 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 992, 31 October 2022 |
Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Last week we reported on the release of Ubuntu 22.10 along with the distribution's many community editions. One of the Ubuntu family's lighter members is Lubuntu, which features the LXQt desktop. This week we begin with a review of Lubuntu 22.10 from Jeff Siegel. Read on to learn about Jeff's initial impressions and thoughts about the Lubuntu project. In our Questions and Answers column we discuss default permissions on the home directory and how to change these. Home directory permissions determine whether other people using your computer can access your files and it's an important consideration when addressing privacy concerns. Does your home directory allow other users to browse or read your files? Let us know in this week's Opinion Poll. In our News section we talk about Linux developers debating whether to phase out support for i486 CPUs. We also report on why the latest Fedora release has been delayed more than usual. Plus we talk about the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jeff Siegel) |
Lubuntu 22.10
Few Linux distros have changed their reason for being as much as Lubuntu has since its first release in April 2010. Originally, it was a bare bones operating system, aimed at older and low-end hardware that wasn't even up to running Xubuntu, which had been the low-end edition of the Ubuntu family.
Today, Lubuntu makes no claims to do that, and anyone trying to run it on lower-end hardware will run into problems (more on that later). But anyone installing it on a reasonably modern system will be pleasantly surprised, and will find that what the developers promise -- a "lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient" distro -- is mostly true.
The current release, 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, only comes in a 64-bit download (2.7 GB), includes the 5.19 Linux kernel. The latest version swaps out PulseAudio for the PipeWire sound system. and requires 1024MB of RAM for installation. It will only be supported for nine months, until July 2023.
Perhaps most importantly, Lubuntu now uses the LXQt desktop (version 1.1), which replaced the LXDE desktop several years ago. As such, it's a mix of Qt desktop components, as well as the Openbox window manager (version 3.6.10) and PCManFM-Qt file manager (version 1.1). In other words, a hybrid not often seen and one, at first glance, that might not be easy to cobble together to produce an efficient operating system.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- The live desktop
(full image size: 2.0MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Further complicating matters is that there are two Lubuntu websites. Go to lubuntu.net, and there are broken links to download 19.04, which was a mix of LXDE and LXQt. This is confusing enough, but it also adds to the confusion about which version of Lubuntu first shipped with LXQt -- remember Lubuntu Next? The official site, lubuntu.me, doesn't expressly say it's official, but it has the most current downloads as well as a first-class set of instructions, the Lubuntu Manual.
About the only thing missing are minimum hardware requirements, which the developers see as a challenge in today's 64-bit environment: "But we will no longer provide minimum system requirements and we will no longer primarily focus on older hardware."
First look
Ah, minimum system requirements. It's one thing to acknowledge the contradictions inherent in building a lighter distro these days, but it's another to face those contradictions in the real world. I tried installing 22.10 on my Dell Inspiron 11 3000 test machine, with its Pentium N3530 processor. No luck. The live version sort of worked, with the emphasis on sort of; the actual installation borked GRUB. It's worth noting that I usually run MX Linux on the Inspiron, and MX works so smoothly that it's hard to believe the machine came with Windows 8.1 all those years ago.
The next step in testing was VirtualBox, and it's here that 22.10 showed its potential. Save for not expanding to fit the window size, it was quick, slick, and easy to use. Even Firefox loaded quickly, and I've had Firefox crash a VirtualBox instance more than once.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- Trying to run the system installer in VirtualBox
(full image size: 266kB, resolution: 1247x925 pixels)
The only real VirtualBox hangup was installation, which lagged. Unfortunately, the same thing happened on the test machine I used next, an Asus UX31A laptop. I did make installation a little more complicated, setting up a dual boot with an already installed instance of Xubuntu 22.04. I did this mostly to give Lubuntu's Calamares installer a challenge; the developers have ditched Ubuntu's Ubiquity for Calamares (which didn't seem necessary). So I wanted to see if it was more amenable to dual booting than Ubiquity (which handles it quite nicely).
