 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 677, 5 September 2016 |
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Welcome to this year's 36th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the nice things about open source software is it is easy to share our favourite operating systems and programs with other people. Free and open source software encourages sharing, not only of code, but of information and applications too. This week Jesse Smith explores Peppermint OS, a distribution he has had good experiences with when sharing it with others. In our News section we discuss changes to the Manjaro Linux project's leadership, openSUSE planning an extra beta release for additional testing and the TrueOS project adopting a rolling release schedule. In our Tips and Tricks column we explore a variety of topics from copying columns of text, to organizing files, to creating torrents. Plus we share the torrents we are seeding and provide a list of last week's releases. In our Opinion Poll we discuss encrypting e-mails and other messages. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (32MB) and MP3 (47MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Peppermint OS 7
The latest release of Peppermint OS was launched back in June and I meant to take it for a test drive then. However, one exciting release after another distracted me until now. Peppermint is a project I pay attention to because it is one of the distributions I have had the most success with when it comes to transitioning people from Windows to Linux. Peppermint's lightweight nature, speed, relatively uncluttered interface and solid hardware support (thanks to its underlying Ubuntu base) have made it an attractive option. Peppermint OS 7 is based on packages available through the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS repositories with a few Linux Mint utilities added for flavour. Peppermint runs the LXDE desktop by default and version 7 offers users GPT, UEFI and Secure Boot support. The distribution is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for the x86 architecture.
The ISO for the 64-bit build of Peppermint is approximately 1GB in size. Booting from this media displays a menu where we can choose to try the live desktop environment, launch the system installer or check the disc for defects. I took the live desktop option which loads LXDE. The desktop environment is presented with a panel along the bottom of the display. This panel contains our application menu, task switcher and the system tray. The application menu uses unusually large and bold fonts, making the text easy to read. On the desktop we find a single icon we can use to launch the distribution's system installer. The desktop uses a dark theme with brightly coloured icons. Personally, I like the bright icons on a dark background coupled with the large font. I found the combination made it easy to browse the application menu and find launchers I wanted to use.
Peppermint OS 7 -- The application menu
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Peppermint uses the same system installer Ubuntu does. We begin by selecting our preferred language from a list and we can optionally view the on-line release notes. The second screen asks if we would like to download software updates and third-party packages such as wi-fi drivers and media codecs. I found selecting just third-party software would work, but when I opted to also download software updates the installer would lock-up, forcing me to exit the installer and start over. The installer supports automated and manual disk partitioning. I quite like the straight forward, simple nature of the manual partition editing screen. Peppermint supports working with Btrfs, JFS, XFS and ext2/3/4 file systems. The following screens get us to select our time zone from a map of the world, confirm our keyboard's layout and create a user account for ourselves. The installer copies its files to our hard drive and, when it is finished, the installer offers to either return us to the live desktop or reboot the computer.
I tried running Peppermint 7 in two test environments, a VirtualBox virtual machine and a physical desktop computer. Peppermint performed well inside VirtualBox. The system was quick to boot, responsive and stable. By default, Peppermint was not able to make use of my display's full resolution when running in VirtualBox, but the necessary virtual machine guest modules to fix this are included in the distribution's software repositories. I ran into a snag when running Peppermint on my desktop computer. While Peppermint does support booting on both legacy BIOS and UEFI hardware, the distribution would turn off my display during the boot process. This meant the system would come on-line, but I was unable to see anything. I could still use the keyboard to type commands, but I was unable to see the results. Passing the kernel the "nomodeset" parameter from the boot menu fixed the display issue. After that, Peppermint worked well with my desktop's hardware. In either test environment Peppermint tended to use approximately 200MB of memory when sitting idle at the LXDE desktop.
Peppermint OS 7 -- Selecting software updates
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Shortly after getting Peppermint up and running, an icon in the system tray let me know there were software updates available in the project's repositories. Clicking the notification icon launches mintUpdate, the same update manager available in Linux Mint. The update manager lists available upgrades and assigns a safety rating to each package. This safety rating allows us to select (or ignore) updates based on whether they are likely to break parts of the operating system. The first day I was running Peppermint, there were 133 updates available, totalling 145MB in size. These new packages downloaded and were applied without any issues.
On the subject of managing software packages, Peppermint provides two graphical front-ends for managing software. The first is Software Manager which has been imported from Linux Mint. Software Manager provides a nice, friendly interface where we can browse categories of software. Packages are listed with an icon, name and a brief description. Clicking on a package brings up a full page description with screen shots and user reviews. Installing or removing a package happens with a single click and installations are processed in the background while we continue to browse Software Manager.
Peppermint OS 7 -- Browsing available software in Software Manager
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The distribution also provides us with the Synaptic graphical package manager. Synaptic shows us a plain text list of all available packages and we can filter this list down based on categories and key words. Synaptic works quickly, but has more focus on individual packages rather than desktop software, making it more work to find popular desktop applications. Synaptic handles installing and removing software in batches and locks its interface while it is working. Both package management front-ends worked well for me and I encountered no issues with either one.
Continuing on the topic of available software, Peppermint offers us an application menu divided into two panes. On the left side of the menu we find individual application launchers and on the right we see categories of desktop utilities. Browsing through the menu we find the Firefox web browser (with Flash support), an on-line user guide and the Dropbox file synchronization software. The Transmission bittorrent client is included along with Network Manager to help us get on-line. Peppermint ships with a document viewer, an image viewer and the VLC multimedia player. Peppermint ships with media codecs, enabling us to play most video and audio formats. The distribution features an application finder, an archive manager, a calculator and a text editor. There are also many configuration modules which can be accessed either through the application menu or via one of the two control panels. (More on the control panels later.) Many of Peppermint's applications are actually web apps rather than native applications and these web apps run in a minimal web browser. The application menu includes launchers for Google's GMail, Google Calendar and Google Drive. There are image editors provided by Pixlr and a handful of games, all of which are web apps. In the background Peppermint features systemd version 229 and version 4.4.0 of the Linux kernel.
Peppermint OS 7 -- Editing images with a web app
(full image size: 326kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I have mixed feelings about using web apps, especially mixing them in with native applications. In my opinion there is not enough distinction made between what is a native desktop application and what is an on-line app. People who have a high speed Internet connection may not notice a huge difference in performance, but there is definitely an additional delay in load times and some of the web apps feature advertising which takes up precious screen space. I see the appeal of web apps for their portability and always up to date nature, but the costs in performance, screen space and the requirement of always being on-line greatly reduces their appeal from my point of view.
