NVidia has released another Linux driver, but this time, the amount of new features are none. The new driver only fixed one bug affecting some G-Sync configurations which could cause active stereo content to be inverted on some display devices. The purpose of this driver is to add support for their new GPU products, particularly

• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce 605
• GeForce GT 610
• GeForce GT 630
• GeForce GT 640
• GeForce GT 645 

You can download them now for 32 and 64 bit machines.

One of the Indonesian Slackware Community asked for driver for his Canon printer, Canon Pixma MP 287. He found a source for the driver, but unfortunately there's no SlackBuild for it, so i tried to create a SlackBuild script for it using the idea of how ArchLinux created their PKGBUILD. Luckily, the conversion works and now it has been uploaded to my SlackHacks repository.

This driver supports a variety of Canon Pixma series, particularly:

• mp250 
• mp280
• mp495
• mg5100
• ip4800
• mg5200
• mg6100
• mg8100

Please note that you need to specify the model when you are building it. For example, to build a driver for mp250, you would execute the SlackBuild like this:

MODEL=mp250 ./cnijfilter.SlackBuild
 
Let me know if you use this driver and it works (or it doesn't work) so i can improve it in the future.

CUPS 1.5.3 has been released to public and for those who have been having problem with CUPS available on Slackware-Current (1.4.8), you might want to try out the newest CUPS version. According to the announcement, this version provides an improved USB backend based on libusb 1.0 and fixes a number of PostScript, SSL, authenticated printing, and networking issues.

I have updated my CUPS SlackBuild script to 1.5.3 on my SlackHacks and i also added a new SlackBuild for libusb. It's an updated version from the one available on Slackware-Current, and i hope this will bring improvements for USB-based devices, including printers and scanners. So that's why i added the latest version on my SlackHacks. If you want to test this CUPS SlackBuild, i would recommend you to upgrade/install/build libusb first.

There's a good news from VMWare for their users. Andrew Stiegmann, representing VMWare has announced a RFC for inclusion of two VMWare modules into the Linux Kernel,Virtual Machine Communication Interface (vmw_vmci) and VMCI Sockets (vmw_vsock) kernel modules. This announcement was sent to Linux Kernel Mailing List and it consists of 11 patches in total.


When these two modules gets included in the Linux Kernel, that means less patches will have to be developed by third party whenever new major kernel released by Linus as it has been included in the kernel itself and it will stays compatible with the VMWare products. Don't expect this to come in Linux Kernel 3.4, because the best chance for this module to get accepted is Linux Kernel 3.5 merge window and that if he didn't miss it and Linus is willing to accept it.


Oh, i love this great news. Whenever there's a new Linux Kernel release by Linus, there are two things that i have to watch out, NVidia driver and VMWare. When this modules gets included, my problems will be lessen and it will be an enjoyful Linux Kernel upgrade process.

I just wanted to give you some updates about my SlackHacks repository. First, i would like to remind you that SlackHacks will only host updated version of SlackBuild from official Slackware or SlackBuilds project that are tested for Slackware-Current. This means that SlackBuilds that are hosted in SlackHacks are not permanent.

If one of the upstream (Slackware/SlackBuilds) has updated their SlackBuild scripts collection which has the same version with the one on my SlackHacks, i will delete my SlackBuild. This will make less confusion and people will have to find them on upstream sources. I can make an exception for this, and that's when a new patch is needed to work on Slackware-Current and it's not available on Slackware/SlackBuilds repository.

Secondly, i would like to announce some removal that has happened on my SlackHacks due to updates on SlackBuilds. One of the package that got removed was OpenCV which has been updated on SBo to the latest version. Since the SlackBuild works for -Stable and -Current, i removed my updated SlackBuild on my SlackHacks.

Do you have any idea about packages that it's SlackBuilds are not yet available on Slackware or SlackBuilds project ? Let me know and if possible, i can add them on my SlackHacks repository.

Mungkin sudah terlambat dan menjadi basi.. Tapi situs yang sempat tidak aktif beberapa waktu itu kini sudah kembali menunjukkan eksistensinya.

Sempat membaca konfirmasi Pat V entah dimana saya lupa, ternyata masalah ada pada server yang melayani itu sendiri yang harus dikebumikan.

