Cloud Provider Security Assessment

Not strictly a Linux post - it's relevant for any kind of hosting. It's also relevant if you store data anywhere but on your local network.

These days there are many providers of cloud data or application servers. If you are concerned about the security of your data, here are a number of questions you should be asking the provider:

News: Simplicity Linux 15.4 Released

David Purse has announced the release of Simplicity Linux 15.4, a set of lightweight Puppy Linux-based distributions for desktops and netbooks - now available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours: 

Simplicity Linux 15.4 is now available for download in Netbook and Desktop editions, both available in 32-bit and 64-bit variants. It is based on the excellent LXPup and it uses its implementation of LXDE as the desktop environment. The 32-bit kernel is the 3.14.20 kernel and the 64-bit kernel is the 3.17.20 kernel. As usual, our Netbook edition is lighter, with shortcuts to web applications rather than locally installed applications. Desktop is our heavier version, with bigger, locally installed applications, like VLC and LibreOffice. We hope you enjoy using Simplicity Linux as much as we enjoyed working on it. Netbook: Chrome, Tor Browser, shortcuts on the wbar dock for Gmail, Grooveshark, Kindle, Netflix, Rock 181.fm. Desktop: Chrome, TOR Browser, Netflix, full LibreOffice

News: ChromixiumOS 1.0 Released

The Chromixium project has announced the release of Chromixium OS 1.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that attempts to recreate the look and feel of Chrome OS while providing a complete Linux system with the ability to install popular desktop applications: 

I am extremely proud to announce that Chromixium 1.0 final, a stable version, is ready for download from Sourceforge right now. Chromixium combines the elegant simplicity of the Chromebook with the flexibility and stability of Ubuntu’s long-term support release. Chromixium puts the web front at the center of the user experience. Web and Chrome applications work straight out of the browser to connect you to all your personal, work and education networks. Sign into Chromium to sync all your applications and bookmarks. When you are offline or when you need more power, you can install any number of applications for work or play, including LibreOffice, Skype, Steam and a whole lot more. Security updates are installed seamlessly and effortlessly in the background and will be supplied until 2019.

News: deepin 2014.3 Released

The deepin development team has announced the release of deepin 2014.3 which brings new updates to the project's Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution, together with a new website domain (deepin.org) and a new product name - now spelled with a lower-case "d". From the release announcement:

deepin 2014.3 is the revised version. This version is the achievement after we comprehensively fixed bugs in the system and applications in the last version and optimized the performance of the last version. Meanwhile, the system features and UI interfaces have been adjusted slightly. In terms of the languages the system supports, deepin 2014.3 has increasingly supported 23 languages. In addition, deepin has relatively complete community documents and nearly 70 mirror sites worldwide, allowing users all around the world to be able to experience the infinite charm of the deepin system. This time, we focused on fixing and optimizing Dock and Control Center to make the experience and stability of deepin 2014.3 greatly improved.

News: BackBox 4.2 Released

Raffaele Forte has announced the release of BackBox Linux 4.2, the latest stable build of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution dedicated to penetration testing and forensic analysis: 

The BackBox team is pleased to announce the updated release of BackBox Linux, version 4.2! This release includes features such as Linux Kernel 3.16 and Ruby 2.1. What's new: preinstalled Linux kernel 3.16; new Ubuntu 14.04.2 base; Ruby 2.1; installer with LVM and full disk encryption options; handy Thunar custom actions; RAM wipe at shutdown and reboot; system improvements; upstream components; bug corrections; performance boost; improved anonymous mode; predisposition to ARM architecture (armhf Debian packages); predisposition to BackBox Cloud platform. New and updated hacking tools: beef-project, crunch, fang, galleta, jd-gui, metasploit-framework, pasco, pyew, rifiuti2, setoolkit, theharvester, tor, torsocks, volatility, weevely, whatweb, wpscan, xmount, yara, zaproxy.

News: Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 Released

The Debian project has announced the release of Debian GNU/Linux 8.0, code name "Jessie". The new stable version is the first Debian release to use systemd as the default init software. It offers support for two new architectures, arm64 and ppc64el, while dropping support for the IA-64 and Sparc architectures. Debian Jessie ships with GNOME Shell 3.14 as the default desktop environment and a number of code hardening features have been added to the build process. 

