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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/vivid-vervet-doesnt-have-much-meat-on-its-bones/

Vivid Vervet Doesn't Have Much Meat on Its Bones

In what is becoming a recurring scenario for Ubuntu desktop releases, you will not see much new in Ubuntu 15.04, aka “Vivid Vervet” (as in East African monkey) unless you peer under the hood.

Canonical last Thursday made its latest desktop release available for download. Canonical is Ubuntu’s parent company and developer of the Ubuntu family of Linux OSes for server, desktop, cloud, phone and Internet of Things platforms.

Vivid Vervet’s lineage stretches across a wide range of enterprise and consumer computing devices. Canonical earlier last week announced the availability of a family of Ubuntu 15.04 Linux operating systems that introduce new tools spanning cloud, device, client and IoT development.

That said, do not let your enthusiasm for burning a shiny new plastic Ubuntu installation DVD get the best of you. The release of Ubuntu 15.04 for the desktop includes mostly maintenance and bug fixes, along with new integrated menus and dashboard usability improvements.

I looked at Ubuntu’s flagship desktop environment, Unity, but most of the technical improvements are rolled into Ubuntu’s other desktop choices as well. These include Matte, GNOME and Kubuntu.

A Solid Experience

This latest release varies little from last year’s 14.04 LTS and 14.10 releases, but don’t take that as a criticism. Avid Ubuntu users will welcome the fixes and polishing. They certainly make the desktop experience better.

Ubuntu 15.04 is a well-executed maintenance release with major software updates, but little else is new.

Perhaps the most significant technical change in this desktop release is the adoption of Systemd to replace the default init manager system. A significant number of continuing Linux distros are joining the SystemD party line after the Debian Technical Committee arm-twisted the move to leave Sysvinit behind.

Despite all the hoopla that vilified both options last year, you will not notice much, if any, significant changes in Ubuntu 15.04. Perhaps a slightly speedier boot and more fluid log-in screen is all you will see.

Other communities over the last few years were feuding over the merits of Sysvinit versus Systemd. In the interim, Canonical developed its own initialization approach, called “Start.”

Making Systemd the default “was a decision to prevent fragmentation of Linux itself. It was a monumental amount of work. If we did a good job, no user should ever notice,” Canonical VP for Professional and Engineering Services Jon Melamut told LinuxInsider.

Noteworthy Changes

Ubuntu 15.04 has a partial Linux kernel upgrade. It uses the Linux 3.19.3 kernel. It features improved graphics and file system support. You will have to wait for the next Ubuntu release to get the even newer Linux kernel 4.0 with its no reboot patching feature.

Another potentially key change in this latest Ubuntu release may ease the annoyance some users feel over its appearance. This new version uses a local menu system, replacing the global menu as the default.

The difference is the local menu system embeds application menus inside the window border instead of at the top of the screen. Of course, you can change that preference in the system settings panel. Go to System settings/appearance/behavior to switch back.

If you are color-sensitive, prepare yourself. The desktop background is now overly purple.

Updated Packages

As with most new Ubuntu releases, nearly all of the major applications are refreshed to their newest versions. This includes applications, system tools and accessory programs. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian’s unstable branch. Others have been pulled in explicitly for Ubuntu 15.04.

Some pleasant surprises include Firefox 37.0 and Chromium 41 for the Web browsers. Pulseaudio is updated to version 6. This paves the way for a move to BlueZ 5 in the next release.

LibreOffice 4.4.2.2 is the default office suite, bringing increased business productivity. Updated features in the suite include improved change-tracking in Writer; enhanced mail merge performance; and improved shapes, which now can have fully formatted content with tables. Also new is the support for digitally signed PDF exports.

Some other updates in the LibreOffice suite are the addition of statistics functions in Calc and password protected documents in Impress. Both Impress and Draw have support for slide transitions.

Missing Mir

I was disappointed by the absence of one potentially major improvement to the under-the-hood functionality in this new desktop release. I am referring to the anticipated switch to Unity 8, with Mir as the new display server for the desktop.

Bottom Line

Although Ubuntu 15.04 leaves me wanting more, it is a solid Linux distro. It upholds the high standards and industry-leading position earned for the nearly constant introduction of new things in each major release.