One of the interesting features available in Peppermint is Ice. The Ice application helps us set up launchers for web apps. Using the Ice application we can provide a URL with the location of our app and a name. We can optionally set an icon for the new web app. Ice will add the new web app to the application menu. In effect, Ice is a bit like a web browser's bookmark manager, helping us create, organize and remove short-cuts to web apps.
The distribution ships with two configuration panels. The first is called Peppermint Control Centre and its settings mostly revolve around the window manager and input devices. The Control Centre helps us adjust window manager settings and the desktop's theme. We can also adjust keyboard and mouse settings through the Control Centre.
Peppermint OS 7 -- The two settings panels
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The second configuration panel is called Peppermint Settings Panel. The Settings Panel is divided into four sections: Personal, Network, Hardware and System. Each section contains launchers for configuration modules. From the Settings panel we can set up user accounts, configure power management, set our time zone, manage disks or launch the update manager. We can also configure network connections, set up a firewall, create Samba network shares and enable ad blocking at the /etc/hosts file level. The Settings Panel also features modules for installing third-party hardware drivers, setting up up printers and changing the look of the desktop. I found the Settings Panel to be very useful and the different categories made it easier to find the settings I wanted to manipulate.
Conclusions
I have mostly good things to say about Peppermint OS 7. The distribution has good hardware support and access to a huge collection of software through the project's repositories. I like the update manager and software manager the project has imported from Linux Mint and I find both tools to be quite straight forward to use and they are reliable. The distribution is fairly lightweight in memory and the LXDE desktop was very responsive in both of my test environments. I especially like the work done to make text and icons easier to see on Peppermint as it meant I did not need to adjust the theme or font settings.
Whether people will like using Peppermint will probably hinge on their view of web apps. Peppermint tries to offload a lot of tasks to the web, particularly productivity related software, image editing and e-mail. For people who like web apps and have a fast network connection, having this cloud focused approach may make sense and be an attractive feature. I personally prefer running native applications that are always accessible and tend to load faster. Whether Peppermint is a suitable solution for you will probably depend on whether Google Docs or a local copy of LibreOffice is the more attractive option. Of course, people who want LibreOffice or other native software can download these items through the software manager. Peppermint can be made to work entirely off-line and makes a nice, lightweight distribution in this scenario.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Changes to Manjaro's leadership, openSUSE plans extra beta release and TrueOS becomes a rolling release
The Manjaro Linux team has announced a change in the project's leadership structure. "It was a great ride so far. Since everything evolves, also people decide to get new goals. We discussed for a long time, on how we keep Manjaro Linux alive. Thanks to our great community we are still able to do so. Since I [Philip Muller] was always the single point of contact for the community and the development team, our founder Roland Singer was able to study and create his company DesertBit. Having now almost no time for Manjaro, we decided that I'll take it completely over, which was the logical next move." From a practical point of view, little should change for the project, but donation accounts, project ownership and financials will be updated. The details can be found in this post.
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The openSUSE project released its first beta for openSUSE 42.2 "Leap" on August 31st. Along with the new development snapshot, the project announced an updated release schedule for openSUSE 42.2. While the final release date should still be November 16th of this year, the project has introduced a third beta snapshot into the schedule. This will give testers additional opportunity to find bugs and the developers more feedback as they work on issues. The revised schedule is below. Additional details on what to expect from openSUSE 42.2 can be found in this blog post.
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Last week we reported the PC-BSD project had changed its name to TrueOS, formerly the name assigned to the project's Server edition. TrueOS is not just a new name though, the project is going through a number of other changes too. In a blog post the project unveils several new features. Going forward, TrueOS will use a rolling release model, based on FreeBSD's "-CURRENT" development branch. The project is also rolling out a new tool called SysAdm which will provide remote administration capabilities to TrueOS and FreeBSD systems. TrueOS will use ZFS and boot environments to safely install software updates in the background without changing the user's environment. "TrueOS combines the convenience of a rolling release distribution with the failsafe technology of boot environments, resulting in a system that is both current and reliable. TrueOS now tracks FreeBSD's "Current" branch and merges features from select FreeBSD developer branches to enhance support for newer hardware and technologies. Weekly automatic updates keep your system always up-to-date, and all updates are performed safely within system snapshots called boot environments. The TrueOS desktop uses the modular yet feature-rich Lumina desktop environment alongside the new SysAdm administration suite to provide a reliable desktop experience. SysAdm provides local and remote management of TrueOS and FreeBSD systems using a cross-platform graphical client compatible with Windows, Mac, and many Linux distributions. TrueOS is preconfigured for desktop and server installations using an intuitive graphical installer, taking the guesswork out of setting up a new system." Further details can be found in the blog post.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
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Copying columns of text, organizing files, creating torrents
I believe computers are doing their best work when they are making our lives easier. This could be accomplished by performing tedious tasks quickly, organizing things for us or providing short-cuts for common tasks. This week I would like to talk about some tools I use on a regular basis to make my work go more smoothly.
One thing I find myself doing on a semi-regular basis is working with columns of text. I often want to either separate a column of text from a file or insert a column of text into an existing file. Usually text manipulation tools (including text editors) deal with lines of text, but not columns. However, there are tools available to manipulate columns of text too.
When I am working in a graphical environment, this is relatively easy. The KWrite text editor supports working with blocks or columns of text. In the KWrite menu, select Edit and then toggle Block Select Mode. This changes the way selecting text works, switching from highlighting sequential letters to rectangles. This allows us to select a block or column of text. This way we can select a column of information and cut/copy/paste it to where it is needed.
KWrite 4.14 -- Selecting a column of text
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When working from the command line there are a handful of tools which can be used to work with columns of text. One of the more complex and powerful is the awk scripting utility. However, most of the time the much more simple command lines tools cut and paste will work and are available by default in almost every distribution.
Just as an example, let us imagine we have been looking at the output of the ps command, examining our running processes. By default, ps prints four columns of text: the process identification number (PID), the terminal where the process is running, its time spent running and the command used to launch the process. Here is a quick example of output from ps:
| PID | TTY | TIME | CMD |
| 17833 | pts/0 | 00:00:00 | bash |
| 23226 | pts/0 | 00:00:00 | ps |
Looking at the above output, let us pretend that I only want to see two columns of information: the command used to launch a command and the PID, in that order. The ps command could be made to rearrange its output for me, but for the sake of this example, I want to use the cut and paste commands.