After almost 24 months of constant development the Debian project is proud to present its new stable version 8 (code name 'Jessie'), which will be supported for the next 5 years.

Jessie can be downloaded in several editions, including a full DVD set, a CD image, a set of live DVD images with popular desktop environments, and a minimal "net-install" image.

News: Ubuntu 15.04 Released

Canonical has announced the launch of Ubuntu 15.04. The new release, which will be supported for nine months, features LibreOffice 4.4, version 3.19 of the Linux kernel and a switch from Canonical's Upstart init to systemd. 

systemd has replaced Upstart as the standard boot and service manager on all Ubuntu flavors except Touch. At the time of the 15.04 release there are no known major problems which prevent booting. The only service which does not currently start is Juju, which will be fixed in a post-release update soon; all other packaged Ubuntu services are expected to work. Upstart continues to control user sessions... You can boot with Upstart once by selecting `Advanced options for Ubuntu' in the GRUB boot menu and starting the `Ubuntu, with Linux ... (upstart)' entry. To switch back permanently, install the upstart-sysv package (this will remove systemd-sysv and ubuntu-standard).

The new release offers several updates and improvements for LXC containers and this is the first version of Ubuntu to offer the LXD container management utility. Ubuntu is available in a number of editions, including Desktop, Server and Snappy, a minimal "core" installation.

News: KaOS 2015.04 Released

Anke Boersma has announced the release of KaOS 2015.04, the latest update of the project's rolling-release Linux distribution featuring KDE's Plasma 5 desktop: 

A nice way of celebrating the second anniversary if this distribution is releasing KaOS 2015.04. The previous two releases were the result of some drastic and fundamental changes to this distribution (new desktop environment, new installer, move to UEFI). With this release it is finally back to a much more simple focus as always intended. Most attention has gone in updating and rebuilding well over 1,200 packages the last two months. As for the desktop this release brings all the latest of Plasma 5 (Frameworks 5.9.0, Plasma 5.2.95) and KDE Applications 15.04.0. All built on Qt 5.4.1. Many more applications are now fully ported to Qt 5 and Frameworks 5, among those re-added since their ports became available are Skrooge, Kid3, Choqok and Kgamma. New additions to the repositories includes applications very recently switching to Qt 5, examples are Wireshark, Frescobaldi and Musescore.

News: ExTix 15.2 Released

Arne Exton has announced the launch of ExTiX 15.2, currently available in two editions, KDE and LXQt. The two editions are based on packages from the recently frozen Ubuntu 15.04 repositories and Debian "Jessie". 

ExTiX Linux Live DVDs (64-bit) are based on Debian Jessie/Ubuntu 15.04. The original system includes the desktop environment Unity (Ubuntu). After removing Unity I have installed LXQt 0.9.0 (in ExTiX 15.2, build 150417) and KDE 4.14.6 together with KDE Frameworks 5.9.0 in an extra version also of 150417. LXQt is the Qt port and the upcoming version of LXDE, the lightweight desktop environment. It is the product of the merge between the LXDE-Qt and the Razor-qt projects: A lightweight, modular, blazing-fast and user-friendly desktop environment. And KDE Frameworks add 60 add-on libraries to Qt which provide a wide variety of commonly needed functionality in mature, peer reviewed and well tested libraries with friendly licensing terms.

News: Scientific Linux 7.1 Released

Pat Riehecky has announced the release of Scientific Linux 7.1, a distribution compiled from the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 and enhanced with extra scientific applications: 

This release delivers a number of changes, including: abrt - removed the recommendation to open an upstream support case; Anaconda - modified the installclass library so that it correctly identifies Scientific Linux; DHCP - changed to remove upstream's bug report URL; GRUB - this package has been modified to recognize the Scientific Linux Secure Boot key; Apache httpd - changed the default index.html to remove upstream's branding; ipa - changed package requirements to remove upstream's branding; Linux kernel - this package has been modified to recognize the Scientific Linux Secure Boot key...

News: ElementaryOS 0.3 "Freya" Released

The developers of elementary OS have announced the launch of a new stable release, code name "Freya". The new release features UEFI support, improved interactive notifications, a new firewall utility, designed administrative utilities and a unified login/lock screen. 

elementary is proud to announce the stable release of elementary OS Freya. After a year and a half of development, over a thousand bug fixes, and countless lines of code, we can finally say it's here. Freya is the latest version of elementary OS, a design-oriented and open source Linux-based operating system for desktops and laptops. It succeeds Luna which was released in August of 2013.

