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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).