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1 • Do I "Smell" Debian Bashing? (by NemesisBLK on 2004-08-16 01:47:28 GMT)
"However, the number of users actually running "pure" Debian may be much smaller than the super-sized package collection indicates."
LOL. You joking right?
"Indeed, the current installer is so bad that..."
Bad? I disagree. The old installer might intimidate those that don't bother to RTFM, but I actually prefer the old installer. Never had a problem with it. It did the job well thats all I ask for and that installer was all I needed.
2 • XP Lite (by Andrew on 2004-08-16 03:02:04 GMT)
How can you reduce the amount of usability on an OS like XP when it already lacks basic applications like pdf viewer, a quality zipping application, a quality burner and word processor?
Will XP Lite just contain Spider Solitaire and Wordpad? Who would touch it?
3 • athens2004.com and loop-aes (by anon on 2004-08-16 05:08:49 GMT)
"the British Broadcasting Corporation will use Linux to improve the
speed and accuracy of rendering real time results. Leading the
charge are British techies who have installed a bank of Linux
computers at the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) in Athens."
I don't know what has happened (I hope nothing related to Linux),
but athens2004.com has become a complete disaster as far as
real-time (or even delayed) results. Many of the events (even
ones that finished HOURS or DAYS ago) do not have any results
- the generated HTML table just shows a blank.
I don't see "loop-aes" in the kernel configuration (2.6.8). I can
find cryptoloop in "Device Drivers / Block Devices" right under
"Loopback device support" (which I have compiled into the
kernel - NOT as a module).
Gentoo does include "util-linux-2.12-cryptoapi-losetup.patch.bz2"
(if you the crypt flag set in make.conf).
4 • loop-AES (by Robert Storey at 2004-08-16 05:46:32 GMT)
Dear anon,
In response to the following...
> I don't see "loop-aes" in the kernel configuration (2.6.8). I can
> find cryptoloop in "Device Drivers / Block Devices" right under
> "Loopback device support" (which I have compiled into the
> kernel - NOT as a module).
> Gentoo does include
> "util-linux-2.12-cryptoapi-losetup.patch.bz2"
>(if you the crypt flag set in make.conf).
I was trying to keep the article simple, as a basic introduction. But if there's really demand for rolling your own loop-AES, I'll give you the following information (note that this is from a magazine article, it's a bit dated and if it breaks you get to keep both parts):
BUILDING THE LOOP DEVICE
You must have a kernel with modules support enabled (CONFIG_MODULES=y), and loopback support must be disabled (CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP=n). This might be the default in your kernel, and if so then you won't need a kernel recompile (otherwise, you will).
tar -jxvf loop-AES-v1.7d.tar.bz2
su
make clean; make
make install
modprobe loop
If you get errors with "modprobe loop" you probably don't have the kernel set up properly.
BUILDING THE TOOLS
Three tools are mandatory - mount, umount, and losetup. If you want to encrypt the swap partition, then swapon and swapoff are needed.
Download the util-linux archive from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux. There are many versions, so use the one mentioned in the Loop-AES directory. A patch called util-linux-XXX.diff should be present in the Loop-AES direcotry, which means you should download the XXX version of util-linux. For example, loop-AES-1.7d requires util-linux-2.11z.
Type the following lines from loop-AES directory to rebuild mount, umount/losetup, swapon and swapoff:
bzip2 -d -c util-linux-2.11z.tar.bz2 | tar xvf
cd util-linux-2.11z
patch -p1 <../util-linux-2.11z.diff
CFLAGS=-02 ./configure
make SUBDIRES="lib mount"
cd mount
install -m 4755 -o root mount umount /bin
install -m 755 losetup swapon /sbin
rm -f /sbin/swapoff && ( cd /sbin && ln -s swapon swapoff )
rm -f
/usr/share/man/man8{mount,umount/losetup,swapon,swapoff}.8.gz
install -m 644 mount.8 umount.8 losetup.8 /usr/share/man/man8
install -m 644 swapon.8 swapoff.8 /usr/share/man/man8
rm -f /usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
instaall -m 644 fstab.5 /usr/share/man/man5
mandb
cd ../..
Now you have the complete suite of loop-AES tools, you can try a "make tests" to check whether everything went smoothly.
5 • erpos3 by credative (by distrowatch reader at 2004-08-16 05:49:29 GMT)
I am currently trying erpos3. Locale changes the language to english or whatever language is needed. The entire file system root,boot,home usr,tmp, var is steganographic and currently lives under an old Mandrake 9.2 working install. Cfdisk, fdisk mandrakes installer redhat installer bsd installer all that I can think of shows no trace of the debian erpos3 install. This message is being typed on a non visible browser
6 • loop-aes (by anon on 2004-08-16 06:19:23 GMT)
Well, I can certainly follow those instructions
to install it. :)
I read the dm-crypt page, and it just looks a
little cleaner, so I think I will go with that option.
