Serious Android Flaw

Just a brief post to direct anyone who has or is considering buying an Android device to an article detailing a rather shocking security glitch. It turns out, probably due to a botched debug code cleanup, that the devices run with a terminal in the background capturing any and all keystrokes!

When the phone booted it started up a command shell as root and sent every keystroke you ever typed on the keyboard from then on to that shell. Thus every word you typed, in addition to going to the foreground application would be silently and invisibly interpreted as a command and executed with superuser privileges. Wow!

Be careful what you type in your text messages or URLs otherwise you might end up with a trashed software stack…

Android G1 : Hands on review

Since the first mobile running on Google’s Android software platform was announced, I have been eagerly awaiting it’s release here in the UK. Well this week it finally happened, so yesterday I went into a T Mobile shop to have a play with one. Unfortunately it is a bit of a mixed bag, whilst looking quite stylish (it looked a bit ugly from the photos) there are a number of bad points about the G1 which unfortunately terminally let it down.

First off, the slide. I actually rather like this part, despite being highly dubious about overly elaborate mechanisms, the G1 screen slides up and to the right cleanly and locks into place with a fairly reassuring click. The problem is the G1 is not comfortable to hold in the horizontal position, and I found the keyboard buttons to be inadequate for any serious use. However the most serious problem with this was that the screen was not fully locked into place. Given that it is a touch screen the fact that the whole screen section flexes backwards and strains against the sliding mechanism, even the smallest amount of force is exerted against it, is very worrying.

The touchscreen itself worked quite well and Android has definitely incorporated several design elements that Apple initially came up with. However it feels like Google were as eager to incorporate finger swiping functions as they were not to look like they were copying Apple and as such there are two different ways of scrolling through icon menus like the ‘desktop’ and the application menu which just feels silly and inconsistent. The overall layout and design of the menus and functionality felt poor and counter intuitive. This was felt especially in the web-browser which, whilst working well ( and really showing how nice the screen was) felt clunky and unfriendly to navigate and use. There was also an issue with flash plugins but I am assuming that would be fixed by an update.

Overall, the G1 very much feels like the unfinished article. The black one looks surprisingly nice in the person, but an inconsistent GUI / navigation system lets it down as well as the quality of the screen sliding retention mechanism. Still, thankfully this is not the Android phone, but the first version running the software platform. I have high expectations of future phones and can only hope that meager sales will not put off other companies from adopting this platform.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex MD5 Checksums

Well Ubuntu 8.10 has finally been released! I have been tinkering with prereleases for the past couple of weeks but now I am looking forward to trying out the release version on a machine! Once again however canonical have been a bit cryptic about providing good links to their iso MD5 hashes (or checksums), so as before, here are the MD5s for Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, ubuntustudio, Mythbuntu, and Xubunutu 8.10:

ea6d44667ea3fd435954d6e1f0e89122 *ubuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso
f9e0494e91abb2de4929ef6e957f7753 *ubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386.iso
f9cdb7e9ad85263dde17f8fc81a6305b *ubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64.iso
24ea1163ea6c9f5dae77de8c49ee7c03 *ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso
8d35fea8c16597a6f4dd07f8e18e2166 *ubuntu-8.10-mid-lpia.img
e3028a105a083339be8e5af5afbe7444 *ubuntu-8.10-server-amd64.iso
a2ec9975a91e1228c8292ed9799dc302 *ubuntu-8.10-server-i386.iso
2796c696ab368415a30fddc8278e08b0 *wubi.exe

4dc5bad5ee18648cd9dfbb87d86880b5 *kubuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso
04a2c5c8f394175e6d6579e626995c7a *kubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386.iso
b054fd985294c80dcd6400fede533c72 *kubuntu-8.10-beta-desktop-i386.iso
824de6bea59d41637a41f17c00d33f7d *kubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64.iso

45c572d3bc95db05ed8ab37bae75b750 *edubuntu-8.10-addon-amd64.iso
7944aaaaf645571dd6e0a9db700394e9 *edubuntu-8.10-addon-i386.iso

3539726b4aa58801427578bb66da5fd1 *xubuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso
db016f2f55ea2109b787a191b8115c67 *xubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386.iso
4153396adde6b210c07ef7d7ccb14231 *xubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64.iso
53c50ff06f4ad659f0abf6474b58c8e6 *xubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso

3231c37e95a4facf4106ddb6ed560981 *edubuntu-8.10-beta-addon-amd64.iso

82c02dc7386dfb6858a9ec09a5059e1e *kubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso

c578db9752b22247100657bb70bf66de *mythbuntu-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso
077c387c1eaedc697dfd2c0039c92911 *mythbuntu-8.10-alternate-i386.iso

30de5bbfde9fee17b871c016fb35dc44 *ubuntustudio-8.10-alternate-amd64.iso
c721eee448b455ed19bd2a11f38a416e *ubuntustudio-8.10-alternate-i386.iso

Intrepid Ibex Beta

Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” will be released soon! If you can’t wait or want to help out, download the latest beta / release candidate from canonical and get an early preview. Be warned though that this is beta software and as such potentially requires more than the usual amount of patience to get running properly as I found out whilst tinkering with Kubuntu 8.10 beta KDE 4 remix. Although I am sure the problems I was having had as much to do with the poor hardware compatibility with Linux as with buggy beta software.