Itulah sebabnya layanan pemutakhiran, ftp, dan toko masih berjalan karena ditempatkan dilain mesin.

PowerTop 2.0 has been released by Intel Open Source Technology Center and this new version brings a major overhaul of the code base, and adds exciting new features.

According to the press release, there are three highlights on this release:

• Greatly enhanced diagnostic capabilities using the Linux kernel perf framework
• The first big change is the use of a hardened library called libparseevents, for accessing the kernel "perf" infrastructure. With this enhancement, they are able to provide much more accurate data, and be more flexible with any future kernel development. There has been a great deal of work done in the area of CPU data measurement and diagnostics. Full accurate support was added for CPU idle, frequency, and power traces, along with expanded frequency state reporting for CPUs with more than 10 states
• New tab-based UI which displays more detailed information in real time
• Overview Tab: details the summary information about total CPU and wakeups per second for the System, GPU, and VFS ops. Within the summary view, you also see the consumer status for interrupts, devices, timers, processes, and more.
• Idle stats tab: details the summary information on the various processor cores, and the status of the processor package.
• Frequency stats tab: details the summary information about the clock speeds, and the percentage used in said clocks, for each processor core and package. 
• Device stats tab: details the summary device activity overview, network device transmission rates, and GPU ops rates.
• Tunables tab: summarizes our best known diagnostic recommendations and options to apply. This tab is also interactive with the ability of allowing you to toggle the options while in interactive mode. So in real time, you can see what affect PowerTOP’s recommendations will have on power.
• Advanced reporting capabilities for offline analysis including HTML5 and CSV formats.
• HTML: The HTML report contains all the information seen in the real time UI, but in a single static report. Additionally, we are happy to say that PowerTOP’s HTML reports are also in an HTML5 application format, giving any user with an HTML5-supported browser a clean, organized tab-based report. As nice as this is for reviewing data, there is also the ALL tab in the HTML5 application that presents all the data in one long format for the total picture. This is also the standard format for HTML reports generated for non-HTML5 browsers. To close the gap in your wants and needs, PowerTOP v2.0 now reports the tunable recommendations. Although PowerTOP is not a permanent tuning tool, PowerTOP indeed has the ability to test the tunable effects of its suggestions. As such, it was only reasonable that we include these tunables in the report.

• CSV: The CSV report is a single, static, comma-separated, value-delimited report, giving you ultimate control for data manipulation for your specific needs, such as trending and analytical analysis.

This release also includes some enhancement from previous releases:

• Increased WLAN support—PowerTOP now supports multiple WLAN interfaces
• Enhanced i915 driver support
• More robust battery data acquisition
• Real time measurement support for USB hot-plug

Please note that the Project's Homepage is now located at https://01.org/powertop

For those who are interested to try building this package, please visit my SlackHacks repository where i have uploaded a SlackBuild script for this package. You can download the source for PowerTOP 2.0 from the official website.

Pat has released an updated version of PHP-5.3.13 which brings the complete fix for CVE-2012-2311 which was only delivered partially in previous release, thus Pat waited for the permanent solution just few days after the previous release was announced.

Even though PHP-5.3 is still marked as stable, i personally would like to have next Slackware to have PHP-5.4 because it will have longer support and this version has more strict rules than before because it removes some legacy features such as magic quotes, Safe mode, register globals. In overall, this improves PHP security, but it will requires developers to adjust their scripts properly to be compatible with PHP-5.4. There's always a trade-offs between security and comfort.

He also rebuilt wicd to provide upstream patch to fix a bug that disallows users accepting a passphrase for a new password protected access point.

I recently found out that DistroWatch has been running a monthly donation program since 2004 (that's 8 years ago). They put an advertising page in which users/readers/contributors can donate to them using PayPal or Credit Cards or buy an advertisement space and then DistroWatch will pick one of the projects every month and use the money they received to give donations to.

Well, in the last donation program, Slackware Linux gets selected and received USD 500 in cash. So far, it's the highest paid donation ever made by Distrowatch along with Gentoo Linux, Blender, and MythDora.

Again, congratulations to Slackware Linux and also to Patrick Volkerding himself as the BDFL at Slackware

Pidgin 2.10.4 is now released to fix security vulnerabilities (CVE-2012-2214). It's the only package that has security fix tag on the ChangeLog.

