 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 723, 31 July 2017 |
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There are many benefits to setting up a home server, including saving on the cost of third-party solutions, privacy, being able to secure the system, and getting to control the exact features available. However, setting up a custom server solution can take time. This is why distributions such as UBOS are useful. The UBOS project makes setting up new servers a quick process, automating most of the configuration steps. We begin this week by exploring UBOS and its custom features. Also in this issue we talk about Korora's handy guide to popular applications and Ubuntu MATE seeking feedback on media players. Plus we talk about GNUstep Live CD's first release in over seven years and OpenBSD switching to Clang for the project's default compiler. We also discuss how to transfer lists of installed applications between operating systems. In our Opinion Poll we ask our readers what your preferred method is for syncing applications between computers. We also share the project releases of the past week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. Last week we introduced a new search feature which allows DistroWatch readers to find operating systems which support running either Flatpak or Snap packages. Finally, we are pleased to report the ArchLabs distribution has been added to our database. We wish you a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Set up web services quickly with UBOS 11
- News: Korora provides list of popular applications, Ubuntu MATE seeks user feedback and unveils HUD, GNUstep releases first update in seven years, OpenBSD to use Clang by default
- Questions and answers: Transferring a list of installed packages
- Released last week: openSUSE 42.3, FreeBSD 11.1
- Torrent corner: 4MLinux, Clonezilla, FreeBSD, GNUstep, openSUSE, Sabayon, SystemRescueCd
- Upcoming releases: Black Lab Linux 9.1
- Opinion poll: Installing applications on a new computer
- DistroWatch.com news: Distributions which support Flatpak or Snap
- New additions: ArchLabs, Cucumber Linux
- New distributions: Arch XFerience, RedLinux
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Set up web services quickly with UBOS 11
UBOS is a rolling release distribution based on Arch Linux. The project produces an operating system for servers with the intent of making it a very quick and easy process to set up web-based services. The project's website states:
We created UBOS, a new Linux distro, in order to make it simple to set up and maintain a Linux server that runs common web applications and keeps data under control of the owner of the server.
Using a friendly command line utility called ubos-admin, it is possible for the user to install new web applications, create backups, install free security certificates from Let's Encrypt and keep the system up to date.
The UBOS website mentions a few other useful features:
• [UBOS] pre-installs and pre-configures networking and other infrastructure, so it is ready to be used as soon as it has booted.
• Systems that have two Ethernet interfaces can be turned into a home router/gateway with a single command. In this gateway configuration, UBOS automatically sets up network masquerading, a firewall, a local DNS and DHCP server.
• UBOS can backup or restore all, or any subset of installed applications on a device, including their entire configuration (like TLS) in a single command.
Each of these features can be accessed using a single, short command from the console. I will come back to specific examples of UBOS's convenient functions later.
Installing
UBOS is available in a variety of builds. We can download disk images for Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black and Marvell EspressoBIN computers. There are also installation images for 64-bit x86 personal computers and virtual machine disk images. These downloads range in size from about 410MB to 530MB. The downloads are compressed and, when decompressed, the disk images are approximately 3GB in size.
When installing UBOS on a personal computer or server, we can boot the installation media to a text console and run a single command to launch an automated install process. We need only to provide the name of the disk where UBOS is to be installed.
First impressions
The installed copy of UBOS boots to a text console where we can sign into the root account without needing a password. By default the UBOS environment is fairly minimal. We are given just a command line environment without many utilities and no manual pages. In the background, UBOS runs the OpenSSH secure shell service. With the default settings, the root user cannot login to UBOS remotely and there are no other user accounts we can use to sign in. Later, if we like, we can set up a regular user account and use it to access UBOS from another computer.
The operating system uses about 100MB of RAM and takes up 1GB of disk space. Later, as we add more services, these resource requirements climb a bit. I found running a few web applications used just over 1GB of disk space and about 200MB of RAM.
UBOS, being based on Arch Linux, runs cutting edge software. At the time of writing, this includes systemd 232 and version 4.11.3 of the Linux kernel. I was surprised to discover UBOS uses the advanced Btr file system for its root partition. Btrfs is not commonly used yet by many Linux distributions, but it offers a number of intriguing features such as file system snapshots.
