SSL.

[Denver Gingerich]

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 6:57 AM, Alfred <alfred.s at nexicom.net> wrote:
> Hi Brian ET AL:
>
> I used to do Updates, but then I began to notice that Debian Updates
> Broke Ubuntu Code. There would be all kinds of little problems cropping
> up, with other applications not working after an update was installed
> for something else. My policy was to try to find out which updates
> caused problems and then, I'd not install them. Lately I'm about 188
> updates behind in 7.10, because it has become difficult to find out
> exactly which ones cause problems, and there does not seem to be a work
> around for ones that do. On previous Versions of Ubuntu, such problems
> never got fixed. So my Open Office, got broken then, where entering 3
> characters would make it freeze. So I lost the ability to use it, until
> the next version appeared, even though the update was for something
> else. Many of the Complaints people have to this forum are caused by
> upgrades causing problems like this.

>From my experience, the most common reason for an update not working
properly is someone making unsupported changes to their system.  A
good example of this is people adding non-Ubuntu repositories to
Synpatic.

To be safe, you should only install software using Synaptic or
Add/Remove and you should never add software repositories to Synpatic
or using /etc/apt/sources.list.  You should also be careful about
following instructions from forums because they can often make your
system less stable.

> I guess I'll make a complete Backup, and then try to install all the
> updates, which could take several months to download, what with the
> Incredible High Speed Downloads I have sometimes reaching speeds of 33K,
> for a few seconds at a time. Even with a 56K modem. :)

If you find some updates to take a particularly long time to download,
I suggest creating a download script using these instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingSoftware#head-14060f8896fc0efa378412ca379a89c8c332da14

For the above instructions, when you open Synaptic, you should click
Reload and then "Mark All Upgrades"; this will select all the packages
you need to update your system.  Other than that, just follow the
instructions.

Once you have the script on a USB key, then you can go somewhere with
a fast Internet connection (your local library might have one even if
your area doesn't have broadband) and download the packages onto your
USB key.  Then you can bring them back to your computer and install
them.

> I've tried some
> of the Download Accelerators, but they don't work as good as the ones I
> used to use in much earlier versions of Windows.

The download accelerators I've seen usually perform two main
functions: finding additional mirrors to download files from so the
download is faster and offering an option to resume a download.  The
first function is probably not useful because a single mirror will be
fast enough to use all of your dial-up connection.  The second might
be useful if your dial-up connection frequently goes down.  So it's
quite possible that a download accelerator isn't needed.

A download accelerator can sometimes make downloads complete faster
(if the conditions are right) but it is not a panacea.  It can't
magically make all downloads fast.

> My ISP is making use of 19X Dial-up but this does not work in Linux. I
> E-mailed the Company providing it, and they say tough luck! I'm
> downloading in the background the updates, except when I need to use the
> modem, without this happening.

I was a software developer at a company that made dial-up accelerator
software like this so perhaps I can provide some insight.  The sort of
dial-up accelerator you describe will not accelerate the download of
Ubuntu updates even if it did work in Linux.  Those accelerators work
by compressing data and then sending it to you where it is
decompressed.  But Ubuntu updates are already compressed so they can't
be further compressed.  As a result, the accelerator software can't
speed up the download of Ubuntu updates.

You should always be very wary of dial-up accelerator advertisements.
A 19X speedup is a theoretical maximum that can only be obtained under
ideal conditions.  You will rarely ever get that kind of speedup.
Average speedup will be around 2 times with normal web surfing.

> Which update fixes this problem with the SSL, so that I still have some
> Armour Clad Protection, while I wait for the modem to Bleepedy Bleep
> download all the rest of the updates. I live in an area where High Speed
> Internet has yet to be invented! :)

Others have already listed the packages you need (I think these are
fairly correct).  To verify you actually have the secure version, it
is best to look at the security advisories.  The security advisories
that pertain to your question are the 6 USN-612 advisories listed at
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/.  They list the secure versions of each
package that is affected.

Denver