Re: Ubuntu Desktop Security Defaults
Considering some noise happening in the blog space over a Linux magazine article about security problems with Ubuntu server I think we should re-visit this topic. The article is at: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7297/2/ The key criticisms of Ubuntu server raised by Linux magazine are: 1. Default permissions of users home dirs open by default 2. Install allows for blank mysql root password 3. Allowing system accounts unnecessary shell session authority 4. Nonsensical deamons listening on the network despite other configurations servicing those needs In our previous discussion on this topic here, I introduced some personal concerns I have with Ubuntu desktop security with: 1. No firewall enabled by default 2. That AppArmor is providing a false sense of safety for users in controlling the damage zero day exploits could potentially do. AppArmor only protects one daemon, CUPS. By default it does very little. The reality is that other desktop distros such as Fedora have a far stronger set of security features than our beloved Ubuntu, I think we need to make progress on these issues. I think John previously made an excellent suggestion about using something like Plash with hooks into GTK. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu Desktop Security Defaults
Thanks Mathias. I note that discussion is limited to the Server build, whereas this discussion has both desktop and server build topics. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu Desktop Security Defaults
I guess I was hallucinating working on the apparmor profile for clamav-daemon and freshclam (also run as a daemon) today. Thats great, though Scott please don't make the mistake of taking a strawman approach. What I said was about AppArmor defaults. I dont see my current dev build of the desktop having any profiles loaded by default other than CUPS. If the considered opinion is to continue with AppArmor then clearly getting more profiles into it is the way to go. However, if you look back into this discussion thread I think John made a very sound set of points about the limitations of AppArmor / SELInux etcetc type approaches for a desktop system and weaknesses of X security. He makes what seems to be a very sound suggestion about Plash and hooking into GTK, thus overcoming the problem of needing to in advance make determinations about what a desktop user might do and the X security problems. Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 9.04
In relation to this archive freeze, can I please point out that with gstreamer plugins we are currently behind the upstream stable releases in: 1. gstreamer ugly plugin 2. gstreamer ugly multiverse plugin 3. gstreamer ffmpeg plugin We are leaving ourselves open to bug reports on already resolved errors that are fixed in these stable releases. Especially given that gstreamer is the default backend for Ubuntu. I have a large test library of samples I could use to help test updates to these plugins. I'm there to help you all with this - I need packages to install to test though. Thanks Nullack -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
Re: Ubuntu Desktop Security Defaults
Gday John, Good to see another Aussie on the list and contributing some top info :) I've looked into Plash and I think your suggestion is excellent. I was thinking of a two pronged approach: 1. AppArmor / SELInux or whatever static like central policy to contain deamons, as these services typically have fixed functions and can be locked down in a static way. I note here that Microsoft did this locking down for Vista services, where they went through all the services and implemented a least privileged model. We could exceed Windows by doing least privileged but also protecting it through mandatory access control policies as well. 2. A longer term secondary phase of securing X. Again we find ourselves behind Windows where for Vista the security of their system was made more resilient against shatter attacks with a number of changes to make it far more difficult. Depending on the specifics of how X is secured, sandboxes like Plash could be considered too. I do disagree with you on enabling a firewall by default. What you say is well informed - yes, you can use injection attacks to bypass firewalls. A firewall is a basic level of protection that Windows and OSX use by default. Attacks have to be more sophisticated to circumvent a firewall using injection attacks for example. Regards, Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Ubuntu Desktop Security Defaults
Gday folks :) There is difference between what I foresee as sensible security defaults for our desktop build against what is being currently delivered. It may very well be that there is aspects to the current setup that I am not fully aware of, and I'd like to better understand the reasoning behind the current situation if so. Otherwise, perhaps I could please suggest some possible enhancements: * Enabling UFW by default or some other firewall by default * Having AppArmor actually protecting the desktop build rather than what seems as currently a false illusion of coverage with just CUPS being protected In my view the users want to feel secure in knowing that should a zero day exploit be identified, that AppArmor or SELinux or foo or whatever will trap the damage the exploited service can take beyond the standard user is not root UNIX setup. Thanks and regards, Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Packaging Problem with SDL in Jaunty
Afternoon MOTU's :) Thanks to a helpful person on the Ubuntu forums, a fix has been identified for the SDL related problems users are experiencing on jaunty. It's covered in bug #328932: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libsdl1.2/+bug/328932 Seems as though a recompile with default options fixes the problem. Following a package search I see SDL is a universe package. It would be terrific to have this issue fixed if possible. Thanks and regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
Reasons Why Jaunty Will Not Ship With 2.6.29
Can I please be advised of why Jaunty will not ship with 2.6.29, and that the kernel team has elected to ship on .28? I'm sure the kernel team are aware of the many driver changes in .29, but I'm not clear if they they propose to backport those into .28? What about features? Or any patches that for one reason or another have not made it into .28 as well that really should have gone into .28 as fixes. I would appreciate being better informed of how its proposed this will be managed. Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Any news on skype+pulseaudio+intel_hda_realtek ?