That said, it is one new release too many with little or no pizazz. Canonical is making huge strides elsewhere in its ecosystem, but if it leaves users hungry for too much longer, the company might find its base eroding, as users shift toward more innovative Linux desktops.

Ubuntu 15.04 is one release that many Ubuntu users can skip and not miss a thing.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/ubuntus-vivid-vervet-makes-snappy-entrance/

Ubuntu's Vivid Vervet Makes Snappy Entrance

Canonical on Tuesday announced the release of Ubuntu 15.04, aka “Vivid Vervet,” as in East African monkey. It will be available for download on Thursday.

The new OS offers tools for cloud, device, client and Internet of Things development. The Ubuntu desktop release includes mostly maintenance and bug fixes, along with new integrated menus and dashboard usability improvements.

Ubuntu 15.04 for cloud and servers comes at a critical time to attract companies adopting cloud technologies. It brings a host of improvements and enhancements designed to help business users better deploy and manage successful cloud projects.

Ubuntu Core, dubbed “Snappy,” is the smallest Ubuntu OS available. It is designed for security and efficiency in devices or in the cloud. It is a lean, transactionally updated version of the Ubuntu OS designed to power drones, robots, network switches, mobile base stations, industrial gateways and IoT home hubs.

Ubuntu 15.04 also is the base for the Ubuntu phone currently shipping on the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and soon on the Meizu MX4. The latest 15.04 updates will be delivered over the air in coming weeks.

Canonical’s latest enterprise release coincides with growing adoption of OpenStack.

Enterprise IT departments are expected to increase spending on cloud computing this year. The cloud is the new platform to achieve elastically scalable, self-service computing, according to Gartner.

“The big thing that is new in Ubuntu 15.04 is the inclusion of Ubuntu Core,” said Jon Melamut, vice president for professional and engineering services at Canonical.

“This is the evolution of being a small, lightweight solution for devices that need high levels of maintainability to the use of the cloud state,” he told LinuxInsider.

Core Concept

The glue that binds the Ubuntu OS family together is not Ubuntu Core, however. It is the commonality of the Ubuntu ecosystem.

“What you will see over time is all of the products leverage the same technology with common attributes,” noted Melamut. “Over the last two-and-a-half to three years, we created a new way of presenting the maintenance of Ubuntu.”

It will not limit users of any flavor of Ubuntu on any device with partial updates. This is particularly important with the Ubuntu phone, he explained.

Snappy Send-Off

The release of Ubuntu 15.04 rings in a new way to deploy Linux, spawned by the Ubuntu phone’s OS. It is also an essential component of improvements made to cloud servers and IOT devices.

It breaks the very traditional way of using and deploying Ubuntu, based on its Debian roots, noted Dustin Kirkland, Ubuntu cloud solutions product manager and strategist at Canonical. That system involves Canonical’s Debian packages and vast repository of software.

“We have curated a lot of that software. We have adapted some of the best open source and created our own open source. In doing so, we created an operating system that is generally useful in the cloud, on physical servers, and on desktops and laptops,” Kirkland told LinuxInsider.

The modern evolution of technology, though, is demanding something a little bit different, which led Canonical’s development team to come up with Snappy, he added.

What It Is

Snappy packages apps securely for delivery to devices and cloud hosts. The new process isolates application data and guarantees that an update can be rolled back.

This first version of Ubuntu Core features secure app containment and Docker 1.5. It is available on major public clouds and for ARM and x86 devices on a range of popular boards for IoT. Ubuntu Core is already running on the next-generation of network switches, home routers, smart drones and robots.

Snappy’s Core Concept is well suited for updating and maintaning the Ubuntu phone. The phone’s ever-changing state of going into sleep mode and exchanging packets of information in small chunks over busy networks at changing intervals is not conducive to traditional methods of updating Ubuntu. The traditional approach of using apt-get just does not work on a phone, Kirkland pointed out.

“Two major technology shifts have occurred in the 10 years Canonical has been developing Ubuntu — cloud and IoT devices,” he said.

“In both cases, the industry is demanding something a bit different than the traditional way of installing and deploying packages. Canonical’s answer to that is Snappy,” said Kirkland. “Think of it as yet another flavor of Ubuntu.”