Using UBOS
Most of UBOS's features are accessed through a command line utility called ubos-admin. This tool assists us in installing software updates, setting up new services, checking the status of running services, performing backups and restoring the system from a backup archive. Tutorials on how to use each of the ubos-admin features can be found in the UBOS documentation. Most of these functions are summarized in the UBOS Quick-Start guide.
The ubos-admin utility can help us set up eight different web-based services, which we can see listed on the project's website or by running the "pacman -Sl hl" command. When we want to install and configure a new service we can run the command "ubos-admin createsite". This launches a command line wizard where we are asked to provide the name of a service we wish to install. The wizard asks us to provide a username and password we will use to access the new web-app service. We are then asked to provide a URL where we will be able to access the new service. The wizard downloads the packages we need and performs the necessary configuration steps. The ubos-admin tool then offers to set up another service.
When the tool is finished running, we have the requested chat client, Wordpress installation, Nextcloud and/or wiki running on our computer. The entire process for each set up generally takes less than a minute. This makes setting up new web services much faster than it would be to configure these services and their web server entries by hand. Visiting our computer's URL in a web browser lists the available applications we are running and we can alternately link directly to each service using the URL we selected when running "ubos-admin createsite".
UBOS 11 -- Listing installed services
(full image size: 59kB, resolution: 1055x798 pixels)
I tried setting up a couple of services and had mixed results. For example, the Wordpress blogging software worked perfectly and the wiki software seems to work well. However, when I installed the NextCloud file synchronization application the software installed, but produced errors whenever I tried to access the NextCloud front page.
The ubos-admin utility can perform a number of other useful tasks, including listing installed web applications and showing us the status of each service. Perhaps one of the more impressive features is the ability to backup all of our web services and data with a single command.
Running "ubos-admin backup --out my-archive" creates an archive file with all of our web applications and data. The my-archive file can be transferred to another server or disk for safe keeping. We can then restore our web services from the backup by running "ubos-admin restore --in my-archive". I was pleased to find that the restore feature works on clean installations of UBOS. This means if our server completely fails, we can install UBOS on another computer and restore all of our web services to working order by running the restore command on an existing archive.
Other observations
For the most part UBOS and its utilities worked well for me. The ubos-admin tool works as advertised and I found the speed and ease of use impressive. I did, however, run into a couple of problems during my time with UBOS.
One of the bigger issues I ran into was that, once I had set up a couple of services with "ubos-admin createsite", I was unable to add new services later. For example, at one point I set up an installation of UBOS running Wordpress and NextCloud. This initial configuration went smoothly. Later, I tried to run "ubos-admin createsite" again in order to add the Mattermost application and the ubos-admin tool informed me I could not add new services as the server had already been set up. It appears that appending new services to an existing installation of UBOS will not work. This seems to me to be a severe limitation as it means we cannot extend an existing server's functionality the way we would with other common server distributions.
Another problem I ran into was with getting UBOS to shut down. When no web applications were installed, I was able to power down or reboot the computer without any problem. However, as soon as I installed a web service, the shutdown and reboot commands no longer worked. The system would start to shut down and then freeze. I was able to use the poweroff command to shut down the system, but could not find a way to reboot. This meant that remotely upgrading and restarting the server was not possible; maintenance requiring a reboot would need to be performed while physically sitting at the computer. For UBOS users at home this would not be much of an issue, but it would be a notable limitation for people working remotely.
Conclusions
Some people might think that UBOS is targeting less experienced users with its talk of quickly and easily setting up popular web services at home. At least that was my initial impression of the project's mission. However, I came to realize that UBOS makes certain admin tasks very fast and convenient, but not necessarily beginner friendly. Running UBOS means using the command line and being comfortable with the Linux command line tools. The UBOS project does provide us with documentation for using the ubos-admin software which is very useful, but we are not given manual pages or guides for other commands. This means UBOS users should already be comfortable working from a terminal, but do not necessarily need to know anything about setting up an Apache web server or web applications.
