Slashdot Mirror

It's also very rare.

You sound like a sysadmin who doesn't pay very much attention. I'm running the 16.04 LTS release of Ubuntu. I installed it last year with kernel version 4.4.0-7.22 (Ubuntu numbering), actually a 4.4.2 mainline kernel. Since April last year there have been 51 kernel security updates each requiring a reboot to apply to my Linux machine which means that on average my Ubuntu server gets rebooted twice as often as my Windows machine for the purposes of applying an update.

Speaking of, I just logged into SSH to double check this before posting. Guess what greeted me:

Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-93-generic x86_64)

  * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/
  * Management: https://landscape.canonical.co...
  * Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantage

0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

*** System restart required ***
No mail.

I'm going to eat some humble pie and admit that my server with an up-time of 41 days is now 4 kernel updates behind because I haven't rebooted in a while. Hopefully no security updates.

Then again, I usually don't need to redo my whole settings

Unless you're using mainstream Ubuntu, which changes desktop environment once or twice a decade. It changed from GNOME 2 to Unity in 11.10, leading to widespread sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop. And it's set to change from Unity to GNOME 3 in 17.10.

clean up the system from spyware that miraculously got turned back on

Like the Amazon shopping lens a few years back?

I call BS on this. Here is Ubuntu security notice on the matter. And I'm pretty sure Debian is earlier than Ubuntu.

A fix was just released for Linux (e.g. Ubuntu and derivatives).

The phones and tablets will be the hard part here.

Go look at the Ubuntu survey.

Ubuntu will continue to provide 32 bit Cloud and Container images.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archi...

This isn't the first time that Canonical have produced a custom kernel for a cloud provider platform. Earlier in the year they came out with a custom Ubuntu kernel for the same for AWS so it sounds like strategy they're pursuing in general. Other than the reduced size I'd hope these improvements end up in the mainline kernel in the end (perhaps these changes already have and these are just backports?)...

(Chunk downloading hasn't been actually faster for a while.)

It is demonstrably faster for me. For example, it's about 20% faster to download ubuntu-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso via DTA (specifying eight segments, although it seems to use only seven for the download in this case) compared to just "save link as". This is with Comcast 200mpbs down service. So, your claim is not universally true.

"the disservice I've seen the Linux community perform for people by recommending Linux as an alternative to Windows and MacOS is terrible."

What do you mean?

Anyone who knows enough about systems to be able to judge the pros and cons has certainly already heard of Linux

I'm stuck with xfce on everything. It has its own issues, all the themes are low-contrast for the foreground window, mimicking Apple and MS, so some customization is needed on my part. Gnome and KDE, despite being FOSS have gone amateur night designer. The design-and-abandon issues are worse.

Apple's been right about touch interfaces, keep them separate from the desktop metaphor. Balmer was a disaster for MS, and Canonical copied their mistakes, complete with Unity and Ubuntu phone. Now Libreoffice looks like it's trying to copy the Ribbon.

Syncing files is a pain. I use a mix of rsync, git, unison and Dropbox (for IOS) when needed.

As for updates, just this weekend I was on the road and needed LibreOffice Calc on my Kali box... it's a Debian rolling-release. To install Calc, I had to install 100's of MBs of updates, when it installed, the icons were all dead. Probably fixable with a reboot, but whatever. Kali's not a desktop distro. Really should have used my VPN to reach home and RDP'd into my Windows box. It would have been less trouble... RDP on Windows is excellent.

My personal experience is that, since I want certain things to work a certain way when I set up a Linux machine, I have to put in tremendous effort for the first few weeks to get it mostly right. ...

It's also the case that when you plan a new Linux machine, you have to do your homework. I research what hardware will work, then put together my own machine.

This is consistent with my experience, although often the answer to an issue is "you should have picked different hardware". Options with notebooks are far, far more limited. People who say "Linux works on teh everything!!" are very tiring.

My next Thinkpad I'll look at the model-type of Thinkpad with Ubuntu preinstalled... and probably get the OEM Windows on it anyway: https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop/models/?category=Laptop&vendors=Lenovo

Ubuntu handles that one of two ways:

The problem is that you can go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kern... and download the latest kernel for Ubuntu but may cause problems so you would want to have a working kernel to fall back on.

adduser will also allow numerics at the beginning of the user name. All you have to do to make it so is edit the regular expression in adduser.conf(5).

Same AC here. On Linux, this is how you'd do that is below -- preface: I do not use X/X.org (last time was in 1995!), so please take some of what I say with a grain of salt. The version of Ubuntu you're using matters greatly too. Someone more familiar with Ubuntu as a workstation/desktop, please comment!