New Enterprise Tools

Ubuntu 15.04 for cloud and servers includes a prerelease version of the next scheduled release of OpenStack, dubbed “Kilo.” Ubuntu is the first OpenStack distribution to make the newest Kilo release available to users. Kilo becomes available on April 30 for non-Ubuntu users. Canonical will update its Kilo package upon final release.

Canonical packed a number of innovations into its Enterprise Ubuntu platform. One is an update to Neutron, OpenStack’s networking and IP Address management system. It now includes distributed virtual routing, or DVR. This enables Neutron to scale more efficiently using multiple nodes.

Also included with Ubuntu OpenStack is ZeroMQ, or 0MQ, a brokerless messaging system to eliminate bottlenecks in messaging as the cloud infrastructure scales. ZeroMQ is an intelligent transport layer for distributed applications.

Simplifying OpenStack Use

A third feature enhancement for cloud and servers is Keystone federation in Kilo’s integration into Ubuntu 15.04. Keystone allows shared identity across cloud regions, which will enable enterprises with multiple OpenStack implementations to manage identity much more efficiently. It simplifies the path to hybrid cloud computing with OpenStack on-premises and public clouds.

Key improvements and innovations in the Docker container components of Ubuntu 15.04:

Live migration of LXC containers between hosts;

Improved security model for containers through AppArmor profiles; and

Docker updated to 1.5.

Ubuntu 15.04 OpenStack includes a new OpenStack Nova driver for LXD (next-generation hypervisor for containers). Nova-compute-LXD is an enhancement to Ubuntu OpenStack that lets end users deploy workloads on OpenStack into containers based on LXD. This brings the benefits of high performance and density, compared to KVM-based workloads, while maintaining the security isolation and flexibility offered by traditional virtual machines.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/opening-windows-source-code-could-improve-security/

Opening Windows Source Code Could Improve Security

Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich raised a few eyebrows at ChefCon earlier this month, when he aired the possibility of Windows becoming an open source program.

Sure, Microsoft’s attitude toward the open source movement has mellowed over the years, but the prospect of the company rubbing elbows with the likes of Linux overloads the imagination.

Still, there could be real benefits to making Windows an open source operating system — among them, better security.

“If they’re talking about open sourcing the modern version, or pieces of it, it would help security tremendously, because people could look at it and find vulnerabilities,” said Morey Haber, vice president of technology for BeyondTrust.

There initially would be a spike in vulnerabilities, he said, but they would be patched quickly and the code would get better.

Chances are Microsoft won’t open source the latest version of the operating system, but “I wouldn’t put it past them to put out an older version or a core version as open source,” Haber told TechNewsWorld.

Balancing Act

How Windows is open sourced will determine how beneficial the move will be to the software’s security, said Mike Taylor, lead developer for Rook Security.

“There would be a benefit if the entire stack were released, because that would allow people to more clearly examine the code and look for insecurities,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“The downside to that is you’re creating an uncounted number of Zero Day vulnerabilities. Having more eyes on the code will help to address those vulnerabilities, especially since researchers could contribute code that would fix those vulnerabilities,” Taylor pointed out.

“So yes, more vulnerabilities may be discovered,” he said, “but they could potentially be addressed more quickly.”

That could help avoid situations where zealous bug hunters disclose security holes before they’re patched by a vendor, as Google researchers did earlier this year.

More Good Eyes Than Bad

Google gives software vendors 90 days to fix a flaw after reporting it to them. It recently notified Microsoft of a vulnerability in Windows 8.1 and began the countdown. Microsoft came up with a fix for the problem before the end of the 90-day period, but it wanted to release it on the next Patch Tuesday, which fell after the arbitrary 90-day deadline. Google refused to delay action and released information on the flaw two days before its fix was released.

“In an open source environment you don’t have that kind of structure,” Taylor said. “When someone finds a vulnerability, the code to fix that can be pushed immediately into the quality assurance process.”

That can be done only if an open source community has an unobstructed view into Windows, however.

