Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

[AGEUSAF]

Just got done with the upgrade so far so good. If there are any other Linux devotees here chime in let me know what you have noticed with the recent build. I assume it's the recent build this was the version I was told to bump to.

I have another 12.04 machine but I am thinking since it is a bit antiquated it might not upgrade well, will have to investigate.


This is a Panasonic CF-74, not much hard drive since I dual boot with windows 7 (stuck using it because I got used to sdr sharp with my rtl sdr), 4 gig of ram, 2 ghz dual core 64 bit system.

[American Patriot]

I use 10.04 still. The ancient laptop I have won't run 14.04 for some reason.

[samizdat]

if someone has a link to a download for a USB auto-boot version, let me know. My kids burnt out lap again. Thanks.

[American Patriot]

Sami - you can go to the Ubuntu site and there are instructions how to do that. You will need another computer to make the thumb drive up and bootable though.

[American Patriot]

Here's some links:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...tick-on-ubuntu

[samizdat]

thanks. i feel drunk when working w/ makinas. Need a safe "driver," 802.11n, a burro to get to ranch. needed a "chupacabras", harddisc sucker to copy all fotos,music etc. sheesh. 62 gigs, what kids save these days. problem is the adat "colibri"_ hummingbird prob wont suck up old files....only sata, no ide or atapi, ntfs. O well, back to future. I did have a baby cabron last week. mom threw it by horns in air till I made them "bond".

[American Patriot]

mom threw it by horns in air till I made them "bond".

Ouch....

[American Patriot]

Goats aren't precisely the smartest critters, huh?

[samizdat]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202854756672856

(way off topic)... that's a video of Lupe giving up tit to "PJ" first day. Lupe, aka "veal chop", was granted bail and so far has refused a plea bargain of offered allocution before judgment...veal chop. Maybe she will go to pasture as the expiatory goat. See how well she fends off coyotes. Goats are smart. In addition to snatching PJ in midair, I made Lupe lick butt? They do that naturally, to make sure the kid doesn't get "stopped up" w/ colostrum. Plus Lupe could have been hiding PJ from a boa constrictor I killed a few days later, or just a tired old goat w/ one tit (right side mastitis, and waiting for me to take out the placenta.

[samizdat]

One useful thing I learned is that netgear routers (192.168.1.1) had their safety cert revoked...it was taken over by fed court order to Microsoft... and guess what. They go straight for your phone book, hidden entry number, quite an algorithym. Pretty alarming 1984, animal farm stuff found reading failed entry logs. I'll get back to this thread when I get around to ubuntu.

ok...1 more tip for "old goats". Probably most of you rarely text messages in those tiny phones. Some of the mini-laps have a slot for your sim or phone chip in the rear under the battery.

[American Patriot]

Security Experts Expect Shellshock Software Bug to Be Significant

By NICOLE PERLROTHSEPT. 25, 2014


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A newly discovered bug in the world’s widely used Linux and Unix operating systems could allow hackers to take control of hundreds of millions of machines around the world, according to security experts.
The bug, named Shellshock, is similar to the Heartbleed bug that generated widespread fear last spring because it would allow anyone with knowledge of the vulnerability to exploit a large number of computer servers. The flaw was discovered in Bash, short for Bourne-Again Shell, a command prompt in Unix. Unix is commonly used in corporate computer networks and is the basis of other operating systems, like Linux and Apple’s Macintosh operating system.
It is not yet clear how the bug affects Macintosh machines.
The bug, which was reported late Tuesday night, would allow hackers to write code that could surreptitiously take over a machine, or run their own programs in the background. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has said that the vulnerability is a 10 out of 10, in terms of its severity, impact and exploitability, but low in terms of its complexity, meaning it could be easily used by hackers.
While the Heartbleed bug affected some 500,000 machines, in early estimates, security experts predicted that the Shellshock bug could ultimately be far more significant.
Researchers at Kaspersky, a security firm, noted that hackers could only use Heartbleed to steal data from a server’s memory in hopes of finding something interesting. But the Shellshock vulnerability makes it possible for someone to take over a machine. The Kaspersky researchers said that as soon as the bug was reported Tuesday they detected widespread Internet scanning by so-called “white hat” hackers — most likely security researchers — as well as people believed to be cybercriminals.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team, known as US-CERT, which warns about security vulnerabilities, advised users and technology administrators to refer to their Linux or Unix-based operating systems suppliers for an appropriate patch.
Researchers at Red Hat, a company that distributes a version of Linux, found that the patch initially offered by the agency was incomplete and noted that hackers could still use Shellshock to take over a machine. They were working on a more comprehensive patch. US-CERT referred experienced technicians administrators to a GNU Bash patch, which patches for the flaw.
For users at home, security experts advised them to stay abreast of updates from techonology manufacturers on their websites, particularly for hardware such as routers.

[American Patriot]

Well, I finally gave up on my old Compaq Presario 2170US lol

Actually... not quite.

I have had a couple different version of linux running on it, on and off and a few days ago I realized I really am not going to be keeping the massive desktop machine I have (an Alienware monster), and the "real laptop" is a boat navigation and radio communications laptop. My tablet, even with a keyboard simply SUCKS for writing. Sort messages, sure, signing papers, nice, writing a novel... forgetaboutit.

