Dear All,
I noticed significant number of very important desktop related
applications ported for OpenBSD
(TeXLive, HPLIP, Gutenprint, PJSIP among others)
Some of these applications are already in ports for 4.2 but not among
pre-compiled binary packages (I personally prefer to use binaries in
particularly on my older machines as strongly advised in FAQ).
How many release cycles does usually take for an application to move
from ports tree to pre-compiled package?
I was also wondering if you direct me to some kind documentation that
would explain me how can I use binary package which I compiled on one
machine on another machine using the same pack_add utility I use when I
add binary packages from the mirror-sites. That should be
very easy to do. The point is that I do not want to mix packages and
ports (as adviced) but some ports are really useful and it is really
tantalizing for me to wait for them.
I would like to use above as an exercise and try to port a package or
two for OpenBSD. There is a very small application called menu maker
which is not ported for OpenBSD. I thought it could be useful. It
enables you to fill in menu on your favorite window manager (in my case
Openbox) as simple as
mmaker openbox
here is the link from FreeBSD ports tree
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/deskutils/menumaker/pkg-descr.
I know that fill in menu for most of you in your favorite Window Manager
is 5 minute job. It also takes me 5 minutes to fill in the OpenBox menu
by hand with my applications but it usually takes me couple iterations
and readings through /var/db/pkg to recall all installed packages. I
just thought that it could be a good exercise for me.
If there is something simple that you think could be handled by an
enthusiastic OpenBSD nOOb (converting from FreeBSD) with formal
education in mathematics (my area of expertise is Dynamical Systems
including bits of Ergodic theory) I am ready for suggestions.
I also have a question to about HPLIP. I noticed following messages on
Linux Printing web-site
hplip/hpijs since 2.7.10 IS NOT OPEN SOFTWARE anymore.
It downloads BINARY LIBRARIES and FIRMWARE automatically.
$ strings * | more
$ pwd
/usr/share/hplip/prnt/plugins
$ ll
total 136
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root rick 42 Nov 15 13:09 lj.so ->
/usr/share/hplip/prnt/plugins/lj-x86_64.so
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root rick 56851 Sep 19 13:49 lj-x86_32.so
-r--r--r-- 1 root rick 70337 Sep 19 13:49 lj-x86_64.so
$ strings * | grep JBIG
JBIG-KIT 1.6 -- Markus Kuhn -- $Id: jbig.c,v 1.1 2007/08/23 16:44:50
raghothamac Exp $
This is a violation of the GPL rules... no source even though
/*
* Portable Free JBIG image compression library
*
* Markus Kuhn -- [www.cl.cam.ac.uk <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Emgk25/>]
*
* Id: jbig.c,v 1.22 2004-06-11 15:17:06+01 mgk25 Exp $
* $Id: jbig.c,v 1.4 2004/06/12 02:33:05 rick Exp $
*
* This module implements a portable standard C encoder and decoder
* using the JBIG lossless bi-level image compression algorithm as
* specified in International Standard ISO 11544:1993 or equivalently
* as specified in ITU-T Recommendation T.82. See the file jbig.doc
* for usage instructions and application examples.
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
Is there are any kind of security recommendations regarding HPLIP
software. I am also personally familiar with few scanners that
do require firmware files to work with sane-backhands. Any
recommendations about it?
What is the best practice for installing third party software on the top
of OpenBSD having in mind that the packages are not scrutinized for
security as OpenBSD operating system.
I read somewhere that the best thing would be to install all packages in
regular user mode. That is very possible for me as I am mostly desktop
user. Any suggestion about enhancing security of the default
installation apart of the standard things which I already use (editing
fstab file and making some directories only readable, changing flags on
major files, disabling root ssh and inetd daemon which I do not need?
Kind Regards to Everyone,
Predrag Punosevac