So in essence Scott, due to what you've highlighted as a lack of testing input during the pre production lifecycle phases, your suggesting that end users should endure the brunt of testing? As Ubuntu needs to move forward rapidly, being cutting edge and cant be so highly concerned with the risk of regressions? Yes, pulse audio was implemented. Yes, it was a disaster and even the upstream developer head more or less said so about Ubuntu's implementation. It was half baked. So too is Compiz, with all its incompatibilities with things like 3d OpenGL, that Ubuntu decided to enable by default even though we all know that key architectural items are missing like GEM. Lots of new users clambered onto the look at my cool wobbly windows Linux stuff then were disheartened when they realised that it didnt work properly, and that there is many other visible bugs in the Ubuntu desktop experience. A bug in NM I reported way back in the alpha still isnt fixed, that for my user experience, is a nuisance. Cruft remover was poorly tested and entered production in a problematic state. I could go on, but I wont. If Ubuntu and Canonical are truly serious about quality, clearly the professionals amongst us who sport big cowboy spurs with a good ol wild western release philosophy need to be tamed. Otherwise, we might as well all join Fedora. Thats not the Ubuntu I want to be involved in. I want to contribute towards a robust system that provides a quality desktop user experience. I'd like to reinforce Andrew Morton's comments when he expressed an observation that too many kernel developers focus on new features without resolving existing problems. We are far better off focusing on improving the testing phases than dumping it on end users. We will only alienate new users and limit the strategic growth of Ubuntu if we go all cowboy. Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
OpenAL Regressions In Intrepid
Gday everyone, The Linux Standard Base is surely a good thing. I don't know if OpenAL is included in the LSB or not. What I do know is that someone decided to change naming for OpenAL in Intrepid and this is causing many regressions in other apps that now can't find OpenAL. Can I please refer people to this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openal-soft/+bug/273558 Some questions that come to mind are: 1. Why did we change the naming? 2. What is the best solution in the long term here for us? Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Possible Idea for New MOTU Contributors
Gday folks :) A number of users on the Ubuntu forums have been writing how to's in the tutorials tips section. Some of these involve tweaks, patch compiles and other things that would be better served by contributions in MOTU. Some ideas I've got on this: * Perhaps the creation of a role for a MOTU member or similar to act as a bridge between that section of the forum and participating in MOTU. I don't think there'd be much work in this, just keeping an eye on the types of how to's being posted and maybe sending a PM to the author along the guides of thats great, that helps the users, are you interested in helping get that into Ubuntu as a whole? And heres some places to start looking in the wiki and some videos on youtuube in case you are. * Perhaps a sticky in the tutorials section along the same lines. My own story with this might be helpful. I had figured out I needed to compile a patched version of a package to get the functionality I needed to work right. Not wanting to be selfish I posted a how to guide on the forums and have been helping with support questions from other users. When a friend on IRC suggested what I was doing was pointless, that was motivation enough to get over the fear with the learning curve and time needed to fix the package right, as a root cause no hassles fix for everyone. My feedback is that the MOTU wiki is excellent, and the you tube videos of Daniel is also excellent. Coupled with the support on the MOTU IRC channel (many thanks to all) I managed to blunder my way through it. I think I can probably now do similar patches in less than five minutes. And now, I am a proud parent who has taken the birth of my new deb package, given her a really nice value on the process list, and I will treasure her functions as she's runs and sleeps on the kernel! Blessed is she! While I make a living in ICT, I dont call myself a developer, and I think MOTU contributions arent prerequisites to it. Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
Re: failure of linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic 2.6.24-19.41 to upgrade
Trevor if you have the proposed source activated in sources, turn it off if you want a more robust upgrade experience. Generally kernel updates are useful and should be looked at for why it didnt work if there is problems. Theres some good documentation Trevor to help you report a bug, and to do a little debugging yourself. Its not so hard if you can follow some instructions :) Here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies Regards -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: failure of linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic 2.6.24-19.41 to upgrade
Thats what were her for, to extend Australians embracing Ubuntu :) Yes, thats what I was meaning in Software Sources. Its not enabled by default so if you havent changed it, it wont be there. As much as Ubuntu is tested across the world sometimes things slip through. The way to contribute is by getting involved in the bug process that it didnt work for. The links I referenced has some doco to help you. 2008/9/17 Trevor Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Null Ack, Thank you for your reply and assistance, I am most grateful. I went System/Administration/Software Sources. Is this where you meant? I am a newbie and not sure how to proceed to turn off the proposed source activated in sources. Trevor --- On Wed, 17/9/08, Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: failure of linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic 2.6.24-19.41 to upgrade To: ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com Received: Wednesday, 17 September, 2008, 9:07 AM Trevor if you have the proposed source activated in sources, turn it off if you want a more robust upgrade experience. Generally kernel updates are useful and should be looked at for why it didnt work if there is problems. Theres some good documentation Trevor to help you report a bug, and to do a little debugging yourself. Its not so hard if you can follow some instructions :) Here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies Regards -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au Make the switch to the world's best email. Get Yahoo!7 Mail! http://au.yahoo.com/y7mail -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Backtracing, Invalidated Bugs and Quality