First, I grab the output of the ps command and store it in a file I will call output.txt. This gives me a copy of the information for later use.
ps > output.txt
Next, I use cut to grab the first column (the PID) column which is six characters wide. Therefore we want to grab characters one through six (1-6). The first column is saved to a file called first-column.txt.
cut -c 1-6 output.txt > first-column.txt
Then I use cut again, this time grabbing the fourth column and saving the information into a file called fourth-column.txt. The fourth column, in this case, begins at 25 characters into the line and extends to the end of the line. We can tell cut to work with the forth column using "25-" as the column's range.
cut -c 25- output.txt > fourth-column.txt
Now we put the two columns of data back together, placing the command first and the PID second. This is accomplished with the paste command which merely needs to know which files we are working with in their respective order.
paste fourth-column.txt first-column.txt
The output we get from paste is as follows:
Since I mentioned the awk utility can perform similar tasks, here is what the equivalent awk command would look like. This awk mini-script takes the output of the ps command and then prints the fourth column, followed by a TAB character (\t), followed by the first column.
ps | awk '{print $4"\t"$1}'
In this case, awk offers fewer steps, but awk syntax tends to get complicated for all but the simplest jobs. Meanwhile the cut/paste combination is useful in a lot of common situations.
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If you are like me and have developed a reputation as the family's computer nerd, you probably get frequent questions asking for help performing various tasks. Maybe it is how to send a hundred large images in one e-mail, how to backup a phone's address book to a computer or sort a spreadsheet. Today I would like to discuss organizing files. In this particular case, photographs.
In this example, let's say we have been given a large collection of photos (thousands of them) and asked to sort these photos in albums based on the month and year in which the photos were taken. Luckily, for us, the photos are all named with the date they were taken. For example IMG_20151031-2.JPG was the second picture taken on October 31, 2015. The earliest photos are from January 2013 and the latest are from sometime in the year 2016. We can create separate directories for every month and sort the images into the correct folders with just two lines in the Bash shell.
First, we need to create the many directories. The following command uses a built-in Bash range function to create directories for every year/month combination from January 2013 through to December 2016. Numbers placed inside curly braces (in this case a range of numbers) are expanded when the command is run. So 2013..2016 turns into "2013 2014 2015 2016". The same happens to the range of months.
mkdir {2013..2016}-{01..12}
The above command creates 48 directories, 2013-01 through to 2016-12. Now that the directories have been created we can go through the thousands of photographs and sort them into the proper directories based on their names. There are a few ways to do this, but I chose to use a pair of for loops. The first loop goes through a list of every year (2013-2016) and the second loop goes through each month (01-12). For each year/month combination we try to find a matching file and move it into the appropriate directory. For example, IMG_20130410.JPG will get sorted into the directory named 2013-04.
for year in {2013..2016}; do for month in {01..12}; do mv IMG_$year$month*.JPG $year-$month; done; done;
The two "done" keywords as the end close the two for loops, marking an end to the work we are doing.
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Many of us use torrents to download new distribution releases. However, relatively few of us create torrents of distributions and share them. The Transmission bittorrent software includes a command line tool for creating new torrents. All we need is a file we want to share and the URL of a torrent tracker. There are lots of torrent trackers out there, in this example we use Linux Tracker's server as that is where we share the distributions we seed.
In our example we create a new torrent for the latest release of Slackware. The new torrent is named slackware64-14.2.iso.torrent and is tracked through the URL http://linuxtracker.org:2710/announce.
transmission-create -o slackware64-14.2.iso.torrent -t http://linuxtracker.org:2710/announce slackware64-14.2.iso
The resulting torrent file can be uploaded to the Linux Tracker website and shared with the world.
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For more tips and tricks, visit our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
Bittorrent is a great way to transfer large files, particularly open source operating system images, from one place to another. Most bittorrent clients recover from dropped connections automatically, check the integrity of files and can re-download corrupted bits of data without starting a download over from scratch. These characteristics make bittorrent well suited for distributing open source operating systems, particularly to regions where Internet connections are slow or unstable.
Many Linux and BSD projects offer bittorrent as a download option, partly for the reasons listed above and partly because bittorrent's peer-to-peer nature takes some of the strain off the project's servers. However, some projects do not offer bittorrent as a download option. There can be several reasons for excluding bittorrent as an option. Some projects do not have enough time or volunteers, some may be restricted by their web host provider's terms of service. Whatever the reason, the lack of a bittorrent option puts more strain on a distribution's bandwidth and may prevent some people from downloading their preferred open source operating system.
With this in mind, DistroWatch plans to give back to the open source community by hosting and seeding bittorrent files. For now, we are hosting a small number of distribution torrents, listed below. The list of torrents offered will be updated each week and we invite readers to e-mail us with suggestions as to which distributions we should be hosting. When you message us, please place the word "Torrent" in the subject line, make sure to include a link to the ISO file you want us to seed. To help us maintain and grow this free service, please consider making a donation.
The table below provides a list of torrents we currently host. If you do not currently have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found here. All torrents we make available here are also listed on the very useful Linux Tracker website. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 232
- Total data uploaded: 43.3TB
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| Released Last Week |
Salix 14.2
George Vlahavas has announced the release of Salix 14.2 "Xfce". The new version of Salix, a Slackware-based desktop distribution, improves the boot process, provides better language support at install time and includes a few new graphical configuration tools. "We also have two new GUI system tools, both developed in-house. The first one, GUEFI, is a graphical boot manager for UEFI systems and therefore is only available on 64-bit installations using UEFI. You can use it to create/delete/edit/rearrange UEFI boot entries and I don't think there is any other distribution out there with anything similar. Then, we have gtkreposetup, which is the GTK counterpart to the console reposetup tool, and which you can use to select your preferred repository mirror. With respect to other software included in this release, Xfce has been upgraded to 4.12. The main browser has been changed back to Firefox. The Firefox package now also includes langpacks for the most popular languages too, so it will most probably also be presented in your native language without having to install anything extra. Also, network configuration is now handled by NetworkManager, instead of Wicd, which would also help people connect using their mobile 3G/4G connections... Additional details on Salix 14.2 can be found in the project's release notes. New screen shots are available on the Salix website.
GhostBSD 10.3
The GhostBSD project develops a desktop friendly operating system based on FreeBSD. The project has updated its 10.x series with the launch of GhostBSD 10.3. The new version supports booting on UEFI-enabled computers, supports ZFS volumes and includes VirtualBox modules. "What changed in GhostBSD 10.3: The installer partition editor UI and partitioning have been improved. VirtualBox additions will be uninstall after installer if it is not running in VirtualBox. Slim is replacing GDM. Network Manager displays the full SSID. Replaced the HTML/CSS installation slide with a GTK/CSS the slide." The new release also features several bug fixes. "What has been fixed: Network Manager SSID list. VirtualBox support. Install on MBR partition issue, Some installer text errors. Keyboard layout after installation with MATE. Network Manager slowness to open the menu. Network Manager icon tray crash. Local time has been fixed. Fix boot partition for GPT to supports freebsd-boot, bios-boot and efi..." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement.
