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Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

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Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#281

Post by redacted »

jebblue wrote: post #248
w1ntermute wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nexus 7 and other MTP device users: plug your device in and enjoy full read write support by default :) Is browsing/copying laggy or slow at all, like on Windows 7?

What is this MTP crap? With my Nexus One I could plug into any Windows or Linux machine and transfer files. With my new Nexus 4, uhm nope. Not without hassle. It sounds like MTP doesn't work all that well and you have to upgrade to the new Ubuntu get it. I would bet that the next Google series of phones won't allow any such mounting. Maybe not even any local storage on the phones. Everything on their servers, their "…

The Nexus One had removable storage. You connected it, Android unmounted the SD card, and the desktop mounted it - boom no worries.

The Nexus 4 cannot unmount its internal storage, so something like MTP is required.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#282

Post by dkuntz2 »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #213
dkuntz2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true with Ubuntu. With most other distros, yeah, you don't need to change everything else to change a DE, but because unity integrates with everything , which means that Gnome and Cinnamon don't work well with ye-standarde Ubuntu.

The only distribution of Linux I've used is 12.10 (and now 13.04). I use the Cinnamon desktop, and it seems great, I've had no problems with it. So now I'm wondering, could you explain a little bit what I'm missing out on?

Every time I've installed Cinnamon on Ubuntu (the main one, not a different flavor) there have been integration problems because Ubuntu has a bunch of patches on regular GTK stuff and hooks into it.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#283

Post by takluyver »

jarek wrote: post #230
takluyver wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to know how either works to recognise something is wrong with them. My mother, happily, is quite cautious and would go and find someone who understands the machine better. In the computer case, I'd likely be getting a phone call. The certificate errors are kind of a design failure. Users are so used to clicking through messages they don't really understand, and this is just one more. Even the most alar…

> Even the most alarming certificate errors are usually innocuous, in my experience - someone forgets to renew a certificate, or fails to get a new one for a domain change. That doesn't mean it's OK to ignore them, but we really need systems that don't cry wolf unless there's a really good chance that there's a wolf. How do you propose to algorithmically determine if a certificate not matching a domain change is inno…

For starters, there are a whole load of conditions that are no less secure than a standard http connection, such as self-signed certificates. But in those cases, the browser throws up a huge and misleading warning about it being insecure. Insecure is the default on the web: we should focus on positive signs that a site is secure.

Secondly, the system should make it harder for the administrator to make mistakes. For instance, the web server could refuse to serve https on a domain that it didn't have a certificate for. Or when a certificate nears its expiry date, the administrator should be getting plenty of reminders about it.

Thinking bigger, what if we tied it closer to the sensitive UI? What if only pages loaded securely could show a password field? What if rather than typing credit card numbers into boxes on a webpage, we were used to using a special browser interface that would only light up on secure pages?

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#284

Post by takluyver »

jebblue wrote: post #246
Ologn wrote: post #226

I have been using it for about an hour on my x64 desktop. I was using Ubuntu 12.04 beforehand. The 12.04 is still on one of my disk partitions. Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Haven't notic…

>> Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Thanks for the tips, when we move to 14.04 LTS we will need to know them. >> There were no workspaces until I turned them on in settings, they seem down o…

The workspace switcher is still available, and I don't think there are any plans to remove it. It's just disabled by default. I guess it's a mixture of saving space in the launcher and avoiding the potential confusion when new users hit the wrong button and suddenly see their windows vanish.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#285

Post by jebblue »

redacted wrote: post #281
jebblue wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this MTP crap? With my Nexus One I could plug into any Windows or Linux machine and transfer files. With my new Nexus 4, uhm nope. Not without hassle. It sounds like MTP doesn't work all that well and you have to upgrade to the new Ubuntu get it. I would bet that the next Google series of phones won't allow any such mounting. Maybe not even any local storage on the phones. Everything on their servers, their "…

The Nexus One had removable storage. You connected it, Android unmounted the SD card, and the desktop mounted it - boom no worries. The Nexus 4 cannot unmount its internal storage, so something like MTP is required.

That makes sense, still I think the removable sdcard was the way to go, I had more storage at 32 Gigs with my own sdcard before, now with Nexus 4 I can't mount it and it's limited to 1/3 the capacity.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#286

Post by iso8859-1 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #182
iso8859-1 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you press Control-Alt-KeyLeft with less than both hands?

