Tuesday, October 31, 2017

NethServer 7.4







Alessio Fattorini has announced the release of a new version of NethServer, a CentOS-based distribution for servers. The new NethServer release, version 7.4, introduces improvements to Samba and Active Directory integration. The new version also will inform the user when new upstream releases are available. "The new release automatically updates the domain controller and warns on upstream updates. Proxy, web content filter, anti-virus and IPS were updated and got an improved web user interface. In addition, it contains some enhancements (Speedtest in diagnostics panel, new bandwidth measuring, prevent intrusions with rule categories). Last but not least we are proud to present an up-to-date cloud and VoIP server. Account provider improvement: The local Active Directory account provider is now able to apply updates to the Samba DC instance automatically. The latest provided Samba DC version is 4.6.8. More features: Besides local active directory NethServer supports remote AD and LDAP(local/remote). IP changing possible. Account provider changing from LDAP to AD and vice versa is supported." Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement and in the release notes. Download (MD5): nethserver-7.4.1708-x86_64.iso (857MB, torrent, pkglist). Also available from OSDisc.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

GeckoLinux 423.171028.16 Beta









GeckoLinux is an openSUSE-based distribution designed to be easy to set up and use on desktop systems. The project has released a new development snapshot, GeckoLinux 423.171028.16 Beta, which introduces several new improvements and features the Cinnamon desktop environment. "Thanks to Kiwi, GeckoLinux will now boast the following improvements: Much smoother and more reliable startup. Splash screen during live system startup. Better hardware detection, especially Xorg startup with certain troublesome graphics cards. No more entering passwords for the live session user account. Live USB persistence - GeckoLinux can now be used as an excellent portable OS, not just as an installation medium. Cleaner ISO generation process that is more in line with openSUSE. GeckoLinux is a live installable system, with two installer options: The default recommended installer is Calamares, now at the latest version 3.1.7. This version in conjunction with an updated set of underlying tools offers a huge number of improvements and bug fixes that should lead to smooth and successful installations for almost everyone. For advanced users that prefer the older yast2-live-installer, it is still available and even incorporates some integration fixes to workaround issues that used to be present on the resulting installed system. This is also the recommended option for users that want a Btrfs system with Snapper integration for the GRUB bootloader, providing automatic system snapshots and rollback capability." More information can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (MD5): GeckoLinux_Static_beta.x86_64-423.171028.16.iso (957MB, pkglist).

How To Flash Android (Flyme) On Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition


This is a quick guide for how to reflash Fyme OS on Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition. Flyme is based on Android with some redesign along with extras. It doesn't ship with Google apps, but those are easily installable.

You can flash Flyme 5.1.12G or 6.1.0G (released recently), both based on Android 5.1. To see what's new in Flyme 6, check out THIS page. Using the steps below, you should receive future Flyme OS updates automatically, so there's no need to reflash anything manually for any OS updates.


Flash Android (Flyme) On Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition)


Before proceeding, make sure your phone is charged. Also, like with any flashing procedure, this may brick your device, so use these instructions at your own risk! And finally, I should mention that I didn't yet try to perform a reverse procedure (install Ubuntu Touch back) so if you plan on doing this in the future, you'll have to figure out how to do it yourself.

1. What you'll need

1.A. adb and fastboot.

In Ubuntu, adb and fastboot are available in the official repositories. To install them, use the following commands:


sudo apt install adb fastboot
 
 These can also be downloaded from HERE (for Linux, Mac and Windows).



1.B. Flyme firmware (global version).



The Meizu MX4 global firmware is available to download from HERE.



1.C. recovery.img from Flyme OS.



This can be downloaded from HERE or HERE.



Place the firmware along with the recovery image in your home folder.





2. Enable Developer mode on your Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition (About phone > Developer mode).


3. You may encounter an error with adb / fastboot not detecting the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition device. To fix this, open the ~/.android/adb_usb.ini file with a text editor (if it doesn't exist, create the ".android" folder in your home directory, and a file called adb_usb.ini inside this folder) and paste the following in this file:
0x2a45
... and save the file.

On Windows, this file is available under C:\Users\\.android

4. Flash the recovery and Flyme OS

4.A. Connect the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition device to your computer via USB (USB 2.0 is recommended because it looks like there might be issues with USB 3.0), then reboot in bootloader mode and flash the recovery:
 
 
adb reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
 
 
Note that the phone must be unlocked when doing this. Also, the first time you use adb, the phone will ask if you want to allow the connection - make sure you click "Accept"!