The new release offers Google Calendar support, improved network share support through Samba and more flexible search tools. More information on the new release can be found in the distribution's release announcement.

News: HandyLinux 1.9 Released

The developers behind HandyLinux, a beginner friendly distribution, have announced the availability of HandyLinux 1.9. The new release is based on Debian Wheezy and mostly focuses on minor improvements and bug fixes over the 1.8 release. The 486 and 686 builds have been merged, removing the necessity of selecting the correct ISO image for one's 32-bit architecture. Installing the Skype VoIP client should now be easier. Plus an upgrade path from HandyLinux 1.8 to 1.9 has been introduced and most users should be able to upgrade using a simple graphical utility. The new release also features a new tool for changing the desktop interface. Further information on the new version of Handy Linux, along with screen shots, can be found in the release announcement.

News: Slackel 6.0.3 Released

Slackel, a distribution based on Slackware and Salix, has launched a new release, version 6.0.3 "Live Openbox". The new release provides a lightweight desktop environment with useful, yet efficient, desktop applications. The new Slackel supports UEFI and ships with Midori as the default web browser and AbiWord for word processing.

This release is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures with both fitting comfortably within the size of a single CD. ISO images are isohybrid. The 64-bit ISO supports booting on UEFI systems. Secure Boot is however not supported. The 32-bit flavor is also the first live release that supports both i686 PAE SMP and i486, non-PAE capable systems. The focus of this release has been to provide a lightweight and fast system and also to be easy for all users. The default web browser included in this release is Midori, while the default e-mail client is Claws-mail. The Internet/network applications also include the Pidgin instant messaging application, the Transmission torrent client, the gFTP for connecting to (S)FTP servers, the Wicd Network Manager for connecting to wireless and wired networks and Sakis3g for connecting to 3G mobile networks

News: Linux Mint 2 "LMDE" Released.

Clement Lefebvre has announced the launch of Linux Mint "Debian Edition", version 2. The new release, code named "Betsy", is available in two variants (Cinnamon and MATE) and is based on packages provided by Debian "Jessie". There are separate release announcements for Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 Cinnamon edition and for the MATE edition. Both announcements discuss the features of the new release and how it differs from Linux Mint's other products: 

LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is a very exciting distribution, targeted at experienced users, which provides the same environment as Linux Mint but uses Debian as its package base, instead of Ubuntu. LMDE is less mainstream than Linux Mint, it has a much smaller user base, it is not compatible with PPAs, and it lacks a few features. That makes it a bit harder to use and harder to find help for, so it is not recommended for novice users. LMDE is however slightly faster than Linux Mint and it runs newer packages. Life on the LMDE side can be exciting. There are no point releases in LMDE 2, except for bug fixes and security fixes base packages stay the same, but Mint and desktop components are updated continuously.

News: BellaOS 2.2 Released

Bella OS is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on the latest Xubuntu LTS release with a highly customised Xfce desktop that combines the best features of several popular operating systems. Bella OS 2.2, released yesterday, is the project's current stable release: 

Launch release version 2.2 is now live! Fully functional live CD, or install to hard drive or virtual machine; comes complete with a curated suite of high-quality web, office and entertainment applications; takes design queues from several modern operating systems; declutters and beautifies the desktop; built from Xubuntu LTS and Debian GNU/Linux; large community support and software compatibility. The top Linux applications for work and play are already installed and configured with the most popular options: Firefox web browser, Shotwell photo album, Banshee music player, VLC media player, GIMP image editor, LibreOffice office suite, Brasero CD burner, KeePassX password manager, Ubuntu Software Center...

News: Semplice Linux 7 Released

Eugenio Paolantonio has announced the release of Semplice Linux 7, a lightweight, Debian-based distribution that comes with a custom GTK+ 3-based desktop environment called "vera": 

It's my pleasure to announce the release of Semplice 7, code-named 'Comfortably Numb'. Functionally and aesthetically-wise, you won't find that many differences from Semplice 6. But under the hood there are plenty. Openbox became a component of the desktop environment and not the desktop environment itself. This distinction will help me introduce vera, a plugin-based GTK+ 3 desktop environment, made from scratch by us. Currently Openbox and tint2 run as plugins, but they will eventually get replaced by our own ones. We are not fans of the NIH thing, but personally I feel that this is the right step to make in order to get things up and running on Wayland. Wayland is the future and it's actually already production-ready (I, for example, already run it in my phone, and it's pretty damn exciting).