“If you get a full view of the source code of something that’s open source, you’re going to have a higher likelihood of finding vulnerabilities because you can see what’s going on under the hood,” said Matt Johansen, senior manager for the Threat Research Center at WhiteHat Security.

Without a clear view into a program’s code, researchers are forced to use techniques like “fuzz testing,” he explained.

Fuzz testing involves injecting junk inputs into software to see what happens.

“It involves a whole lot of guessing and takes up a whole lot of time,” Johansen told TechNewsWorld.

“Open source really opens up the number of people who have the resources and know-how who can find vulnerabilities,” he added, “but the real added benefit is that there are more good guys with their eyes on the code than there would be if it weren’t open source.”

Not a Security Blanket

An open source version of Windows also could create security problems. For example, various distros of Windows could pop up.

“We would probably end up with problems similar to Linux and Android, where we’d have fragmentation and then unique vulnerabilities based on that,” BeyondTrust’s Haber said.

In addition, while the “many eyes” approach can catch vulnerabilities before they become hacker havens, “we’ve seen recently in the case of OpenSSL and other open source software, this doesn’t always work,” RedSeal Chief Evangelist Steve Hultquist pointed out.

“Furthermore, in the case of Windows, it is unlikely to be under active development by the community. As a result, I would expect to see targeted attacks as the result of weaknesses discovered by the release of the code,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“There’s not always a positive correlation between having a project be open source and increasing its security,” Rook’s Taylor added.

Breach Diary

April 7. University of California, Riverside, informs some 8,000 graduate students that their personal information, including Social Security numbers, is at risk because of theft of desktop containing unencrypted data from a campus office March 13.

April 7. Human Rights Watch files lawsuit against U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for illegally collecting records of organization’s telephone calls to foreign countries as part of a government bulk surveillance program.

April 8. U.S. Federal Communications Commmission fines AT&T US$25 million for series of data breaches in 2013 and 2014 at its call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philipines, which exposed names and full or partial Security Numbers of some 280,000 U.S. customers. The fine is the largest data security enforcement action by the agency to date.

April 8. Cyberattackers supporting ISIS take 11 stations of the French television network TV5Monde off air and hijack its website and Facebook page for two hours.

April 8. Global law firm Mayer Brown releases study of executives and corporate counsels in 15 industries in which nearly two-thirds of them (63 percent) said their biggest concern about a data breach was the exposure of their personal information. Only 10 percent said the theft of trade secrets was the most serious threat to their businesses.

April 9. White Lodging reports point-of-sale systems in bars and restaurants in 10 of its hotels suffered a data breach from July 3 to Feb. 6, and credit card information for an undetermined number of patrons was compromised.

April 9. Auburn University confirms server configuration error that exposed on the public Internet personal information of some 364,012 students, including Social Security numbers of non-applicants to the institution who had taken standardized tests prior to 2007.

April 9. Anti-Phishing Work Group releases trends report showing 27 percent of all phishing attacks in the third quarter of 2014 were on financial institutions, and 13.1 percent were on ISPs.

April 10. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto reveal new offensive cyberweapon they call the “Great Cannon” was used in DDoS attacks on GitHub and GreatFire.org.

April 10. Nautilus Insurance Group announces an addition to its general liability insurance policy for businesses to cover costs related to data breaches.

Upcoming Security Events

April 16. Enterprise Defense and Why You’re Most Likely Doing It All Wrong. 2 p.m. ET. Black Hat webcast. Free with registration.

April 16. The Dangers of Phishing: Avoid the Lure of Cybercrime. 2 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by Kaspersky Lab. Free with registration.

April 17-18. B-Sides Algiers. Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique, Oued Smar, Algiers, Algeria. Free.

April 18. B-Sides Oklahoma. Hard Rock Casino, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa, Oklahoma. Free.

April 19-20. B-Sides San Francisco. 135 Bluxome St., San Francisco. Registration: $20, plus $2.09 fee.

April 20-24. RSA USA 2015. Moscone Center, San Francisco. Registration: before March 21, $1,895; after March 20, $2,295; after April 17, $2,595.

April 25. B-Sides Rochester. German House, 315 Gregory St., Rochester, New York. Free.

April 29. Best Practices for DDos Protection. 9 a.m. ET. Arbor Networks webinar. Free with registration.