Gday everyone. As part of my work with the QA Team I want to contribute to fixing the process gaps in this area. Can I summarise what I see as the problem: Problem situation: I'm increasingly noticing that certain types of bugs are being marked invalid or incomplete with boilerplate type messages instructing the bug reporter to conduct a backtrace. The engagement of the end user is poor, the user experience is non-intuitve, the documentation to walk through how a user can do this is poor and the net effect is that the hit rate of users actually fulfilling the request is very low. The net result is usually that the bug stagnates and duplicate bugs pile up. It may, or may not, then get filled upstream if the number of duplicate bugs gets high enough for somebody to notice it. I have a high regard for all the Ubuntu developers, and I say this carefully, but I think if were all honest about the situation like some developers have been to me there is an element of gee Im so busy and this bug report looks non trivial...I might just copy and paste my back trace wording to this, move the status to get it out of the way and if it's a real problem eventually a bunch of users will report this too and then I might send it upstream then because upsteam have the time to look at this. There was a discussion on IRC which I've summarised here for the list and some proposed action items: 1. The Tool Chain For Debugging is Not Robust The point was made that the debugging toolchain is complex and will not consistently provide the needed debugging information on all occasions. Sometimes the retracing will fail for some reason. I simply see this as a longer term challenge for the FOSS community to work on bugs in the toolchain - obviously having a reliable and repeatable method for getting right into the guts of the registers and stack is important for fixing the more curly bugs. The toolchain being imperfect however is not an excuse for failing to implement best practices in Ubuntu for debugging in the meantime. We can make progress. 2. The Volume Of Bugs Coming Through Makes The Hard Ones Too Hard It was suggested that the number of bugs coming through is so high that trying to fix the more tricky ones isnt worth the time given available amounts of person power. I made the point and I'd like to highlight it again that the complexity of fixing a bug should not be the criteria for which bugs get developer attention. The best practice for building quality in Ubuntu in my view is the determinants should be how seriously it effects the user experience and how common that user experience is. When I've got stuck in my testing work on Ubuntu I've appealed for help in the testing section of the Ubuntu forum or on IRC, and I've been greatly encouraged by good helpful responses back. Im sure bug squadders and Ubuntu testers would be happy to respond to developers with unit testing, feedback etcetc. I recently helped Alexander Sack with performance feedback on a web browsing item and unit testing - it was fun! 2. The Need For Improving Apport A developer suggested that there is not a gap with Apport as it exists now. I disagree and I sighted the example of where a package is compiled with optimised compiler flags that a debug package will need to be installed to get a meaningful trace. I know from experience that automated ways of doing this, or atleast having an easier and intuitive user workflow for this is better than documentation. I really like Markus' ideas for improving Apports functionality he shared earlier. Action Item 1: I'm not a developer, but I can help any developers with testing and feedback for enhancements to Apport. I might also be able to assist with design / blueprints / discussing possible features. Or, someone come up with compelling reasons why Apport is fine the way it is and the worflow issues can be resolved another way. Another thing that came up in the talks was that the backtrace boilerplate copy and paste wasnt always accurate in the circumstances its being used. Sometimes the real issue is being able to replicate the problem not the backtrace. Or, a backtrace on a debug build is truly needed but the user doesnt know how to help in detail and bug squadders cant replicate the problem at will on their configurations. Or, since there is considerable obselete info hanging around there is confusion with bug squadders about what exactly to do and human error has occured. Action Item 2: A review of the documentation on both the user side and the bug squadder / developer side to more fully explain and walk people through the situation. I can help here too, but again I'm not a developer so especially the more technical aspects of the backtrace, why it sometimes fails, how to do manually, will need other peoples involvement. Basically to improve the hit rate. That seems to be what the IRC logs touched on, thanks. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings
Re: The Case For Re-Evaluating Our Release Approach To FFMPEG
2008/9/10 Reinhard Tartler [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Summary : I think we need to have regular snapshots of svn ffmpeg, libavcodec and so forth released in both the current development build and as backports to production builds. User's expect to have video experiences atleast as good as Windows and Mac, and this is necessary for actually delivering that. The main problem is lack of manpower. Every time ffmpeg is updated, we can more or less expect applications and libraries that use them to break. FWIW, the next upstream snapshot that I'm preparing for debian/experimental right now is going to drop nearly all patches. Packaging new snapshots should become pretty easy then. Thanks for the responses guys. Reinhard I'm excited to hear about the progress with dropping many patches and streamlining the process for synching from SVN. I'm also thankful for your interest in bug 263153 which I think is likely fixed in the latest gstreamer ffmpeg plugin release. I understand about person power and I will comit to helping you with testing new ffmpeg releases and related applications. I have a test library that involves many different containers and compression types and other features. I'm somewhat new to gstreamer but I've got a pretty solid understanding of digital media technologies and practices. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Backtracing, Invalidated Bugs and Quality
Thanks for all the discussion on this folks. :) Just now I had a crash in totem with apport leading me to 9 previously reported bugs that are either invalid or incomplete because the bug reporter did not do a backtrace to help fix the problem. Now I have the same issue, when it was originally reported in the first bug report all the way back in May 2007 with no concrete progress since. On top of this, people have said that its a recurring discussion that comes up every six months or so, so lets fix this eh. To recap, I've suggested that all Alpha builds could be debug by default builds. Others, such as Markus have what I frankly think is a better idea where apport tells the user the situation and downloads a debug version of the package and waits for it to occur again. Then it sends the backtrace to the right bug for analysis. Krzysztof seemed to have a promising idea similar to apparently what MS do The information about debugging symbols is only needed on server, client only sends (in simplest version) MD5 sum of library and address offset, which is transformed into the symbol by symbol serve Can we focus on a debate about what the best approach is? This in turn can lead to the details with implementation. Thanks Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
The Case For Re-Evaluating Our Release Approach To FFMPEG