1. Try digging around for resources relating to X.org, as that's effectively what's driving all the GUI bits and interacting with the video driver. I think this is xorg.conf or xorg.conf.d/ and there may be a config file setting (warning: that file/directory will probably scare you). I don't think your WM (window manager) is relevant,

2. Research options described in Ubuntu's Community Support; pick one or several and post there,

3. Try to track down the authors (committers) of the associated video driver and ask them. I did the work for you as best as I could: the X.org driver is called xserver-xorg-video-intel (assuming that's the chip you're using). There's supposedly an alternate driver from Intel themselves here but I have no idea if using it would solve anything (I wouldn't recommend doing the latter on a whim; I prefer to use Ubuntu packages natively if at all possible),

4. Use Launchpad to file a ticket with Ubuntu directly. Also advise searching their system to see if someone else has asked the same thing (try looking for separate terms "tearing", "vsync", "v-sync", or "vblank").

I also own an Intel NUC, but it's a headless server box for building third-party MIPS and ARM router firmwares, so I don't use the GUI (I don't even have a monitor hooked up to it). Plus we might have different NUCs (their on-die GPUs certainly differ between models), and I'm running a fairly old Ubuntu (intentionally).

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but the above steps is the road I would take if I had to deal with said issue.

Step 1: Download Ubuntu.
Step 2: (Install and boot Ubuntu; then) install the VirtualBox package inside of Ubuntu.
Step 3: (Run VirtualBox and) boot your Windows partition inside VirtualBox.

Optional: Disable network access to the Windows virtual machine to keep it from phoning home.
Optional: Post a selfie of yourself running Windows in a VM and giving Microsoft a two-handed middle finger salute.

But it also doesn't have the Windows problem of privilege-escalation or lots of insecure system processes for the ransomware to exploit in the first place

There seem to be plenty of them, if you care to open your eyes to the real world.

https://www.ubuntu.com/usn/

Just be aware that if you're running a LTS version of Ubuntu, it doesn't have this vulnerability.
As per the linked article, this issue affects Ubuntu 17.04 & Ubuntu 16.10. The most recent LTS release is 16.04

Just be aware that if you're running a LTS version of Ubuntu, it doesn't have this vulnerability.
As per the linked article, this issue affects Ubuntu 17.04 & Ubuntu 16.10. The most recent LTS release is 16.04

This being a kernel issue, the kernel package is what gets updated. You use the same apt upgrade command to update linux-image as everything else. You've probably already done so several times without even noticing - aside from the need to reboot afterwards.

Here's the Ubuntu page on the defect, along with instructions if you need them.
https://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn...

Inspiron 11 3000

Thank you. Better yet: Canonical claims Linux works.

Unfortunately, if you want a full fledged computer, you probably won't find anything smaller than a Zotac. That's the limitation of micro ATX boards basically. And then, unless you are very well versed in the dark arts of DIY electronics, it's gonna be very hard to make a battery work with a setup like that... Zotac and other microATX desktop PCs were not designed to work with batteries, but with a good power supply and AC.
Unless there's some ready made solution, afaik, the power motherboards, components and whatnot needs are very finnicky. Not only they need all sorts of voltages, the overall power draw is too much for batteries to handle.

If you don't mind having a lower powered desktop, I suggest looking for InFocus' Kangaroo PC. Packs an Intel Atom X5-Z8500 which is among the best you can get for the size, has an internal battery, and is the size of a smartphone only thicker. I have one. It's cheap too, around 100 something bucks.
http://www.kangaroo.cc/kangaro...
Problem is, it's still closer to Compute Stick than a laptop. And it's not getting better since Intel abandoned Atom.

Other options along the same line of Zotac is Intel NUC and... I think ASUS has some small boxes too. But they are all wall powered.

Last option might be just getting a laptop and taking the screen off I guess. :P I understand why some people want that, but apparently upscaling doesn't make much sense... you also need to understand that even though components on laptops might fit into a smaller form factor, the biggest part of a laptop ends up being the custom made batteries.

As for a tablet which you can install Linux on, I have a Dell Venue 11 Pro that originally came with Windows 8, installed Ubuntu on it, worked fine.

I'm also trying to force a Gole 1 ( http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box... ) to work with Linux but it has been a bit hard. I can force it to run Ubuntu, but neither wi-fi nor ethernet are working - you have to use an USB adaptor. Also, it seems the company used a smartphone touchscreen which doesn't flip orientation along with the screen. But likewise, the Gole 1 has an Atom CPU that is worse than the one inside the Kangaroo PC (Z83500). But it comes with a screen and a bunch of ports, Windows 10 and Android installed, at around double the price.