And, for the most part, it worked fine. The installer did completely fill the screen despite my best attempts to reduce it, so I had to do a little wiggling and waggling to see everything so I could push the proper buttons. The dual boot setup was straightforward, and if I had problems it was because I wasn't used to the Calamares approach. And the dual boot -- save for both login prompts identifying themselves as Ubuntu and not Lubuntu and Xubuntu -- worked correctly.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- The PCMan file manager
(full image size: 260kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
My biggest concern with the LXQt desktop was whether the Qt bits (which are usually associated with the larger KDE Plasma desktop) would fit within a lighter, more efficient desktop. And, for the most part, the desktop is light and efficient, following in the footsteps of the Ubuntu family. Click on something, and the something does what it's supposed to do.
The PCManFM-Qt file manager does most of the right-click things that file managers do, and also offers drag and drop to add a file as a bookmark in the left-hand lists pane. The LXQt session manager bears more than a passing resemblance to the one in Xubuntu, and the Openbox settings manager is also full featured. Plus, there's an LXQt Configuration Center that puts everything in one place. And, yes, it recognized my networked Canon printer.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- The LXQt configuration center
(full image size: 285kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
I do wish the monitor settings offered proportion equivalents as part of the resolution settings. Otherwise, save that the individual widgets look a little bare bones, all is first class and works as it should.
What's included
The software assortment is surprisingly minimal -- no email client, no music player, no webcam client, and no weather widget (blasphemy given that this is the Ubuntu family, where weather tools are a constant preoccupation). Most of the utilities are KDE/Qt -- the Quassel IRC tool, the Qlipper clipboard, the Qterminal, and the QPS process manager. VLC doubles as both video and music player, while LXImage offers basic picture editing and the venerable ImageMagick handles more complicated chores. LibreOffice is the office suite, and it was a pleasant surprise to see the HomeBank finance software included.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- Changing the Openbox theme
(full image size: 239kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
Firefox 106 is the default browser, and yes, it's the Snap package version. I didn't notice any lag or hangups when it loaded the first time -- seemed pretty much like any instance of Firefox. I also didn't see the perpetual Snap upgrade notification that sometimes shows up and makes users crazy.
The Lubuntu developers are aware of the controversy: "After careful consideration, taking into account the fast-paced technical improvements in modern web technology, the work required to keep Lubuntu users secure after the release, and Canonical's commitment to Firefox as the default web browser for Ubuntu, we made the decision to keep this as-is." Would that other distros were as upfront.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- The Muon package manager
(full image size: 441kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
One thing that puzzled me was the upgrade manager, called "Apply full upgrade." Given that most of the rest of the upgrade managers in the Ubuntu family are called something simpler, like "software updater," this was a bit confusing. It almost sounds as if it's there to apply a distro upgrade, instead of just updating packages. Muon, the KDE package manager, is also installed, as is the Discover software center. Discover allows users to install via traditional packages or Snap and you can choose one as the default package. Thankfully, there's only one version of the Thunderbird email client -- the traditional Deb package -- in Discover, and not competing Snap and traditional packages.
Lubuntu 22.10 -- Enabling software sources in Discover
(full image size: 342kB, resolution: 1600x900 pixels)
I spent a couple of days running Lubuntu as my daily driver; that meant adding the Nextcloud desktop tool, Thunderbird, Shotwell for photos; and Cheese for the laptop's camera. I wasn't able to add Zoom for web meetings and interviews; there was a missing dependency. So I had to use the web version, which was a bit annoying. Battery life was fine, a couple or three hours with email, web browsing, and writing stories, and especially for a laptop as old as the Asus. The experience wasn't quite as seamless as it would have been on Xubuntu or Zorin's lighter Xfce version, for example, but it worked well enough. And, frankly, that I was easily able to use Nextcloud -- so I could access notes and the HomeBank data from my desktop -- was both surprising and pleasing.
So yes, a top-notch and professional distro that doesn't get in the way. In this, I think Lubuntu has found a niche currently filled by Chromebooks, but for users who want more privacy and more control over their system -- and who don't want to pay for new hardware. Lubuntu is more nimble than a low-end Chromebook, less irritating to use, and installation bears no comparison to Google's Chrome OS brain whacking.