Gday everyone, It was suggested to me on IRC that I should discuss this matter on this mail list. Summary : I think we need to have regular snapshots of svn ffmpeg, libavcodec and so forth released in both the current development build and as backports to production builds. User's expect to have video experiences atleast as good as Windows and Mac, and this is necessary for actually delivering that. My argument : To be honest my original approach with meeting my video needs on Ubuntu was to turf out the default apps and do my own custom compiles of mplayer, mencoder and gnome-mplayer. This continues to work well and frankly is still superior to what I can do under gstreamer and totem (such as deinterlacing and other video filters). However I felt guilty about doing this because I was not supporting the Ubuntu principle of having one standard method for doing things and I was restricting the value of my testing work I do on Ubuntu by not using default applications in all circumstances. So some time ago I bit the bullet, committed myself to using default apps and leaving mplayer for any related tests. I am thankful for Sebastien's updates to the gstreamer good and ugly plugins recently, as well as the updates Intrepid has received with Totem. However, the ffmpeg gstreamer plugin is a key plugin for most user's multimedia experiences. It provides to gstreamer: * 256 elements * 39 types Of particular note amongst these many features is that some very common video formats are used by gstreamer, such as AVC / H.264 decoding. AVC is one of the formats that is gaining much momentum with it being widely used in BluRay, HDDVD, some Digital Video Broadcasters and as an efficient backup format for personal media. As a subscriber to the ffmpeg commit mailing list I know that in the past months there has been substantial improvement to the code for AVC decoding and the resolution of many related bugs. AVC is just one decoder that ffmpeg handles out of many decoders that has had many bug fixes in the past months. Since gstreamer released a new ffmpeg plugin I have been enthusiastic to see this arrive into Ubuntu and have Intrepid enjoy the more reliable video experience this would offer our users. I'm advised though that what is needed is to upgrade ffmpeg and related libraries across the board to deliver the new gstreamer plugin. Upgrading ffmpeg across the board would also give benefits to more advanced Ubuntu users, whom for example maybe conducying video transcoding via libavcodec. They wont need to suffer known bugs with old ffmpef builds. I want to note how the FFMPEG project manages releases: * They dont do them * Their standard response in reporting bugs is to compile SVN and retest. What seems to happen in practice for FFMPEG in Ubuntu is that it rarely is updated - Intrepid's packages are currently seven months old. On an upstream project that has numerous commits daily. I feel bad for our users because I see bug reports on Launchpad that I know is never going to go anywhere because ffmpeg currently isnt kept up to date and is not backported for their build. Anyone who has a passing observation of the situation has to agree this is not ideal. I contend the risk of having old binaries in the repos and all the problems that brings with poor user experiences outweighs the risk that new code will bring new problems. My practical experience of doing my own compiles of SVN head has consistently been things are fixed and enhanced. On one occasion I had a problem where the code would not compile and on another a bad commit occurred, which effected functionality, but that was fixed in half a day and I simply recompiled. Upstream strive for the SVN build to be fully functional and in my experience thats meet on nearly all occasions. My skills are not in packaging, but I can certainly assist with testing and helping construct a freeze exception rationale for Intrepid. Please consider. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Bugs for NM 0.7
To add to this, we have some serious regressions with problems of not being able to consistently apply static IPs as well as custom MTU values: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/258743 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/256054 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=548114 I'm concerned that gnome seem to be pushing through beta 1, beta 2 and onwards without resolving these bugs. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Correct Process for Package Update Requests
Gday folks, Can I please be clarified on what the correct process is for package update requests? On 27th of June I asked the MOTU mail list what it was and advised The correct way to do this is to file a bug against the package and tag it upgrade. Since I've done this for 6+ bugs. Yesterday I filed two bugs complying with this, one of them was a MOTU package not a core dev one, and I was advised in the bug comments that there is no need to open new version update request. Also when I asked a dev who's interested in this function area (video) on IRC if he could confirm the bug he felt it was'nt useful to bug upgrade requests. I think we need general agreement on the process here. Regards, Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Backtracing, Invalidated Bugs and Quality
Evening Devs, Tonight I was doing some of my test suite and I had the tracker-preferences crash unexpectedly doing routine workflow with viewing (not changing) preferences. Apport came through and I ended up at an invalid existing bug from 2007 because the user had not submitted debugging symbols. This has happened to me before and my mind has been busy since with thinking about how this detracts from quality and what to do about it. These are real bugs, some of them are in production, that are not being fixed. I'm not convinced that the strategy of asking users to install specialised debugging packages is the right way to go. I see a very low hit rate with this working in practice. I have professional experience in managing testing projects and consulting on related fields so with Ubuntu being close to my heart I often think about how we approach testing and what might be processes that could be improved. Can I please offer some thoughts: 1. The Debug By Default Build. This would be where the entire operating system is built using debug packages. This could be at a targeted point of the lifecycle, such as during Alpha, where apport will deliver all debug symbols by default. We could still distribute a non debug build for users who must have that type of build, but it could be hidden away so that the most common type is the debug build. We engage some community evangilists who promote the importance of it so it gets readily brought into practice. 2. The Hybrid Debug Build. Similar, but for technical reasons only some packages are debug builds. 3. Extending Investment at the Canonical Test Lab. There is sound and proven arguments I could help to present that demonstrate the cost to fix defects as they progress in the lifecycle, both in terms of monetary costs as well as costs to things like image, future sales and so forth - how it increases at an escalating rate the further on it progresses in the lifecycle. A business case could be built that looks at extending whatever Canonical Test Lab exists now with the mission for capturing the higher priority backtracing bugs and replicating them in house under controlled conditions. My consulting career has been based in Australia and I only have knowledge of what the rates are for various testing roles in my country. I do though understand that some other countries have far lower rates. I'm not suggesting exploitation of cheap labour but I am suggesting that the labour costs could be reduced considerably with choosing a location for the lab at fair market prices. It might be additionally possible to setup a large scale test lab using donated hardware from partners to Canonical. A more aggressive strategy could be looked at into the future, such as having planned multiple phases. Like another team looking at building the automated test harness up to the point where most function points are tested all night, every night, in every build before it gets posted to daily ISOs. The results could be datamined by automatic processes that then engage Ubuntu developers or upstream projects automatically. 