April 29. SDN and NFV: Protecting the Next Wave Infrastructure. 11 a.m. ET. Arbor Networks webinar. Free with registration.

April 29. Dark Reading’s Security Crash Course. Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: through March 20, $899; March 21-April 24, $999; April 25-29, $1,099.

May 6-7. Suits and Spooks London. techUK, 10 Saint Bride St., London. Registration: government/military, $305; members, $486; industry, $571.

May 2. B-Sides San Antonio. Texas A&M, Brooks City Base, San Antonio, Texas. Fee: $10.

May 9. B-Sides Boston. Microsoft 1 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fee: $20.

May 13. SecureWorld Houston. Norris Conference Center, Houston, Texas. Registration: open sessions pass, $25; conference pass, $175; SecureWorld plus training, $545.

May 27-28. SecureWorld Atlanta. Cobb Galleria Centre (Ballroom), 2 Galleria Parkway Southeast, Atlanta. Registration: open sessions pass, $25; conference pass, $175; SecureWorld plus training, $545.

June 8-10. SIA Government summit 2015. W Hotel, Washington, D.C. Meeting Fees: members, $595; nonmember, $795.

June 8-11. Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit. Gaylord National, 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Maryland. Registration: before April 11, $2,795; after April 10, standard $2,995, public sector $2,595.

June 16-17. Black Hat Mobile Security Summit. ExCel London, London, UK. Registration: before April 11, Pounds 400; before June 16, Pounds 500; after June 15, Pounds 600.

August 1-6. Black Hat USA. Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: before June 6, $1795; before July 25, $2,195; after July 24, $2,595.

Sept. 28-Oct. 01. ASIS 2015. Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California. Registration: through May 31 — member, $895; nonmember, $1,150; government, $945; student, $300; June 1-Aug. 31 — $995, $1,250, $1,045, $350; Sept. 1-Oct. 1 — $1,095, $1,350, $1,145, $400.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/superx-os-greases-the-classic-linux-wheel/

SuperX OS Greases the Classic Linux Wheel

SuperX OS is a solid Linux distribution that dispels all of the criticisms about using free open source operating systems.

SuperX is a relatively new distro developed by Libresoft. Based on Ubuntu and Debian, it adds a highly customized KDE desktop environment. Version 3.0 — dubbed “Grace” after computing pioneer Grace Hopper — was released March 23.

Version releases come out about every 10 months or so, but the maturity and impressive performance of this latest release makes the SuperX OS a prime replacement choice for whatever distro you now use — it is that good.

SuperX OS should be one of the first options for anyone looking to dump Microsoft Windows. It needs almost no learning curve.

A Better KDE

As an advanced Linux fan, I used to prefer the KDE desktop environment for its wide range of configurability and flexibility. However, traditional KDE implementations are often complex and confusing for newcomers, with sometimes overwhelming options to remember. What I especially like about how Libresoft’s SuperX KDE is the way developers tweaked it to be simple and effective.

SuperX OS uses a tweaked KDE desktop environment that is clean and inviting.

One example of this tweaking is the absence the Activity feature. Activity is a subset of Virtual Desktops. Each Activity space you create can have its own set of Virtual Desktops. The Activity feature is an alternative virtual desktop. In KDE, you can use both methods.

Each Activity workspace or screen can have its own wallpaper, icons and widgets. I never found the Activity feature in KDE to be anything near useful. It seems not to exist at all in SuperX OS. The right upper corner, the usual hot spot to navigate to the Activity controls, is not a part of SuperX OS.

Over the years I have switched to the Cinnamon desktop. I find its flexibility and configurability rivals that of KDE, but it is simpler and more convenient to access all of its overlapping features. That is the same reaction I have toward how KDE functions in the SuperX OS.

Under the Hood

What caught my eye in this KDE variant distro is its desktop responsiveness. Grace gives more priority to application performance.

The Grace engine compresses unused memory pages within RAM rather than swapping them out to the swap partition. This makes the OS responsive even when the system memory is low. Commonly used applications are preloaded and cached in memory for faster startup of favorite applications.

SuperX Grace comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This release is a Long Term Support version. It will receive regular software updates and bug fixes until April 2019.