Finally, a kind word about what Lubuntu 22.10 looks like and its default desktop wallpaper. I don't usually care about that stuff; if something annoys me, I just change it. Dark mode and all of that doesn't do me much good working in a room with the Texas sun coming in through two sides. So blue wall paper and blue icons. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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Hardware used for this review
My physical test equipment for this review was an Asus UX31A laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U, 1.7GHz
- Storage: 128 GB SSD
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless
- Display: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
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Visitor supplied rating
Lubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.8/10 from 40 review(s).
Have you used Lubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux may drop i486 support, Fedora pushes back release date
A discussion on legacy CPU support is taking place on the Linux kernel mailing list. The discussion primarily focuses on the i486 CPU architecture which is a 32-bit flavour of the x86 family. As i486 is over 30 years old at this point, and has since been replaced in almost all environments by Pentium and then 64-bit processors, maintaining the old i486 support has largely ceased. Linus Torvalds has suggested i486 support could be dropped from new versions of the Linux kernel and people actually using i486 CPUs could probably get by using older versions of Linux.
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The Fedora distribution is infamous for delaying new releases, often by two or three weeks. The latest version, Fedora 37, has been pushed back repeatedly and Ben Cotton explains why the latest delay was an additional two weeks: "Fedora Linux 37 is going to be late; very late. Here's why. As you may have heard, the OpenSSL project announced a version due to be released on Tuesday. It will include a fix for a critical-severity bug. We won't know the specifics of the issue until Tuesday's release, but it could be significant. As a result, we decided to delay the release of Fedora Linux 37. We are now targeting a release day of 15 November.
Most decisions happen with imperfect information. This one is particularly imperfect. If you're not familiar with the embargo process, you might not understand why. When a security issue is discovered, this information is often shared with the project confidentially. This allows the developers to fix the issue before more people know about it and can exploit it. Projects then share information with downstreams so they can be ready.
Ironically, Fedora's openness means we can't start preparing ahead of time. All of our build pipelines and artifacts are open. If we were to start building updates, this would disclose the vulnerability before the embargo lifts. As a result, we only know that OpenSSL considers this the highest level of severity and Red Hat's Product Security team strongly recommended we wait for a fix before releasing Fedora Linux 37." Further details can be found in the Fedora Magazine post.
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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) |
Setting permissions on home directory
Shutting-the-door asks: I've been reading up on file permissions. This got me wondering what the best permissions for the home folder are. A lot of distros have a default where you can see inside other users' homes, but that seems insecure?
DistroWatch answers: File and directory permissions on Linux determine what users can do with files and directories. These permissions are typically referred to as read, write, and execute/access. The shorthand we typically see on the command line is rwx (x standing for execute, in this case).
On Linux, permissions for each file and directory are configured with respect to three user categories. These are for the user who is the owner of the file, a group associated with the file, and everyone else. These are sometimes referred to as owner/user, group, and other.
We can see the three sets of permissions if we check the properties of a file or directory in a file manager or if we run the ls command from a terminal. In the following example we see two directories:
jesse@stacey /home $ ls -l
total 24
drwx------ 53 jesse jesse 4096 Sep 24 11:38 jesse
drwxr-xr-x 4 jesse root 4096 Dec 12 2021 shared
In the above listing we see two directories, my home directory (jesse) and a second directory called shared. This second directory has been set up for me to store files which might be useful for other people to access.
At the start of both lines of ls output we see a "d" which indicates both entries are directories rather than files. My home directory, jesse, is set up with full permissions (read, write, and access) for its owner, me. However, nobody in my group and no one else on the system are allowed any access at all. This is why there are six dashes after the "drwx" in the listing, the rest of the permissions are empty or locked. My home directory is not accessible or readable to anyone else.
The shared directory is a little more open. The owner, jesse in this case, can read, write, and access this directory. In other words, I can create or delete files in this directory. Everyone else, members of the root group and anyone else on the system, have read and access permission (rx). This means other people can look in the directory and see what is in there, but they cannot create new files in the shared directory. People can look at my shared material, but not erase it, because they lack write (w) permission.
While most Linux distributions make it possible to browse and often read the contents of home directories belonging to other users, taking an open approach, I recommend locking down the permissions. In most situations the only person who needs access to your home directory is yourself (the owner). In other words you should have read, write, and access permissions for your home directory and no one else should. This can be achieved with a single command using the chmod program to change permissions:
chmod u=rwx,g=,o= ~
In the above example, we grant full permissions (rwx) to the user who owns the home directory and strip away all permissions for everyone else.