4. Extending The Ubuntu Entry Criteria. At least from my perspective (which maybe insular) the practice of the Ubuntu release methodology for eligibility of new code into existing packages is something along the lines of has Debian accepted it and does it compile. I fully understand that upstream projects lack person power with runtime testing and they need their code to be included in pre-release distro's to be tested. One thing that has gotten results for me in projects I've managed is not just focusing on runtime level tests. Static testing tools really can be useful and can be quite specific. It's possible to set arbitary benchmarks for release entry criteria as a minimum standard. You can set levels of compliance such as mandatory where certain code problems are specifically banned, and others with an allowed number of warnings and so on. I realise this would need careful implementation but I think chipping away at it piece by piece could realistically over time became an accepted part of what upstream projects do in a standard way to demonstrate their new code changes are ready for distros to look at. These are just some ideas I had. Anyway, sincerely thanks for Ubuntu and all the work that goes into it. Regards Nullack -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Backtracing, Invalidated Bugs and Quality
2008/8/21 Markus Hitter [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Am 20.08.2008 um 11:42 schrieb Null Ack: I'm not convinced that the strategy of asking users to install specialised debugging packages is the right way to go. I see a very low hit rate with this working in practice. How about getting this even more automated? Apport would have three buttons: [ Abort ] [ Submit Report only ] [ Allow getting bug fixed ] The third button would not only send the bug report, but replace (apt-get) the standard package with a symbol-equipped equivalent as well. Having a debug version of a package among standard packages hurts only neglible and most users won't even notice. Voi-la, next crash time Apport will come along with a backtrace. Markus I particularly like your suggestion here. If there are certain types of bugs that cannot be fixed without backtraces of debugging symbols we must come up with easy tools on the desktop that creates those conditions. 1. The Debug By Default Build. Good idea, but the distro won't fit on the CD any longer. Don't know if this is an issue for developers. Personally I dont care about the size, I'd just burn a DVD. @Bryce - I dont think it matters what other processes other projects use. To my way of thinking it is about process improvement and having processes that are all geared to delivering the outcomes. Outcomes that show Ubuntu to have rock solid stability, to be easy to use, to have a quality user experience and so on. @Emmet - I think it's unhealthy to treat the difficulty/time in fixing bugs to the developer as the criteria for what gets look at. A quality user experience should be the primary factor and any developer in my book who's committed to Ubuntu quality would be tenacious about chasing it. Back to Markus: 4. Extending The Ubuntu Entry Criteria. This would hobble invention of new packages immediately. As seen with the recent Empathy discussion, new packages don't go straight from the developer's alpha release into the distribution CD anyways. I'm not so sure it would hobble open source software projects. Can I please explain more fully? I am talking about packages that the Ubuntu architects have all ready allowed into the distro. In this case for example, we might be considering allowing in a new revision of gedit into the alpha repos. I'm not talking about new packages all together. Best practices on commercial projects that I've seen would involve something along the lines of: * Devs come up with the new code * It is fully code reviewed by a human and made to meet certain benchmarks * Static testing on the code occurs using static testing tools and made to meet certain benchmarks * and so on In the case of the Ubuntu with our example new version of gedit: * Has any code review been done? * Has any static testing tool looked at the code? As to the implementation, as I said it would have to be carefully implemented. Can I summarise please: Core basis for my extending the entry criteria argument: The earlier problems are fixed, the less compounding multiplier effect of time and money goes into fixing it. I'm suggesting a staggered implementation. There are many ways this could be done, one might be: 1. The Ubuntu security team start a pro active security initiative that uses a static test tool to identify problems with memory management that are security problems. The security team contact the upstream projects with saying something along the lines of were using this code analysis tool and we suggest your code has security problems. 2. Case studies and outcomes are shared on the websphere. Promotion of the benefits occur over time and open source interest rises. 3. Ubuntu makes the leading step in showing their commitment to quality by requiring that all upstream projects run the security test static test tool before it will be accepted into the repos. Tools are bit to make this pretty easy for upstream. 4. As time goes on, this becomes second nature. More people get interested in it and adds on are written that expand what the static test tool looks at and expands the rules regarding acceptance of new code from existing repo packages. Skip to Step 22: Imagine my ultimate vision where every upstream project is required and does perform extensive static testing on their code and there is pages of standards about criteria for Ubuntu entry. Imagine a teenager with a killer idea for a really cool app, and he comes along to IRC and says Oh, what the heck, why do I have to deal with this crap? And the cowboy developer is responded too by a seasoned open source dev guru who replies because it results in better code, with better quality, with better user experiences without encumbering you with doing it all yourself. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: DVD - CD BURNING
Please dont get the impression on a Gnome crusade, but what does Brasero not do that you want? My personal experience has been that dual layer, single layer DVDs as well as CDs all burn fine using good media at max speeds. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: DVD - CD BURNING
Just drop the burn speed down some in Brasero Personally I wouldnt install Qt lib based apps onto Gnome - guess Im a purist :) Its probably due to poor quality media - I use verbatim now and can burn 16x no problems using Brasero cheers -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: DVD - CD BURNING
Try flashing the drivers firmware to the latest -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Utilities wanted please
Gnome has an app called HardInfo -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Utilities wanted please
Dave its in the system menu not the application menu, cheers -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: [OT] Optus: Why does cutting a cable bring down the entire network?
Good insights there gents. This has me wondering how Australia's internet infrastructure is vulnerable to terrorist attack. Imagine the damage that could be done. Unlike countries like the US, we obviously dont have the huge conglomeration of backbone networks that would make a similar attack far more isolated. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: [OT] Optus: Why does cutting a cable bring down the entire network?
