0 Hub (part of BCM2046 Bluetooth)
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 413c:8161 Dell Computer Corp. Integrated Keyboard
Bus 003 Device 008: ID 413c:8162 Dell Computer Corp. Integrated Touchpad [Synaptics]
Bus 003 Device 009: ID 413c:8160 Dell Computer Corp. Wireless 365 Bluetooth

Let’s hope that by the time Fedora 17 is Generally Available, this little toggle is long gone.

Microsoft’s “open technology” spinoff


While I would like to stand up and cheer Microsoft on them setting up the “Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc”, I am not convinced that they are doing this in good faith.

Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, said in 1991 – 21 years ago – that

“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”

only to have all of that conveniently forgotten years later when they themselves started patenting software and suing people all over. These are the kinds of actions taken by a company who cannot innovate or create anything that is new and valuable.  It is also the same company whose CE goes around saying things like:

“Linux violates over 228 patents, and somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property,”

Too many of these statements and blatant lies from a company that has lost its ethical compass. This is the same company that is now pro-CISPA even after backing down from being pro-SOPA. Do read this statement from EFF about what’s wrong with CISPA.

Never mind all that. Clearly, Microsoft sees money in FOSS. It is business as usual for them in creating their new subsidiary.

If they are really serious about FOSS being part of their long-term future, I am sure they will be reaching out to many people in the FOSS world to join them. Thus far, all I have seen is a redeployment of their internal, dyed-in-the-wool MSFTies.

I think Simon’s commentary on the plausible reasons for Microsoft setting this new entity up is a good set of conspiracy theories, but I think Simon gives Microsoft too much credit.

ACTA in Singapore


It is a little annoying to see the same acronym ACTA having two meanings in Singapore.  A lot of people have been asking me what it is that I am talking about when I refer to ACTA for they think I am referring to to ACTA – Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment.  For the record, that is not what I am talking about.

The ACTA I am referring to is the Anti Counterfeit Trade Agreement that the Singapore government signed in October 2011. That ACTA needs to be looked into seriously with a view to nullifying it. The fact that the entire effort was done in secrecy is what is annoying and especially with the likelihood of serious collateral damage and with unintended consequences.

Exposing localhost via a tunnel


I came across this tool, localtunnel, that offers a way to expose a localhost based webserver (for example) to the internet. It is a reverse proxy that brings you to your machine way behind a firewall by bouncing off of a externally reachable host running localtunnel.

I tested it out on my Fedora 16 laptop (all I had to do was to run “gem install localtunnel” as I had ruby already installed).

I like the idea, but am not entirely convinced about the security exposure.