On a standard 104-key Windows-style keyboard (or the 101-key standard precursor, or anything with a generally similar layout), I'd use the right-side Ctrl, right-side Alt, and the Left arrow in the arrow key array (not the numeric pad). Should be pretty easy to one-hand even with fairly small hands.

For e.g. VT switching, the right-side modifier keys won't work.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#287

Post by rumbler »

kunai wrote: post #209
leephillips wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop that does the best job of staying out of your way is no desktop. I've been using Ubuntu for years without a desktop, just the dwm window manager. Now and then I ask people, because I know the desktops are evolving, what they might have to offer me, but I never get a coherent response.

dwm is great, but I like twm slightly better due to its more conventional window management. It's also extremely satisfying in a mischievous sort of way whenever I walk into some public place and pull out my T410 with that setup. I can't count the number of stares I get. One guy even asked me why I used a laptop from the 1990s.

Heh. You should see the looks I get with my Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 (running Arch Linux and i3wm). People must think I'm entering nuclear launch codes every time I use vim in public on the thing...

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#288

Post by gizmo686 »

csense wrote: post #255
jarek wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the most alarming certificate errors are usually innocuous, in my experience - someone forgets to renew a certificate, or fails to get a new one for a domain change. That doesn't mean it's OK to ignore them, but we really need systems that don't cry wolf unless there's a really good chance that there's a wolf. How do you propose to algorithmically determine if a certificate not matching a domain change is inno…

Malicious intent can be algorithmically determined by checking for packets with the "evil" bit set to 1, as specified in RFC 3514 [1]. [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt

That is a horrible specification.

"Multi-level insecure operating systems may have special levels for attack programs; the evil bit MUST be set by default on packets emanating from programs running at such levels. However, the system MAY provide an API to allow it to be cleared for non-malicious activity by users who normally engage in attack behavior."

This should say that the system MUST provide such an api. Otherwise, a you can find a situation where the reciever may have to allow evil packets to pass, because they are sent by a user who has no option of setting the evil bit to 0 for non-malicious activity. Kind of defeats the point.

"Fragments that by themselves are dangerous MUST have the evil bit set. If a packet with the evil bit set is fragmented by an intermediate router and the fragments themselves are not dangerous, the evil bit MUST be cleared in the fragments, and MUST be turned back on in the reassembled packet."

This places an undue burden on intermediate routers, as they now have to parse the packets and determine if a fragment is evil.

"Intermediate systems are sometimes used to launder attack connections. Packets to such systems that are intended to be relayed to a target SHOULD have the evil bit set." These packets are not 'evil' in any technical sense. They are only a request for another computer to send evil packets.

"In networks protected by firewalls, it is axiomatic that all attackers are on the outside of the firewall. Therefore, hosts inside the firewall MUST NOT set the evil bit on any packets."

This is just stupid. If I am attempting to send malicious packets from within the firewall, I am already required to set the evil bit. Now I am also required not to. If I am sending a non malicious packet, I am already required to set the evil bit to 0.

Also, If I am on a computer behind a firewall, and attempt to send malicious packets to a computer outside of my firewall, I am still forbidden by this to set the evil bit. This will force attackers to either, break the spec, or give up their own firewall.

"Because NAT [RFC3022] boxes modify packets, they SHOULD set the evil bit on such packets. "Transparent" http and email proxies SHOULD set the evil bit on their reply packets to the innocent client host." I must be mis-understanding this one, becuase non of those uses seems evil.

"Devices such as firewalls MUST drop all inbound packets that have the evil bit set. Packets with the evil bit off MUST NOT be dropped. Dropped packets SHOULD be noted in the appropriate MIB variable." Dropping packets is a technichal inevitability, and a crucial part of TCP's anti-congestion stragety.

Just becuase the evil bit sounds like a good idea, does not mean we should go ahead and implement it without carfully looking at the technical implecations of the spec.