Lean Hardware

SuperX OS 3.0 runs on most legacy hardware. It excels on well-endowed modern gear.

System requirements are rather basic: minimum 1-GHz processor (dual-core recommended) with at least 1 GB of RAM (2 GB recommended) and 25 GB of disk space.

SuperX 3.0 ships with KDE 4.13.3, Linux kernel 3.13, and a full range of multimedia support. The installer offers an option to install non-open source drivers and codecs to ensure that all audio and video formats play, including Flash-compatible plug-ins.

KDE tends to make older, less-endowed computers sluggish. A favorite old laptop with 1 GB RAM locked up once it fully loaded Super X OS. Other older computers with 2 GB or more RAM worked fine.

Integration Works

The customized KDE 4 desktop environment works impressively well. It sports a dark plasma theme.

SuperX includes all the tweaks of KDE and QT, plus the benefits of some adopted Linux Mint tools.

I like one in particular: SuperX Sources is a fork of Mintsources from Linux Mint. The Package Manager is based on Muon. SuperX has social and instant messaging integration provided via Social Messenger.

Applications Included

SuperX comes preloaded with both the Mozilla Firefox and Chromium browsers, and a fully functional Flash player. The Firefox browser comes with the download manager/accelerator DownThemAll! extension preinstalled.

SuperX’s default video player is VLC. Musique is the default music player. OpenShot video editor is preinstalled, as is the Filezilla file transfer client.

Other solid software packages include KDE games such as Kapman and Potato Guy, LibreOffice office suite, GIMP image editor, Thunderbird email, Kate text editor, KTorrent torrent client, Java, K3B disc burner, GParted partition editor, Kamerka webcam, Konversation IRC client, and more.

Easy Navigation

Moving around the desktop is very easy in SuperX OS. The corners are hot spots. Push the mouse pointer into the upper left corner of the screen to see an Expo view or thumbnail presentation of all open windows on all virtual workspaces. Pull the mouse pointer out of the corner to return to the standard screen view.

Push the mouse pointer into the lower right corner to see a grid view of the open applications in each workspace. This view gives you the added advantage of seeing which apps are open in each workspace. Click the minus sign in the grid to remove an empty workspace. Click the plus sign to add another workspace.

Free or Donate

Libresoft Technology is a privately held company that provides commercial services based on SuperX and other open source technologies.

Do not let the prompt for payment on the download page deter you from trying SuperX OS. Just put $0 in the payment window and press the download button.

Of course, you can voluntarily pay whatever you want for this open source Linux distro. Besides the freemium version — which worked flawlessly on several of my old and new computers — Libresoft offers a professional version for business and enterprise use, with paid support.

Bottom Line

SuperX OS has almost all of the applications that an average home or office user would want out of the box. It is quick and easy to add much more.

Do not let the newness of this distro keep you from trying it. This latest release is far more developed than many Linux distros that have been around much longer.

Libresoft did not attempt to reinvent the Linux OS wheel or create a new desktop to add more confusion to an already crowded desktop field. Instead, it focused on fine-tuning one of the most productive Linux desktop environments.

SuperX lives up to its name. It is a superb operating system choice.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/linux-4-0-brings-skynet-closer-to-existence-offers-reboot-free-kernel-patching/

Linux 4.0 brings Skynet closer to existence, offers reboot-free kernel patching

Linux 4.0 is almost upon us! It’s codenamed “Hurr durr I’ma sheep.” Yes, seriously. Linux kernels have weird codenames.

Setting aside the head-scratching title, Linux 4.0 isn’t a massive change from Linux 3.19. It would have been named Linux 3.20, but lots of people wanted to see Linux 4.0. As Linus Torvalds himself said, “the strongest argument for some people advocating 4.0 seems to have been a wish to see 4.1.15 – because ‘that was the version of Linux Skynet used for the T-800 Terminator.’”

Reboot-free kernel patching

The biggest feature (aside from dragging us ever closer to the robotic hellscape seen in the Terminator series) is live kernel patching. When an update—perhaps a critical security update—is issued for the Linux kernel, this technology would allow the operating system to swap out its running kernel without a reboot. It might sound like a minor time-saver, but it’s actually a huge deal for mission-critical servers that need maximum uptime.

