New Zealand Linux

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 9.10
Desktop and Server editions, and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Codenamed
“Karmic Koala”, 9.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the
latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality,
easy-to-use Linux distribution.

Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition improves on the work of 9.04 to get you going
faster, with improved startup times and a streamlined boot experience.

Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition integrates Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud setup in the
installer and provides improvements to system security with AppArmor,
including an AppArmor profile for libvirtd to further isolate virtual
machines from the host system.

The Ubuntu 9.10 family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu
Studio, and Mythbuntu, also reach beta status today.

Desktop features
—————-

GNOME 2.28 featuring Empathy: with this latest beta release, Ubuntu now
uses the Empathy instant messaging service by default, introducing the
Telepathy framework.

Ubuntu Software Center: the first step in a replacement for Add/Remove
Software has landed for testing and feedback.

New boot experience: multiple changes to look, feel and speed of
the boot experience have been included in the Ubuntu 9.10 beta.

Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/beta for details.

Server features
—————

Cloud computing: Ubuntu 9.10 builds on the tantalizing cloud support in
Ubuntu 9.04, with support for Eucalyptus configuration at install time and
publishing of standard VM images for UEC.

AppArmor: Ubuntu 9.10 continues to raise the bar for server security, with
AppArmor profiles enabled by default for ntpd and libvirt providing another
layer of protection from attacks on the network or via guest virtual
machines.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix features
—————————–
Ubuntu Netbook Remix is optimised to run on Intel atom based netbooks. It
includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and
easily get on-line and use their favourite applications. This interface is
optimised for a retail sales environment.

It includes the same faster boot times and improved boot experience as
Ubuntu desktop.

Kubuntu features
—————-

Kubuntu 9.10, built on KDE 4.3, brings users a complete, full-featured KDE4
desktop with many new applications and innovations.

This is the first release for a new Kubuntu variant, Kubuntu Netbook Edition.
Built on a Kubuntu base, it brings users an exciting first look at KDE’s
netbook-oriented desktop environment.

Please see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KarmicKoala/Beta/Kubuntu for all the
details.

Xubuntu features
—————-

Xubuntu 9.10 comes with the light-weight Xfce 4.6 desktop environment
to provide a desktop designed for productivity while conserving system
resources.

Xubuntu 9.10 is proud to offer an improved multimedia experience with
the Exaile media player, a more integrated power management solution
with the Xfce4 power manager, and more convenience built right in with
improved multimedia volume key support and more consistent desktop
notifications.

Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/KarmicKoala/Beta for the
full list and details about all the great enhancements Xubuntu 9.10
has to offer.

Edubuntu features
—————–

Edubuntu 9.10 transitions from an add-on educational CD that depended on
an existing Ubuntu installation to a full Ubuntu derivative delivered on
as a DVD image. This allows prospective users and decision makers to try
the educational offerings prior to installation and the flexibility to
make Edubuntu a first class educational operating system.

Mythbuntu features
——————

Mythbuntu 9.10 introduces MythTV 0.22. The entire stack has been ported
to QT4 and now allows for very neat UI effects. Also 0.22 adds support
for VDPAU hardware acceleration, and HD-PVR hardware support.

Please see http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Release_Notes_-_0.22 for more details
about things introduced in 0.22.

See http://mythbuntu.org/9.10/beta for information about the Mythbuntu
beta release.

Other
—–

* On the Desktop: GNOME 2.28, KDE 4.3, XFCE 4.6.1, OpenOffice.org 3.1.1,
X.Org server 1.6.3

* On the Server: Apache 2.2, PostgreSQL 8.4, PHP 5.2.10, LTSP 5.1

* “Under the hood”: GCC 4.4.1, glibc 2.10, Linux 2.6.31.1, Python 2.6.2

The full release notes can be found at
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/beta

About Ubuntu
————

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, and
servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A
tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and an
incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional technical support is available from Canonical Limited and
hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about
support, visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support

To Get Ubuntu 9.10 Beta
———————–

To upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 Beta from Ubuntu 9.04,
follow these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KarmicUpgrades

Or, download Ubuntu 9.10 Beta here (choose the mirror closest to you):

Europe:

* http://ubuntu.ipacct.com/releases/9.10 (Bulgaria)
* http://ftp.oleane.net/ubuntu-cd/9.10 (France)
* http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/ubuntu.iso/9.10 (Germany)
* http://ie.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Ireland)
* http://nl.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/9.10 (Netherlands)
* http://no.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Norway)
* http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Sweden)

North America:

* http://mirrors.cat.pdx.edu/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (United States)
* http://ubuntu.cs.utah.edu/releases/9.10 (United States)

Oceania/Australia:

* http://ftp.citylink.co.nz/ubuntu-releases/9.10 (New Zealand)

Rest of the world:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10 (Great Britain)

Please download using Bittorrent if possible.

The final version of Ubuntu 9.10 is expected to be released in October 2009.

Whilst i realize this is not ‘linux’ is is unix based and has a similar permissions and command line.

I recently upgraded my OS X laptop to Snow leopard. Being the good sysadmin I am i made sure i used Time Machine to backup all my files and data to an external drive. I used the chance to do a fresh install also, and the upgrade went fine.

I then restored from my backup. I noticed immediately that I couldn’t write to some files and was unable to do some things without entering the root password. Now I had changed the username so i assumed naturally that they would be perhaps owned by my own username and somehow timemachine hadnt changed it.

This was not the case, the permissions seemed fine, they could be all drwxrwxrwx and owned by me i still could not write to them. I did notice the symbol on the end which was an @ symbol.

drwxr-xr-x@ 5 wishes staff 170 18 Jul 22:15 wordpress

Interesting! After much googling i found this is extended attributes symbol, and to view those you can use

ls -l@

drwxr-xr-x@ 146 wishes staff 4964 28 Aug 21:38 Cheerleading
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50

After a bit of googling i figured out i can remove this using the command

sudo xattr -d “com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot” filename

So i wrote a quick shell script that stripped both the “com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot” and “com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot” off since none of these files were in time machine any more. I wasn’t sure at that time if this was why i was unable to remove it, as it turns out it wasn’t.

As it turns out by removing the extended attributes i discovered the @ had now turned into a +

-rw-r–r–+ 1 wishes staff 56743 16 Sep 07:03 Recipes.pdf

Again, i set off to google this one. I found this excellent page here which explains all the ACLs. By doing the following i can list all the ACLs

ls -le@O

drwxrwxrwx+ 5 wishes staff – 170 28 Aug 21:41 Raw Photos
0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

So now i knew that it was ACLs i was able to remove those with the following

chmod -a# 0 *

Bingo! now i can access all my files happily! Hopefully this saves somebody else the frustration i went through trying to figure it out 🙂

I came across this little gem not to long back which is handy.

It basically blocks IPs depending on the amount of connections they have. The defaults are fairly reasonable at 150 connections, and its remarkably easy to install.

wget http://www.inetbase.com/scripts/ddos/install.sh
chmod 0700 install.sh
./install.sh

Presto, now its installed! If you want to customize it then check in /usr/local/ddos/ddos.conf and edit it a bit.

Uninstall is just as easy

wget http://www.inetbase.com/scripts/ddos/uninstall.ddos
chmod 0700 uninstall.ddos
./uninstall.ddos