Re: generally agree...
Can you quote your sources for that please
Posts by Paul Johnston
392 posts • joined 13 Apr 2007
Claims of AI sentience branded 'pure clickbait'
BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?
FreeBSD 13.1 is out for everything from PowerPC to x86-64
One in five employees at top Indian outsourcers left in the past year
Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP
AlmaLinux comes to Windows Subsystem for Linux
Monday 4th April 2022 18:33 GMT
Re: Serves a roll
Best of luck with that. We have students paying huge amounts to study an engineering discipline. To tell them that they have to spend a shed load of time in the operating system realm when they are only concerned with the application level just isn't going to happen. Sometimes we forget that end users are end users. It's not slagging them off, just realising for them it is a tool to and end and not the end game itself.
Monday 4th April 2022 15:06 GMT
Serves a roll
Whilst WSL may not be everyone's cup of tea I find it really useful. We don't have a managed Ubuntu image yet and using WSL2 allows people to run CFD tools like openfoam without having to resort to dual boot machines. If they actually need lots of raw processing power they can prototype on their laptops or desktops before moving to bigger iron. Most students have no knowledge of sys admin so why not keep that away from them unless they actually want/ need to?
Patch now: RCE Spring4shell hits Java Spring framework
Friday 1st April 2022 05:50 GMT
Re: Whose?
Love the optimism but by that way I don't think anything would get done. Have known people who just want to get stuff out asap and others who are incapable of this as they need "one more check" . It's all a case of balance. Finally it's not as if the bad actors play like that. Offense and defence are both advancing and so will it ever be.
Linux 5.17 debuts after 'very calm' extra week of work
Monday 21st March 2022 08:52 GMT 
This one has lost me!
>>Version 5.18 of the kernel is tipped to feature the debut of Intel's plans for "software-defined silicon" – a tech about which Intel has remained virtually silent, other than hints on mailing lists about features that would allow payments to enable different features in processors.
How do you feature something we know nothing about, well your guess is as good as mine?
Linux Snap package tool fixes make-me-root bugs
Saturday 19th February 2022 14:26 GMT 
Not looking good
Just went to update one of my Ubuntu installs and got this, not encouraging.
Preparing to unpack .../12-snapd_2.54.3+20.04.1ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking snapd (2.54.3+20.04.1ubuntu0.1) over (2.54.2+20.04ubuntu2) ...
Setting up snapd (2.54.3+20.04.1ubuntu0.1) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.snapd.snap-confine.real ...
error: cannot read the state file: open /var/lib/snapd/state.json: no such file or directory
RAID expansion comes to OpenZFS at last
Linux distros haunted by Polkit-geist for 12+ years: Bug grants root access to any user
Wednesday 26th January 2022 09:39 GMT 
Oh dear
I know 9 is essentially in beta-ish and this is just a learning box, nothing in production but doesn't inspire confidence
(base) [paulj@e-uxxmcasspj5 ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Stream release 9
(base) [paulj@e-uxxmcasspj5 ~]$ ./cve-2021-4034--2022-01-25-0936.sh
This script (v1.0) is primarily designed to detect CVE-2021-4034 on supported
Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems and kernel packages.
Result may be inaccurate for other RPM based systems.
This script is meant to be used only on RHEL 6-8.
ASUS recalls motherboards that flame out thanks to backwards capacitors
Tuesday 4th January 2022 15:35 GMT
Re: It was fun when I saw that happen
Not sure how you type Morse word by word but anyone who can do Morse is better than I ever was, despite doing O-Level Seamanship and have tried to get a "Full Amateur Radio License". Passed the electronics exam but never the Morse for the full fat version :-(
Tuesday 4th January 2022 15:31 GMT
Neat!
“In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily identified a potential reversed memory capacitor issue in the production process from one of the production lines that may cause debug error code 53, no post, or motherboard components damage,” said ASUS in an announcement.
I'm going to start using "debug error code 53" for when it all goes pear shaped.
Obvious icon usage!
Nottingham University awards cloud finance and HR deal in £29.75m deal 2.5 years after Unit4 upgrade
£42k for a top-class software engineer? It's no wonder uni research teams can't recruit
Windows Terminal to be the default for command line applications in Windows 11
NixOS and the changing face of Linux operating systems
Alpine Linux 3.15 bids a fond farewell to MIPS64 support
Academics tell Brit MPs to check the software used when considering reproducibility in science and tech research
'Automate or die!' Gartner reckons most biz apps will be developed via low-code by the people who use them
Ex-org? Not at all! Three and a half years after X.Org Server 1.20, 1.21 is released
Windows terminates here. Please remember to finish setting it up on arrival
We're all at sea: Navigation Royal Navy style – with plenty of IT but no GPS
Linux 5.14 had plenty of commits, work has gone smoothly – and it should debut next week
See that last line in the access list? Yeah, that means you don't have an access list
Friday 13th August 2021 09:23 GMT
Oh yes!