There are some situations where it can be useful to grant limited access to your home directory. Some network services, for example, and the finger command will want to access key files or directories in your user's home. If you decide to set up these services then you may want to provide a little bit of access to your home directory. Usually, in these circumstances, you want to just allow users the ability to access (but not read or write content in) your home. You can then grant more access to one specific file or directory.
As an example, on one system I have a web service running and it needs permission to access the public_html directory in my user's home. In that instance I grant limited access to my home directory for "other" users followed by opening up my public_html directory for access and reading its contents by running:
chmod o+x ~
chmod u=rwx,g=,o=rx ~/public_html
The first command allows people besides the owner and members of my group (in other words, all "other" users) on the system to pass through my home directory without reading its contents. The second command assigns the owner (me) full permissions to the public_html directory. Anyone in my group is assigned no permissions, and everyone else is given read and access permission to the public_html directory. These above two commands prevent users on the system from browsing my home directory while still allowing services, like the web server, to see inside my public web directory.
Getting back to the original question, it is true many distributions leave home directories open, to prevent security measures from getting in the way of some services and sharing files. It is insecure and insecure intentionally. The idea being that users will probably either be working on single-user systems where no one else will have access to the system (as is common with laptops) or they will lock down their home directory to prevent access from other users. I recommend, in almost all cases, making your home directory accessible only to you, its owner, and blocking all other access. You can always open up the permissions a little, as needed, if you want later.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Voyager Live 22.10
Voyager Live is an Ubuntu-based distribution which offers Xfce and GNOME desktop environments. The project's latest version is Voyager Live 22.10 which offers nine months of support. "I introduce you to Voyager 22.10 in its final version. A two in one version with, for the first time, the GNOME and Xfce desktops unified in a single distribution. Voyager, Everything has been redesigned for this new duo edition. The GNOME 43 desktop coupled with the Xfce 4.16 desktop and a part of version Xfce 4.17, still in development. With the promise finally realized, to have two unified systems - GNOME and Xfce - light, fast, modern, fluid, secure and efficient in a hybrid environment for PC and Tablet. The two desktops are quite distinct and their respective applications are for the most part seamless, for one or the other environment. This release is based on Linux kernel 5.19 and Ubuntu distribution 'Kinetic Kudu' with its novelties." The release announcement has further details.
Voyager Live 22.10 -- Running the GNOME desktop
(full image size: 2.0MB, resolution 2560x1600 pixels)
Zorin OS 16.2
The Zorin OS distribution is based on Ubuntu and provides utilities and an environment which is designed to be familiar to people migrating from Windows. The project's latest release is Zorin OS 16.2 which provides nicer fonts in documents, improved document compatibility, and offers the option of more visual effects on the desktop. "When documents are created on other platforms, they often use the default fonts from Microsoft Office/365 or Windows. However, these fonts are under a proprietary license, so they can't be pre-installed in Zorin OS for all users. Because of this, documents may display with incompatible fonts instead. This can cause documents to not only look different than intended but also to shift their layout and corrupt their formatting. Because of how prevalent these proprietary fonts are in documents, this issue became a significant barrier to those hoping to switch to Zorin OS for their work environment. Zorin OS 16.2 comes with an updated font selection to help solve this problem. We've introduced Open Source metric-compatible alternatives to some of the most popular fonts. They appear similar to their proprietary counterparts and have the same character dimensions, so documents display with the correct formatting." More details are available in the project's release announcement.
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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: 2,785
- Total data uploaded: 42.5TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Can other users on your system access your home directory?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about home directory permissions. A lot of distributions leave home directory access open by default to make it easier for services and users to share files. However, this open approach has privacy implications, especially on shared computers. Does your computer leave your home directory open for reading and/or accessing by other users?
You can see the results of our previous poll on firewall tools in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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| Website News |
Donations and Sponsors
Each month we receive support and kindness from our readers in the forms of donations. These donations help us keep the web server running, pay contributors, and keep infrastructure like our torrent seed box running. We'd like to thank our generous readers and acknowledge how much their contributions mean to us.