I'm not sure how compatibility goes, but there were some smaller tablets that ran Windows which I'm not sure if they'd work or not. Ubuntu also had their own smartphone and tablet, and I think they made a fork that worked with some of the Nexus devices... but I think the whole thing has been abandoned:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch

Anyways, if you find out new stuff post here! I'm also interested.

Patched in Ubuntu and downstream derivatives in Samba v2:4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.7 (This is the xenial one.)

samba (2:4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.7) xenial-security; urgency=medium

* SECURITY UPDATE: remote code execution from a writable share- debian/patches/CVE-2017-7494.patch: refuse to open pipe names with a slash inside in source3/rpc_server/srv_pipe.c.

- CVE-2017-7494

-- Marc Deslauriers Fri, 19 May 2017 14:18:13 -0400

Source: http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/s/samba/samba_4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.7/changelog

'Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" is available for download .. Unfortunately, the release is a bit tainted -- it uses Unity as the official desktop environment

Then download the Lubuntu version which used the LXDE desktop environment.

Ubuntu: The leading operating system for PCs, tablets, phones, IoT ...

If you run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Just to put some clarity around "Unity may no longer have a future, but version 7 will continue to be supported -- for a while, at least."

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releas...

The website the summary points to is a cluster-fuck of ads, pop-ups and video on auto-play. It also contains no useful information about the release.
Do yourself a favor, and check the official page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ZestyZapus/ReleaseNotes.

"Let me put it this way: if this software is such an obvious 'polished turd', why haven't *you* coded up a replacement?"

systemd *is* the replacement. And all these years later, I still without any hesitation prefer the thing it replaced...which I still use.

You prefer Upstart? That's what systemd replaced on both Red Hat distributions and Ubuntu.

Linux, a legacy project?

Sure it is.
Ubuntu has migrated to an NT kernel, while the commonest Linux distro, Android, is moving to Magenta.

Ubuntu do a certified program now, https://certification.ubuntu.c... Might not work with all distro's but certainly helped me pick out a new thinkpad recently.

Also do you have any idea how hard it is to find an ASLR leak? These are the same or similar features to those found in gcc / Ubuntu. You can read about the Ubuntu implementations here. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Securi... These are features implemented by all modern operating systems / compilers. But they weren't common in the Windows 7 era. Again we could all *prefer* that MSFT back port features to Win/7 and or give up on Windows/10 telemetry.

There are things like DEP/NX and ASLR that require varying degrees of buy in from the OS/loader/processor however what you seem to be referring to (stacks) are security checks injected at COMPILE TIME adding various protections with a nominal performance tradeoff. This makes a lot of sense. Once code is compiled information necessary to make any kind of coherent determination is severely diminished to do anything about it later at runtime.

I can use GCC to compile windows programs if I want and take advantage of GCC security features in my app running on Windows XP. Mozilla can follow through with their threat to compile Mozilla in Rust enabling users to become immune from certain classes of security bugs in the subset of code using that language (assuming it actually behaves with advertised constraints).

Numerous security checking features have been available directly in visual studio and as add-on libraries from third parties for as far back as I can remember.

Now you can argue since the operating system itself is not compiled with x, y and z that it is less secure. To which my response is users tend to sit behind stealth mode firewalls anyway in a single user/household environment. If you can protect applications from external compromise this is sufficient in practical terms since the application is the thing sticking its neck out. You can of course still exploit vulnerable OS provided aspects the application relies on. Font processing for example has previously been a successful target but holistically the security of the application is way more important than OS selection for most users.

This obviously is not sufficient in other settings such as multi-user systems/ application servers yet I have never in my life trusted an operating systems ability to fend off privilege escalation from interactive users... It's too unrealistic...too big an ask. Associated stream of CVE's in this regard is hardly surprising.

Also do you have any idea how hard it is to find an ASLR leak? These are the same or similar features to those found in gcc / Ubuntu. You can read about the Ubuntu implementations here. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Securi... These are features implemented by all modern operating systems / compilers. But they weren't common in the Windows 7 era. Again we could all *prefer* that MSFT back port features to Win/7 and or give up on Windows/10 telemetry. But to instead expose ourselves and/or customers in order to support an ideology achieves nothing and just makes us look silly. Here's another chance for somebody to mod me down. Have fun.

Ubuntu Phone...not readily available, but the idea was theirs: https://www.ubuntu.com/mobile

By the way FUSE is not what you need to use NTFS in Linux.