Thats an interesting question, and one which should be put full force to Optus! The internet was actually designed to withstand nuclear attack by the US military before it became public. Network design treats redundancy is a key goal. You could do some tracerts to get some insight into how your packets are being routed. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: The Power of Ubuntu
I actually wrote up a how to on the forum: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=848144 have fun 2008/7/11 Sridhar Dhanapalan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 at 10:00, Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It occurred to me how powerful Ubuntu is. Even without Gnome, I could still run my Upnp server to watch films on my xbox 360. How do you achieve this? I'd love to see my Xbox 360 being used for more than just gaming. Cheers :) -- Your toaster doesn't crash. Your television doesn't crash. Why should your computer? http://www.linux.org.au/linux -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
The Power of Ubuntu
I was reflecting this morning on my previous criticisms for areas that Ubuntu and GNU/Linux needs to be improve in order to reach its potential. I recently had an experience that crystallized the power of Ubuntu for me and I felt I should share this view with you all. Part of my ICT specialisation is in test management and release management. Naturally my contributions to Ubuntu have tended to lean into bugs and testing. I was playing around with the Intrepid Alpha 1 release. Having raised some bugs and satisfied myself I have sufficiently covered core functions I was interested in, I settled into using it daily. One of the upgrades was for Xorg and for a few days I was without X and Gnome while all the package dependencies were met in development. It occurred to me how powerful Ubuntu is. Even without Gnome, I could still run my Upnp server to watch films on my xbox 360. I could still use apt-get to keep my systems configuration items up to date with the repos binaries. I had nano for basic docos and my printer working fine. Best of all, I was able to leverage the power the system has with logging. I was easily able to determine the problems with X in the logs at \var\log unlike the vaugeries of Windows Server or Vista where at some level the actual problem gets lost inside the web of hidden layers within the system internals. And trust me, I know the Windows platform very well. There is so much exciting things happening too. I hear a rumour that ZFS native in kernel space is coming. DRI2 so that memory on video cards can be fully managed. In comparison, we have more vague references to Windows 7 and midori. I have the comfort in knowing there is no back door, no hidden little Government probe that can be put into closed code. Am I paranoid? I think not, open code, as Schneider puts it, is a cornerstone of security. I am free to put up new ideas and show how certain functions might be improved. I was interested in the gnome-mplayer, and provided some insights there, which the actual Developer responded too and is now looking at for a future release. I am part of the ecosystem and can support the betterment of it. Going back to xbox 360 media sharing, what do we find? MS implement a upnp service that is not standards compliant so that it works out of the box with Windows stuff only. To make it worse, they also have implemented it in error as the video side is dealt differently to the music side at a technical level. So all their interfacing code has worked around this, rather than doing it in a consistently correct way to start with. The future of ICT relies on open, consistent standards that avoids vendor lock in. In my house, and professionally, I have used Windows, OS X, Unix, Mainframes and so on. No system is perfect, but what is clear to me is that Linux has the momentum behind it and the right free and open approach to be the system that lasts for centuries ahead. I love you Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Advice
And do you have DHCP on or do you have to statically allocate your IPs? 2008/7/7 Karl Goetz [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 05:53 +1000, bobkay6 wrote: Abuntu, Just installed ubuntu 8.04. having trouble getting on net through through a network DI router system do I need to install a A what network router? What is DI? different driver To get on net and could you advise as to where I can download same. The device is an ADSL router? USB or ethernet? kk Bob. -- Karl Goetz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Monitor problem
Yes, but what about texture compression? And accelerated direct rendering in 2d? For example Ive noticed a good improvement with mplayer using xv instead of x11 as an output driver If you have sourcs for further reference Im generally interested, thanks 2008/7/7 Daniel Mons [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Null Ack wrote: | Martin you appear to not be familiar with 2d acceleration on Linux? | You appear not to be familiar with exactly what 2D acceleration is, how generic it is, and how little it has to do with the actual application level number crunching. 2D acceleration has been around since the days of PCI graphics with 256KB frame buffers, and yes, even in Linux (or more correctly, XFree86 and today Xorg). If you own a card made in the last 10 years with enough frame buffer space to hold your entire resolution at the correct colour depth [*], upgrading to a new card will do absolutely nothing for your application speed when dealing with programs such as F-Spot, GIMP, etc. The recommendation was to upgrade from a low-end ATi video card to something better to improve F-Spot performance. This is incorrect, and will not yield the performance benefits desired. The bottleneck is somewhere else. My guess is F-Spot is doing some heavy reading or pre-caching of images from the disk on first start, which is usually the case for such programs. A lot of this can be disabled in the application preferences. - -Dan [*] Some maths for you: Full HD is 1920x1080 at 32 bits per pixel. 1920 pixels * 1080 pixels * 4 bytes per pixel / (1024^2 bytes per megabyte) = 7.9MB It requires only 7.9 MB of framebuffer space to store a screen worth of information at HD resolution with full colour depth. Anything more is totally unused when dealing with programs like F-Spot and other image viewers. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIcS3ZeFJDv0P9Qb8RAkHsAKCm4FI8QEoLmZzMInXi/hBC6o7RyQCdH1I6 qyAnaaWSp7J2ep56OOrA/i0= =tm5o -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Linux Servers for Infrastructure
Hi Daniel, Im also interested inthis topic too. I was trying to get more of an in depth understanding from a forum post I did here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=848194 It would be great if you shared your views on that I thought there was a generic 386 only, other than the AMD64, server kernels, IA build etcetc Thanks again 2008/7/5 Daniel Mons [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Which kernel are you using? The linux-image-generic kernel supplied with Ubuntu requires a 686 equivalent processor (first appearing with the Pentium Pro CPUs). You might need to switch to the linux-image-386 for support on your processor. - -Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIby2teFJDv0P9Qb8RAgndAJ9WGwtI40C3PQmvkqXLjVdLJQ0nuwCdFPs6 nvHUC+ZyvkUqgm97d7s8ttQ= =OmQe -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Monitor problem
Many thanks for that Dan -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Monitor problem
2008/7/4 The Wassermans [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 21:38 +1000, Null Ack wrote: Are you running your monitor at its native resolution in Ubuntu? Sorry Null, I have a jargon problem. What does native resolution mean in this context? The GUI offers a selection of from 1680x1050 to 720x400. Upon installation Ubuntu defaulted to 1680x1050. That's what I'm using. Regards Dave W Dave, LCD monitors have a native resolution that works well. Unlike a CRT, when other non native resolutions are displayed on the monitor, the pixels have to be lit in a way that causes the sharpness to drop due to the way that LCD works. The first place I would explore with this is to identify the native resolution of your particular LCD and ensure you are using that before looking at other causes. Cheers -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: iinet users