This month we're grateful for the $54 in contributions from the following kind souls:
| Donor |
Amount |
|---|
| Sam C | $10 |
| Michael A | $10 |
| Brian R | $7 |
| Chung T | $5 |
| DuCakedHare | $5 |
| Matt | $5 |
| Ross M | $3 |
| Vory | $3 |
| J.D. L | $2 |
| PB C | $2 |
| c6WWdo9 | $1 |
| Stephen M | $1 |
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New distributions added to waiting list
- MyBee. MyBee is a FreeBSD-based platform for managing jails and virtual machines.
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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 November 2022. 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)
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Home directory permissions (by Otis on 2022-10-31 00:53:10 GMT from United States)
Open, as my system/network at home is two users who trust each other.
2 • home directory permissions (by JeffC on 2022-10-31 02:22:03 GMT from United States)
Since I am the only user I do not lock it down, it seems pointless to me to do so.
Why would you share a computer with someone that you do not trust?
Why don't they have their own computer?
It is not like they are very expensive these days, even a ten year old computer is still quite usable with Linux on it.
3 • Defaut (by Friar Tux on 2022-10-31 02:25:38 GMT from Canada)
Since we do not keep anything "sensitive" on our machines we just go with whatever default comes with our OS. The only time I ever actually access Permissions is to make AppImages executable.
4 • Lubuntu, etc comparisons (by Greg Zeng on 2022-10-31 02:29:23 GMT from Australia)
Most Ubuntu based systems (17) are based on the last LTS version, which currently is 2204, April this year. Some Ubuntu-lightweights are now being based on the newest 2210, from October this year.
All the Ubuntu familes can use the PPA application updates as required. Standard Linux additions via the command line can as usual be added, and also by compilking from raw source code, if their are enough resources to handle this.
The several "official" inner Ubuntu family are careful to avoid treading too much into territories "owned" by others in the same inner family. So the QT ones of the GTK ones will stay only with the offerings available in their QT of GTK groupings. Hence, the decision which of the file browsers, partition managers etc. to be chosen.
The Ubuntu families (https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&category=All&origin=All&basedon=Ubuntu) has 47/239 brandnames in total. The lightweights include Peppermint, Lite, LXLE, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu.
The inner Canonical families stay loyal to the Canonical startup, "Snap", avoiding the Red Hat startup, "flatpak". Both these container apps demand much disk storage for the cache of their databases, whether apps are selected or not. Both feature inbuilt authorized update processes, and the "Discover" app can be used with the available apps; snap, flatpak or "Debian" compilations. These containers have variable sensitivities to the user's current settings, such as themes, colors and hardware preferences.
My preferred "Freefilesync" app is available in most flatpak repositories, but not in snap nor Debian. Web browser "Slimjet" is available in only Debian compiled format. Both these two apps are available, with complete recent settings synchronized in every way, on both Linux and Windows.
My preferences are with the outer Ubuntu family members: Mint, Lite and Peppermint. These lightweights can be expanded to heavier use as required. If needed, media, desktops, eye-candy, and others can be added, as desired.
These use Gparted and avoid Canonical's initiative "snap". The Fedora-GTK-Gnome families seem to prefer Wayland & BTRFS. Currently these experiments are not reliable enough for work use, IMHO.
Window's has a proprietry mess with display managers: NVIDIA, INTEL, etc. Wayland is far behind Windows, unable do high DPI, variable speeds, etc. BTRFS has yet to reach the power, reliability & flexiblity of Microsft NTFS. Application creators focus on the generally available users, rather than the minority of users.
5 • default (by Titus_Groan on 2022-10-31 02:54:00 GMT from New Zealand)
ls -l
~
drwx------
screen lock set for 30sec of no activity.
shared USB sticks ext4 formatted with permissions set for promiscuity.
no Windows(TM), but if so, exFAT would be the other option.
6 • directories lock down (by Bobbie Sellers on 2022-10-31 03:21:11 GMT from United States)
No choice on the poll for people who have no other users (aside from Test or Guest account).
bliss- still using pclinuxOS.
7 • directory permissions (by Jay on 2022-10-31 03:57:39 GMT from Germany)
There are two user directories on my primary machine: an administrative user (completely locked down, zero access to others) and a guest user (open to trusted others, persistent shared files included).