For the most part, UBOS does a good job of making it quick and easy to set up a handful of web services. What would usually take me twenty minutes to install, configure and test takes less than five minutes with UBOS and I appreciate this time saving technology. The ability to backup multiple websites and their databases in seconds with one command is also a very welcome feature.
There were downsides to using UBOS I ran into. One was the distribution refusing to reboot after services were installed. The second was the issue I ran into where I could not install new services once web applications had already been installed. This seems like a restriction which would get in the way in any situation where we want to experiment with new applications.
A final issue I ran into was UBOS currently does not offer many pre-packaged services. There are, at the time of writing, eight available web services we can install and configure with a single command. This is a good start, but I hope more services are added later, perhaps for other blogging software, development tools and other common web services. The basics many home users are likely to want are already in UBOS's inventory and I hope the selection is expanded to appeal to a wider audience in the future.
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Visitor supplied rating
UBOS has a visitor supplied average rating of: N/A from 0 review(s).
Have you used UBOS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Korora provides list of popular applications, Ubuntu MATE seeks user feedback and unveils HUD, GNUstep releases first update in seven years, OpenBSD to use Clang by default
When new users first try a Linux distribution one major challenge is discovering which applications they should use to perform tasks. To save their users from digging through a long list of applications in search of the right one the Korora team has put together a quick guide that matches popular applications to specific tasks. "One of the core aims of the Korora Project is to provide an out-of-box Linux experience that can take care of the average user's daily needs with entirely free software. To save you the trouble of digging through every pre-installed application, we have compiled a list of the prepackaged applications within each version of Korora that fulfill a specific purpose. This will hopefully save you some trouble from immediately downloading more software when the right tool may already be installed." The guide is divided into five separate sections, one for each desktop edition Korora offers.
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The Ubuntu MATE team is seeking feedback from the community as to which media player people would like to see installed by default. The project has set up a poll and invited people to vote on whether they think VLC, MPV or Totem would be the best default video player for the distribution. The winner of the poll will likely become the default player in the upcoming release of Ubuntu MATE 17.10.
One of the new features Ubuntu MATE is experimenting with for the upcoming 17.10 release is a global menu with HUD support. The HUD, which was a popular feature of the Unity 7 desktop, allows users to search quickly through an application's menu without taking their hands off the keyboard. The user can tap a short-cut key and type the name of the function they wish to use. A demonstration of the HUD at work can be found in the release announcement for Ubuntu MATE 17.10 Alpha 2. "This is something we started during Ubuntu MATE 16.10 and never perfected, but is now ready for prime time. A favourite of Unity 7 users is the Heads-Up Display (HUD) which provides a way to search for and run menu-bar commands without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard. So if you're trying to find that single filter in GIMP but can't remember which filter category it fits into or if you can't recall if Preferences sits under File, Edit or Tools on your favourite browser, you can just search for it rather than hunting through the menus."
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GNUstep Live CD is a Debian-based live disc which features the GNUstep software. The GNUstep Live CD distribution had been dormant for approximately seven years, but has since been updated with a new release. The new version runs on 64-bit x86 computers and brings many major version bumps to installed packages. More information can be found on the project's website.
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The OpenBSD project has traditionally shipped with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) as the operating system's default compiler. While the GNU compiler will continue to be available to developers, the OpenBSD project is switching to using the Clang compiler as the default compiler on the x86 and x86_64 architectures. Clang has been gaining adoption, particularly in the BSD community, due to its clear error messages and liberal license.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Transferring a list of installed packages
Taking-my-packages-with-me asks: Is there a way to transfer the list of installed packages from one computer to another? Like if I am setting up a new computer with Ubuntu 17.04 can I transfer the list of installed packages from my old Ubuntu 16.04 system?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, there are a few ways to transfer a list of installed packages from one computer to another and optionally install the same packages on the new system. However, when switching between two separate distributions (or different versions of the same distribution) it is possible to run into incompatibilities. Distributions sometimes name their packages differently and packages may disappear from one version of an operating system to the next.