Just use synaptic, click on settings, repos, download from, other, then choose iinet in the list -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: [OT]Re: Microsoft CDs
Its not lunacy at all. I do own a 360, but I consider the PC gaming experience to be superior to a console. As well, there is many use cases of having cool uses for linux gaming - such as on mobile media devices or mobile phones. There is no technical reason why Linux gaming cant occur. Linux works on many platforms and is open, so cool apps like say a linux phone running GLTron or indeed an SLI powerhouse running the latest opengl and openal FPS. You will be surprised Daniel how often I see people saying they dont run Linux because the gaming experience is poor. Perhaps if you more carefully considered your position you would not be so quick to dismiss it out of hand. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Linux Servers for Infrastructure
Im reflecting on a infrastructure project I did recently and how this might have been done using Linux servers (Ubuntu). In this example the desktops have to remain the approved XP SOE. To give an outline of the environment: * 1450 desktops running Windows XP on a SOE in three buildings separated via fibre connections * Beyond the SOE applications are packaged into MSI's and controlled via group policy * AD is used throughout The services for the servers are: * File serving over the fibre connection to the large replicated SANs (there is two) that stores all data * Authentication * Software distribution for patches and MSI packages to be installed into the desktops as allowed by group policy * DNS * Mail * NTP * Intranet and Internet web serving * Print serving * Monitoring and alert system * Single sign on * Security auditing of desktops Two eight way servers (for scalability) were depoyed in seperate physical locations and setup in a cluster for all services to allow for online maintenance of one node. The servers had no internal storage and they booted off a LUN in the SAN. Im not sure about the software distribution aspetcs and group policy? Im curious about this. What I see happening is Linux being used for app / web / DB servers but not alot in infrastructure for desktops - maybe it just the places Ive worked at. Thoughts? -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Partition Help
Simple fix for grub is: ALT+F2 gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst Edit partition number Remove unwanted boot descriptors cheers 2008/6/28 Simon Ives [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I forgot to mention that Hardy is located on the second partition. I was worried that that there may be an issue because Hardy wouldn't be physically located at the beginning of the drive. Also, would Grub recognise the changes? Thanks. Simon Message: 10 Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:44:22 +1000 From: Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Partition Help To: ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 I would think you should be able to simply delete the unwanted partition and resize the one you want but to be safe Id backup the data beforehand :) 2008/6/28 Simon Ives [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I've got a, hopefully, simple question regarding the partitions on my system. I have two equal size partitions (ext3) with the first containing Gutsy and the second Hardy. I no longer need Gutsy and would like to have just a single partition with Hardy. I don't want to remove the Hardy install that I already have. ?Can I simply use a tool such as GParted to accomplish this or is there some other process that's better/easier? Thanks. Simon. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Synaptic and Picasa
Download the deb file (be it x86 or x64) from: http://picasa.google.com/linux/download.html And double click it to install Why did you edit your sources file? I would revert that to fixup your sources -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Getting Packages Updated
My apologies for asking what seem's like a basic question but how does a user go about requesting that a package get updated? The motu wiki seems geared to becoming a motu. I went looking on the Ubuntu forums as well, no relevant posts in the search, created a post, bumped it some time later, still no replies despite numerous people reading it. Additionally, I was getting confused about how to determine where a package comes from. I since discovered if I right click in synaptic one of the tabs shows an email address for the maintainer. Of then the comeback from upstream devs is contact the maintainer for a new version. Ive been compiling some packages from source but its messy because then it wont be integrated into my system and the dependencies become a problem. I would really appreciate updates to: 1. Tripwire 2. SVN mplayer 3. SVN gnome-mplayer (revision 700 has some important fixes) 4. GIT x264 and libx264 I especially consider mplayer, gnome-player and x264 to be a special case where SVN builds do not pose any real risk to being backported into released Ubuntu revisions. Many people are resorting to compiling these by themselves to get updates but it causes dependency problems with the rest of the system. It would be really terrific if these three packages could be built say on a weekly basis and made available to the backport repository. Development on these moves ahead most days and the only problem Ive ever had is it not compiling, which is fixed in a few hours by a new release. This is compounded by these three not being core to a default Ubuntu install so new users wont be confused by the regular updates. Thanks -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
Re: Graphics Card Issue
Youll need to post xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log for needed details. Youll get a quicker fix for this if you do a bit of investigation yourself :) Just trawl through the log and see what X is doing. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Graphics Card Issue
Here ya go, use this xorg.conf it should get your up and happening on the NV driver. Then uninstall envy to clean it all out xorg.conf.nullack Description: Binary data -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Graphics Card Issue
Are you sure you used the xorg conf I provided? It wont load the nv driver? Whats x say in the logs? -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Ubuntu x64 Build Options
Hi everyone :) I was reading on a blog about some drastic performance gains a bloke got from recompiling various bits of his video software with GCC compiler options optimised for his CPU. The results were good. This got me curious: 1. What compiler options are used for compiling official Ubuntu x64 packages? 2. Is it possible to query a compiled program to identify the compile options used? I know that video algorithms in particular are sped up by sse4 and so on. Many thanks -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
Ok so an update on this. Thanks alot for the help with this :) So I took the advice and disabled ACPI in the BIOS. Wouldnt boot, but then my research showed adding acpi=off into the grub boot line made it get into init. The init is messy, with messages like fatal error cant find battery (battery.ko) twice, and I no longer get times in my var kernel log outputs. It may very well be issues I can ignore but it just doesnt feel right. So I joined the acpi kernel list and reported the issue. I just hope Andrew Morton is wrong and I get a patch fixing this bug :) Ive since learnt that Intel has a direct bug line for ACPI issues and VIA doesnt. VIA is apparently known for ACPI dramas. It is somewhat comforting to be able to deflect my emotions away from Linux and onto that evil company called Via!! I hope this is resolved because then atleast if a fix comes Ive done something little that will prevent others with the same hardware having problems into the future. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