Originally, this feature was offered by Ksplice. But Oracle bought that technology and it now only works with Oracle Linux. SUSE developed their own solution, named kGraft, and Red Hat developed their own solution, named Kpatch. The live-patching feature found in Linux 4.0 works with both kGraft and Kpatch, making everyone happy.

Don’t necessarily expect your Linux desktop to get rebootless patching any time soon, as this requires some work to implement. But it’s a big deal for Linux servers and clusters that need all the uptime they can get.

Intel Skylake, AMD Radeon, and PlayStation 3 drivers

The Linux kernel gained a lot of hardware driver improvements, offering improved hardware support. There’s been work done on graphics and power-management support for Intel’s Skylake processors, the successor to Intel’s Broadwell platform. The Intel Quark system-on-a-chip platform is now also supported, along with many new ARM platforms—ARM support is increasingly being integrated into the mainline Linux kernel.

AMD Radeon graphics cards are getting better driver support in Linux 4.0.

The open-source AMD Radeon driver now supports audio over the DisplayPort connection, better fan control support, and other improvements. Gamers will still want to run the closed-source AMD FGLRX driver, though—or stick with Nvidia hardware, which provides a superior closed-source graphics driver.

Hardware support for everything from the open-source Nouveau graphics driver for Nvidia GPUs to various input devices and Toshiba laptop power-saving settings has improved. Sound drivers have been cleaned up, and the kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) support also has a bunch of improvements.

Amusingly enough, there have also been patches forrunning Linux on the PlayStation 3. Despite Sony removing the “OtherOS” option from existing PlayStation 3 consoles with a firmware update—and facing a class-action lawsuit for doing it, although that was dismissed—PS3-related patches are still making it into the Linux kernel.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 is still getting love in Linux kernel updates.

File-system drivers for everything from the F2FS flash-friendly file system, OverlayFS file system for live environments, pNFS file system for network file system clients, and BtrFS next-generation file system have been improved, too.

Linux is now over twenty years old, and new kernels are released every few months. All those little optimizations and hardware support improvements make a real difference. Whether you use Linux on your desktop or not, it’s powering many of the devices you use and servers you connect to every single day. Let’s just hope it doesn’t actually become self-aware and try to exterminate us all.

E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/bodacious-bodhi-broadens-linux-desktop/

Bodacious Bodhi Broadens Linux Desktop

Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 RC3’s implementation of the Enlightenment desktop, makes an awesome desktop computing platform for office or home.

Bodhi is one of only a handful of Linux distros embracing the Enlightenment environment. Its developers call Bodhi the Enlightened Linux Distribution.

Beware if you try it: Bodhi Linux could easily become your favorite Linux distro.

That accolade does not come easily from me. I have become very attached to the latest Linux Mint release running the Cinnamon desktop. As flexible and feature rich as Cinnamon has become, Enlightenment exceeds it by leaps and bounds.

Enlightenment takes a bit of adjusting to, however. It has a learning curve and a customization path that renders it not so out-of-the-box ready. But you get a configuration fine tuned to your computing needs without the bloat of never-used applications.

Linux Picks and Pans highlighted the Enlightenment desktop in a special review last year that looked at the fledgling implementation of Enlightenment in four new distros, including an early Bodhi release. This year I spent some time since its February 5 release working with this alternative desktop environment.

The current release is marked by the recent return to the project of one of Bodhi’s major developers, Jeff Hoogland. The first stable release for the third major update to the Bodhi Linux operating system, version 3.0.0 was released on February 17.

Enlightenment Primer

Enlightenment is a Compositing Window Manager and Desktop Shell. It is radically different from other lightweight interface shells such as Xfce and LXDE.

Enlightenment is lightweight, so it runs of lots of legacy desktops and laptops. It is also very customizable. It is adaptable for small mobile devices as well as multicore desktops…the primary development environment.

This desktop environment offers a basic core design. Its design is tweaked and integrated differently depending on which supporting Linux distro you use. Bodhi Linux developers are leaders in how far the tweaking goes.