With Ubuntu, and other members of the Debian family, it is possible to get a list of installed (also referred to as selected) packages on the first computer by running the command
dpkg --get-selections
The above command will display a list of software components and their status. To save this information to a file we can redirect the output to a text file:
dpkg --get-selections > package-list
The package-list file can be transferred to another computer and then used to select/install the same software on the second computer. This is done by first transferring the list to the new computer and then using a utility called dselect to help install the software on your new computer.
First we need to make sure the dselect utility is present on the new computer:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dselect
Then we import the list of packages we saved from the old computer and install them.
sudo dselect update
sudo dpkg --set-selections < package-list
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
I also recommend making sure any non-standard repositories you have enabled on your old computer you also enable on your new computer. If you have set up a third-party repository for installing Chrome, for example, then that repository should be enabled prior to performing the above steps to install your software on the new computer. You can usually find a list of enabled repositories in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory.
When setting up repositories on the new computer, I do not recommend simply copying the repository files from your old computer's /etc/apt/sources.list directory as they may contain version-specific information. In other words, we do not want the new version of your operating system to try to install software from repositories containing packages for older versions of your distribution. It is better to set up your repositories fresh, following instructions from the upstream website to avoid version conflicts.
Different distributions use different package managers and the above steps will only work on the Debian family of distributions. If you are using a distribution in the Fedora family then it will be necessary to perform similar steps using the RPM and DNF software utilities. On the older computer you could use RPM to get a list of installed packages:
rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}\n" > package-list
Then, transfer the package-list file to the newer computer and run the DNF command to import the list of packages:
sudo dnf install $(cat package-list | tr '\n' ' ')
Each package manager has its own methods for providing a list of installed packages and for importing a list of software to install. For distributions not in the Fedora or Debian families, I recommend reading your operating system's documentation on exporting and importing lists of installed packages.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
FreeBSD 11.1
The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced the availability of FreeBSD 11.1. The 11.1 release is the latest stable version of the venerable FreeBSD operating system. The new version features updates to the project's compiler and linking tools, ZFS now supports compressed cache and the efivar utility has been added for managing UEFI variables. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE. This is the second release of the stable/11 branch. Some of the highlights: Clang, LLVM, LLD, LLDB, and libc++ have been updated to version 4.0.0. Many third-party (contributed) software updates, such as the Elf Tool Chain, ACPICA, libarchive(3), ntpd(8), unbound(8), and more. Support for blacklistd(8) has been added to OpenSSH. The zfsbootcfg(8) utility has been added, providing one-time boot.config(5)-style options for zfsboot(8). The efivar(8) utility has been added, providing an interface to manage UEFI variables. Support for Microsoft Hyper-V Generation 2 virtual machines has been added. The ena(4) driver has been added, providing support for "next generation" Enhanced Networking on the Amazon EC2 platform. The NFS client now supports the Amazon Elastic File System (EFS). The EFI loader can now access remote files via TFTP in addition to NFS as a runtime configuration option. ZFS now stores compressed data in cache, improving cache hit rates and performance." Details can be found in the project's release announcement and release notes.
openSUSE 42.3
The openSUSE team has unveiled a new version of openSUSE's Leap edition. The new version, openSUSE Leap 42.3, is a conservative update to the Leap series, introducing mostly minor fixed and package updates. "The release of Leap 42.3 provides adopters a reliable server operating system for deploying IT services in physical, virtual or cloud environments. Leap's third edition of the 42 series has more than 10,000 packages and offers stability-minded users a refresh and hardware enablement release. The release is powered by the same Linux 4.4 Long-Term-Support (LTS) kernel found in the previous Leap edition. Leap 42.3 continues to use KDE's Long-Term-Support release 5.8 as the default desktop selection while also offering GNOME 3.20, the same as used by SUSE Linux Enterprise. A variety of additional desktops is available in the installer through the newly designed desktop selection." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not 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 in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 510
- Total data uploaded: 14.8TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Installing applications on a new computer
When installing a new operating system or moving to another computer, it is convenient to be able to transfer the applications we usually use from our old operating system to the new one. In this week's Questions and Answers article we discussed ways to get a list of installed packages to move to another operating system. We would like to find out how our readers transfer their software between systems. Feel free to provide your own tips for taking applications with you between computers in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on monitoring system logs in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Installing applications on a new computer
| I export/import package lists: | 89 (6%) |
| I use a sync service: | 9 (1%) |
| I manually track software and install it myself: | 598 (37%) |
| I only install new applications as I need them on the new OS: | 858 (53%) |
| Other: | 57 (4%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions which support Flatpak or Snap
With a growing number of Linux distributions supporting either the Flatpak or Snap portable package formats, we have been getting more requests to make these features searchable. It is now possible to find distributions which feature one (or both) of these portable package formats on our Search page. The search filters for Flatpak and Snap can be selected in the Package management field.
