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Chapter 26. Desktop

Poppler no longer renders certain characters incorrectly

Previously, the Poppler library did not map correctly to character code. As a consequence, Poppler showed the fi string instead of showing the correct glyph, or nothing, if the font did not contain necessary glyphs. With this update, the characters previously replaced with the fi string are shown correctly. (BZ#1298616)

Poppler no longer tries to access memory behind the array

Memory corruption due to exceeding the length of array caused the Poppler library to terminate unexpectedly. A fix has been applied to not allow Poppler to try to access memory behind the array, and Poppler no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1299506)

pdftocairo no longer crashes when processing a PDF without group color space

Previously, the Poppler library tried to access a non-existing object when processing a PDF without group color space. As a consequence, the Poppler library terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault. A patch has been applied to verify if group color space exists. As a result, Poppler no longer crashes, and the pdftocairo utility works as expected in the described situation. (BZ#1299479)

Poppler no longer terminates unexpectedly during text extraction

Previously, a writing after the end of the lines array could cause a memory corruption. As a consequence, the Poppler library could terminate unexpectedly. A patch has been applied and array is now always relocated when an item is added. As a result, Poppler no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1299481)

Poppler no longer terminates unexpectedly due to a missing GfxSeparationColorSpace class

Previously, the Poppler library tried to copy a non-existing GfxSeparationColorSpace class and as a consequence terminated unexpectedly. With this update, Poppler now checks for existence of the GfxSeparationColorSpace class, and as a result no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1299490)

pdfinfo no longer terminates unexpectedly due to asserting broken encryption information

Previously, Poppler tried to obtain broken encryption owner information. As a consequence, the pdfinfo utility to terminate unexpectedly. A fix has been applied to fix this bug, and Poppler no longer asserts broken encryption information. As a result, pdfinfo no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1299500)

Evince no longer crashes when viewing a PDF

Previously, screen annotation and form fields passed a NULL pointer to _poppler_action_new, and Poppler created a false PopplerAction when viewing certaing PDFs in the Evince application. As a consequence, Evince terminated unexpectedly with a segmentation fault. A patch has been applied to modify _poppler_annot_scren_new and poppler_form_field_get_action to pass PopplerDocument instead of NULL. As a result, Evince no longer crashes in the described situation. (BZ#1299503)

Virtual machines started by GNOME Boxes are no longer accessible to every user

Previously, virtual machines started by GNOME Boxes were listening on a local TCP socket. As a consequence, any user could connect to any virtual machine started by another user. A patch has been applied and GNOME Boxes no longer opens such sockets by default. As a result the virtual machines are now accessible through SPICE only to the user who owns the virtual machine. (BZ#1043950)

GNOME boxes rebased to version 3.14.3.1

The GNOME boxes application has been updated to version 3.14.3.1. Most notably,a patch to one bug has been applied as a part of this rebase:
  • Previously, the virtual network computing (VNC) authentication parameters in the GNOME boxes application were not handled correctly. As a consequence, the connections to VNC servers with authentication failed. This bug has been fixed and the connection to VNC servers with authentication now works as expected. (BZ#1015199)

FreeRDP now recognizes wildcard certificates

Previously, wildcard certificates support was not implemented in FreeRDP. As a consequence, wildcard certificates were not recognized by FreeRDP, and the following warning was displayed when connecting: 
WARNING: CERTIFICATE NAME MISMATCH!
Missing functionality has been backported from upstream and code for comparing host names was improved. As a result, the mentioned prompt is no longer shown if a valid wildcard certificate is used. (BZ#1275241)

Important security updates now installed automatically

Previously, it was not possible to have security updates installed automatically. Even though GNOME notified the users about the available updates, they could choose to ignore the notification and not install the update. As a consequence, important updates could be left uninstalled. A gnome-shell extension is now available to enforce the installation of important updates. As a result, when new updates are available, a dialog window notifies the user that updates will be applied and they need to save their work. After a configurable amount of time, the system reboots to install the pending updates. (BZ#1302864)

Accounts' shells in accountsservice now always verified

The accountsservice package heuristics for determining disabled accounts changed between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. As a consequence, users with UID outside of the range 500 - 1000 would appear in the user list even if their shell was invalid. A patch has been applied to always verify the account's shell before the account is treated as a listable user account. As a result, the users with /sbin/nologin as a shell are now filtered out. (BZ#1341276)

New way to handle desktop in Nautilus 3

Previously, icons in Nautilus 3 on the desktop were managed by taking the biggest monitor and trying to adapt the desktop window to the minimum common shape that would fit a rectangle. As a consequence, the icons could not be placed in random areas in some of the monitors, which could cause confusion for the user. This behavior has been changed to restrict the desktop window shape to the primary monitor. Even though this change does not allow to use all available monitors as part of the desktop, it fixes the described bug. (BZ#1207646)

GLX support in Xvnc sessions

The GLX support code in Xvnc requires the use of the libGL library. If a third-party driver was installed and replaced libGL, Xvnc sessions launched with no GLX support. Consequently, 3D applications did not work under Xvnc. With this update, Xvnc has been rebuilt to require libGL, which is assumed to be installed in /usr/lib64/. Now, third-party drivers installed in a sub-directory no longer conflict with Xvnc, which now initializes GLX successfully. As a result, GLX functionality is available again in Xvnc sessions.
Note that client applications connecting to Xvnc need to use the same libGL version as the Xvnc server, which may require the use of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. (BZ#1326867)

Flat document collections

When using the gnome-documents application, it was possible include one collection into another and then vice versa at the same time. Consequently, the application terminated unexpectedly. This update ensures that the collections are flat and do not allow circular chains of collections, thus fixing this bug. (BZ#958690)

control-center no longer crashes when querying with special characters

Previously, text entered by users when searching for a new printer required a specific character-set. Consequently, the control-center utility could terminate unexpectedly when searching for a printer name that contained a special character. With this update, the text is encoded into a valid ASCII format. As a result, control-center no longer crashes and correctly queries for printers. (BZ#1298952)

gnome-control-center no longer crashes because of zero-length string

Previously, the gnome-control-center utility worked with an empty string and an invalid pointer. As a consequence, it terminated unexpectedly. The gnome-control-center utility now checks whether the given application's identifier is at least 1 character long and initializes the new_app_ids pointer. As a result, the stated problem no longer occurs. (BZ#1298951)

The Release Notes package is now installed correctly

Previously, due to the naming of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release Notes packages, the packages were not installed on systems with a different language configured than English. This update provides additional parsing rules in the yum-languagepacks package. As a result, the Release Notes package is now installed correctly. (BZ#1263241)

The LibreOffice language pack is now installed correctly for pt_BR, zh_CN, and zh_TW localizations

Previously, translated libreoffice-langpack packages were not automatically installed on systems using language packs for the pt_BR, zh_CN, and zh_TW localizations. Parsing rules have been added to the yum language plug-in to address the problem. As a result, the correct LibreOffice language pack is installed. (BZ#1251388)