Bug #229270 in gvfs: “nautilus wrong owner in sftp”

Bug #229270 in gvfs: “nautilus wrong owner in sftp”

RANT:

{Edit: I removed some negative commentary regarding a particular person at Ubuntu. It was probably unfair.}

I know everyone at Ubuntu, at least those that are posting in Launchpad, is probably a volunteer- but I’m getting really sick of the passing-the-buck excuses when it comes to Ubuntu. It conveys a “we don’t give a crap” attitude- with doesn’t go far with IT managers, like me! I don’t care if it’s an “upstream” problem- it’s a problem with software that YOU are distributing, and saying “It’s not our problem.” is bullshit.

Gvfs is a piece of shit. Period. They f*cked up authenticated SMB shares, and now I discover this little gem of a bug.

Essentially Nautilus (and anything else using gvfs- as I understand it OpenOffice is frelled too) is shit-worthless if you use sftp/scp on set-GID folders (such as those used for collaboration, on a Web server, for example). This adds to its already shit-worthless-ness when it comes to authenticated SMB or Active Directory shares. At least the latter is supposedly fixed in Ubuntu 9.04, which is in ALPHA and has enough other problems that it definitely shouldn’t be installed if you want to actually get anything productive done.

Apparently if you have NO security on any of your network resources- it works great! If you follow best practices for securing your network resources- you can kiss any kind of interoperability goodbye. As much as I despise Microsoft and Windows- at least I can consistently access a Windows server with a Windows workstation as long as I have the correct username/password/workgroup. Apparently that isn’t possible using Linux anymore, at least not with Ubuntu. (Yes, there are PITA work-arounds and patches- try talking a few “users” through those, and pray they don’t get overwritten with the next update.)

Ubuntu might be okay for home users that don’t play Windows games, but right now it is a non-starter for corporate desktops or any advanced home user that actually uses security.

/RANT

Google Offers Tool to Let You Track Your Friends’ Movements

Google Offers Tool to Let You Track Your Friends’ Movements – PC World

Posting this more for the unfortunate headline…

I don’t want to track my friends’ “movements”. I generally don’t track my own.

Google Fans Net Neutrality Flames with Web Measurement Lab

Google Fans Net Neutrality Flames with Web Measurement Lab

This is great. Unfortunately the measurementlab.net site seems to be down, and has been all morning. It’s kind of hard to get measurement statistics from an unreliable Web server.

House fails to pass DTV delay bill

House fails to pass DTV delay bill | U.S. | Reuters

YES!

Frankly, this whole thing was really pissing me off. People have literally had YEARS to get ready for this, and have had over a year to buy converter boxes. If they haven’t yet- tough sh*t. We are a nation of whiners- another four months isn’t going to stop that- the exact same people will be crying in June.

Ubuntu Server Alfresco 404 Error

I decided to post this here since I couldn’t find a solution online. Maybe this will help someone else…

I installed Alfresco Labs on a Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) server, and ran into several problems getting it to work. These resulted in just getting “404 Errors” from Tomcat any time I tried accessing it.

First- you want to uninstall OpenJDK- Alfresco likes Sun Java. Install the Sun Java JDK or JRE.

Second- apparently by default- Ubuntu Server already installs Tomcat. This seems to conflict with Alfresco’s Tomcat server, even though it uses a different port. You need to uninstall Tomcat from Ubuntu Server first.

After I did these two things, and tweaked the Java memory settings (guided by error messages in alfresco.log), Alfresco worked.

If you are running the default “headless”/no-GUI version of Ubuntu Server- you also want to install OpenOffice. Alfresco uses it’s “headless” server mode to do document conversion.

Download – Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

Download – Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

This is a great little reference. Free PDF download, but the print version is only $10 at Amazon. Worth buying.

Websense, Part 2

Okay, now I’m getting pissed. Over the last two days- I have submitted every domain I own to Websense for re-categorization because they have all been flagged as “Sex” sites. They were all re-categorized more appropriately within about 12 hours of my submitting the requests.

As of today- they are all “Sex” sites again. WTF!

What is really frustrating is I can’t seem to get anyone there to tell my WHY this is happening. There is absolutely no “Sexual” content on any of my sites, period. Bah!!!

Websense

The company I work for has used Websense for a number of years now, as do a lot of major corporations and even ISPs. I know the government and military use it as-well. It tends to be really big-brother-ish sometimes, but it is a necessary evil, especially for entities that want to protect their networks from malware and themselves from litigation.

I’ve been really upset and frustrated recently as I’ve been trying to set up some new Web sites. For whatever reason- every domain I own has been flagged as a “Sex” site, and is filtered for most people by Websense. That even included this blog up until a couple of days ago. I’ve been submitting requests to Websense to get them re-categorized, and they usually do so in a reasonable amount of time, but it is just really annoying. They can’t explain why the domains were categorized as “Sex” sites to begin with, especially since most of them have never even HAD a site on them.

The only “Sex” content I ever post online is in my private journal, and that isn’t attached to any of my domains.

Photos: Obama inauguration viewed from space

Photos: Obama inauguration viewed from space | Underexposed – CNET News

Wow!

’nuff said.

Sony’s New Bravia TVs Watch You to Save Power – PC World

Sony’s New Bravia TVs Watch You to Save Power – PC World

It’s well known that I generally loathe Sony, but this is actually a really cool idea. Depending on what is on- I’ll often walk out of the room while continuing to listen to the TV (to make something in the kitchen or work in my office), and it makes sense to turn off the display at those times. As long as it turns back on quickly and has a decent “field of vision”- this would be great.