Kali Linux 2016.2
Kali Linux is a Debian Testing-based distribution which includes many forensic and data recovery tools. The distribution uses a rolling release model for updates with Kali Linux 2016.2 providing the most recent snapshot of packages. "During these past few months, we've been busy adding new relevant tools to Kali as well as fixing various bugs and implementing OS enhancements. For example, something as simple as adding HTTPS support in Busybox now allows us to preseed Kali installations securely over SSL. This is a quick and cool feature to speed up your installations and make them (almost) unattended, even if you don't have a custom built ISO. To set a preseed file during an install process, choose the 'install' option, then hit Tab and enter the preseed directive, together with a URL pointing to your actual preseed file." Additional details on the 2016.2 snapshot of Kali Linux can be found in the project's release announcement.
Kali Linu 2016.2 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 3.5MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Manjaro Linux 16.08
Philip Muller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 16.08, a desktop-oriented distribution originally forked from Arch Linux. This version comes in two editions, shipping the Xfce 4.12 and KDE Plasma 5.7 desktops: "After two months of development, we are happy to present Manjaro 'Ellada' to you! The Xfce edition remains our flagship offering and has received the attention it deserves. Few can claim to offer such a polished, integrated and leading-edge Xfce experience. We ship Xfce 4.12 with this release of Manjaro. We mainly focused on polishing the user experience on the desktop and window manager, and on updating some components to take advantage of newly available technologies such as switching to a new Vertex-Maia theme. Our KDE edition continues to deliver this powerful, mature and feature-rich desktop environment with a unique look and feel, and with the perks of Manjaro's latest tools." Continue to the release announcement for further information, changelog and screenshot.
Remix OS 3.0.203
Jide Technology has announced the availability of an updated release of Remix OS, version 3.0.203. Remix OS is a distribution project working on porting Google's Android (6.0 "Marshmallow") operating systems to desktop and laptop PCs. From the release announcement: "Remix OS for PC version 3.0.203. Optimizations for the Gaming Toolkit app: key mapping on the taskbar area when the taskbar is hidden is now enabled; fixed a bug where black screen appears for a few seconds when Gaming Toolkit is opened; fixed a bug where the floating button disappears when it's being dragged; fixed a bug where the floating button sometimes becomes non-responsive when it's clicked on; fixed a bug where the animation of closing the floating button repeats a couple of times when being closed; feature added that allows key mapping for F1-F12 keys; feature added so that Gaming Toolkit will automatically restart if it crashes. Other major change: added support for 32-bit UEFI installation."
Remix OS 3.0.203 -- The default desktop environment
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
OpenBSD 6.0
The OpenBSD team has announced the availability of a new stable release of their security-oriented operating system. The new release, OpenBSD 6.0, introduces many bug fixes, improved driver support for many devices and fixes a number of potential security issues in OpenSSH. The new release also features a new tool, proot, for building software ports in an isolated chroot environment. Support for the VAX platform has been dropped for this release. "New/extended platforms: armv7 - EFI bootloader added, kernels are now loaded from FFS instead of FAT or EXT file systems, without U-Boot headers. A single kernel and ramdisk are now used for all SoCs. Hardware is dynamically enumerated via Flattened Device Tree (FDT) instead of via static tables based on board id numbers. Miniroot installer images include U-Boot 2016.07 with support for EFI payloads. vax - Removed." Additional details on OpenBSD 6.0 can be found in the project's release announcement and a complete list of changes since version 5.9 can be found in the changelog.
wattOS R10
Ronald Ropp has announced a new release of the low energy wattOS distribution. The wattOS project uses Ubuntu as a base and ships a collection of software suitable for old and low-end hardware. The new version, wattOS R10, is based on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS and ships with the LXDE desktop. The default music player has been changed to Lollypop and the Gufw application has been included for working with the system firewall. "The wattOS team is pleased to announce the release of the newest version of wattOS - Release 10 - (also known as R10). Built on the latest version of Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS for long term support and stability. The Microwatt edition will not be released until a later date (look to the forums for details). wattOS-R10 - LXDE - 32 and 64bit - available now." Additional details about wattOS R10 can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Encrypting messages
These days most of us expect our websites to be secured with encryption. The use of encryption on the Web not only helps to hide what people are looking at in their web browsers, it also protects against attacks where malicious data is injected into a web page. While website encryption is becoming more common, private messages are still often sent in plain-text. E-mails, social media messages and information sent over SMS are almost never encrypted.
This week we would like to know how many of our readers actively use encryption in their e-mails and other private messages. If you do, which tools do you use? How do you get others to engage in protecting their private messages? Please leave us the details in a comment below.
You can see the results of our previous poll on the importance of software licenses here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Encrypting messages
| I encrypt all my private messages: | 46 (4%) |
| I encrypt most of my messages: | 96 (9%) |
| I encrypt just some important/sensitive messages: | 245 (23%) |
| I do not encrypt private messages: | 691 (64%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- SwagArch GNU/Linux. SwagArch GNU/Linux is a distribution based on Arch Linux. It provides the Calamares system installer and features the Xfce desktop environment.
- feren OS. feren OS is a desktop distribution based on Linux Mint.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 September 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Tip Jar |
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1 • Peppermint 7 (by Ev on 2016-09-05 00:51:05 GMT from North America)
I have been using Peppermint 7 since the first day of its release and I absolutely love it. The combination of LXDE as the main desktop with the additional XFCE components, such as the panel, power manager, window manager, and so on, make it extremely lightweight and, in my opinion, more powerful than either LXDE and XFCE are on their own. Although I can easily see why Jesse would classify it as a distro for new-to-linux users, the fact that it works without having to really do very much to it in order to tailor it to a specific user's needs makes it a great distro for just about anybody. If you want to install something that is solid on its own wile at the same time easily customizable for ones own needs makes Peppermint 7 my absolute favorite distro I have ever used.
I also want to mention that since it uses Xenial as a base, one can easily install the Low-Latency, Xanmod and Liquorix Kernels with no problems whatsoever. I use Xanmod myself and really recommend others do the same.