In theory, you should be able to reboot to bootloader by holding volume down + power buttons, and into recovery by holding volume up + power, but these didn't work for some reason on my device (I don't remember if only one of them or both), that's why I used commands instead in this article.

4.B. Next, power up the phone and after Ubuntu Touch boots, run the following command to reboot into recovery:
 
 
adb reboot recovery
 
 
From the recovery screen (which is in Chinese), you need to get to a screen which displays the "adb sideload" command at the bottom. You get to this by selecting the various options in the recovery screen, but unfortunately I forgot which one (and I didn't took a picture). So unfortunately I can't tell you exactly how to get there, but remember that "adb sideload" should be displayed at the bottom when you get to the right option.

Once you get to the screen I mentioned above, run the following command
 
adb sideload update.zip
 
 
 

ArchLabs 2017.10



Matt Dobson has announced the release of a new version of ArchLabs, a 64-bit distribution based on Arch Linux and featuring the Openbox window manager. The new release makes use of a long term support kernel and ArchLabs specific packages have been added to the project's own repository from the AUR community repository. "A major change is the move to the LTS Kernel, hopefully this will provide us with even further stability as there are less frequent updates and changes to the LTS as opposed to the latest kernel. Another major change is the repackaging of ArchLabs specific packages. These have been signed with our GPG signatures and keyring and added to our own ArchLabs repository. Pacman will still update these packages as normal. This aids in reinstall time as you will no longer have to rely on any AUR packages on a fresh install. Calamares has been updated to the latest version, this brings a new user creation section, fixes and improvements to language, locale and keyboard support." The project's release announcement has further details and screen shots. Download (MD5): archlabs-2017-10-lts.iso (922MB, torrent, pkglist). Also available from OSDisc.

How to install Flash player on Ubuntu?

flashplugin-installer


sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

The flashplugin-installer package provides the NPAPI plug-in for Firefox. If you chose to install certain third-party software when you installed Ubuntu, flashplugin-installer is probably installed already. Otherwise you can install it and restart your browser.

Install the Flash plug-in

Flash is a plug-in for your web browser that allows you to watch videos and use interactive web pages on some websites. While HTML5, which is a more modern solution, is increasingly offered, there are still some websites which won't work without Flash.
If you do not have Flash installed, you will probably see a message telling you so when you visit a website that needs it. Flash is available as a free (but not open-source) download for most web browsers.
There are two kinds of plug-ins available:
  • NPAPI for Firefox and other Gecko-based web browsers
  • PPAPI for Chromium and other Blink-based web browsers including Opera and Vivaldi
     


    browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash

    Some features of the PPAPI plug-in, such as 3D acceleration and premium video DRM, are not available in the NPAPI plugin. If you use Firefox or some other Gecko-based browser and need those features, you can install the browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash package. It's a wrapper which makes Firefox use the PPAPI plug-in.
    1. Make sure that adobe-flashplugin is installed.
    2. Open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and install the browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash package:
      sudo apt install browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash
    3. Restart your browser.

Qubes OS 4.0 RC2



Marek Marczykowski-Górecki has announced the availability of the second release candidate for Qubes OS 4.0, a Fedora-based desktop Linux distribution with a strong focus on system security. This is achieved by isolating different tasks into separate virtual domains: "We're pleased to announce the second release candidate for Qubes 4.0. As usual, this release candidate includes numerous bug fixes over the previous one. Two of the most important changes are: improved PCI passthrough with sys-net and sys-usb running in HVM mode by default - with this change, we've officially achieved our Qubes 4.0 goal of having all qubes running in HVM mode by default for enhanced security; Whonix templates are back - we've fixed various blocking issues and the Whonix templates are available in the default installer once again. There were two primary reasons for the substantial delay of this release. The first was our discovery of the security issue that would come to be known as XSA-237." See the release announcement and release notes for further information and technical details. Download: Qubes-R4.0-rc2-x86_64.iso (4,430MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Saturday, October 28, 2017

LibreELEC 8.2.0



The LibreELEC project develops a minimal operating system which is dedicated to running the Kodi media centre. The project's latest release, LibreELEC 8.2.0, introduces changes to Samba, dropping the SMB1 protocol and supporting SMB2 and SMB3. "The Kodi SMB client now defaults to SMB3 connections but can fail to negotiate SMB3 with old Samba (NAS) versions. A new option in Kodi Settings > Services > SMB client > allows SMB2 or SMB1 to be forced for compatibility with legacy SMB servers. The embedded Samba server defaults to and supports only SMB2/SMB3 connections. The LibreELEC Settings add-on allows the minimum protocol version to be changed, e.g. to enable SMB1 for compatibility with legacy SMB clients. It also supports GUI configuration of WORKGROUP name. Samba detects v3 /storage/.config/samba.conf configurations and ignores them to avoid the Samba service failing on startup. If this happens Samba starts with a default v4 configuration. Custom Samba configurations must be updated to use the new Samba 4.x base template (samba.conf.sample)." Further information is available in the project's release announcement. Download: LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.2.0.img.gz (212MB).

