Show Notes: linuxactionnews.com/236

The post Linux Action News 236 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

It might just be the future of openSUSE. We take a indepth look at openSUSE Leap 42.1 beta. Find out why this might be the most ambitious Linux distribution release to date, the features that appeal the power user & the newbie.

Plus the Linux malware that fixes up your box, why it might never be the year of the Linux desktop, the Linux botnet that hits with 150 Gbps DDoS attacks & more!

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Brought to you by: System76

Leap – openSUSE

It secures the future of openSUSE. Maintaining a distribution is a lot of work. By basing openSUSE on SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise), the core of openSUSE will be maintained by SUSE engineers. That means it will get fixes and security updates from SLE.

The openSUSE project can then replace and add the bits and pieces of software that contributors want and are willing to maintain.

openSUSE Leap will also complement Tumbleweed better. When there was one openSUSE, it was torn between those who wanted newer software and those who wanted a stable system. Tumbleweed caters to those who want newer software, which allows the regular release to do an even better job of providing a highly stable system.

• openSUSE releases Leap Beta

Users wanting a long-term, stable Linux system can expect Leap to use the most advanced long-term supported branch of the Linux kernel, 4.1 series, which provides significant improvements to ARM hardware architecture.

Long-Term support for Leap

• rbrownsuse (openSUSE Chairman) comments on Long term support

Yup – the easiest way of saying it is actually:

Leap 42.x will be supported until AT LEAST Leap 43.0 is out – and that will happen around about when SLE 13 is out (which is certainly a few years away)

The exact deadlines and schedules are somewhat unknown, because no one knows when SLE 13 will be out yet

And also, dependant on that, we might focus and fine tune the lifecycle of the final version of Leap 42.x to give it a comfortable overlap with the release of 43.0

But until we’re closer to that, we dont know for sure

So we’re saying what we’re saying..

Quick Notes

• btrfs on / and for many subvolumes, some with copy on write disabled (libvert, mailman, pgsql, mariadb)

• xfs on /home – Really smart since /home gets filled by me from time to time. Avoids that btrfs slowdown when you fill it up

• Possible to set system to use NTP, even when not connected to the Internet at time of install.

• Firewall set to enable (one click disable)
• SSH Port set to blocked
• SSH Service set to disabled

• YaST always bitches that a software source is missing. It’s the USB drive I installed the distro from. How common is it to install from a thumb drive, and then leave it forever plugged in? (Easy to fix)

• Online Update tool shipped without any sources configured. (Again an easy fix)

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Runs Linux

Smarter Every Day – Finds Linux

Sent in by Arthur H

Desktop App Pick

Gpick Project – Home

Gpick is an advanced color picker and palette editing tool.

• KColorChooser – Color Chooser

KColorChooser is a simple application to select the color from the screen or from a pallete.

Weekly Spotlight

FeedReader – RSS desktop client

• Desktop notifications
  • Fast search and filters
  • Full articles instead of previews for known sites
  • Tagging (plugin needed for Tiny Tiny RSS)
  • Sharing to “read-it-later” services like Pocket and Instapaper
  • Handy keyboard short-cuts
  • Keep all your old articles as long as you like
  • Consistent formatting of articles
  • automatically saved state of the UI

— NEWS —

​Why there will never be a year of the Linux desktop

Oh, don’t get me wrong, Linux, as Android tablets and smartphones and Chrome OS Chromebooks, will become the most popular end-user operating system of all. But, the desktop? That’s another story.

Security firm discovers Linux botnet that hits with 150 Gbps DDoS attacks

Akamai announced on Tuesday that its Security Intelligence Response Team has discovered a massive Linux-based botnet that’s reportedly capable of downing websites under a torrent of DDoS traffic exceeding 150 Gbps. The botnet spreads via a Trojan variant dubbed XOR DDoS. This malware infects Linux systems via embedded devices like network routers then brute forces SSH access. Once the malware has Secure Shell credentials, it secretly downloads and installs the necessary botnet software, then connects the newly-infected computer to the rest of the hive.

Is there an Internet-of-Things vigilante out there?

The further we dug into Wifatch’s code the more we had the feeling that there was something unusual about this threat. For all intents and purposes it appeared like the author was trying to secure infected devices instead of using them for malicious activities.

Gigabytes of user data from hack of Patreon donations site dumped online | Ars Technica

Hackers have published almost 15 gigabytes’ worth of password data, donation records, and source code taken during the recent hack of the Patreon funding website.