At this time the list of distributions we display is not complete. Searches for Snap and Flatpak will only include the projects which we have been able to verify either include support for these formats in the default installation or in the default repositories. Distributions which offer Flatpak or Snap support through third-party repositories are not listed. The search results also will not include projects which may offer these technologies but we have not been able to verify it yet. If you notice a project which has documented support for either Flatpak or Snap which we are not listing on the Search page, please let us know.
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New projects added to database
ArchLabs
ArchLabs is a distribution based on Arch Linux and featuring the Openbox window manager as the primary desktop interface. ArchLabs is a 64-bit, rolling release distribution which provides a live DVD. The distribution can be installed using the Calamares graphical system installer.
ArchLabs 5.0 -- Running Openbox
(full image size: 456kB, resolution: resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Cucumber Linux
Cucumber Linux aims to provide a Linux distribution that is usable as an every day, general purpose operating system. It aims to this in as minimalistic a way as possible and in a way that follows the Unix Philosophy. Cucumber Linux favours simplicity and modularity of design over simplicity of use. While developed independently, Cucumber's design is heavily influenced by Slackware Linux.
Cucumber Linux 1.0 -- Running the Xfce desktop environment
(full image size: 331kB, resolution: 1024x768 pixels)
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Arch XFerience. Arch XFerience is a desktop distribution based on Arch Linux. The distribution runs the Xfce desktop and includes Flash and multimedia support.
- RedLinux. RedLinux is a desktop distribution based on Lubuntu's latest LTS version.
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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, 7 August 2017. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • KDE Mobile & Halium (by Elcaset on 2017-07-31 02:14:27 GMT from United States)
I'm really looking forward to using KDE Mobile! The Halium project seems to be gaining steam, as well. I'm hoping to have more coverage of KDE Mobile & other mobile GNU/Linux operating systems on Distrowatch.
2 • Installing apps (by albinard on 2017-07-31 02:34:17 GMT from United States)
I answered "Other", but I really mean more like all of the above, though I've never used a sync service for that. I've built up from specific needs, transferred whole setups with get-selections, and pretty much built ad lib, according to how well the prior setup suits my purposes. It's Linux, the user is in charge.
3 • install apps on a new computer... (by tom joad on 2017-07-31 02:39:02 GMT from France)
My way of doing this is to install as I go. In the past I have just will-nilly installed and installed and installed. Not any more. I install when I need it otherwise no. And I have a mental list of favorites that I will install if need be but I wait for 'need be.'
Keep it simple and get your work done. I think that is the rational approach.
4 • install apps on a new computer... (by frugal_nitpicker on 2017-07-31 03:01:08 GMT from Brazil)
Install apps on a new system comsumes much more time I could to like. The ever present "Dependency hell", the eight and more deeper hell's circle, forgot by Dante. Whem I started with Linux I questioned: O my, why they did not use Static build? Well, several aswers before the problem stands up! I follow installing dependency after dependency, expecting by the good times in the future, may be.
5 • Install apps on new installation (by Trumpette on 2017-07-31 03:13:13 GMT from United States)
I use my own bash script. So far, I've been able to special-case it for the few differences in package managers/names.
Works for me.
I don't care if you don't like it.
So there.
6 • Installing applications (by Trihexagonal on 2017-07-31 03:13:25 GMT from United States)
I build my OS from scratch from the base system up, only install a limited number of programs that I have found to suit my needs over time and build them from ports.
7 • I make a list/generate a list.. (by brad on 2017-07-31 04:08:20 GMT from United States)
then pick what I actually use for the new installation.
