The Linux 3.8 kernel will bring a number of bug-fixes for the XFS file-system. SGI has already sent in the pull request for the XFS updates to be applied during the Linux 3.8 merge window. Here’s the bulk of the message regarding the XFS file-system changes for this next Linux kernel release: “There is plenty going on, including the cleanup of xfssyncd, metadata verifiers, CRC infrastructure for the log, tracking of inodes with speculative allocation, a cleanup of xfs_fs_subr…Read more at Phoronix
Kicking Off The Ubuntu Advocacy Developer Kit
A little while back I posted about an idea I was discussing with the rest of the community team about a downloadable advocacy kit that, similar to an SDK for software, provides everything you need to get started spreading the word about Ubuntu. Dubbed the Advocacy Developer Kit (ADK), the idea is that a single .zip file (or package) would contain everything you need to get started, including:
- Well written, simple, and detailed documentation for joining, creating, and running LoCo Teams, as well as general advocacy, tips, and tricks.
- A selection of high-quality posters, banners and other materials.
- Resources for creating new materials.
- Presentations that can be used for giving an Ubuntu demo / Charm School etc.
This content would make it easier for advocates to get going, instead of navigating the wealth of unorganized content on the wiki and variety of promotional materials. The ADK provides a set of curated content that gets someone up and running quickly.
We will include some resources in the ADK such as banners, posters, presentations, templates and…Read more at jonobacon@home
Hulu Plus for Android rolls out children’s section
Watching “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Caillou” on Android devices just got a little easier today.
Hulu Plus announced that it updated its Android app with Hulu Kids integration. With this new feature, parents are able to make sure their children don’t stray from their kid’s shows by using a “Lock For Kids” button. Parents can also search Hulu Kids to find popular shows from different networks and age groups…Read more at CNET News
Monitoring your server with tmux
With tmux, you can create a monitoring system allowing you to check on your server remotely and get the perfect overview of what’s happening. Joey Bernard explains how.
There are lots of systems and utilities available to monitor your system. Many of these are web-based, or they run as a client-server system.
Unfortunately, there are several instances where the only allowed connection to the server of interest is over SSH. This might be for several reasons, the least of which being security. In these cases, you will likely still want some way of easily monitoring what is going on with your server. Using tmux, you can create a session which will run all of your monitoring software and
keep it running, regardless of whether you lose your connection or not.
This article will cover the basics of creating such a session, which you should be able to tune and tweak to fit your specific requirements. This way, you can simply log in using any available SSH connection and see, in an instant, all of the information that is of interest to you. Also, since you need to log into the system over SSH, you don’t need to worry about the problems of locking down other software, such as a web server…Read more at Linux User and Developer
An Evaluation of the Application (“App”) Verification Service in Android 4.2
With the latest Android 4.2 (JellyBean) release on November 13, 2012, Google announced an exciting security feature called the “application verification service” to protect against harmful Android applications. As stated in a recent Google+ post by a member of the Google Android team, “Now, with Jelly Bean Android 4.2 devices that have Google Play installed have the option of using Google as an application verifier. We will check for potentially harmful applications no matter where you are installing them from.” It is indeed an exciting security feature! We think it was a really good move by Google to directly face Android malware threats and take such measures to better protect Android users.
Meanwhile, because of the introduction of this service, people may start to wonder, “are third-party security apps still necessary with Android 4.2?” — see the links here, here, here, and there. We are no exception! To demystify this service, we perform the following study for two main purposes: (1) We want to understand better how the app verification service works; (2) We also want to quantify the effectiveness of this service and compare it with existing third-party anti-virus engines.
The new service is implemented inside the official Google Play app, but is designed to work with apps from all app stores, including the official Google Play marketplace and other alternative ones. A user can turn the service on/off by going to “Settings,” “Security,” and then “Verify apps.” When an app is being installed (Step 1), the service, if turned on, will be invoked (Step 2) to collect and send information about the app (e.g., the app name, size, SHA1 value, version, and the URL associated with it) as well as information about the device (e.g., the device ID and IP address) back to the Google cloud (Step 3). After that, the Google cloud will respond with a detection result (Step 4). If the app is not safe, the user is then shown a warning popup (Step 5) flagging the app as either dangerous or potentially dangerous….Read the rest at Professor Xuxian Jiang’s blog.