News: SalentOS 14.04.2 Released

Gabriele Martina has announced the release of SalentOS 14.04.2. Along with an updated set of core packages, the latest version of SalentOS features a number of visible changes. These changes include a new Control Center, a new Update Center for handling package upgrades, a new software repository and Firefox is now the default web browser. 

The Full version is complete with all the software available so can be used right now to surf the web, enjoy multimedia content and work. The live ISO weighs around 850MB, it is installable and can be burned to DVD or used to create a bootable USB device. The Light version is planned to use alternative software and programs according to the tastes and preferences of each user. It contains the base system and has only web browser and text editor installed. The live ISO image weighs around 550MB and can be burned to a CD or used to create a bootable USB device.

News: Kwort 4.2 Released

David Cortarello has announced the release of Kwort Linux 4.2, a new version of the project's lightweight distribution with Openbox, no systemd, and a custom package manager called kpkg - all based on CRUX: 

As the title says, Kwort Linux 4.2 is out there in the wild. This new version is fast, stable and simple as always and a little bit smaller. Everything has been built from scratch in a clean way from a new toolchain to every X.Org package. Most significant technical aspects are: Linux kernel 3.19.2; Chromium 41.0.2272.76; as usual our system remains light and clean as Kwort users like it; new and improved GUI aspect. As usual, a big thanks to the CRUX people for developing it, as it is the system Kwort is based on; even though Kwort 4.2 isn't based on a CRUX release, their ports system was a key component to build this release. The eudev folks for supporting and approving our patch to make /run to be configurable (Kwort uses /var/run). And of course, the people who develop every project Kwort makes use of.

News: Makulu 8 "Unity" Released

Jacque Montague Raymer has announced the launch of a new branch of MakuluLinux 8. The new MakuluLinux edition is based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 and features a customized Unity desktop. Apart from a special look, the MakuluLinux edition of Unity features three panels where users can access information and features. 

Now sporting a unique three panel system that allows the user complete control of his system without even needing to minimize a window. This release is 64-bit with EFI support and offers the Constructor tool to re-spin your own custom ISO.

The announcement goes into more detail on the unique desktop layout: 

MakuluLinux Unity now sports a fully operational bottom panel, this panel includes a classic menu, window list, update notifications and a clock. It acts and functions just like a normal bottom panel, and it makes use of a multi mode system. When not needed it will auto-hide itself, when in fullscreen mode it will reserve panel space. When not used it will also auto-fade into background.

This release also features the Steam gaming client, WINE, PlayOnLinux, support for watching Netflix and the Popcorn Time client. Further information on the release, a list of features and a video tour can be found in the project's release announcement.

News: LXLE 14.04.2, 12.04.5 Released

The developers behind the LXLE distribution have announced the availability of LXLE 14.04.2 and LXLE 12.04.5, the project's respective 64-bit and 32-bit branches. The new release features a number of important application changes. For example, Firefox, Thunderbird and Filezilla have been replaced by the SeaMonkey suit and FireFTP. The Vokoscreen reader has also been replaced by the RecordMyDesktop application. Plus the update manager application has been dropped in favour of the Synaptic package manager.

The next incremental update of LXLE has been released, ticking it up to 14.04.2 along with the last 32-bit version of LXLE ever, which is based on 12.04.5. The 32-bit closely mirrors the changes to the latest 64-bit edition of the OS. As announced in our beta release LXLE now sports a highly customized version of the SeaMonkey Internet Suite. A fairly lengthy article was written on why this decision was made and that it wasn't something taken lightly. To add to that the other underlying reason was we wanted the distribution to showcase an excellent community driven browser to help spur support and perhaps encourage developers to join the project and lend a hand to the overworked small team of Mozilla volunteers still moving forward with Netscape's original suite idea.

How To: How to Use the Cron

Cron jobs are used to schedule commands to be executed periodically. You can setup commands or scripts, which will repeatedly run at a set time. Cron is one of the most useful tool in Linux or UNIX like operating systems. The cron service (daemon) runs in the background and constantly checks the /etc/crontab file, and /etc/cron.*/ directories. It also checks the /var/spool/cron/ directory.