8 • Quckly installing existing packages on a new computer (by JG on 2017-07-31 04:20:39 GMT from United States)
For Salix/Slackware I archive all of my .tgz package files from Slackware's "/var/slapt-get folder" to a flash drive for installation later on using the find command:
find -name *.t?? -exec cp -rpf {} /media/flash-drive-name \;
On a new system I install the programs in one swoop using the command "installpkg *.tgz"
For Debian/Ubuntu I archive all of my .deb package files from the "/var/cache/apt/archives" folder to a flash drive for installation later on. On a new system I install the programs in one swoop using the command "dpkg -i *.deb"
After installation I check for program updates in slapt-get or the synaptic package manager. Periodically I purge the older packages to save time during the reinstall process.
9 • Quickly installing existing packages on a new computer (continued) (by JG on 2017-07-31 04:57:26 GMT from United States)
For the Slackware packages the reinstall command should actually be:
"installpkg *.t?z"
This accounts for the .txz packages as well as the older .tgz packages.
10 • Install apps on a new computer... (by OstroL on 2017-07-31 08:29:57 GMT from Poland)
Installing a distro on a new or other computer is like distro hopping. Its interesting to see, how the other computer works with the distro. Installing apps is no a big deal these days, few minutes and they are installed.
Or, you can make a bootable live iso from your install (without the home folder) and move the exact install to the other.
11 • package installation (by dogma on 2017-07-31 13:15:17 GMT from United States)
For my purposes, it’s worked well to work from a list of what I’ve needed on previous occasions.
12 • UBOS (by RM on 2017-07-31 13:30:40 GMT from Poland)
UBOS looks quite promising but... rolling server? Maybe I'm too conservative but for serious server-related jobs I would rather use old, good, stable Debian. Not as fancy but reliable. IMHO reliability is crucial for server and rolling distros are not-reliable-as-they-should ;) However this is really interesting project and I will give it a try in virtual enviroment just for testing. And for fun of course ;)
13 • apps for new pc (by wolsonjr on 2017-07-31 13:39:47 GMT from United States)
have basic mental list of what I consider necessary for all OS/PCs, with special extras for certain setups
14 • New Applications (by Matthew Rivers on 2017-07-31 13:58:32 GMT from United States)
Since I use Debian, I clone the drive of one of my other computers and:
1) delete /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net
2) edit /etc/hostname & /etc/hosts
It saves the time and bandwidth of installing and updating from an ISO, and all of my settings remain intact.
15 • Installing apps on a new computer (by seacat on 2017-07-31 14:20:46 GMT from Argentina)
A combination of "install it myself" and "only when I need it". First step, to install the OS. Second step, to customize the installation and to add my group of frequently-use apps. Third step, to install other apps only when I need them.
16 • Re: UBOS (I'm developing it) (by Johannes Ernst on 2017-07-31 17:23:00 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the UBOS review! Couple of comments:
1) Adding or modifying a site configuration after the initial "ubos-admin createsite", such as adding another app to an existing site. It's very possible, but it requires editing JSON at this point. (This is noted in the second half of http://ubos.net/docs/users/ubos-admin.html#ubos-admin-createsite) Basically you get the site JSON "ubos-admin showsite --host example.com --json > example.com.json", then add the desired app into the respective array in that JSON file, and redeploy it "ubos-admin deploy --in example.com.json". This is clumsier than it should be, I agree, and we have an open bug to provide better tooling.
2) Which platform did you use for your investigation? We know that shutdown issues sometimes happen on the EspressoBIN -- this seems to be an upstream issue, not specific to UBOS -- but we aren't aware of anything like it on other platforms. What's the specific error you are getting?
3) Also, which UBOS version / channel did you use? We are not aware of any Nextcloud installation issues.
Thanks for your review!!
17 • UBOS (by Jesse on 2017-07-31 17:44:54 GMT from Canada)
@16:
2. UBOS was running in VirtualBox. I can't give you the exact error message as I was writing this review a few weeks ago.
3. As I mentioned in the review, I was running UBOS 11. I was using whichever channel is the default, I didn't do any customization to the installation as just used the examples in the provided documentation to set up services.