Thanks again Daniel, very much appreciated. Ive been through my CMOS settings but unfortunately no joy. So I have been doing more research and I think Im narrowing it down now. In summary I think: After a period of no network use, ACPI thinks IRQ 23 isnt needed ACPI turns off IRQ 23 eth0 times out and wont come back without reboot ifdown/ifup wont fix it Im yet to test manually unloading and reloading the module for my Via rhine II nic to see if that brings it back without reboot. Just waiting for the timeout. Jun 21 03:04:07 ppp kernel: [ 57.447218] eth0: no IPv6 routers present Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747505] irq 23: nobody cared (try booting with the irqpoll option) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747514] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Tainted: P2.6.24-19-generic #1 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747516] Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747517] Call Trace: Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747519] IRQ [__report_bad_irq+0x1e/0x80] __report_bad_irq+0x1e/0x80 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747550] [note_interrupt+0x2ad/0x2e0] note_interrupt+0x2ad/0x2e0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747562] [handle_fasteoi_irq+0xa1/0x110] handle_fasteoi_irq+0xa1/0x110 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747571] [do_IRQ+0x7b/0x100] do_IRQ+0x7b/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747577] [ret_from_intr+0x0/0x0a] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747583] [pci_conf1_read+0x0/0x100] pci_conf1_read+0x0/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747596] [__do_softirq+0x60/0xe0] __do_softirq+0x60/0xe0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747609] [call_softirq+0x1c/0x30] call_softirq+0x1c/0x30 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747614] [do_softirq+0x35/0x90] do_softirq+0x35/0x90 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747618] [irq_exit+0x88/0x90] irq_exit+0x88/0x90 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747621] [do_IRQ+0x80/0x100] do_IRQ+0x80/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747624] [default_idle+0x0/0x40] default_idle+0x0/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747628] [default_idle+0x0/0x40] default_idle+0x0/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747630] [ret_from_intr+0x0/0x0a] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747633] EOI [lapic_next_event+0x0/0x10] lapic_next_event+0x0/0x10 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747648] [default_idle+0x29/0x40] default_idle+0x29/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747654] [cpu_idle+0x6f/0xc0] cpu_idle+0x6f/0xc0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747662] [start_kernel+0x2c5/0x350] start_kernel+0x2c5/0x350 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747670] [x86_64_start_kernel+0x12e/0x140] _sinittext+0x12e/0x140 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747678] Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747679] handlers: Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747680] [usbcore:usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore]) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747702] [via_rhine:rhine_interrupt+0x0/0x7f0] (rhine_interrupt+0x0/0x7f0 [via_rhine]) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747710] Disabling IRQ #23 Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104588] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104738] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.105384] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.203455] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.203606] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 1003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.204254] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.303308] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.303457] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 1003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.304106] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402170] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402319] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402968] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.189787] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.189937] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.190589] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492097] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492247] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492892] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel: [14584.590959] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel: [14584.591109] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel:
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
Daniel with respect, I did not mean to present that the solution to improving the quality of GNU/Linux is for centralised control. However, people are in control of aspects of Linux - such as release decisions about key sub systems, or release decisions as it relates to Distros. These decision makers have the power to conform, or not to conform as some unfortunately choose, to decades old principles to do with what consitutes an alpha, beta or production release. Clearly, there are allot of problems when parties who are in control declare a release as stable when its not. With the kernel, I gave the example where Andrew Morton shared with us that he often see's regression bugs go without fixes, he see's developers ignore bug reports. There is other examples too in other key sub systems of just about any Linux distro. Take for example, all the problems with X releases and how most recently a new release of X was made with a blocker bug and other serious bugs. If more focus and discipline was put into what constitutes a production release I think that would be a very good direction to take. Who cares if there is more release candidates for kernels or more betas for X, if its not ready its not ready. Some bugs can be tricky for a developer to replicate and resolve. Its human nature not to see the severity the same way with an issue if it's not happening on your machine. I dont see proper release management stifling any freedoms in FOSS projects. It just means having a proper quality standard before bits are declared stable and ready for production. I greatly enjoy Ubuntu, over all other distro's Ive tried (Arch, OpenSuse, Fedora) but I am certainly not the only person Ive seen sharing their views that arbitary time based releases arent condusive to good software. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
Slawek having been on the tender process for numerous Government contracts (both inside in the Government and outside in vendors) the key pros / cons for Linux I see are: 1. Pro - reduced TCO 2. Pro - easy sell for servers 3. Con - hard sell for desktops. I did not see anything particularly solid in preventing this - its more a lack of understanding. Im sure some areas really could not do without Office but most that make this claim are in my experience wrong about OpenOffice capabilities. Some sites have custom .net apps running so it would be critical that Mono or some equiviliant really worked. Actually I dont really understand all the whining about Mono as I understand that is is now an open standard and not a MS standard? Theres probably going to be the occasional legacy app written on the win32 application platform that doesnt play nice with Linux. What we did on one project where all the infrastructure was replaced was to have a few citrix sessions running legacy apps - for some reason they didnt want virtualisation for desktop apps. In my experience even getting OpenOffice into departments was difficult. The one place that was done was on a Java developer build where the users were all developers working on Java projects. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
Gday everyone :) So Im having alot of problems with loosing eth0 connectivity after a period of time. I'm trying to be an advocate for Ubuntu, but it's hard when a major bug makes the experience painful. I'm desperate to fix this problem. I have various things up on the lanuchpad bug report at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi/+bug/111282 Many thanks for any help. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