News: CentOS 7.1 Released.

Karanbir Singh has announced the availability of the first point update to CentOS 7, a Linux distribution built by compiling the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7:

We would like to announce the general availability of CentOS Linux 7 (1503) for 64-bit x86-compatible machines. This is the second major release for CentOS 7 and is tagged as 1503. This build is derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1. This merges in all base, updates, and CR (continuous release) components released in the month of March 2015. If you have been using the CR repositories on your previous CentOS Linux 7 install, you already have all the components used to compose this new release. This release supersedes all previously released content for CentOS Linux 7, and therefore we highly encourage all users to upgrade their machines. Information on different upgrade strategies and how to handle stale content is included in the release notes.

News: LinuxLite 2.4 Released

Jerry Bezencon has announced the launch of Linux Lite 2.4. The new version of Linux Lite features smooth upgrades between point releases. There have also been a number of improvements, including VPN support and the installer now supports disk encryption. 

With the release of Linux Lite 2.4 Final, we continue to evolve into a fully featured, light weight free operating system. Major announcement - there is now an upgrade path on Linux Lite from within the LTS series for each release, update your current install from now until April 2016 with one click, see below for details on this. There are enhancements to Lite Software, Install Updates, Lite Tweaks and Network Share Settings. Bountysource has been a major factor in our ability to enhance our software. By paying developers to help improve our software, we improve the quality and usability of our applications. Disk encryption and LVM is now supported - see below for details. There is added support for exFAT, Android MTPFS, VPN connections and NTP to name a few. You get the latest Whisker Menu, there's a new default Terminal theme, and the Windows (Super) key now opens the Menu.

News: BlackArch 2015.03.29 Released

Gaurov Soni has announced the release of BlackArch Linux version 2015.03.29, an Arch Linux-based distribution designed for penetration testers and security researchers: 

Today we have released new BlackArch Linux ISO images. The new ISO images include over 1,200 tools for i686 and x86_64 architectures and over 1,000 tools for armv6h and armv7h architectures. Here's a short changelog: lots of bug fixes; change splash for bootloader (syslinux / GRUB); updated pacman.conf settings; updated /etc/motd and /etc/issue updated BlackArch install scripts (version bump: 0.8); minor tweaks related to ISO builds; updated menu entries for Fluxbox, Awesome and Openbox; updated all tools; added more than 150 new tools. We wish to thank all of BlackArch's users, mirrors, and supporters. Thanks for your help.

News: Zentyal 4.1 Released

The Zentyal development team has announced the launch of Zentyal 4.1. The Ubuntu-based server distribution is designed to be easy to install and configure and ships with a powerful collection of web-based system administration modules.

Zentyal development team is proud to announce Zentyal Server 4.1, a new release of the Zentyal open-source Linux small business server with native Microsoft Exchange protocol implementation and Active Directory interoperability. This release is completely focused on improving the stability and set of features delivered by the OpenChange module, based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS to provide the latest stable packages. Zentyal server comes in two different flavors: development version, for bleeding-edge testing of the latest available features and commercial version for stable production environments. Features: support for Microsoft Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013; multiple virtual mail domains; synchronization with mobile devices (ActiveSync support); central domain directory management...

News: NethServer 6.0 Released

Alessio Fattorini has announced the release of NethServer 6.6, the new stable version of the project's CentOS-based specialist distribution for servers.

We are proud to announce a new NethServer release. This is a thrilling day for the whole NethServer community. It has been a journey to get to this point and we are so excited about the journey ahead of us. Upgrading from 6.6 RC1 is straightforward. From the Software Center page, just check for available updates. For previous releases, check out the release notes. At first login after system installation, the Server Manager displays the First Configuration wizard, where the administrator (root user) can set the password, change the host name, select the time zone and tune other security-related settings. We simplified the interactive installer removing some sections that were moved to the first configuration wizard. The Package Manager page has been renamed Software Center, and moved to the Administration section.

News: Black Lab Linux 6.5 Released

The Black Lab Linux team has announced the launch of Black Lab Linux 6.5. The new release is available in a number of desktop editions and features improved hardware compatibility and fallback options for older machines.