For those who have been using the old xf86-input-{keyboard,mouse} and get lost when previous XOrg stack updates went in, you have good news awaiting for you. As promised, Robby (and Pat) did release an upgrade to both package and now it should fix the ABI version differences and make your hardware works again.

libvncserver, binutils, and oprofile are also upgraded to the latest version.

Konsekuensi menggunakan Slackware Current adalah paket bleeding edge dan belum tentu stabil. Seperti yang terjadi hari ini, setelah menjalankan slackpkg upgrade-all, (kalau tidak salah ingat beberapa paket berkaitan dengan X) keyboard dan mouse tidak berfungsi sama sekali. Saya tentunya punya waktu cari solusinya, tapi kalau butuh solusi cepat karena komputer mau dipakai buat kerja?

Balik ke topik. Slackware bisa didowngrade bila kita punya repository lokal lengkap sebelumnya. Saya selalu pakai skrip dari Eric ketimbang langsung pakai slackpkg (yah, hari ini lupa, langsung slackpkg) dengan tujuan repositori tersebut bisa saya gunakan untuk PC di rumah yang notabene tidak punya akses internet. Beruntunglah karena siklus ini. Tinggal arahkan mirror slackpkg ke repository lokal. Slackpkg akan memberitahu bahwa repositori yang akan digunakan sekarang lebih lawas dari pada yang sebelumnya, tekan Y karena kita memang menggunakan repository yang lebih lawas.

Memang tidak ada perintah slackpkg downgrade-all, tapi slackpkg upgrade-all tetap akan men-downgrade paket yang versinya berbeda. Dan slackware current pun balik ke masa lalu.

Filed under: linux-opensource, slackware Tagged: downgrade, linux, planet-slackware, slackware, slackware-current

I just realized that i forgot to make a new poll after they were stopped on April and i promised to set a new one on May. So sorry. I really forgot about this. I was busy with my SlackHacks and also due to Slackware-Current recent updates, my focus was on upgrading my machines to the latest version.

So, here's a new poll that will be running for the next two months and the topic is about Slackware's Website. We all know that the official web site of Slackware Linux has been up and down lately and people have been scared that it might be a sign of Slackware is dying (which is not relevant at all IMHO). Well, i wanted to find out what is the meaning of Slackware's Website for you guys?

I possibly can't give any possible answers, so if your answers is not listed on the options list, you may pick others and give your answers in the comment area. I can't add it once someone voted for the poll, but i will try to count every answers you have written when the poll finished on July.

Happy Voting !!

As promised, i am upgrading my VMWare Workstation to the latest version, 8.0.3 and see if it works with Linux Kernel 3.3.x (i used 3.3.4).

First off, i removed all previous VMWare configurations and libraries by using this two commands (note that there are no space between vmware and *):

rm -rf /etc/vmware*
rm -rf /usr/lib/vmware*

Next, i start the VMWare installer using this command:

./VMware-Workstation-Full-8.0.3-703057.i386.bundle --ignore-errors

Installation works as intended and then, i used this patch (my previous patch mentioned on this blog post). Don't forget to replace this line in patch-modules_3.2.0.sh before continuing to reflect the version you used:

vmreqver=8.0.2

into

vmreqver=8.0.3

and finally, ran :

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

voila..... everything works again.

Here's the screenshot of the latest VMWare Workstation running on Linux Kernel 3.3.4

I have added a new version of mysql-workbench (5.2.39) on my SlackHacks along with it's build order and dependency list. It appears that there's one new package that is not available on SBo yet, which is ctemplate. I have created a SlackBuild script for that package and now it also resides on my SlackHacks repository.

I have tried to track every dependencies required for this package, but since some of them may already be installed on my machine, i may not notice it. Let me know if there's some missing requirements that are not listed below:
- lua (available on Slackware)
- wxGTK-2.8.12/wxPython-2.8.12 (available on SBo)
- sqlite3 (available on Slackware)
- ORBit2 (available on Slackware)
- GConf (available on Slackware)
- libsigc++-2.2.10
- glibmm-2.32.0
- cairomm-1.10.0
- pangomm-2.28.4
- gtkmm-2.24.2
- ctemplate-2.2
- paramiko-1.7.7.1 (available on SBo)
  - pycrypto-2.5
- pexpect-2.3

Update: (May 12): Yesterday, Walesa informed me that MySQL Workbench requires SSH Tunnel Manager and it's not working on the package created by my SlackBuild script. I debugged it and found the problem. It seems that it requires paramiko (which depends on pycrypto), so i updated the README to add additional dependency. Since paramiko in SBo is already at the latest version, i don't have to add them into my SlackHacks, so i just added updated version of pycrypto-2.5 (pycrypto in SBo is still at 2.3).