18 • openSUSE Review (by Mike on 2017-08-01 07:42:55 GMT from Kenya)
You report the release of openSUSE Leap 42.3 in your Released Last Week section. I have been an on-and-off user pf SUSE for years. While it is pretty to look at, I have found it to be buggy and slow. Nevertheless, I keep hoping that they'll get it right. openSUSE 42.3 has turned out to be a welcome surprise! I have found it to be very stable so far but I would like to hear your opinion. I didn't use Leap 42.2 and your review of it didn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm to try it!
19 • Leap-ing (by Somewhat Reticent on 2017-08-01 13:46:27 GMT from United States)
@18 consider GeckoLinux [ http://geckolinux.github.io/ ] for convenience.
20 • @18, @19 (by Justin on 2017-08-01 16:48:23 GMT from United States)
I tried GeckoLinux Budgie in a VM. I don't think it likes me changing the screen resolution. I couldn't find a settings panel or something to make changes, so I just adjusted the window size. At some point, I lost the ability to open a menu or get any type of prompt. I switched to a virtual console and saw that "budgie-panel" was eating up all my CPU and memory (the fans on my laptop are full on). While in top, the system locked up, then the screen went back to X (I didn't change it), and now I can't get anything to respond.
So... actually a bit disappointed. I've wanted to start trying out and liking distros like SUSE or Mageia or other non-deb, non-Arch distros, but then I run into stuff like this. I'm glad it's just a VM, and maybe it's even VM-specific, but unfortunately it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'll just stick with what has worked for me.
21 • Package List Poll (by cykodrone on 2017-08-01 17:34:06 GMT from Canada)
The verbose details are meant for newcomers...
I manually create package lists, copy that list to the Desktop (the original is the backup), manually reinstall main app packages (I have drag in recommends off to keep bloat to a minimum) and delete the installed from the copy text (sorted alphabetically), that way I can come back to it and finish it later and not lose my place. I NEVER install standalone libraries (libs) or dependencies, I always let the main packages drag in what they need. What can be a pain is the same apps having different names in a Debian based (Devuan) OS and an rpm based OS, then you have to find (research) the differently named rpm app packages that are similar to their Debian based cousins. I use both Debian based and rpm based OS's (2 dedicated SSDs) because they both have apps and features the other doesn't. I've been dabbling in Linux since the middle 2Ks and using it full-time since 2010 (ever skeet shoot an MS install disk? ;D), overall I would have to say Debian and the wannabe respins have been more stable and less hassle than rpm based, rpm based always seems to be in a perpetual state of beta, buggy, and far too many cooks in its kitchen. I have also found Debian based package management and installation to be faster and less buggy than rpm based installers (why is YUM still a slow, confusing bad joke?). PCLinuxOS is the best of both worlds, aptified rpm (Debian style packagement/installation of rpms), it's had a few glitches over the years but it beats the hell out of other rpm based distros, trust me, I've tried them.
Debian list creation terminal string (works as user but you may have to run as sudo or root):
dpkg --get-selections > /home/YOUR-USERNAME/Desktop/installed_software.log
RPM package list terminal string (works as user but may need to be run as sudo or root, sorted alphabetically, letter case ignored):
rpm -qa --queryformat '%{name} \n' | sort -f > ~/Desktop/installed.log
22 • openSuse 42.3 (by Jordan on 2017-08-01 19:04:43 GMT from United States)
@18 Perhaps don't get your hopes up too much as we've noticed over the years that the suse project seems to run into issues every few releases.
The Tumbleweed rolling version is not immune to those issues, but it does seem to be better and better as they test things prior to inclusion in their repos.
23 • Artix Linux (by Justin on 2017-08-01 19:40:00 GMT from United States)
I tried updating my Archbang installation that is using OpenRC. It tries to install systemd, which creates a problem. It appears from systemd-free.org that Arch OpenRC is doing a mini-fork of Arch and calling it Artix Linux. Their news page has a whole set of instructions on how to add the new repos and system changes that are needed. They are taking down the arch-openrc and arch-nosystemd repositories.