If I had to choose a problem with the distro, it would have to be it's name. As someone with a food allergy to actual peppermint, I have renamed it "Spearmint" on my network so I'm not always reminded that I'm using something named after another thing that my body cannot tolerate!
2 • Local apps vs. web apps (by DaveW on 2016-09-05 00:58:28 GMT from North America)
I'm old school when it comes to apps. I want my programs and data on my own machine, not susceptible to the decisions made by unknown people in remote locations. Understand that this is strictly my preference. It's fine with me if other people want to use web apps.
3 • OpenBSD 6.0 and forward (by Billy Larlad on 2016-09-05 01:06:10 GMT from North America)
Lots of changes for OpenBSD announced just this week (coinciding with one of their big development 'hackathons'). I'll mention them since there's plenty of news on other OSes in this page; perhaps readers will find these developments interesting to learn about as well.
First, the project announced it will stop distributing CDs as a means of funding. Focus is now on internet distribution exclusively. I suppose the relative success of the OpenBSD Foundation in taking in donations has made this possible.
Second, in just the last week the project dropped the Zaurus and SPARC (32-bit) architectures. NetBSD still supports both, AFAIK, so those of you with these machines aren't totally out of luck.
Third, they have imported the beginnings of a tool to produce/provide binary patches for the base system. No more recompiling every time a security patch is released?
Fourth, they have imported LLVM/Clang. This might allow for updates to the graphics stack, since at least newer AMD drivers seemed to depend on it (I think).
4 • feren OS (by bigsky on 2016-09-05 01:45:12 GMT from Europe)
Interesting how feren OS draws you into the download of their OS. Thanks but no thanks. Beware ???
5 • Encryption (by Bruce Fowler on 2016-09-05 02:39:48 GMT from North America)
I would like to encrypt most if not all of my emails, especially those to friends and family. Here's the rock-in-the-road: How do I get my correspondents to agree to reciprocal encryption? None of them have any interest in doing the (minimal) work required to implement encryption. It's not paranoia on my part, just common sense where financial and future living plans are discussed. I need an argument that will stick. HELP !!
6 • Kudos to RemixOS for 32-bit UEFI Installation Option! (by R O on 2016-09-05 02:46:44 GMT from North America)
Now if only the lightweight Linux distros would follow that practice to make use of all those Windows 8/10 tablets/notebooks that use 32-bit UEFI, that would be awesome!
7 • E-mail is Dead. Long Live E-mail. (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-09-05 03:03:56 GMT from North America)
http://youbroketheinternet.org/secure-email
http://secushare.org/comparison
https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
It's unbelievable that post-Snowden browsers aren't shipping with GnuPG compiled into their binaries. Web-mail vendors must implement it in JavaScript. Browser vendors: wakey, wakey.
@5 Bruce Fowler: RetroShare. Or sserve them a private forum under HTTPS.
8 • Peppermint LXDE? Really? (by Ronnie on 2016-09-05 04:58:19 GMT from North America)
Peppermint at one time was completely an LXDE desktop distribution. However over the last few releases this isn't exactly the case any longer. There are far more xfce components that make up the Peppermint desktop. Simply because it uses LXDE session manager doesn't make it an LXDE desktop. Outside of the session manager Peppermint is essentially an XFCE based distribution. This is a bit misleading to users who will compare what they think are different distributions running the same desktop environment when in actuality, they aren't.
9 • @5 - Nobody send me an encrypted message (by Stan on 2016-09-05 05:14:44 GMT from Europe)
@5: I'm in the same boat or even worse, none of my contacts are even capable to send back an encrypted message unless the app automatically do it for them. I'ts a lost battle, at least for me...
10 • Signal Private Messenger (encryption) (by Elcaset on 2016-09-05 05:59:32 GMT from North America)
Signal Private Messenger is so easy to use, that I've been able to get several non-technical folks to use it. It's for SMS, MMS, & voice. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29"
11 • Copying columns of text (by Thomas Mueller on 2016-09-05 06:20:36 GMT from North America)
I've had the problem of how to copy columns of text, didn't even know about copy and paste commands. I just did "which cut" and "which paste" in NetBSD and found them in /usr/bin; looked at FreeBSD installation and again found copy and paste in /usr/bin.
12 • E-mail Died with Disco (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-09-05 06:39:11 GMT from North America)
@9 Stan, stop giving them any way to reach you unencrypted. If you are important to them, they will use what means you supply. The idea people have of dumping their entire lives into one e-mail account is the worst. I don't use e-mail. On Amazon it's a one-time throwaway rotated out of service on a schedule.
13 • Riseup_mail_through_icedove_and_iOS_Whatsapp_encrypted_messages_and_calls (by k on 2016-09-05 07:08:32 GMT from Europe)
Really timely poll, much thanks.
I am fairly ignorant about encryption services, just "blindly"
using and relying on Riseup.net mail service through icedove
client with torbirdy on computers and iOS mail(client?) on phone.
However, since Riseup advises to "get the people you
communicate with to begin using that (encryption) software
as well", and really the majority of my "contacts" are fairly
careless about privacy and and security measures, I "lean"
(probably too) heavily on Whatsapp's promise that "messages
you send to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end
encryption."
Any comments, criticism and advise about my practices
really welcome.
14 • Copying columns (by billc on 2016-09-05 07:15:02 GMT from Oceania)
Another approach is to copy all the text into a spreadsheet, then copy the appropriate column. Won't always work of course.
15 • TrueOS (by Paraquat on 2016-09-05 07:16:39 GMT from Asia)
Moving TrueOS to a rolling release based on CURRENT is probably a good idea. One of the frustrating things about FreeBSD is the long wait between releases, especially annoying since their drivers tend to lag somewhat behind Linux.
The two computers I bought 3 years ago have Intel graphics which are not supported by FreeBSD 10.x, so I've been waiting for FBSD 11.0 (the release of which is imminent). Thankfully, this release does have the needed drivers. If TrueOS with rolling release helps get these improvements out to users more quickly, that would be a welcome improvement.
I still think the decision to change the name of PC-BSD to TrueOS was a dumb idea from a marketing point of view, but I guess I can live with that. Hopefully this won't cost them a big loss of their user base - we'll see.
16 • Encrypting messages (by Tom on 2016-09-05 09:35:24 GMT from Europe)
I've had GnuPG keys for years, but I never get to use them because none of my friends does. I'd love to switch to a secure messenger, but no-one I know cares about that. Sad old story. :-(
17 • re. 2 & 4 (by simonsays on 2016-09-05 09:49:24 GMT from Europe)
No cloud for me, either - like Brexit, control is important. If you want a quick dabble with cloud content then cover your traces, make sure your router/server is secure and run a live-CD. Switch OFF when done.