One more thing. I added some note about changing how MySQL accept incoming connection. Since by default Slackware configuration, MySQL was  set up to deny accepting incoming connection from outside, you will have problem using MySQL Workbench since it uses SSH tunnel manager which creates a connection into your own machine but treated like an incoming connection. In order to fix this, you must allow MySQL to accept incoming connection by editing /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld and comment this line
SKIP="--skip-networking"
and then restart your MySQL Daemon by issuing:
/etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld stop
/etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld start


Here's a screenshot of the new MySQL Workbench:

Untuk meningkatkan keamanan data di suatu perusahaan memang di butuhkan IT policy yang ketat. Diantaranya dengan membuat aturan dalam mengakses jaringan internal suatu perusahaan. Contoh kasus disini adalah penggunaan software teamviewer untuk remote desktop dimana IT personel saja yang boleh menggunakan software untuk aktifitas mereka sehari-hari. Bagaimana jika ada karyawan yang diam-diam juga

Dari sekian banyak remote desktop yang pernah saya coba, hanya ada 2 aplikasi yang menurut saya paling responsif  dan memiliki fitur keamanan yang cukup baik. Diantara nya adalah  NX Client and Server dari http://www.nomachine.com tapi di sayangkan untuk free version ada limitasi untuk user yang melakukan koneksi. Pilihan ke dua adalah x11vnc yang mana selain installasi dan konfigurasinya

As promised, even though there has been lack of updates in public changelog, that doesn't stop Slackware team to work on updates in the private area. Robby Workman has been doing an extensive work in XOrg area and here are what we got in this changelog: a massive XOrg updates. Slackware-Current now uses a combination of XOrg-1.12, Mesa-8.0.2, xf86-video-intel-2.19.0. This brings the XOrg stack to the latest version available.

There are several packages that gets upgraded besides XOrg, namely tree, llvm, OpenSSH, bluedevil, libwnck, fribidi, and network-scripts.

Update (May 6): I see many people forgot to read the changelog and they just ran slackpkg update; slackpkg upgrade-all without running slackpkg-install-new and slackpkg clean-system to install new packages, such as llvm, freeglut, libXcm, libXaw3d (replacing xaw3d), mtdev, xcb-util-image, xcb-util-keysyms, xcb-util-renderutil, xcb-util-wm, and xf86-video-modesetting and remove removed packages such as scripts, xaw3d, xf86-video-radeonhd, xf86-video-sisusb, xf86-video-tseng, and xf86-video-xgi. As a result, they are left with no keyboard and mouse working when they entered desktop.

Please read the ChangeLog before upgrading packages in -Current. Make that a procedure :)

NVidia has released an update for Linux Driver (295.49). This brings new support for GeForce GTX 690 and also fixed performance regression found on previous release (295.40) which i posted on this SlackBlogs as well : Do Not Use NVidia Driver 295.40. This driver also fixed a problem where starting, stopping, and moving OpenGL application windows was very slow on Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600, GeForce 8800 GTX, GeForce 8800 GTS, and GeForce 8800 Ultra.

I have confirmed that this driver works as intended. I can freely use my desktop as it used to be, so it's recommended to upgrade to this version if you are using a modern NVidia GPU.

VMWare has released updates to VMWare products, including Workstation, Player, Fusion, ESXi and ESX products.They were updated due to a security advisory to fix CVE-2012-2449 and another bug fixes to fix CVE-2012-2450 according to the release notes.

I will try to download and install this package and let's see if the patch is still working on Linux Kernel 3.3.4 or not. I have seen that Stefano Angeleri has managed to post a patch for Linux Kernel 3.4, but since it's not yet released, i doubt many people will use that patch. If you are curious, you can go to his blog.