So, I took another look over the ancient old laptop that is dragging it's ass and wanting to just go to sleep.

I put new memory chips in a few months ago and it seemed to help.

What really convinced me the laptop is still viable was my playing around with Pendrive and 5-6 different linux versions.

Last night I loaded Xubuntu 14.xx and though it took the better part of about 15 minutes to boot from the thumb drive I hit "load", cleared the HD and installed that version.

When the reboot came about I was both shocked and delighted to see that the machine is running as smoothly as the day I bought it (with a very old version of Windows Home XP on it, before all the bloatware, patches, bullshit and crap put on the machine my MS).

Now I have a nearly blazing fast laptop again (ok, not QUITE blazing, but certainly burning rubber now, lol) machine that has Thunderbird email, Libreoffice (I use for my writing), allows a WORKING dropbox (something Ubuntu wasn't doing, and Puppy wouldn't let me run), I was able to run a quick browser (FF, but might try a few others before I stick to FF again).

I was dead beat last night from being sick for the last few days and went to bed early so didn't get a chance to test much more. What I tested though, worked very well so far.

When I get time, I'll post a bit more.

So for AGEUSAF and Sami maybe there's still hope for the old machines!

[Phil Fiord]

Back when Win 95 and 98 came about, some refused to hop on the MS train and kept running the old 386 and 486 architectures, but with Linux. They were as fast running or faster than Windows of the time. I have my old system with Win XP as a media server, but its slow and have been considering a Linux media version to make it a viable option again.

[American Patriot]

Well, I had some issues with Xubuntu the evening I wrote that.

I had a lot of strange errors. The errors were things crashing in the back ground. Looking it up, I found that there are several people having similar issues after a particular update (which took place).

Anyway, I successfully installed Lubuntu now and it seems to be stable and holding it's own. It's not as pretty as the other version, and is rather "plain" on the desktop.

What I need is the computer to work, to allow the use of Thunderbird, Firefox, Dropbox and Libreoffice.

As of about 8pm last night, all of those things were not only functional, but they were stable and nothing crashed. I was able to load the most recent FF, TB DB and LO and tested each. Dropbox pulled in all my writing work (I keep backup copies on a thumbdrive and two separate terabyte level hard drives, as well as Dropbox).

Now if this all goes well I can do my projects on that computer (it's quick on Lubuntu) and I can upload and save my work and work on my tablet when I'm sitting at the pub (which I often do anyway).

[American Patriot]

Well, I threw in the towel on the old, ancient Compaq Presario. It was driving me batshit. Errors, crashing, doing weird crap.

I broke down and went to the base exchange, found a laptop with a nice, big 17" display and brought it home (about $300).

It had Windoze Ate on it.

God, what an awful system. I'm used to XP type systems so it just wasn't very good for me. I tried to installed Lubuntu beside it. No go. Surprisingly, somehow they had locked the machine down and I was unable to get to the drives, get to the BIOS settings or switch the settings to allow me to do a boot from the usb drive. I tried a CD. No go. I even told it to autoboot. Nope.

Hmmm. Did some quick searching and was able to finally get into BIOS (I forget which function key, but I think I had to use ESC and then hit F11 or something like that to get to bios!)

Anyway, once I was able to get the USB flash to boot, I still couldn't install because it was telling me "There is no space on that drive" even though it was empty.

After about 3 hours of getting frustrated, I finally got it to boot and WIPED windows out completely. Reformated the entire drive (no, I didn't save the recovery partition) and finally was able to install Lubuntu.

It works very quickly. The laptop boots rapidly (about a minute) and I can log in and do most things. I set it up for Libre Office, Drop Box, and have my links set up for Facebook and my blog stuff. Thus far, it's been a very good deal.

The only thing I can't get working (yet) is my Rosetta Stone stuff for French and Spanish (well, technically, just Rosetta Stone, since I can't get an install to work with Wine).

Haven't had a lot of time to work on that but it is a definite priority coming up after we close on the house.

[Malsua]

Sounds like you may have been having issues with secureboot. New machines come with UEFI enabled with secure boot.

You have to change that in the Bios before you can install Linux varients.

Next time...ask a guy who does this for a living. me. heh.

[American Patriot]

LOL


I honestly didn't think about asking, and for what it's worth, I was going to wipe Windows out anyway. The main thing was I couldn't get into BIOS (so I knew where to look, and I do recall something about making some kind of change, I just don't remember the details now, it's been a month or more since I did the linux load).

So I'm looking at this UEFI and it's a "replacement for BIOS"?

[Malsua]

UEFI is a replacement for Bios. It's really just a light OS that can access the hardware and sits on a chip. That said, you can dump secure boot and access the hardware once changed.

[American Patriot]

Seems like I'm able to hit any of the hardware so I must have changed the right stuff. /shrug

As long as wifi works, I can access the camera, mic, speakers, keyboard and shut off the damned built in mouse pad.... lol

[Malsua]

The biggest issue with new computers running Windows 8 is that the UEFI is locked to the OS with secure keys until you disable it which usually needs done through windows and no "hit f2 at startup". It's all still very young so it varies computer to computer. Some use UEFI and you just hit f2 at boot and it looks just like old school Bios, but it's not.