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#289

Post by Stratoscope »

claudius wrote: post #273
Stratoscope wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a taste of those elitist attitudes a few years ago when I was looking up how to add a user on an Ubuntu server and the top result for a search on "ubuntu add user" was this page: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-s... Ubuntu has two commands for this, useradd and adduser, where adduser is the easier one for newbies, while useradd is more flexible but has a lot of ways you can get it wro…

Of course, you tacitly skipped over the other helpful comments and instead chose to concentrate on the worst comment in that thread. However, that doesn’t render the message delivered there wrong in any way – read the whole article/how-to before starting, just as you read the whole recipe before starting to cook. So, yeah, you a) didn’t read the manuals supplied with your distribution b) instead went directly to a ra…

Thanks (belatedly) for your comments.

The thing is, of course I know I screwed up. I don't need you or anyone else to tell me that. I already know it.

But that has nothing to do with my complaint: the top match for a Google search for "ubuntu add user" is a site that gives out poor quality information, doesn't improve that information as a result of user feedback, and has a community that is positively hostile to feedback. Yes, as you point out, there were also helpful comments in that thread. There were also several other people who had the same problem I did, and the site never did anything to improve its content.

Isn't it obvious that this was a lousy tutorial? Doesn't the author of a site like this have any responsibility to put out useful information? Does the fact that I screwed up make my feedback any less valuable? If you're writing tutorials, that's exactly the kind of feedback you ought to be looking for, so you can improve your tutorials.

Contrast it with Arch Linux's page on user management:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Users_and_Groups#User_m...

> To add a new user, use the useradd command:

> # useradd -m -g [initial_group] -G [additional_groups] -s [login_shell] [username]

Here they do use the same useradd command that I was complaining about (probably because Arch doesn't include adduser by default?), but they give a complete example with all the options required, followed by an explanation of those options.

Now that's how you do it.

BTW, I was almost tempted to take offense when you said that I "should have gotten a computer-literate friend to help". Yeah, I guess I'm not very computer-literate. After all, I've only programmed in Algol-60, APL, assembler (Sigma 7, PDP-10, 6502, TI 9900, 8080, x86), AWK, Basic, Bliss, C, C++, COBOL, CoffeeScript, Forth, Fortran, Go, Java, JavaScript, Jovial, Lisp, Lua, Pascal, Perl, PL/I, PL/M, Python, Ruby, SIMPL, SQL, Trac, and a few other languages you wouldn't have heard of.

But we're all newbies at something, some of the time. In my case it was basic Linux user setup.

Maybe you even screwed something up once, as a result of somebody giving you bad information that you didn't thoroughly check out. (Not saying you did, just possible.) If that ever happened, which would be a better response from the source of that information: chewing you out thoroughly, or correcting the bad information?

Re: Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

#290

Post by NotOscarWilde »

pekk wrote: post #235
kunai wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many of my programers are too busy being productive to be interested in dicking around with making things work anymore, and increasingly I hold this view This. I switched to OS X from Ubuntu about a few months ago simply because of this reason. I was too tired of tinkering and configuring endless .conf files, adjusting my GNOME/Xfce panel layouts for optimum productivity, and changing my display manager because all…

You don't like Ubuntu dictating a desktop environment to you. So you fiddle with other things for a long time, at your own option. Then you pay Apple to dictate a desktop environment to you. Hmm...

He explicitly said he misses the configurability, so I wouldn't blame him for that.

As a Mac user that runs triple boot, the "just works" mentality in OS X is present only as long as you don't step out of the typical use case scenarios. It's great to say be a writer on OS X; there are very good tools and apps to write in a minimal, esthetic environment (WriteRoom and others). On the other hand, as a "hacker", I've always had trouble in OS X -- from Page Up/Page Down not registering properly in Terminal, to full NTFS and EXT4 support (FUSE used to work, but I think it was not maintained) to getting vim, gcc and other tools of the trade working on OS X (yes, there are ports-like systems on OS X, but hardly ones that I'd say "just work").

On the other hand, in pure Linux world, brightness controls, backlighting controls, volume controls and multiple sound card support were all rather tricky when I tried using Gentoo on the same Mac for a time. Some of those I solved, but some I just gave up and was content that it kinda-but-not-completely works.

Ubuntu seems to be tested enough on Macs, so those things work on my laptop now without having to configure too much. It may not be the perfect "just works" experience, and I have seen a lot of things going the wrong way on Ubuntu, but currently it's a good mix of being easy to maintain and being easy to start doing actual work with.

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