As for feren, you should've got the message in the fellow's opening gambit: "...off of.." It's September, back to school, and this time pay more attention to your English grammar!
Then there's encryption. I approach it the same way as neighbour snooping - you want to see what I'm doing? Fine, I'll get you a deckchair. You want to read my emails? I'll send you a batch. In either case, you won't see anything I don't want you to see!
18 • Peppermint - webapps are jsut a placeholder (by Pikolo on 2016-09-05 10:05:18 GMT from Europe)
Peppermint has been my first Linux distribution(and so far I have no reason to consider changing). It is very user friendly, basically being Windows 7, but faster. I sincerely believe that most of the web apps in ICE are just there so you can do stuff immediately, and get rid of them easily. Because they are not installed, you don't have to purge them to install your favorite programs. I've personally found ICE really useful for Office 365 my work requires me to use. Also, ICE seems to be the main reason they ship with a system-wide adblocker. You webapps don't show ads if you turn it on, but it is turned off by default.
It is very much a beginner-tinkerer's distro, and I think that by marketing themselves as a cloud friendly distribution the authors are doing themselves a disservice. A quick look through the recommended programs in the software manager will get you access to LO, GIMP, WINE and any other linux-mainstream program. PM just lets you choose yourself
One more thing you never ran into, and should probably regret is their forum. PM forum is heaven for Linux newbies. I have NEVER met so friendly and knowledgeable support people, and these guy's don't bill you for helping. Another very user friendly feature is that PM ships with inxi installed(not sure how common that is, but as all support requests contain a manual for installing it it's definitely >0), and a surprising amount of support people need the output to help you with most things
PM is so simple I decided to install it for my mother's friend who was computer illiterate. Just installed LO and gave her a .txt file explaining what are the linux equivalents of the software she might be told to get. So far, no complaints
19 • Torrent corner (by dkmillares on 2016-09-05 10:33:06 GMT from South America)
Thanks for the OpenBSD 6 torrent. Downloaded and seeding!
20 • Encypting messages... (by Vukota on 2016-09-05 10:45:35 GMT from Europe)
Getting people to encrypt messages remotely is extremely hard. I had a loan officer that I had to send to all kinds of signed documents over unencrypted e-mail. I tried to explain him how to configure encryption, sent him full instruction, talked on the phone, but it was a dead end, so finally I gave up.
People are usually hard to follow instructions, there are all kinds of different e-mail clients and usually none of them works perfectly. On top of that, certificates expire, people upgrade computers, and certificates (and thus encrypted e-mail) gets lost.
These days I find it easier to send something over the WhatsApp , than to try any other mean of communication, even though "security" on the phone is just theoretical, as we all learned from Snowden, Kaspersky and other leaks that there are gazillion of ways to mass hack cell phones, especially since security upgrades/patches are not available for anything that is 1 year old and manufacturers are slow to release patches to the OS-es they hold only keys for.
21 • Encrypting messages (by Joe P on 2016-09-05 11:25:45 GMT from Europe)
I use Thunderbird with the Enigmail plugin and GnuPG. It makes it real easy to send encrypted email. The recipient uses the same on his desktop and has Android set up to receive on his cell phone. I even encrypt one time messages like "Happy Birthday". Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to get family members to use encryption.
Encryption is like trying to get people to stop copying your email address to the whole world when they forward jokes and junk emails.
22 • PeppermintOS 7 (by Andy Mender on 2016-09-05 11:29:20 GMT from Europe)
I really liked former PeppermintOS iterations a lot. The way they looked a bit like Lubuntu, but were much lighter on resources and had that enticing feel. Mixing in XFCE4 elements is probably good in terms of added functionalities, but I sense it dilutes out the original LXDE-centric effort. PeppermintOS 7 looks more like any other XFCE or LxQT distribution out there. Under the hood it might still be good old Peppermint, but to me the "smell" is different.
23 • TrueOS (by Chris on 2016-09-05 11:35:07 GMT from Europe)
Nice work from TrueOS guys there, unfortunately kernel not in par with linux 4.7 , can't install this BSD on an AMD APU (kaveri) system as built-in gfx (R5) can't be detected
24 • Encryption (by Gilbert Boisvert on 2016-09-05 11:58:50 GMT from North America)
Encryption is great and I'm all for it. However, in my world, it just doesn't fly. The people whom I'm involved with, just won't cooperate and take the time to deal with this matter. Considering that it takes two sides to play, they just don't want to deal with decryption.
They don't even want to deal of picking up a message that would have been sent to a secure site. Isn't there an encryption application, which would automatically unravel itself when it has arrived at the destination. That's the only solution that I can think of.
25 • Peppermint 7 (by Rick on 2016-09-05 12:02:12 GMT from North America)
Though it has much to offer, I have eliminated Peppermint 7 from my list of possible distros. It has inherited all the problems of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, including wireless and memory use issues, which are apparent in my recent testing of it. A new release every 6 months simply doesn't work any more.
26 • Encryption (by a on 2016-09-05 12:13:28 GMT from Europe)
I do use encryption for chatting and file transfers but not with relatives and friends. I once convinced a friend to use OTR but this time is long gone, as he wants to be able to change devices at any time.
I didn’t try very hard to use PGP for emails and even for me it seems a bit complicated, with the added risk of losing all your mails if you lose the key or its password. Nobody I know wants to use it anyway.
The thought occured to me that for encrypted mails to take off, it would need to be provided by default by gmail.
I don’t know of a dumb-friendly secure communication software. GnuPG, Retroshare, OTR etc. all require some knowledge and important manual steps (key exchange and verification). When something is easy, they it is not actually secure (for example Apple can MITM its iMessages service.)
27 • Encryption (by Jeffrey on 2016-09-05 12:32:27 GMT from North America)
As the poster of @5, I don't encrypt messages simply because none of my correspondents use it, so I can't just send them seeming "gibberish". Some people don't want to encrypt/decrypt, many don't even bother to understand it.... =(
28 • Manjaro Change of Leadership (by Phillip Chandler on 2016-09-05 12:42:05 GMT from Europe)
Im using Manjaro Linux, and have finally found a distro I like. They have done, and are doing, a lot of great work.
Id like to wish Roland Singer all the best for his future project. Manjaro is in safe hands with Philip Muller and the rest of the team / community.
