25 Jan 2013
The Linux Plumbers Conf wiki seems to have made the discussion notes for the 2012 conf read-only as well as visible only to people who have logged in. I suspect this is due to the spam problem, but I'll put those notes here so that they're available without needing a...
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11 Jan 2013
Several applications need random numbers for correct and secure operation. When ssh-server gets installed on a system, public and private key paris are generated. Random numbers are needed for this operation. Same with creating a GPG key pair. Initial TCP sequence numbers are randomized. Process PIDs are randomized. Without such...
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09 Jan 2013
I've been using the Fedora 18 pre-release for a couple of months now, and am generally happy with how it works. I filed quite a few bugs, some got resolved, some not. Here's a list of things that don't work as they used to in the past, with workarounds so...
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07 Dec 2012
Most of the spam I receive gets caught by spam filters, and pushed into the separate spam folder. I check the folder once in a while for false positives. A recent message in my spam folder, with the subject 'Mystery shopper needed' caught my attention: Mystery Shopper needed +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ We...
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20 Nov 2012
If you have enabled git information in the shell prompt (like branch name, working tree status, etc.) [1], an upgrade to F18 breaks this functionality. What's worse, __git_ps1 (a shell function) isn't found, and a yum plugin goes looking for a matching package name to install, making running any command...
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18 Nov 2012
[caption id="attachment_499" align="aligncenter" width="132"] Avi Kivity giving his keynote speech[/caption] Avi Kivity announced he is stepping down as (co-)maintainer of the KVM Project at the recently-concluded KVM Forum 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Avi wrote the initial implementation of the KVM code back at Qumranet, and has been maintaining the KVM-related...
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28 Oct 2012
I've tried several RSS feed readers, offline as well as online: aKregator, Liferea, rss2email being the ones tried for a long time. One drawback with these offline tools is they may miss feeds when I'm offline for prolonged periods (travel, vacations, etc.). Also, they're tied to one device; can't switch...
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14 Sep 2012
The 2012 edition of the Linux Plumbers Conference concluded recently. I was there, running the virtualization microconference. The format of LPC sessions is to have discussions around current as well as future projects. The key words are 'discussion' (not talks — slides are optional!) and 'current' and 'future' projects — not...
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27 Jun 2012
The GNOME default of 'hibernate' or suspend-to-disk on very low battery power isn't optimal for many laptops -- hibernate is known to be broken on several hardware setups, it frequently results in file system corruption, and just causes pain. That, combined with the weird behaviour of the GNOME power manager...
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04 Jun 2012
Updating a Fedora 16 guest to a Fedora 17 guest via preupgrade gave me the 'Oh no, something has gone wrong!' screen at the GDM login screen. It's quite frustrating to see that screen because you can't switch to a virtual terminal for troubleshooting, or even reboot or shutdown. To...
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