YouTube-DL GUI 0.4 Ships With New User Interface, More [PPA]

 
After two years since the previous version, a new YouTube-DL GUI (YouTube-DLG) version was made available for download recently. The new 0.4 version ships with a a new user interface, easier format and save path selection and more.
 
 


YouTube-DL GUI is, like its name suggests, a graphical user interface for the powerful command line tool youtube-dl, available for Linux and Windows. In case you're not familiar with youtube-dl, this is a popular tool that allows downloading videos from YouTube and around 1000 other websites.

YouTube-DL GUI features include:
  • options to select the video and audio format;
  • post-processing options such as: extract audio from video file, embed thumbnail in audio file, add metadata, select audio quality;
  • can embed subtitles into the video file (mp4 only);
  • configurable filename format for the downloaded audio/video file;
  • supports authentication;
  • allows using a proxy;
  • can specify user agent and referrer;
  • supports passing extra youtube-dl command line options.

YouTUbe-DL GUI automatically downloads (and updates) the youtube-dl binary so you don't have to worry about having an old youtube-dl that no longer works. By default, the binary is saved under the ~/.config/youtube-dlg directory.

For post-processing, the application uses FFmpeg, so you'll need this installed for some options, like merging DASH files, etc.

Changes in YouTube-DL GUI 0.4:
  • new user interface;
  • easier format selection (now available directly in the main UI, and not in the app settings);
  • easier save path selection (now available directly in the main UI, and not in the app settings);
  • added new options to move item in queue, pause, play, delete, pause, etc.;
  • added new supported youtube-dl options: -v, --ignore-config, --hls-prefer-native, --no-mtime, etc.;
  • added option for embedding thumbnails to audio files;
  • support for new output templates;
  • added generic video formats (3gp, mp4, webm, etc..);
  • added dynamic format options: the "default" format option in the UI downloads the best available format ("best" option in youtube-dl), while setting the default format as well as enabling the 'Extract audio from video file' option will download the best audio ("bestaudio" option in youtube-dl) available;
  • post-processing:
    • calculate final size of post process files;
    • extract final extension after merging process;
    • extract final extension after recording process;
  • bug fixes and various other changes.

For more information, see the YouTube-DL GUI changelog.

Using the new YouTube-DL GUI is fairly easy. Simple enter the URL (or multiple URLs) in the "Enter URLs below" box, then click "Add". To start downloading, click the start button (cloud icon in the bottom right hand side corner of the app window).
 

Install YouTube-DL GUI in Ubuntu or Linux Mint

 

YouTube-DL GUI is available in the main WebUpd8 PPA, for Ubuntu 17.04 and 16.04 / Linux Mint 18.x. To add the PPA and install the application, use the following commands:

 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update
sudo apt install youtube-dlg
 
 
If you don't want to add the PPA, you can grab the deb from HERE. Important: you'll also need the twodict package (new dependency), which is available HERE.

The latest YouTube-DL GUI doesn't work in Ubuntu 14.04 because it requires wxPython 3 which is not available in the official Trusty repositories. The old version still works though.
 

Ubuntu Studio 17.10


Ross Gammon has announced the release of Ubuntu Studio 17.10, the latest version of the project's official Ubuntu variant designed for audio, video and graphics professionals. This is routine release with the usual round of software updates and a new experimental feature for improved performance during recordings: "We are happy to announce the release of our latest version, Ubuntu Studio 17.10 'Artful Aardvark'. As a regular version, it will be supported for 9 months. Since it's just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. The Ubuntu Studio Controls package has been updated to provide an experimental option to set the CPU governor to performance mode. This is important for recording. At the moment, the setting is not persistent, and needs to be reset at every reboot. BIOS settings may need to be changed for this setting to take effect. Audio - removed zynjacku as this software is no longer maintained by the original developer." See the release announcement and release notes for further information. Ubuntu Studion 17.10 is available for download as a 2.7GB live DVD image: ubuntustudio-17.10-dvd-amd64.iso (2,736MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist). Also available from OSDisc.