Today we are pleased to announce the release of Black Lab Linux 6.5. With this release we continue to enhance and improve Black Lab Linux for public consumption. While the base is the same, the Open Distribution Release comes in four flavors. GNOME, MATE, Xfce and KDE. The Xfce release is built into the GNOME release because of customer demand. Some of our users run things like legacy 64-bit hardware, terminal services and certain systems where GNOME may not run all that great. So with that said here are some of the new features of Black Lab Linux: GNOME 3.10.4, MATE 1.8.1, KDE 4.14.2, Xfce 4.12, Linux kernel 3.13 LTS compatible, Linux kernel 3.16 default, VLC 2.2, Firefox 36, Thunderbird 31.5, Rhythmbox 3.1, FFmpeg 2.6, Google Chrome 41...

News: Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 Released

Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2, an updated build of the Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE desktop environment. Although the DVD image name sports the LTS (long-term support) tag, this version of Ubuntu MATE is not an "official" Ubuntu flavour as the project was formally accepted as an Ubuntu family member just before the recent 15.04 beta 1 release. From the release announcement: 

Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 is available for download. This release fixes a few issues that were present in 14.04.1, adds some new features and updates some packages. It is important to state clearly that Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 is not an official Ubuntu flavour! The upside of maintaining an unofficial Ubuntu deriative is that we can roll out new features and package updates. So we did, most notably LibreOffice 4.4.1. The advantage of the newer Linux kernel is that it resolves most of the screen tearing issues some people experienced in Ubuntu MATE 14.04.1.

News: antiX 14.4 "MX" Released

antiX 14.4 "MX" has been released. This is the latest update of the project's special edition developed in collaboration with the MEPIS Community and featuring the Xfce desktop.

MX 14.4 'Symbiosis' available. Upgraded bug-fix editions (PAE and non-PAE) of MX 14 are now available. This version has fixed some bugs found in MX 14.3 and Debian upstream. MX 14.4 is based on Debian 'Wheezy' uses SysVInit so MX 14.4 offers a rock-solid systemd-free experience for those who would prefer to stick with SysVInit. MX is designed to be fast, stable and light on resources. The MX 14 series will be supported until the end of life of Debian 'Wheezy'. Bug-fix and upgrade release including quite a few new enhancements. What applications are used? Clementine for music, VLC for video, full LibreOffice suite, Iceweasel for web browsing, Claws-Mail for email, Mirage for image viewing, Minitube for watching YouTube videos...

News: SuperX 3.0 (Grace) Released

Sunit Kumar Nandi has announced the launch of SuperX 3.0, code name "Grace". The new release, which is named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper, focuses on providing an attractive desktop solution on top of a stable platform. The release announcement mentions some of the features that go into making the distribution's desktop responsive.

Grace gives more priority to application responsiveness; you will feel it right from the start - a fast, smooth, responsive system. Grace, by default, compresses unused memory pages within RAM rather than swapping out to the swap partition, making it responsive even when the system memory is low. Commonly used applications are preloaded and cached in memory for faster start-up of your favorite applications. Grace features a beautiful startup splash that changes its background to whatever the user’s wallpaper is, giving SuperX a really smooth transition from the splash screen to the desktop. It features a flat design theme for the desktop shell, with bright, contrasting colors.

Tips: Shortcuts on the current line

Try these useful bash shell shortcuts:

News: Pinugy 14.04.2 Released

A particular favourite of mine, and one I'm considering re-visiting soon - Antoni Norman has announced the release of Pinguy OS 14.04.2, a point update of the project's Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a customised GNOME Shell desktop.

I am happy to announce the availability of 14.04.2 point release. Apart from bug fixes and updating packages not a lot has changed from 14.04 Papercuts. So if you are running 14.04 Papercuts and have kept it updated there is no need to install the point release. Pinguy OS 14.04.2 is running Linux kernel 3.13 and the UEFI version of GRUB. If you had issues installing Pinguy OS on a UEFI-enabled system in the past, this should now be fixed. List of some of the pre-installed applications: Mozilla Firefox 36.0.4, Mozilla Thunderbird 31.5.0, Synaptic package manager 0.81.1, VLC media player 2.2.0 RC2, GNOME Tweak Tool 3.10.4, LibreOffice 4.2.7, Clementine 1.2.3, Shutter 0.93.1, PlayOnLinux 4.2.2, WINE 1.7.38.