Enlightenment’s menu pops up from any point of the desktop with a left-button click of the mouse, instead of being in a single place. A more traditional menu button is also present on the Bodhi panel bar. This bar can be on any edge of the screen depending on the selected theme.

Bodhi Basics

Bodhi Linux is based on Ubuntu 12.04 and Enlightenment 17.04. It uses a modular structure that provides a high level of customization and choices of themes. Bodhi’s philosophy is built around minimalism and user choice.

The default Bodhi system is light. Its only pre-installed applications are the Midori web browser, Terminology (Bodhi’s terminal application), EFM (Enlightenment File Manager), and the Leafpad text editor.

Bodhi Linux’s system tools and default applications are very different from more standard desktop environments.

More software is available from the AppCenter, a web-based software installation tool. The developers contend it is easier and better for users to build the system their way from the start. That trumps having to remove all the unwanted apps and install the desired ones.

Why the Midori browser over more popular options, like Firefox, Chromium or Google Chrome? Midori is central to the modular design of Bodhi Linux. The Midori browser is very lightweight yet functional. It installs applications directly from the Bodhi Linux AppCenter, a feature that some other browsers lack.

The EFM is tweaked to work within Bodhi Linux to add files and launchers to the desktop by moving the desired files and launchers into the desktop folder that’s located in the home directory.

You can opt out of displaying desktop icons at: Main Menu>Settings>All>Files>File Manager under the Display tab.

But you can add other file managers and designate other default applications for more traditional functionality by going to: Main Menu>Settings>All>Apps>Default Applications.

Modular Methodology

The AppCenter is one of the software building blocks. The Bodhi repository has many common applications the developers consider the “best of breed” applications for each particular category. It also provides several application-sets (meta-packages) that provide common applications and/or are chosen to meet a particular use case.

Another building block is the system updater process. There are multiple methods to achieve this, but the simplest method is to open the Terminology application, located in Main Menu>Applications>System Tools, and running these commands:

[] sudo apt-get update[] sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

The third modular software building block is the Synaptic Package Manager, common to all Debian GNU/Linux based distributions. It is installed in Bodhi Linux by default.

To access it, go to Main Menu>Applications>Preferences>Synaptic Package Manager. This provides access to all of the applications in the Bodhi Linux and Ubuntu 12.04 repositories.

Using Bodhi

Bodhi Linux and the Enlightenment desktop bring elegance that makes using Linux a new experience. Bodhi has an easy-to-use workplace switcher on the desktop; and it is effortless to place gadgets on the desktop.

However, the system tools are very different from more standard desktop environments. And the few pre-installed applications are different from the stock apps used in the other distros.

Bodhi offers five profile configurations.

Bare is a minimal setup with very little loaded. This is an advanced feature for setting up your own custom Enlightenment configuration.

Compositing is a vertical setup with flashy effects.

Desktop is a basic setup suitable for most desktop configurations with a menu, taskbar, systray and clock along the top.

Fancy is an alternative setup with more artistic layout.

Laptop/Netbook is a basic setup for most laptop/netbook configurations with a menu, taskbar, systray, power monitor, clock along the top and a CPU scaler.

Bodhi Linux has six themes. These range from two-tone gray or black, to a few multi-color options, or light blue.

Bodhi Linux’s use of Enlightenment serves up a different user experience on the desktop.

The biggest problem that I had with Bodhi Linux was getting it to access the wireless connection. Hard-wired Internet worked fine on both my desktop and laptop computers. But none of my cadre of mobile gear was able to connect to my various wireless hardware components. I could not find any driver solutions or instructions on getting wireless to work. Obviously, this is one large potential drawback if you want to take your Bodhi Linux with you.

Bottom Line

The Enlightenment experience is not for all Linux users, especially those who are less skilled. I am impressed with Bodhi’s integration of the Enlightenment desktop. It is far ahead of what other distros are doing with this modern environment.

The user interface, however, is not intuitive. Experienced Linux users will figure out the differences and adapt quickly. Newcomers to Linux should expect lots of frustration in trial-and- error sessions to make any headway.

The Midori browser loads a help file by default with wiki-like links to some start-up information. That file is part of the installation content. At least new users can access the quick start guide and FAQ topics if they are not able to access a wireless Internet connection.