Lubuntu 17.10





Simon Quigley has announced the release of Lubuntu 17.10, a desktop distribution built from Ubuntu packages, but featuring the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) which is suitable for older computers: "Thanks to all the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 17.10 has been released. With the code name 'Artful Aardvark', Lubuntu 17.10 is the 13th release of Lubuntu, with support until July of 2018. What has improved since 17.04? We now ship with Linux kernel 4.13; general bug-fix release as we prepare to switch to LXQt; LXDE components have been updated with bug fixes; the artwork has received an update; the latest release of Audacious, version 3.9, is included by default; Hardinfo has been updated to the latest upstream snapshot." Also available is the Lubuntu "Next" variant, an experimental build of Lubuntu with the LXQt desktop: "Alongside Lubuntu 17.10 featuring LXDE, the Lubuntu team is proud to announce an early adopter's release of Lubuntu Next, featuring the LXQt 0.11.1 desktop environment which is the Qt 5 port of LXDE." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download (SHA256, signature, pkglist): lubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso (921MB, torrent), lubuntu-17.10-desktop-i386.iso (929MB, torrent). Also available from OSDisc.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Beta 1


Frederic Crozat has announced the availability of the first beta release of SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 15, an enterprise-class Linux distribution based on openSUSE. This will be SUSE's first major release since October 2014 when SLE 12 was made available: "We are happy to announce our first beta release for SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension (SLE-WE), SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability (SLE-HA). SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Beta will be our new major release designed for IT Transformation. SLE 15 is developed with both 'Traditional Infrastructure' and 'Software-Defined Infrastructure' in mind, thus significant and major changes from the previous SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 are made to address both worlds in a more elegant and simpler way. Five key objectives for SLE 15: address traditional and containerized infrastructure and provide a common code base for traditional and agile data center; install all SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 products starting from a single medium...." See the release announcement and release notes for detailed information about the new product, known issues and bug reporting procedures. Interested beta testers can download the product (available for aarch64, ppc64le, s390x and x86_64 architectures) from SUSE's download server (registration required, pkglist).

Thursday, October 26, 2017

antiX 17


The antiX distribution is a lightweight operating system based on Debian. The project's latest release, antiX 17, is based on Debian 9.2 and removes the systemd init software in favour of SysV init. "antiX comes in four flavours for both 32- and 64-bit processors. antiX-full: 4 windows managers - IceWM (default), Fluxbox, JWM and herbstluftwm plus full LibreOffice suite. antiX-base: 4 windows managers - IceWM (default), Fluxbox, JWM and herbstluftwm. antiX-core: no X, but should support most wireless. antiX-net: no X, Just enough to get you connected (wired) and ready to build. So what is included? Lots! Explore! Based on Debian Stretch, but without systemd and libsystemd0. eudev 3.2-4 replaces udev. Customised 4.10.5 kernel with fbcondecor splash. LibreOffice 5.2.7-1. Firefox-ESR 52.4.0esr. Claws-Mail 3.14.1-3+b1. systemd-free CUPS for printing. XMMS for audio. GNOME-MPlayer for playing video..." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (pkglist): antiX-17_x64-full.iso (780MB, MD5, signature, torrent), antiX-17_x64-base.iso (616MB, MD5, signature, torrent), antiX-17_x64-core.iso (309MB, MD5, signature, torrent), antiX-17_x64-net.iso (160MB, MD5, signature, torrent). Also available from OSDisc.

CAINE 9.0



Nanni Bassetti has announced the release of CAINE (Computer Aided INvestigative Environment) 9.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution offering a forensic environment. The project's news page lists the following tools which have been added or upgraded in the distribution along with a screen shot of the distribution's default desktop environment: "CAINE 9.0 'Quantum' 64-bit edition released. Added and changed in CAINE 9.0 - RegRipper, VolDiff, SafeCopy, PFF tools, pslistutil, mouseemu, NBTempoX, Osint: Infoga, The Harvester, Tinfoleak regfmount and libregf-utils, installed many scripts and programs. SSH server disabled by default (see manual page for enabling it). Autopsy 2.24 fixed - srch_strings changed with 'GNU strings' renamed in srch_strings. Many other fixes and software updates. Windows side with incident response and live analysis on Windows systems. Tools include Nirsoft suite with launcher, WinAudit, MWSnap, Arsenal image mounter, FTK Imager, Hex Editor...." SystemBack is used as the project's system installer. Download: caine9.0.iso (2,723MB, MD5, torrent, pkglist). Also available from OSDisc.