Up in the cloud

Microsoft has a number of core business revenue streams – otherwise known as cash cows. Despite strong indications that regardless of the recent lightweight application paradigm shift to the ‘cloud’ Microsoft have remained staunchly of the view that the operating system, as we know it today, will still be present in the future. So todays announcement indicating a potential branching from the desktop application centric philosophy is quite astonishing. According to ComputerWorld, Microsoft are looking to unveil a version of Windows codenamed  ‘Windows Clouds’ within a month. It will be very interesting to see the approach Mircosoft take with this project considering they are were quite keen to emphasise this will not detract from the ongoing Windows 7 work which is the planned successor to Windows Vista.

I previously weighed in on my opinion on cloud computing and very little has emerged to change my mind so far. I recently tried gOS v3 codename Gadgets which is the lightweight Linux distribution formally its own flavour based on the Enlightenment DR13 window manager and I am not that impressed. I found the integration between Google services (presented via barely concealed HTML widgets) and the operating system felt very amateurish. This coupled with the fact that version 3 is based on the more feature rich Gnome window manager, any assertion of this being a ’stripped down’, light weight operating system for ‘netbooks’ sounds rather strained.

I do not doubt that one day, a certain percentage of desktops and laptops will be light weight (or thin client) systems accessing storage, applications and processing power from a ‘mothership’ in much the way cloud computing is evolving now. However it seems to make much more sense for a family or household or even a group of people to buy a central ‘home server’. This will however be very different to Windows Home Server and will resemble more the old style dumb terminals where multiple clients connect to one central machine.

Well that is my prediction, we will talk in ten years! For now, long live monster power rigs! As a final note, it will be interesting to see where Apple fit into this in the coming years. iSlim? iWeb? iJot?

Mesh Networking (or 802.11s) comes to Linux

Since kernel 2.6.22 there has been a huge drive to rework and update the entire wireless networking stack in Linux. Back in July, 2.6.26 was released with over 600 wifi specific changes including :

• mac80211 now supports draft mesh networking (802.11s; thanks to the open80211s project
• mac80211 now supports more optional HT (802.11n) features
• mac80211’s monitor interfaces can now be configured more precisely, “cooked” monitors were added
• mac80211’s IBSS implementation now supports IBSS merging and received various bugfixes
• mac80211 now has an in-kernel documentation book, help welcome!
• b43 now has support for PCMCIA devices and QoS/WME

The following have been removed.

• the bcm43xx driver
• the old ieee80211softmac code

A while ago I discussed the deprecation of the bcm43xx driver so I welcome its official removal from the kernel as this means less time wasted disabling this legacy kernel module prior to installing / activating b43 on every new install. The mesh networking (draft specification designated 802.11s) support is largly thanks to the open80211s project however it is only in the fairly early stages. Support is not consistent across all the Linux wifi drivers but full support is progressing. I do wonder whether mesh networking will take off, it is however, an exciting concept. Imagine the following scenarios:

1. A dense build up urban area, where multiple nodes (flats / homes etc) could connect via one or two Internet connected nodes.

2. A neighbourhood which contained a lot of like minded PC users each connecting as a node in a local mesh network to create an ‘instant’ LAN/WAN or gaming network. Imagine being about to connect Xbox 360s / PS3 / PSP or even PC gamers wirelessly to your neighbours without using the Internet services.

3. A sparse, less developed environment where multiple nodes are greatly spread out and Internet access is rare.

The possibilities are endless, however with all such technologies, a lot of people need to jump on the bandwagon, particularly with ad-hoc technologies such as these.

8.04.1 MD5 Checksums

Just a brief note to say that I have updated my original post on the MD5 hases of all the *buntu (ubuntu, kubuntu kde3 and kde4, edubuntu xubuntu) builds to include the ‘revision 1′ 8.04.1 cd images. Everything should now be up to date again.

Where do they get their names?

The next version of Ubuntu (8.10) that will be released in October of this year has been named (drum roll please)

“Intrepid Ibex”

Which appears to be a wild goat. At least they are more creative than some of Microsoft’s internal codenames. Still, I must confess I have tuned out a little bit from the Linux world since Hardy Heron (euphemistically named Hungry Hippo by the F/OSS community), when more concrete details emerge as the mile stones progress I will write more on the subject.