News: Neptune 4.3 Released

A new stable release of the Neptune distribution has been made available. The new release, version 4.3, provides users with more up-to-date software and a number of bug fixes.

This is the third service release to Neptune 4 and comes with improvements, bug fixes and updates. This includes Chromium in version 41, VLC in version 2.2, LibreOffice 4.3.3 as well as Icedove 31.5 and many more. The foundation of this release is represented by the current Debian 7.8 ('Wheezy').

News: Oracle Linux 7.1 Released

Michele Casey has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7.1, a distribution rebuilt from the source code for RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.1, but featuring a custom kernel and enhancements:

We're happy to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 1, the first update release for Oracle Linux 7. All packages are currently available on ULN and public yum; ISO installation images will be freely available for download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud soon. Oracle Linux 7 Update 1 ships with the following kernel packages: Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 3 (kernel 3.8.13) for x86-64; Red Hat Compatible Kernel (kernel 3.10.0) for x86-64. Oracle Linux 7 update 1 provides the latest features and innovations, such as: Linux container support using either Docker or LXC with UEK Release 3; comprehensive dynamic tracing with DTrace and UEK Release 3; production support for Btrfs with UEK Release 3; the latest 3rd party hardware support.

News: Chakra Linux 2015.03 Released

Neophytos Kolokotronis has announced the release of Chakra GNU/Linux 2015.03, a new update in the project's "Euler" series which follows the KDE 4.14 line:

The Chakra team is happy to announce the third release of the Chakra Euler series. This is a maintenance release to fix some installation issues and provide all the updated packages that landed in the stable repositories since the previous release. The main new feature is that our ISO now supports booting and installing on UEFI systems! We are aware that everybody is looking ahead into Plasma 5 and we are working on the transition, but we believe it is too early for this to be shipped by default and decided to wait for a little bit longer until Plasma 5 has matured and more KDE Applications have switched to Frameworks 5. This ISO ships with the following notable packages and updates: KDE Applications 14.12.2, except for the applications that have been ported to frameworks 5, which will remain on their 4.14.3 versions; kde-workspace 4.11.16 and kdelibs 4.14.5; Frameworks 5.7; Calligra 2.9.0....

Tips: Bash' Alias Command

An alias is nothing but a shortcut to a command. The alias command allows a user to launch any command by entering a single word. Typing alias will display a list of all defined aliases. You can add your own aliases by editing the ~/.bashrc file.

News: Steam on Linux

Good news for fans of linux gaming. The number of games available on the Steam gaming platform for Linux has surpassed 1000 titles. It's less than a year since it passed the 500 mark, so let's hope that this trend continues.

How To: Compare Two Files

Use the diff command to display line-by-line differences between two files. The general syntax of the diff command is:

diff FILE1 FILE2

News: MakuluLinux 8.0 Cinnamon Released

The MakuluLinux project has announced the release of Makulu Linux version 8.0 "Cinnamon" edition. According to the release announcement, the new release is the first from the project to be built for 64-bit x86 computers. Apart from the new architecture, this release has a strong focus on multimedia and streaming support.

Netflix and Popcorm Time are both now fully supported in this edition. Users can easily install Popcorn Time straight from the software manager or Synaptic manager with one click of a button, no other configuration is needed. It has never been so easy to run Popcorn Time on Debian before. Netflix is now fully integrated and functional on Google Chrome. So truely streaming is something Makulu users can now enjoy with ease. Safety and Security: MakuluLinux Cinnamon x64 Edition now also sports a built in firewall to keep your system secure at all times as well as a built in anti-virus to keep your system safe at all times.

News: Tiny Core Linux 6.1 Released.

Tiny Core Linux 6.1 has been released. This is the latest stable build of the minimalist (15 MB to download) desktop Linux distribution built from scratch. From the Release Announcement:

Team Tiny Core is proud to announce the release of Core 6.1. Changelog: tce-load - remove extraneous ls check, apply awk patch, remove unused depi variable; tc-functions - getbasefile speedup; tce-audit, tce-load - ignore spaces in dep files; BusyBox 1.23.1 patched for modinfo, modprobe, wget and dc; BusyBox updated to 1.23.1; settime.sh - fix systems with default year not 1970; search.sh - awk patch and move common part to a function; tce-audit - awk patch. Also in conjunction with the above in Xprogs: apps - quote the search argument, reload the list on an empty search, set a minimum size to the window, nicer resize behaviour. Several elements of X.Org 7.7 were also updated between 6.0 and 6.1 so users should use the apps GUI to check for updates and check for changed deps after upgrading.