I think you meant to say its' not all you need.

and ntfs-3g to implement NTFS specifically

Yes, that's one implementation. Also of note, and I'm not sure when this changed, but Ubuntu now ships with ntfs-3g installed by default. I bet that cam to pass around the same time Windows 10 began including a cut-down version of the distro.

Again FUSE does not get you NTFS. FUSE sets up the framework so Linux can use other filesystems like NTFS, GmailFS, etc. You still need ntfs-3g or Captive NTFS which are 3rd party.

I know WTF FUSE is. You even quoted me mentioning FUSE and NTFS drivers separately, so I clearly understand that they are two different things and you clearly realize this, yet you frame your argument as if I do now - twice within the same post.

And you do so while completely ignoring the fact that FUSE and ntfs-3g installed via the same package manager as the rest of your typical sane Linux distro will be updated (and thus not break) along with the rest of your OS, while the same is not true of OS X or macOS.

It's almost like you're getting irrationally defensive and ignoring the factual portions of my posts that disagree with your reality because you think I'm trying to tear down your beloved Apple. Friend, go review my posting history; my house is, largely, an Apple house and I speak from experience.

"Monolithic apps" is nothing but a formal acknowledgement that the OS stops providing APIs at some boundary. This helps keep both the OS and the app(s) well-defined. What an app needs beyond that point should be supplied by the app's author. Windows follows this model to a certain extent as well as OS X.

OTOH, Linux distros have taken the management model for OSs internals and extended it into applications. This reduces the apps' integrity as a separate (if dependant) thing.

OS maintainers should not be meddling in app packaging to the extent they do on regular Linux distros. It means that every app must be chewed-up into little pieces and sprayed around different places in the filesystem. It means your app will be paired with library revisions it was never tested with, not just for traditional OS functions but also for a lot of the features that make the app(s) interesting. It means app developers have to track the developments in 1,000 different projects instead of worrying about Apple/Microsoft + the 4 extra libraries added to their app. This is one of the reasons Linux repels app developers, and people more intelligent than me, like Mark Shuttleworth, have complained about it for a long time.

Here is Ubuntu's solution - https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop...

Good catch! I did indeed install the restricted addons but unless I'm mistaken, thats because the installer prompts that they are needed to have the MP3 decoder.

That seems to be the case:

"Ubuntu Restricted Extras is a software package for the computer operating system Ubuntu that allows the user to install essential software which is not already included due to legal or copyright reasons. It is a meta-package that installs: Support for MP3 and unencrypted DVD playback. Microsoft TrueType core fonts."

And ubuntu-restricted-extras depends on ubuntu-restricted-addons as well as recommending gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse.

They're usually installed through the ubuntu-restricted-addons package.

According to the Ubuntu manifest only Base and Good plugins are installed by default, like in most distros by the way.

If you're running Ubuntu 16.04 though, kernel 4.8 still is a feature released in February and a future, to be defined kernel is supported a good six months after that. Did annoying notice this? According to that schedule at least, so that you can upgrade with a long and semi-obscure apt-get command.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel...

I'd sure like to upgrade to a GCN card. The low end, low power ones are all GCN 1.0 (Cape Verde and Oland GPUs). A nine month wait for official support is much. And I'm counting from now! Note that you can call it "older" all you want : there's no replacement yet for AMD R7 240 graphics cards.

18.1 uses the 4.4 kernel, same as 18.0 and Ubuntu 16.04.0 and 16.04.1, so I think you need to wait for 18.2 or mess around with Ubuntu kernel ppa etc.
Ubuntu "LTS enablement stack" is slated to bring Ubuntu 16.10 kernel and Xorg to Ubuntu 16.04, with February 2017 as a proposed release date :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel...
So you can upgrade 18.1 like that in a semi-supported way, but not now.

In all, 16.04 is a bit of a sucky release. Needs a kernel/Xorg upgrade for Skylake or very recent Intel hardware, would need a downgrade available for AMD Radeon users, and about the only user visible benefit I could really see is GTK3 has improved (damning with a faint praise).
In Mate's file manager, you can middle-click to close a tab. That's a good thing, a tiny new feature that doesn't break anything. Also Mint removed the conflict between gedit 2.x and gedit 3.x, not that I care that much.

Next step? There are already Ubuntu Certified Public Clouds:

http://partners.ubuntu.com/pro... (marketing)
http://partners.ubuntu.com/fin... (full list)

tldr; pretty much every public cloud, and all the major ones.