A third user exists for untrusted users that operates as a demo, with nothing kept from each session.
8 • Lubuntu lost its vision. (by Lubuntu 22.10 Desktop Tour on 2022-10-31 04:13:06 GMT from India)
What I believe is Lubuntu has lost its vision when they announced their objective is not to be lightweight distribution anymore.i
Now, this project can be seen only as showcase distribution for LXQt.
9 • Home directory (by Vukota on 2022-10-31 06:14:34 GMT from Serbia)
There is a zero chance that majority of people (even experienced) have fully locked down home folder. It doesn't come that way by default on almost any distro and there are lot of programs that simply will refuse to work without at least access rights for all on home folder.
10 • @9 Home directory (by Vic on 2022-10-31 08:33:31 GMT from Canada)
There is most certainly a higher chance than zero as I have at least one system setup locked down by default.
My primary travel device is running Garuda as the installed system and the user folders are fully locked down to others in terms of user permissions by default.
My primary home system is running Ubuntu and the default for that system is to allow read/access for others, which I've left alone.
The two other computers in the house I checked run various Debian/Ubuntu spins and after checking the home folder defaults they too are set to allow read/access for others.
That makes the count 1 locked to 3 read/access here which is still greater than zero.
In saying that I was initially surprised at the early polling results as well. My only explanation is that being at such an early stage for the survey the number of DW visitors who read and respond to it this soon are more experienced linux users with a higher probability of them either running systems which aren't as user friendly out of the box or that they themselves have taken the added precautions to lock there systems down further post install.
Cheers!
11 • Setting permissions - Allowing access to just one specific user (by luvr on 2022-10-31 09:04:16 GMT from Belgium)
Jesse explains that he opens up a 'public_html' directory for use by others:
-------------
chmod u=rwx,g=,o=rx public_html
-------------
I guess that only one specific user (in addition to the owner) really needs access to it, namely the user that runs the web server. There may be cases when opening up a directory to 'the world', just so one specific user gets access, is considered a bad idea.
In such cases, the 'setfacl' command (to set file access control lists) may come in handy.
Consider, for example, a 'public_html' directory to which only you, as the owner, has access:
-------------
$ ls -ld public_html
drwx------ 2 luvr luvr 4096 Oct 31 09:54 public_html
-------------
Now, assume that you want to allow some user, say 'nobody', read and execute access, but not any other users. You can then use the 'setfacl' command to modify the access control list and give user 'nobody' read ans execute access:
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$ setfacl -m nobody:rwx public_html
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If you now look at the 'public_html' directory entry, there wil be a '+'-sign appended to the permission settings (to indicate that access control list entries are set on the directory):
-------------
$ ls -ld public_html
drwxr-x---+ 2 luvr luvr 4096 Oct 31 09:54 public_html
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You can view the access control settings with the 'getfacl' command:
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$ getfacl public_html
# file: public_html
# owner: luvr
# group: luvr
user::rwx
user:nobody:r-x
group::---
mask::r-x
other::---
-------------
Or, in table format:
-------------
$ getfacl -t public_html
# file: public_html
USER luvr rwx
user nobody r-x
GROUP luvr ---
mask r-x
other ---
-------------
12 • Is your home directory open to other users? (by James on 2022-10-31 11:37:53 GMT from United States)
My wife and me only at home, and we both have our own laptops. I am the only user.
13 • No Homies (by Trihexagonal on 2022-10-31 12:38:31 GMT from United States)
There are no other accounts on my machines than my own. I'm root and mine the only usr account. Nobody else has access to either account.
14 • Discontinue i486 Support? (by penguinx86 on 2022-10-31 14:01:51 GMT from United States)
Intel discontinued production of the i486 architecture in 2007. Thats 15 years ago! Who wants to run a 100 mhz 32 bit processor these days? Yes, it's time to move on. A cheap 64 bit Raspberry Pi would leave the i486 in the dust.
15 • rip i486 (by mike a on 2022-10-31 16:30:02 GMT from United States)
im so sad to see 32 bit computers not being supported i feel like thats such a shame.
