How Windows Handles Pathnames
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
A Google engineer has published a detailed exposé on how Microsoft
Windows handles file and directory pathnames (as opposed to how it is
documented to handle them)
<http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-definitive-guide-on-win...>
(found from
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/01/windows_path_hacks/>). Most of
it, it could be argued, makes some sort of sense from a
backward-compatibility rationale. Except for the reserved device names
(PRN, NUL, CON etc):
Now if just specifying these paths explicitly was all that this
process handled it would be annoying but not the end of the world.
However it’s much worse. The conversion process actively tries to
convert any path with the device name last, even if the path is a
Drive Absolute path. To make matters even worse the device name can
have arbitrary trailing characters as long the trailing characters
are separated from the device by a dot or a colon. The name can
then also have trailing spaces.
...
Why it does the check is beyond me as it seems to serve no actual
purpose. Also note the removal of trailing suffixes, which can come
in handy if something is actively trying to guard against this
behavior. For example, if an application was mindful and was
checking for a filename that matched one of the reserved names you
can just bypass that check by appending an arbitrary suffix.
3 years, 8 months
Council CIO - suit required
by Ian Young
I fear no ordinary mortal could hope for a job such as this -- only
for people from suitland who can spout the appropriate babble and
appear to have a suitable track record in positions of such
awesomeness.
This is the world of the 'solutions provider' and they always provide
a Windows solution. After all, why not go with what you know? And then
there is the investment by many IT people in gaining industry
qualifications around aspects of Microsoft technology. It would be sad
to see that go to waste. It's a mindset thing. And let's not forget
that for most people (aside from a minority of Appleheads) Windows is
computers, or Windows is always on such computers as they use. Then
there are the computer makers who still provide the industry standard,
ie Windows. (Behind the scenes MS is still twisting arms there as far
as I know).
Perhaps this being broken down somewhat in recent times by the advent
of tablets & smartphones but I think in large part real work is still
done on a Windows box. Hard to see how this can ever change without
some as yet unforeseen paradigm shift.
So much for the business world and governmental organisations; things
are perhaps a bit different in academia especially in fields such as
computer science. However the desktop for most users is still always
Windows so far as I have seen. Those crazy academics have to be given
some choice but IT staff generally prefer to provide a standardised
Windows image.
Yes, it's a Windows world. Luckily Linux is still around for those who
can't get with the programme. Personally I find the latest versions of
desktop Windows unusable. If Windows 8 and 10 are the answer it must
have been a most peculiar question imho.
But I digress. Should HCC ever adopt Linux I will eat my hat - or be
astounded at any rate.
3 years, 11 months
Re: [wlug] wlug Digest, Vol 300, Issue 19
by Wayne Luxton
On 25/06/16 12:00, wlug-request(a)list.waikato.ac.nz wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. a Debian-based OS for Nexus 5 phone (Ian Young)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2016 03:12:45 +0000
> From: Ian Young <gnomician(a)gmail.com>
> To: wlug <wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz>
> Subject: [wlug] a Debian-based OS for Nexus 5 phone
> Message-ID:
> <CA+e9D2Ev-OSuWxA98heFdjbERzTJYgZbiFRAuiepOVS9FURZNw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Came upon this today - mentioned on Barry Kauler's blog (the Puppy Linux guy).
>
> ' have previously posted about MaruOS:"
> http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00363
>
>
> http://maruos.com/#/
>
>
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>
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> End of wlug Digest, Vol 300, Issue 19
> *************************************
>
Find this is brilliant news as have nexus 5 and was getting frustrated
and scratchy about android and what they keep wanting or advertising.
Something to do to keep my Parkinson's brain in action. Would like to
compare notes with any other local enthusiast -looking to create an
intergrated work system with production of posters.
Wayne - thanks you guys I am not very active now days but keeping up
with threads helps me check out what I need and widen potential
3 years, 11 months
Ubuntu-Based Peppermint 7 Released
by Peter Reutemann
'Softpedia reports on the newest version of Peppermint OS, "a
lightweight, stable, elegant, and fast computer operating system based
on GNU/Linux and Open Source technologies."
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes their report:
It's a bit earlier than expected, but the Peppermint OS 7 GNU/Linux
distribution has been officially unveiled...based on the Ubuntu 16.04
LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system [with] a lot of packages from the
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS distro, which means that it will also be a long-term
support release.... "Along with the shift to the 16.04 (Xenial) code
base, Peppermint 7 continues our policy of choosing the best
components from other desktop environments, wherever that may be, and
integrating them into a cohesive whole with our own software," reads
today's announcement.
"Team Peppermint" says they're switching to Firefox as their default
browser for site-specific browser functionality (similar to Chrome's
-app mode) after Google dropped their 32-bit version of Chrome and
moved to PPAPI plugins "which effectively ends Flash support in 32-bit
Chromium"... But you can also still choose Chrome or Chromium for
site-specific browsing (and the OS comes in 32-bit and 64-bit
editions).'
-- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/06/25/216216
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
3 years, 11 months
KDE Developers Have Been Working On Improved Windows Support
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDE-Windows-Improvements>:
“... they've abandoned the concept of having a single KDE installer
for Windows, but work on individual programs (and installers) for
Windows has continued. Single application installers are their path
forward for shipping KDE programs on Windows...”
Also in the reader comments, Krita lead Boudewijn Rempt writes about
whether more Windows users leads to more Windows developers contributing
<https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/desktop-linux/879128-kde-d...>:
“... I've certainly had half a dozen Windows developers come to the
#krita irc channel asking how to build Krita on Windows so they
could help out hacking. The problem is that setting up a build
environment on WIndows is really hard, and in fact, we build the
Windows binaries on Linux... So they need extraordinary
perseverance to start contributing or use a Linux VM. That's really
something we should improve on next, but I have no idea how to make
it any eas[i]er anymore.”
3 years, 11 months
Linux’s RPM/deb split could be replaced by Flatpak vs. snap
by Peter Reutemann
'Linux developers are going to have more than one choice for building
secure, cross-distribution applications.
Ubuntu's "snap" applications recently went cross-platform, having been
ported to other Linux distros including Debian, Arch, Fedora, and
Gentoo. The goal is to simplify packaging of applications. Instead of
building a deb package for Ubuntu and an RPM for Fedora, a developer
could package the application as a snap and have it installed on just
about any Linux distribution.
But Linux is always about choice, and snap isn't the only contender to
replace traditional packaging systems. Today, the developers of
Flatpak (previously called xdg-app) announced general availability for
several major Linux distributions, with a pointer to instructions for
installing on Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, and Ubuntu.'
-- source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/here-comes-flatpak-...
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
3 years, 11 months