Was once told of a contractor from a "Very Expensive" outfit whose build scripts for cloud VMs included the line
chmod -R 777 /var/data
Warning, just because you sign the contract with a company which seemed during the tender process to have some very good people no guarantee you won't get the apprentice doing the coding.
Obviously you need your best people getting contracts not actually doing them.
About half of Python libraries in PyPI may have security issues, boffins say
The coming of Wi-Fi 6 does not mean it's time to ditch your cabled LAN. Here's why
Thursday 15th July 2021 18:53 GMT
WiFi it's the future honest!
New plan at work, wired out, wireless in.
So see which wired sockets have not been used for a year and then disable them.
Then reduce the switch capacity to cope with the reduced demand.
Oh yes we have been on lockdown, and peoples sockets will not have been on for a year if they turned their kit off before they evacuated the buildings, but it will save us money honest.
This one could be fun when people return to work.
Western Approaches Museum: WRENs, wargames, and victory in the Atlantic
Tuesday 13th July 2021 08:07 GMT 
Well worth a visit
Interested people may want to read "A Game of Birds and Wolves" by Simon Parkin to get a fuller picture.
As an aside I playfully complained whilst there that they were offering discount to present and ex members of the armed forces but not present and ex merchant navy people.
They said they would look into it, so if you are serving or former MN suggest you bring your discharge book. (let the jokes commence)
How hot is it right now? 'Water park catching fire and burning down' hot
Up to £80m on the table in University of Nottingham's search for service provider to lace together IT support
We don't know why it's there, we don't know what it does – all we know is that the button makes everything OK again
Computer security world in mourning over death of Dan Kaminsky, aged 42
Canonical releases Ubuntu on Windows Preview with early builds, new tools for the brave
Staff and students at Victoria University of Wellington learn the most important lesson of all: Keep your files backed up
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's just a very unhappy Windows installation
Tata Consultancy Services wins £4m deal to carry out Oracle 'reimplementation' for University of Manchester
Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal
Tuesday 5th January 2021 19:47 GMT
Re: Ha ha ha.... but it's not funny
Please correct me if I am wrong but unless the vaccine gives sterilizing immunity people will still be able to be infected by the virus if they have been vaccinated. They themselves may not go on to develop serious health issues but will be able to pass it on. I was under the impression that the testing of the vaccine only shows people who get it are less liable to fall seriously ill but does not show they cannot pass it on.
CentOS project changes focus, no more rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you'll have to flow with the Stream
FOSS developer survey: Mostly male, employed... and many don't care about 'soul-withering chore' of security
All it took was a global pandemic confining millions to their homes to remind businesses how much they appreciate the IT crowd
'I'm telling you, I haven't got an iPad!' – Sent from my iPad
Friday 31st July 2020 08:55 GMT
How to spot a lie
A couple of decades ago I had just started a job at Uni, running all the Unix stuff, workstations DNS server, NIS NFS, Mail,the whole shebang!
I was invited to go to the pub on Friday night early on and one night late on the tales of who did what to whom and who got caught started! As the newbie I just sat and listened.
First thing Monday morning I got a mail from the head of school, who wasn't one of the drinkers to the effect I shouldn't spread rumours and that doing so might end up bad for me at this time I was still under probation. Never one to sit and consider the options I went straight to his office and pointed out I wasn't the one saying anything as I had only been there a few weeks and all this stuff predated me so he should look to others as the issue.
Typical senior prof, ummed and ahed and said he wasn't picking on me and had actually sent it to all staff involved.
Nipping back to the office looking at the mail server I saw (without looking at anyone's mail I hasten to add) the modification stamp on my mailbox file was when the prof had sent the mail to me and no one else in the pub gang had been modified at the same time. (I always got in early Monday just to check before start of play).
Later spoke to people and they said no they hadn't received a mail about conduct off premises outside work hours about stuff which it was nothing to do with the boss!
Welcome to academia!
Venerable text editor GNU Nano reaches version 5.0 and adds the modern frippery that is scrollbars
UK's Co-operative Group to centralise IT teams across various divisions, warns redundancies 'inevitable'
Drupal drops first big upgrade in five years and looks forward by looking backwards
When one open-source package riddled with vulns pulls in dozens of others, what's a dev to do?
Monday 29th June 2020 08:51 GMT
What can you expect?
"The second step, however, isn't to triage across the org, but rather to start fixing issues. Teams who overspend energy triaging at the expense of fixing end up incurring greater risk.
When a very large proportion of the team are "managers" whose sole job it to push bits of paper around and try to look busy where is the incentive to actually fix something?