Phillip
29 • Encryption (by stealth on 2016-09-05 13:26:20 GMT from Europe)
If you don't want to have to trust whatsapp then https://tox.chat/ is the way to go. Fully libre, fully encrypted and based on the same techniques as bittorrent so no central node that might be compromised. It's still a bit rough around the edges but it does the job well for chat and file transfers.
30 • Encryption is like a lock (by Poet Nohit on 2016-09-05 14:03:52 GMT from North America)
Encryption only gently nudges honest people away from your data. It does not stop anyone from getting your data. If an enemy agent is determined to get it, they will (unless you hide your data using a more clever method).
31 • Encrytption (by scrumtime on 2016-09-05 14:07:51 GMT from North America)
We have used encryption for quite a few years in our b
usiness ventures though the people we deal with are quite into that type of thing generally
Personal mail has been another thing most of the crap we send each other isn't worth encrypting ..
Peppermint OS has been maybe the only Ubuntu based distro i would ever reccomend to anyone ( maybe Watt OS as well) always found it very reliable and easy to use I install it on a few peoples old comps where i live
SwagArch GNU/Linux. hasn't got a valid web site so shouldnt be advertised onhere
32 • Encryption (by stealth on 2016-09-05 14:45:21 GMT from Europe)
Best thing would be to make privacy and anonymity hasslefree. Kudos to the tox-team for doing just that!
33 • E-mail encryption use (by Ralph DeWitt-Golden on 2016-09-05 15:32:23 GMT from North America)
I favor full encryption for all e-mails, but sadly rarely encrypt any as all my correspondents refuse to bother with it. I do keep a proton email account when I want an extra bit of security.
34 • feren (by bigsky on 2016-09-05 15:37:33 GMT from North America)
@17 Typical response as usual. Attack someones education. Sad really. Oh well.
35 • Tox (by k on 2016-09-05 16:38:39 GMT from Europe)
@29 and 32 by stealth
Thank you for the comments and link, Tox certainly does seem
a really promising alternative to Whatsapp but, you know how
most get stuck on easy (lazy) comfort, nearly all my contacts
actively use Whatsapp, and they just would not even try Tox.
By the way, how might install Tox on an iOS without Apple ID
(store) account AND without "jailbreaking". Apple really built in
control of it's iPhones.
36 • E-mail Encryption (by JabariZ on 2016-09-05 17:37:13 GMT from North America)
Using a service like Protonmail (www.protonmail.com) makes sending/receiving encrypted email simple and automatic (with other Protonmail users). But you can also send encrypted email to non-Protonmail users. It sends an email to the intended party with a link to the encrypted email. You just provide them (phone, chat, etc) the password for the link, and they can access it. The message can also be given a timed lifespan. Get your family, friends, etc to become a user with them and now every email is sent (and stored) encrypted without having to remember more than your login passphrases.
37 • @17 : english is not everyone mother tongue... (by Frederic Bezies on 2016-09-05 17:48:43 GMT from Europe)
So, will you... You know what I mean? :)
Do you think this "thing" which is an SuSE Studio ISO is made by someone which is from United Kingdom, USA, Canada or Australia?
Looks like me to a google translate generated page. I could be wrong. But it looks like not an ISO generated by someone who speaks english every single day.
38 • @31 SwagArch working site... (by Frederic Bezies on 2016-09-05 21:59:43 GMT from Europe)
Looks like this could be the url to use for SwagArch : https://swagarch.github.io/
Now, if you want to try it, feel free to do so :)
39 • SwagArch (by Bill on 2016-09-05 20:49:01 GMT from North America)
Just installed SwagArch in virtualbox. No issues installing and upgrading. Was a very fast install. Nice to see more interest in Arch Linux.
40 • Night of the Living E-Dead (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-09-05 22:28:05 GMT from North America)
E-mail is protocol prehistory. We graduated from floppy disks, why not e-mail? Teaching key exchange is hard? Just do it for them. From http://youbroketheinternet.org/secure-email
"Also, since more than 99% of population hasn't been using any encryption so far, the social bootstrap procedure will be starting from zero for most users. It is thus important to note that there is no gain in installing a technology which is compatible to the old email system: It re-introduces old threats and complicates user interfaces, even if there was a way to add encryption to the existing system that makes sense. PGP over SMTP doesn't.
For the 99% it makes more sense to simply start using a different software for secure messaging while also participating in the old email system using whatever insecure user interface they have been using so far. At some point they will have a sufficient number of contacts on the new system that they will use the old one less and less, just like people migrated from Myspace to Facebook."
Supposing nobody wants privacy is wrong; everyday counterexamples abound. Walk into a hair salon of gossiping busybodies. They instantly clam up to suss whether you're "one of the girls." Craigslist sellers only meet in public, won't give surnames, and hide behind throwaway e-mails. Ask someone to e-mail a tax return. And good luck getting any lawyer or doctor to send anything by e-mail.
The issue is not mass acceptance of exposure. It's mass delusion that e-mail is private; so I close with a tip for helping friends and family grasp reality.
Offer to hire a security auditor. Let him scan their boxen for malware and execute a preauthorized red-team grab of e-mail and browser history from his office. Results will scare the plaintext out of them and make a Linux convert.
41 • Linux Mint Rules! (by dude on 2016-09-06 02:39:19 GMT from Asia)
I keep trying other distros, but always switch back to Linux Mint. I like Linux Mint so much, I just donated another $5 to the cause.
42 • Peppermint is not LXDE (by cpoakes on 2016-09-06 03:53:02 GMT from North America)
As Ronnie @8 points out, one can hardly call this an LXDE desktop anymore. The principal desktop components are not LXDE: the window manager, panel, and panel menu (whiskermenu) are from XFCE and the file manager/desktop manager (Nemo) is from Cinnamon. The remaining LXDE bits are minor components: lxsession and lxappearance. I applaud using a "best of" hybrid approach - CrunchBang, BunsenLabs, Manjaro Openbox, et al have employed it for years.
43 • "Dish_and_pot,_dish_and_pot..." (by k on 2016-09-06 05:23:00 GMT from Europe)
@17 by simonsays, 34, and 37
Away with words and egos, language/culture hangups should
have died with "Malone", let's evolve (Linux) beyond this, please.
44 • Encryption (by stealth on 2016-09-06 07:25:41 GMT from Europe)
@35 Yeah, The lazy people stick with what they know, that's how it's allways gonna be. I guess the trick is to make tox (or similar) sufficiently popular. Then even the lazy ones will have to switch cause enough of their friends use it. Gotta make them think it is worth the effort and since they don't value privacy at all you've got to appeal so something else.