Thanks for the steganographic articles. I have
always found the topic interesting, and have a
collection of programs going back to my DOS
days. I recall one that his text within text (it
changed empty lines between paragraphs to
a series of spaces and tabs, and I think it put
extra spaces between words sometimes). Very
clever actually.
7 • Word(tm) (by Eavy at 2004-08-16 09:48:21 GMT)
'What a world we live in. Before you know it, somebody will start trademarking common everyday English words like "windows" and "outlook". '
Or a word like "Word". ;-)
8 • XP-Lite (by Peter on 2004-08-16 12:13:25 GMT)
I would love to try XP-Lite.... this XP-Lite:
http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html
:o)
9 • Linux on Macs (by Jim at 2004-08-16 14:47:45 GMT)
I own a current generation PowerBook, it is my first mac and I love it. I had GentooPPC installed on it for a couple of weeks, and I currently run Gentoo on my x86 desktop as well, so I have seen both worlds.
I had to remove gentoo from my PowerBook though because it just didn't stand up to the quality of OS X. The wireless card built into my mac didn't work, I couldn't get a decent resolution out of the video card, and things like brightness/sound controls were far less responsive.
I have found that I have a much better experience running OS X and fink, that way I can run pretty much every program I could ever want, and everything works exactly as it should. Which is the best reason to get a Mac, everything always works. My recomendation for anyone looking for a laptop is get a mac, run fink if you need it, (or the new Gentoo OS X which I haven't tried yet) and you won't regret it.
10 • Linux on PPC (by Jack Malmostoso at 2004-08-16 17:17:00 GMT)
It's now 6 months I own a 12" iBook, and have installed linux right away taking it out of the box.
In the beginning there was YDL (http://malmostoso.altervista.org/ibook), but now I run Debian, and I am so happy with it.
I don't like OSX (yeah, right, I don't like it), I prefer the good old linux feel I have at home, on my x86 machine.
Don't get me wrong, OSX is great as a windows replacement, but I just think linux is better.
Today I run linux at 100% of the possibilities of my machine: when I bought it, configuring X was a challenge.
Linux is great, the community rocks.
Going back to the comparison, the only thing I miss from x86 is GRUB: the yaboot bootloader is lilo-style, and I never liked it, but it gets the job done.
I hope GRUB2 will really be portable as stated.
Oh yeah, the flash plugin. Who cares.
Debian on PPC rocks!
11 • Linux on PowerPC (by Tony K. at 2004-08-17 02:38:49 GMT)
I have been using Linux (Yellowdog) for the past couple of years on my G3 12" iBook. It is well done, but lags a little in time from it's derivative, RedHat/Fedora. YDL 3.0.1 is comparable to RH 9.0. The only limitations I have on my iBook are no external monitor support and no modem support, although I believe the later has been improved. I have been running various RedHat/Fedora distros simultaneously on my Athlon desktop for several years. With the recent release of Debian's new installer RC1 I have tried them on both my Desktop and my iBook with satisfying results, although there still appears to be bugs in the installer. So far I like Debian. I may be another convert!
Mounting HFS+ partitions has only recently been supported, (since YDL 3.0.1?) Updating OSX can sometimes wipe over your boot partition, but it is easy to start up in open-firmware and then boot into your Linux partition. YDL has noticeably faster response than OSX on the iBook.
I have deliberated over getting an i386 laptop many times, but I like having MacOSX as an alternative to Windows. And I like the small form factor of my iBook.
It has been a little more difficult finding ready made RPM binaries for PPC, but you can usually get what you need or it results in compiling from source which I have good and bad success with. However with Debian installed on PPC, I have yet to find a package that I can't get and so far no dependency hell!
12 • bbc linux-driven site (by Pierce Lopez on 2004-08-17 04:17:15 GMT)
About the bbc linux-driven athens site showing up blanks for you, if you don't live in britian your supposed to be locked out of it, because of the rights purchased by some media network in the us, to have exclusive us rights to the coverage of the olympic games.
13 • XP-Lite (by Mick at 2004-08-17 08:07:53 GMT)
Now, if someone could just encourage Bill to remove all of the bloat from WinXP, he might be able to justify calling it 'Lite'. Or better yet, take out everything that doesn't work, has a hole in it, or is older than, say, dirt, and what remained - if it booted - might fly... Heck, I might even try it myself!
Not!
14 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-08-18 15:47:02 GMT)
Mick:
You forgot the spyware!
(my source on that is stallman's latest speech)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#ESSI04
Number of Comments: 14
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
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UBLinux is an Arch-based Linux distribution developed by Russia's Yubitex. It provides four editions. The freely-downloadable "Basic Desktop" edition is available for personal and non-commercial use, while "UBLinux Education", "UBLinux Desktop Enterprise" and "UBLinux Server" are commercial products. UBLinux "Basic Desktop" uses Xfce as the default desktop environment and includes various popular applications for Internet, office, multimedia and graphics tasks.
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