How To: Resume Held or Stalled Printer Jobs.

It's a fairly frequent occurrence: you've printed a document (to a network printer) only to find the printer was turned off. In this case, the print job would be set to a 'Hold' status. Using lpstat -l you can view the print job and you can resume it by using the lp command. So why not do all in single, simple script?

Tips: Finding Files

find is a really useful tool for locating files, but it can be a bit slow. There is a command by the name locate that is much faster the super-useful find command, the reason being that locate command indexes files before-hand. The disadvantage is that files keep on getting added or removed making locate unreliable if the indexing is not done regularly.

First, index the files on your computer:

sudo updatedb

Then, search for a file:

locate -i <file>

I'd recommend putting updatedb in a cron to run regularly.

Tips: Execute Last Command as Root

I've lost count of the number of times I've run a command only to be told 'Permission denied'. Sometimes these commands have been quite long so it's a royal pain to re-type. However, a quick and easy way is to use !! to rerun the last command.

sudo !!

This runs the last command but pre-pended with sudo.

Tips: Linux Terminal Tab Completion

Beginners to using the Linux terminal may find this of use - it's an essential trick and great time saver.

Let's say you have a file with a long file name in the current directory and you want to delete it. Typing the entire file name is one way, but you'd have to make sure all the spaces were escaped properly (i.e. adding \ character before each space) and you  might easily make a mistake. However, if you type rm and the first character of the file name, and press the Tab key, Bash will automagically fill in the file's name for you.

Of course, you might have multiple files that begin with this letter and Bash won't know which one you want to delete. If you hit Tab again, Bash will show you a list of all matching file names. Continue typing your desired file name and press Tab again, and Bash will fill your desired file name.

Usefully, this also works for commands. Not sure which command you need, but you know it begins with "gnome"? No problem. Type "gnome" and press Tab to see a list!

How To: Download Audio or Video from Youtube

It might go against the point of youtube videos a little bit, but if you want to download videos from youtube for offline viewing, there's a handy package that can do this for you. Using your favourite package manager (apt, yum, zypper) install the youtube-dl package. It may need to install a few dependencies which will vary according your system.

How To: View and Manage Processes

Viewing and managing linux processes is usually done by using the ps command. A few years ago, I started using the top command. But nowadays I almost exclusively use htop.

News: New Release of KaOS Linux

Anke Boersma has announced the release of KaOS 2015.02, a brand-new version of the project's rolling-release Linux distribution featuring the Plasma 5 desktop.

KaOS is very proud to announce the availability of the February release of a new stable ISO image. This release brings the end of KDE 4 as the default Desktop Environment for KaOS. Almost ten months ago work started to fully migrate to Frameworks 5, Plasma 5-based distribution and with the release of Plasma 5.2.1 this migration is now deemed ready to bring a better user experience then KDE 4. From the unset of this migration there was never a plan to mix the two environments. What you will see on this ISO is a pure Plasma 5-based environment. As many might have noted KDE Applications 14.12 did not contain more then a handful of Plasma 5 applications. Just about all applications that users have become used to seeing in a KDE 4 version are available as a Plasma 5 port. A few are not ready yet, and those will be missing from the KaOS repositories until their ports are ready for daily use.

How To: Continuously Monitor LogFiles

Sometimes in the life of a SysAdmin it is necessary to monitor logfiles. Sometimes these logfiles can fill up really, really quickly. tail -f will show the logfile updating in realtime. But if you are looking for some specific event, using the following can be really handy:

tail -f <logfile> | grep <pattern>

Good,eh?!?

How to: Prevent Packages from being Updated

It's a common occurrence in the Linux world that you need to prevent a package from being updated by the package manager. So here we go. For this example we're going to prevent the kernel from being upgraded. Note - you'll need sudo access for this, so make sure you either sudo -i, or append sudo to the beginning of each command.

Hello World

As a user of various flavours of linux for over 15 years, I've decided to start a little blog to share all the tips and tricks I've come across over the years. I'll try to make it as distro-independent as possible, and whenever I can, I'll provide solutions for both debian- and redhat- based distributions.

Feel free to post corrections and questions.