As far as I understand it iOS is a lost cause when it comes to privacy, at least on this level. Apple build their devices that way.
Btw, I'd say https://www.mailpile.is/ also is an interesting take on this matter.
45 • encryption (by stealth on 2016-09-06 07:34:34 GMT from Europe)
continuation of 44...
Bottom line is, encryption and privacy or not should not even be an option. It should be built into the fundamental technology. It should be something that the user should not even have to think about.
46 • encryption (by Dave on 2016-09-06 12:48:13 GMT from North America)
@45 is correct. If encryption is going to get adopted, it has to be baked in to everything. why even make the user care about it? Time to replace email and smtp with something new, and make it so useful that everyone adopts it.
47 • @41 Mint rules for some (by Jordan on 2016-09-06 13:57:49 GMT from North America)
I feel that way about Manjaro and Korora (love the update mechanism in Korora 24). Donations to those distros we have success with and love over time are the way to go, I agree.
48 • Encryption (by Amedeo on 2016-09-06 15:06:19 GMT from Europe)
I use Posteo (www.posteo.net) for e-mail communication: it's the only service that I know which provides some sort of security for all the e-mails I receive from "normal" users who don't like to delve into encryption.
49 • Encryption (by stealth on 2016-09-06 15:15:48 GMT from Europe)
@48 posteo seems like a good temporary workaround for us techies that do care.
50 • Privacy and Encryption (by Jeff on 2016-09-06 15:32:15 GMT from North America)
One of the unmentioned problems with using encryption is that unless you are a medical doctor or a large corporation using encryption will get you onto an NSA watch list.
51 • Peppermint review (by Alex on 2016-09-06 15:41:55 GMT from Europe)
Xfwm4 is part of the Xfce Desktop Environment. Peppermint runs xfwm4. Lx-menu-data, Lxinput, Lxpanel, Lxtask, Lxterminal, Openbox and PCManFm are not available in Peppermint. Shouldn't the reviewer look at xdg folder, before reviewing a special distro like Peppermint?
52 • Encryption (by Stealth on 2016-09-06 18:31:03 GMT from Europe)
@50 If everyone starts using encryption then the NSA, GCHQ, etc are going to have to watch everyone (which they allready do anyway...)
53 • Encryption (by Stealth on 2016-09-07 05:41:26 GMT from Europe)
According to https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-javascript-guidelines-picked-up-by-posteo-webmail it seems that Posteo is striving for fully libre JS on their site. Makes me like them better. :)
54 • Built-in_encryption_vs_current_reality (by k on 2016-09-07 06:15:37 GMT from Europe)
@44 by stealth
Much thanks for the excellent comment, truth about most internet users,
need for built-in encryption, and the link to mailpile.is. Agreed, and
perhaps not surprisingly, a very promising prospect for total "user-friendly"
encryption, indeed.
Also, really comprehensive instructions at:
https://github.com/mailpile/Mailpile/wiki/Getting-started-on-linux
I will for sure fully test Mailpile on a Debian or Debian-based system, but
first need to incorporate the github source code and tools, since it is
not already built-in any distro(?).
I feel the Tails project and distro is another really promising prospect.
Perhaps if they partner with mailpile.is, we might have a most user-friendly
and safer system faster.
55 • Posteo_costs (by k on 2016-09-07 06:23:01 GMT from Europe)
@48 by Amedeo
It is "just" Euro 1 a month, but when you are "dirt" poor, that is Euro 1 too much.
Still, another safe alternative and perhaps more user-friendly for those that can afford it.
56 • Chance_and_risk_is_reality (by k on 2016-09-07 06:30:48 GMT from Europe)
@50
Linux and such distros offer us the best chance to break free
from surveillance, we should definitely welcome the risk.
There is no reality without chance and risk, it is the basis of
evolution. Actually, the basis of existence.
57 • Posteo Costs (by Stealth on 2016-09-07 09:07:18 GMT from Europe)
@55
I think it's a good thing that Posteo costs money. Running a service like this is far from cheap and requires a *lot* of work. We users need to be made to remember this! It is so easy to be fooled by Googles definition of "free" (they imply that it is free when in reality it's funded by ads.)
If you really need a gratis email account then I can recommend https://www.openmailbox.org/ - they are a not for profit operation and are funded by donations. Support them if you can!
58 • Encryption (by Jeff on 2016-09-08 04:29:10 GMT from North America)
@52 If everyone starts using encryption then......
But the sad reality is that you will be more likely to only get a small percentage to use it, probably 5% or less.
Not so hard to watch.
59 • Encryption (by Stealth on 2016-09-08 05:26:32 GMT from Europe)
@58
If at first you don't succeed then try and try again. How many failures does the average successful entrepreneur have on his/her resume?
60 • Peppermint Linux (by Simon Wainscott-Plaistowe on 2016-09-08 21:10:45 GMT from Oceania)
Great review of Peppermint 7. I've used Peppermint 6 very successfully to replace Windows XP on refurbished computers. Now I'm looking forward to trying Peppermint 7 on the next one.
61 • vim can do column selection (by baldyeti on 2016-09-09 08:59:53 GMT from Europe)
the shortcut is (under vim7, Ctl-V previously)
62 • vim can do column selection (corrected) (by baldyeti on 2016-09-09 09:02:27 GMT from Europe)
(oops, the system ate my markup)
The shortcut is Ctrl-Q
63 • rolling bsd...yes!!! (by ljenux on 2016-09-09 17:15:15 GMT from Europe)
my linux days are over.
64 • The Force Be With Us (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-09-10 00:54:49 GMT from North America)
@50 Dear Jeff, just reading Linux websites has everyone here on lists. So say the Snowden leaks. We don't bow to corporate monoliths who "partner" (conspire) with NSA, so we're "extremists" (free) in bureau-speak.
Most agents likely know it's silly, wasteful, illegal, and un-American to build gigantic data vaults to warehouse our whole lives for retroactive search, one-upping East Germany's paper system.
Use the freedom we still enjoy to secure what's left. Then begin hammering down NSA's Utah Berlin Wall so the crew can get real jobs off the taxpayer's teats.
@All The popularity problem is solved thusly: compile GnuPG into web browsers. Everyone uses them. Geeks control their source code. We don't need to beg the masses to do anything new. Add a feature! Anyone with 5k!11z can submit patches.
65 • Encryption (by Stealth on 2016-09-10 10:14:24 GMT from Europe)
@64 Building gnupg into webbrowsers could accomplish a more secure browsing of the web, that is true. What other usecase problems does it solve, and how? Chatting? File sharing? Video conferencing? etc?
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