I liked the idea of having Arch with a few tweaks to run another init. Not sure how I feel about having a separate repository that replaces core. Anyway, I wanted to pass this along to people who might run into the same problem.
24 • Poll other (by far2fish on 2017-08-02 06:37:41 GMT from Denmark)
I use Ansible when setting up my computer. After Linux install it just takes a few minutes fetching my Ansible playbook from GitHub, and it installs all the additional software I want plus it configures my desktop and applications.
25 • App Herding Made Easy and Arch Boneheads (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2017-08-03 02:55:44 GMT from United States)
The QnA answered a broader question than posed. The question was how to migrate Ubuntu 16.04 to 17.04 across PCs, not how to leave Ubuntu.
Booting Ubuntu from a large capacity USB stick is the answer. Move the stick to the new PC and upgrade to 17.04. Done. To keep the old machine on 16.04, clone the stick first.
I'd avoid UBOS until more is known about the people and their security priorities. Anyone can say anything on a website, including spook fronts. Just sayin'...
UBOS using Arch was bone-headed. A new server suite should use LibreSSL, never mind systemdeath vulns. UBOS would be much happier atop Alpine, Hardened Gentoo, TrueOS, or Void.
@23 Try Obarun.org instead.
26 • On software library migration to new release (by Silent Warrior on 2017-08-03 04:19:04 GMT from Sweden)
Hm... I would like to use package list export/import, it just doesn't ever work perfectly (libraries with version numbers in their package names...), so I typically end up having to manually polish up the package selections anyway.
27 • Installing apps (by argent on 2017-08-03 04:47:52 GMT from United States)
Run a few distributions on my desktop machine, prefer keeping only what is needed to satisfy my computing needs and nothing more. Prefer as well to install a very lean Devuan, or Arch based distribution or derivative with essentially the basics. From there easy to build and be up and running quickly if choose to reformat a drive and do a fresh install.
Have pondered why many distributions are elephants, whales when it comes to monstrous sized distribution, makes sense to build quality and not bloat with a quantity of unneeded applications.
After all only the user know what they really need! Install light and always go right!
28 • Installing apps (by Bonky Ozmond on 2017-08-03 12:58:23 GMT from Nicaragua)
as I generally use pretty much the same apps .I just save my files and reinstall from new
I I Run Gentoo+ Calculate for my every day work comps so everything is always up to date...I have Slackware which i run Current so again pretty up to date,
I have a few other systems where i have a host of varying distros ..which i do occasionaly distro hop and i always choose the most minimal installs and just put what i need into it...
Distros that come with a load of stuff i would never use i generally strip out all unwanted stuff anyway.....it is nice to try some different things now and then though
29 • SUSE Tumbleweed / Gecko Linux / Fyre Linux (by Winchester on 2017-08-04 11:16:56 GMT from United States)
Regarding posts # 20, #18 and # 22 :
I will tell you that I have been running Gecko Linux Rolling LXQT since the end of last year, and I have not had a single serious issue with it.
Yast GUI for updates could be more refined,but,you can find your way around.
It has been,in my experience,much more stable than Manjaro but,yet Tumbleweed is very quick to update to the latest software packages.
Plus,SUSE offers snap-shots of the system using the BTRFS. They can be managed with "Snapper". Seems like a good idea for a rolling distribution.
SUSE seems to be better with LXQT or KDE or with just a window manager.
If you want Gnome, Budgie , MATE etc. , I would look at PALDO, Solus , and Calculate Linux.
30 • New Apps on new systgems (by shyster on 2017-08-05 10:40:44 GMT from United States)
We run Mint 17.3 on all machines (4 desktops and one file server) but the lone laptop (18.2) so we will have to upgrade to 18.3 eventually. We always have to install dosemu so we can run First Choice (old dos program), plus Adobe Reader, PDFshuffler, Flipsed, Foxit Reader, Okular, k3b, gscan2pdf, kalarm, multisystem, and half a dozen others, get them configured, and then make the obligatory Debian package list so we can do it automatically (more or less) on the other 5 machines (may use the laptop if I get energetic enough to install all that on it.)
Number of Comments: 30
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| • 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 |
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