Distribution Release: Slax 7.0
Tomáš Matějíček has announced the final release of Slax 7.0, a Slackware-based live CD with KDE 4.9.4 that fits onto a 220 MB CD: “I’m happy to announce the final release of Slax version 7.0, code name ‘Green Horn’. After more than three years of silence Slax is back in action and is better than ever before. Slax 7.0 is the major…Read more at DistroWatch
Antivirus guru John McAfee sells rights for movie about his life
t’s still a mystery where John McAfee will eventually land, but his life story is destined for the small screen.
Currently in custody in Guatemala and fighting deportation efforts that could return him to Belize to face questions about a murder, the antivirus-software pioneer has signed a deal that gives the rights to his life story to a Montreal-based TV producer.
TV production company Impact Future Media said today it has secured…Read more at CNET News
du Know How Big Your Linux Files Are?
Last week we took a look at the df command, which is for getting information on filesystems. A related command is the du command, which tells you how much disk space your files and directories use. I like the du — disk usage — command because it is faster and more powerful than clanking around with clumsy graphical file managers. It’s familiar to Linux oldtimers, but perhaps not so familiar to newer Linux users. It tells you the size of a single file:
$ du -h grundfos-321.pdf 2.6M grundfos-321.pdf
The -h option tells it to use nice human-readable numbers like 2.6M, instead of 2648. This works for directories, too. This example adds the -s option to display the total size for the directory and everything in it:
$ du -sh z-audacity 307M z-audacity
If you omit -s then it prints the sizes of all subdirectories, and a grand total. To see the sizes of all files and subdirectories, use -a:
$ du -ah z-audacity 4.0K z-audacity/chapter-schedule 900K z-audacity/futurans_1.3-1_all.deb 72K z-audacity/jack-howto_files/patchbay1socket.png 4.0K z-audacity/jack-howto_files/book.css
Our data grow as fast as our storage media
This particular du incantation is an old favorite for finding the top ten biggest files in a directory. This example finds the ten largest files in my data directory:
$ du -a storage | sort -nr | head -n 10 105367464 . 61717620 ./archives 36011036 ./archives/Music 31444216 ./unsorted-pics 31384836 ./unsorted-pics/Pictures 23290472 ./archives/Pictures 20403728 ./archives/Music/Terry-albums 13239772 ./archives/Pictures/2009-4-7 11878452 ./camcorder 7805196 ./unsorted-pics/Pictures/yarrow-june-201
You can query multiple directories at once:
$ du -sh unsorted-pics receipt_files archives 30G unsorted-pics 396K receipt_files 59G archives
Use wildcards to select subdirectories. The first example only queries the second level directories, the second example queries the second and third level directories, and the third example skips over the second level:
$ du -sh unsorted-pics/* 3.4M unsorted-pics/albums 34M unsorted-pics/bratgrrl-pics 1.8M unsorted-pics/coast-album
$ du -sh unsorted-pics/*/* 8.0K unsorted-pics/albums/index.html 1.8M unsorted-pics/albums/outdoors 264K unsorted-pics/bratgrrl-pics/2eaglessmall.jpg
$ du -sh unsorted-pics/../* 8.0K unsorted-pics/../5-foss-groupware-servers.html 8.0K unsorted-pics/../ardour1.html 2.5M unsorted-pics/../Bow_Violin.pdf
You can query the current directory for particular filetypes:
$ du -h *.jpeg *.png 32K figure1.jpeg 128K figure2.jpeg 8.0K figure3.png
Use the -S option to get the size of a directory, without including its subdirectories:
$ du -Ssh ~ 17M /home/carla
One of my favorite options is -x, which keeps du in the local filesystem. My home directory includes remote mounts and links to directories on other filesystems. Compare the results of the two examples– the first example tallies up everything in my homedir, including remote mounts and linked directories, while the second example only adds up files on the local filesystem:
$ du -sh ~ 1.9T /home/carla
$ du -sxh ~ 6.8G /home/carla
So, when you have a conglomeration like this, how do you know where your files are actually stored? With the df command, of course. As is the case with so many of these little old Linux commands, there are many more things du can do, and you will find these in man du.
Canonical founder hopes Ubuntu on mobile devices will lure more desktop users
Canonical’s already announcedits intentions of putting Ubuntu on mobile devices, but founder Mark Shuttleworth’s given us a bit more insight into the firm’s strategy in a Slashdot Q&A. In addition to reiterating their focus to put Ubuntu on smartphones, tablets and everything from the “embedded world to the cloud,” Shuttleworth revealed…Read more at Engadget Mobile