16 • Fedora Delay and Lubuntu Take (by CorpSouth on 2022-10-31 16:34:10 GMT from United States)
I'm fine with Fedora 37 being delayed, I'm not really living on the edge as I used to... Or not -as- much, in the context of Fedora. Anyone who takes issue with their decision will certainly hate Debian and Ubuntu LTS. Nothing is stopping you from just using fc37, unless it's a very very specific situation that requires digging to find out.
Lubuntu is indeed just a platform for the LXQt environment, it is NOT a lightweight distribution beyond the choice of desktop environment, anymore. LXLE is closer to the old Lubuntu philosophy going as far as having LXDE as its desktop environment of choice. LXLE also comes with the Librewolf browser out of the box, so I can easily recommend that over Lubuntu.
17 • Lubuntu and *ubuntu flavour (by MrSparkleWonder on 2022-10-31 19:01:05 GMT from Mexico)
I tried the Lubuntu LTS this week only to discover ..... appimages cannot be executed
I switched back to Arch where appimages execute no problem
18 • Home (by John on 2022-10-31 19:23:55 GMT from Canada)
For my home systems, $HOME is locked down. At work, everyone on the team I am on has read access to $HOME (AIX). That is because I am the only "real" UNIX person on the team and have been training new people who have never stepped out of Windows Land.
Yes, I am quickly becoming an alcohol/drug addict.
19 • 486 (by dave on 2022-11-01 00:31:22 GMT from United States)
@14 "Who wants to run a 100 mhz 32 bit processor these days?" businesses.. and it's more of a matter of needs than wants.
Intel isn't the only producer of 486 CPUs. You can still buy new 486 processors and boards and the Vortex86 officially supports Linux as late as Debian 10 using the 4.19 kernel. (though most of their support list is using the 2.6 kernel)
Of course, while there remains a small 486 hobbyist market, most of the market is for business/industry, so it's probably true that they will be able to continue business as usual by simply sticking with older software-- which they are probably already doing. The exorbitant cost of writing new software for an old machine is the main reason why there is still a market for new 486 machines.
I'm sure Torvalds and Co. are well aware of the business-oriented use cases, however I enjoy the irony of the guy named penguinx86 overlooking vortex86. ;)
20 • 486 and 32 bit (by penguinx86 on 2022-11-01 05:09:10 GMT from United States)
I appreciate the comment of @19. Yes it's true there may be lots of 486 users out there. It reminds me of when my old i386 non PAE kernel boot laptop was no longer supported. That rendered my old Dell laptop useless. I'm a retired IT guy and I'm working at a temp job disposing of old hardware. Sometimes it breaks my heart to dispose of 500gb SATA spinning hard drives and 8gb DDR3 and DDR4 memory modules. It seems like such a waste! My first computer had 4k of RAM and a 175k floppy drive for storage, for cripes sake. But I made it work. There is so much eWaste these days because of corporate greed. It seems like programmers have taken the back seat behind corporate greed.
21 • @17 (by Harry the Lizard on 2022-11-01 06:11:24 GMT from United States)
"I tried the Lubuntu LTS this week only to discover ..... appimages cannot be executed"
sudo apt install libfuse2 Make the appimage executable.
22 • rip i486 rip i586 rip i686 (by Torvalds Fan Club on 2022-11-01 08:45:58 GMT from Turkey)
as people who have a hobby of dealing with old hardware and software, there are not a few of us, I love the progress of technology, x.org if you need wayland instead, get wayland, the perception that "Linux is only for old hardware" is wrong, Q4OS is a good example, let those who want nostalgia use Trinity, let those who want to look modern use KDE Plasma
23 • the answer is NO... (by tom joad on 2022-11-01 16:39:47 GMT from Germany)
I don't share. All of my hard drives are completely encrypted and only I know the codes. Want to get into my Home folder? Good luck. I hope you are a good guesser. It might take a bit.
24 • Default file / directory creation permissions (by Alexandru on 2022-11-02 07:02:38 GMT from Romania)
Besides chmod for changing permissions of file / directory, there is also umask command in UNIX, which shows / sets default permission mode for future new files / directories.
Umask works with numeric value of permissions (4 for r, 2 for w and 1 for x; x100 for u, x10 for g and x1 for o) and extracting the mask from full permissions. Default umask value is 022, this determines new files/ directories creation permissions as 777 - 022 = 755 (or rwxr-xr-x).