Ubuntu on the A1650

Despite some rather exciting progress made of late getting Linux to work on the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1650, regretably after three weeks of using it, I am back to Vista. The reason for this is my conclusion that running Linux (more specifically, Ubuntu) on the A1650 is a painful process due to the maturity of hardware support. Its (finally) possible to get all the hardware working, unfortunately doing so feels cumbersome and unnatural. The biggest culprits are the graphics card (an ATi x200m) and the wireless (Broadcom 4318 mini PCI) card.

The ATi graphics card has long been criticised as being ‘defective by design’. Getting any hardware accelerated graphics on this laptop formerly required running XGl with a long series of complicated hacks and even then it was not possible to run desktop compositing effects like Beryl or Compiz. Eight (or so) Months ago, that changed with a redesign of the X Server (in X.org 7.0) when XGL back rendering was no longer required for hardware accelerated rendering. More than that, it greatly simplified the process meaning even the most inexperienced Linux user could have beautiful desktop effects, in some cases, out of the box. However, due to an annoying glitch somewhere, the ATi restricted drivers caused diagonal tearing whenever a window rapidly refreshed itself.

It says something about the maturity of hardware support under Linux when Vista, commonly (and unjustly) thought of a resource hog, runs better. Anyway, this is all academic now as I have retired my Amilo A1650. Its been a great laptop but after three years it was time to move on. I will play with Linux on my new laptop soon and post the results.

Choosing your next PC’s Operating System (the 64bit fiasco)

I am in the process of building a new gaming PC. Well, I should come clean, I have been in the process for almost 5 months now – I am mostly decided on the specifications but minor incompatibilities / annoyances cause me to stall. When this happens, real life typically takes over and by the time I look at my ‘final’ specification again, I normally rip it up and start from scratch due to new hardware being released or price drops. *exhale* I am finally on the verge of finalising the specification, the only things still holding me back are the graphics card (after news of ATi’s 4xx0 series) and the amount of RAM to put into my machine. The latter is heavily influenced by the Operating System I plan to run.

There are two crucial elements to any computer system which must work in harmony, the software and the hardware. Whilst this hardly an earth shattering announcement, I never cease to be amazed at the backlash in the form of blog / forum posts from people who forget this. Realistically when building (or buying) your next Gaming PC at the moment your choices are limited to Windows XP or Vista. Both Linux and Mac OSX suffer from platform compatibility issues with major new games and whilst the former enjoys fair server support for online gaming, neither really has much traction in the desktop gaming market.

The difference between Vista and XP is far more than cosmetic, whilst many are quick to criticise Vista for a number of reasons, I am actually a fan of Microsoft’s latest Operating System for a variety of reasons. Sure, it is feature-poor compared to initial designs and has it’s own annoyances, but the number of extra features and advances make it decisively the better Operating System. There is a caveat, for Vista to run comfortably for gaming purposes needs at least 1 Gb of RAM for itself. This on its own is no big deal – RAM is extraordinarily cheap at the moment, however the issue of platform (32bit/64bit) is now rearing its ugly head.

64 bit computing is nothing new, infact AMD processors have had 64bit extensions (called x86-64) for a number of years since the K8 platform back in 2003. Intel did not catch up (despite starting earlier than AMD) and produce viable 64bit chips until the Pentum 6xx series (late 2004), having stumbled initially with their IA64(T) specification developed for their Itanium platform.

Given this was four years ago, why are we not all running on 64bit XP or Vista? The answer is simple, in the same way that driver support initially crippled Vista’s adoption, 64bit drivers are fairly few and far between. What this means, is a lot less hardware will run properly under a 64bit Operating System. Given this situation, why do we even care about 64 bit computing? Why is it not relegated to high end computing and server farms? Mathematics.

Unfortunately, with a 32 bit Operating System, there is a mathematical limitation to the amount of memory the system can address. At most, Vista (or XP) in 32bit will only address 4Gb of total RAM. This includes both the graphics card and the main system memory. This brings my point about Vista comfortably using one Gb of RAM all by itself to sharp focus. Whilst Yes, the price of RAM is cheap there is something about me that dislikes buying 4Gb of RAM (to enable dual channel mode) only to have a quarter of it not accessible by the system. I wrote about this in detail in a previous post.

So what is the solution? Whilst I am huge fan of Vista (and have recently bought a Vista laptop) I do not think it is suitable for desktop gaming. With Windows XP, I have had fairly bloated a driver / runtime loaded installs using no more than 300Mb of RAM which realistically enables most PC gamers to get away with 2Gb of system RAM with no perceptible loss in gaming performance. This unfortunately would not be the case for a similar system running Vista and as such, unfortunately scuttles Vista for this market in my humble opinion.