Next step? There are already Ubuntu Certified Public Clouds:

http://partners.ubuntu.com/pro... (marketing)
http://partners.ubuntu.com/fin... (full list)

tldr; pretty much every public cloud, and all the major ones.

Or because Cannonical need a wider market for their own cloud products https://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/p...
Defeating competitors may be their real ultimate goal.

I'm not sure I follow. Ubuntu will let you install the proprietary drivers and will let you file bug reports for issues, but if the close-sourced driver is found to be the culprit, they'll refer you to AMD... because AMD is the only one with the source code, and thus the only ones able to help you fix the bug. That's about as much support as one could ask for.

The open source drivers are the default install, but you certainly can replace them with the proprietary closed source drivers.

Here's the How To from Ubuntu for the most recent 16.04 LTS:
https://help.ubuntu.com/commun...

As for the open vs closed source quality, recent benchmarks show that the MESA 13 drivers are pretty close to the closed source ones for most chipsets, but it's still a tiny bit high on the latency. I doubt you'll ever get parity until/unless AMD phased out the closed source drivers by fully opening the source code. There's probably some things in there they license and/or don't care to share with competitors, though.

It is about money.

From Mark Shuttleworth's Dec 1st post (Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Ubuntu. He’s also the Executive Chairman and VP, Product Strategy at Canonical)

More importantly, as users, you can vote with your feet to any significant cloud and have confidence that what you are using won’t bite you hard in the weekend.

Someone did not pay to be on that list, and they are not happy about their success. Ubuntu could not have a less accurate name.

Let's see, does Slackware or FreeBSD have similarly titled self-important twats at the helm?

Nope... Slackware has a "Founder and Project Coordinator": http://www.slackware.com/about/
FreeBSD has "Executive" and "Marketing" directors: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/about/staff/ (not so good, bit like Ubuntu there)

I think Shuttleworth needs a major dose of "don't be a greedy dick" medicine.

For example, Ubuntu 16.10 uses the letter "Y" -- "Yakkety Yak". The next version of the operating system will use the letter "Z" [and] Canonical has chosen "Zesty Zapus"...

Version 17 will use the letter "Z" and yet there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Hmm... Did I miss a Sesame Street episode somewhere?

FWIW, it's not version 17 - it's the version being targeted for the 4th month of 2017 (hence 17.04).

They played fast & loose with the codenames in the early days, but then got back on track ... so that Zesty Zapus is indeed the 26th release.

Big Bird would be proud!

Or, you can do without that unity crap and get the minimal install with only the things that are required to boot the system and install the rest. No graphics but you can install it later.

http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/net...

The good thing with this is that you have a very customizable system but it is still Ubuntu, so it tends to be well supported by third parties. Debian has a minimal install too and it is pretty much interchangeable with Ubuntu.

solid OS alternative

https://www.ubuntu.com/phone is not solid enough?

This prompted me to revisit this issue. Turns out that 16.10 LTS will indeed address the VNC problem with an enhanced "low graphics mode." Ubuntu explicitly mentions VNC as a use case. Yay.

I'll have to give this a try after they release it; at the moment I'm using Ubuntu MATE only because it works well over VNC. Dear Ubuntu; whomever you've tasked with "low graphics mode" is doing The Lord's Work(tm). OpenGL animated desktops are great and all, but a Linux desktop can never afford to neglect remote solutions like VNC or simple framebuffer hardware. So I guess I'll see if "low graphics mode" actually works properly and isn't a glitchy mess.

In the meantime you may avoid using systemd as init in Debian by installing sysvinit-core or in Ubuntu by installing upstart-sysv in your transition to a systemd-less distro such as Devuan.

If you are using Debian Jessie, you can switch to Devuan by simply changing repositories. Its still in beta so don't do it on production servers yet. But do plan your migration, before this gets out of hand.

Yawn. You have absolutely zero evidence that this is bug in edge's code. It could be a file system bug, it could be a memory manager bug. it could be a bug in some third party addon and a million other things. It would have taken 10 seconds to take a crash dump and debug it. You seem to be a non technical noob user and thats all well and good. But then again, why are you on a technical site?

And Linux. hahaha lol dude way to shoot yourself in the foot.. The entire fucking point of Linux is to offload testing to the "community" (aka users). This is the extent of the testing done - "it compiles, release it". You only have to run any distro ever produced to see the deluge of *CONSTANT* patches for buggy shit that you have to install. The reality doesn't align with your fantasy. For e.g. - http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/ lols bug after bug

Get out of the echo chamber dummy..

Ubuntu phones are all sold out from http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/devices.