You can find your umask by issuing:
umask
You can set new umask by issuing:
umask
25 • Default file / directory creation permissions (by Alexandru on 2022-11-02 07:03:41 GMT from Romania)
I meant, setting new value with:
umask [new value]
26 • Linux/i486/Legacy CPU (by Paul_y on 2022-11-02 18:01:18 GMT from Romania)
I ran Microsoft Windows 98SE on Intel Pentium 2 MMX CPU @ 450 MHz with just only 128 MB of RAM. Now I run Sparky Linux on Intel i3 ( Ice Lake ) dual core @ 3.40 GHz ( Hyper Threading disabled ) with 4 GB of RAM and Salix Linux on Intel Pentium E5400 dual core @ 2.80 GHz (overclock) with 3 GB of RAM DDR2 848 MHz (overclock). I ran Microsoft Windows XP on Intel Pentium 4 @ 1.6 GHz.
27 • Home directories (by Nathan on 2022-11-02 18:24:38 GMT from United States)
It seems that my situation is rare in modern times. I have an account on a shared research machine at work (AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X 24-Core, 256G RAM, GeForce RTX 3090), and I and the 4 other users (all colleagues) have our home directories open for reading+access. Makes it easy to share datasets that way. Our cluster environment on the other hand with over 2000 non-colleague or distantly-collegiate users has completely locked down home directories. My personal desktop is locked down too, but I'm the only user, so whatever.
28 • @20 (by Justin on 2022-11-02 19:25:34 GMT from United States)
I feel you. I have to gift my old hardware to people (you need an external drive? how about this 360GB USB2 one). I have old laptops still around because they work not because I have any use for them. It would also kill me to see 8GB modules being thrown away. I would be upgrading all the machines I know with them. I take old laptop drives and put them in portable cases. I have a set from replacing them with SSDs and I use them in place of larger USB sticks for things like drive clones or random backup storage.
Those 486 clones must exist because of I/O. DOSBox is great for CPU instructions and one can easily install Win 3.1 or (less easily) Windows 95 if necessary. I run my old 486 games that way.
Corporate greed is definitely a problem but so is wasteful consumer demand. Stuff isn't made to last partly because consumers keep wanting new and shiny and are willing to waste money on it. It's not always worth the cost to build a phone that will survive 10 years when your competitors will use cheaper components that will last 5 years and a majority (no not everyone) of people will replace it after 2-3 because it feels old to them.
29 • @28 (by pengxuin on 2022-11-02 23:34:25 GMT from New Zealand)
must be one of those: (no not everyone).
phone (2013) is running android 4.1.1. It is often remarked upon: "that is the smallest smart phone I've ever seen".
recently installed DOSbox and created a Win95 setup for an old (1996) DOS application.
DOSbox, unfortunately, would not suffice alone to run the application.
30 • $random (by Panther on 2022-11-03 23:24:25 GMT from United States)
@9 well the poll would prove you wrong. Home directory is locked down here as well by default have not had any problem with any program not working.
Just a suggestion for "public" html use the Userdir module see https://www.tecmint.com/enable-apache-userdir-module-on-rhel-centos-fedora/ or similar.
I do not now why all the focus on all the various flavors of Ubuntu , it is all ubuntu and you can install the various desktops from the command line without a fresh install. You certainly do not break down any other distro this way, seems odd.
While we are on the topic, perhaps you would be interested in Fedora variants.
Spins: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/
KDE,XFCE , LXQT, Mate/compiz, cinnamon, LXDE, I3
Labs:
Astronomy, Games, Jam, Design, security, robotics to name a few,
Certainly could make an argument the Fedora spins . Lab deserve at least as much attention you give to all the *buntu flavors, the fedora variants are certainly as rich or richer than the *buntu variants you spend so much time on. As far as I know the Fedora spins are as much or more polished than the *buntu variants.
At least be consistent either lump all *buntu together under 1 umbrella as you do with all the other distros or break out all the variants of all the distros.
31 • @30 (by Justin on 2022-11-04 15:09:26 GMT from United States)
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=faq#ubuntusplit
Number of Comments: 31
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