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• https://slexy.org/view/s2Yd49KdRK

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Chris Fisher (@ChrisLAS) | Twitter

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The post OpenSUSE’s Big Leap | LAS 385 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A renewed push to kill flash hits the web & we discuss the possible advantages for Linux users. A KDE user trying out Gnome for a week & the real issues he touches on.

Plus your take on openSUSE’s big changes & follow up to our take on it.

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Show Notes:

Catch Up:

• Linux Mint is boring

• What is the big deal about privacy?

TING

• Ting – mobile that makes sense

• Linux action show podcasts forces me to use non-free plugin

• Mozilla blocks Flash as Facebook security chief calls for its death

Linux Academy

• Linux Academy | Linux and AWS Online Training

A Week With GNOME As My Linux Desktop: What They Get Right & Wrong

Which brings up an important distinction between KDE and Gnome. Gnome feels like a product. It feels like a singular experience. When you use it, it feels like it is complete and that everything you need is at your fingertips. It feel’s like THE Linux desktop in the same way that Windows or OS X have THE desktop experience: what you need is there and it was all written by the same guys working on the same team towards the same goal.

• I spent the first five days of my week logging into Gnome manually– not turning on automatic login. On night of the fifth day I got annoyed with having to login by hand and so I went into the User Manager and turned on automatic login. The next time I logged in I got a prompt: “Your keychain was not unlocked. Please enter your password to unlock your keychain.” That was when I realized something… Gnome had been automatically unlocking my keychain—my wallet in KDE speak– every time I logged in via GDM. It was only when I bypassed GDM’s login that Gnome had to step in and make me do it manually.

  • it was at that moment that I realized it was such a simple thing that made the desktop feel so much more like it was working WITH ME. When I log into KDE via SDDM? Before the splash screen is even finished loading there is a window popping up over top the splash animation– thereby disrupting the splash screen– prompting me to unlock my KDE wallet or GPG keyring.

  • Software Managers! Something that has seen a lot of push in recent years and will likely only see a bigger push in the months to come. Unfortunately, it’s another area where KDE was so close… and then fell on its face right at the finish line.

  • Gnome Software is probably my new favorite software center, minus one gripe which I will get to in a bit. Muon, I wanted to like you. I really did. But you are a design nightmare. When the VDG was drawing up plans for you (mockup below), you looked pretty slick.

  • Then someone got around to coding you and doing your actual UI, and I can only guess they were drunk while they did it.

• Which brings up an important distinction between KDE and Gnome. Gnome feels like a product. It feels like a singular experience. When you use it, it feels like it is complete and that everything you need is at your fingertips. It feel’s like THE Linux desktop in the same way that Windows or OS X have THE desktop experience: what you need is there and it was all written by the same guys working on the same team towards the same goal.

• KDE doesn’t feel like cohesive experience. KDE doesn’t feel like it has a direction its moving in, it doesn’t feel like a full experience. KDE feels like its a bunch of pieces that are moving in a bunch of different directions, that just happen to have a shared toolkit beneath them.

• I know the KDE developers know design matters, that is WHY the Visual Design Group exists, but it feels like they aren’t using the VDG to their fullest.

• Will I still use Gnome after this week? Probably not, no. Gnome still trying to force a work flow on me that I don’t want to follow or abide by, I feel less productive when I’m using it because it doesn’t follow my paradigm.

DigitalOcean

• DigitalOcean: SSD Cloud Server, VPS Server, Simple Cloud Hosting

• Ubuntu-Powered Intel Compute Stick To Go On Sale This Week For $110

openSUSE Follow Up

onelostuser writes:

I don’t get why Noah and Chris are puzzled by what SuSE and OpenSuSE intend to do. The new distro will be to SLE what CentOS is to RHEL.
There will be Tumbleweed, the bleeding edge, always rolling distro that will be in much better shape than Rawhide because OpenSuSE actually expects people to use it as a desktop OS as opposed to “it’s rawhide so it’s borked”.

Then there will be OpenSUSE 42, based on the SLE sources. People will be able to use it such as others do with CentOS and I would be amazed if OpenSuSE and SuSE don’t make it extremely easy to switch from 42 to the enterprise version where they can sell people support on a subscription basis.

To me, it looks like a very smart move.

• rbrownsuse comments on SSH Authentication with YubiKey | LAS 373

• openSUSE pushback

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Post Show:

• Theme Download: xPoke/MetroMumble for Mumble 1.2.x
• Theme Download: MetroMumble for Mumble 1.3.x · Renamed to “Mumble Theme” (or you may want to download the master branch)
• Mumble Wiki page for the new Themes system – edited by producer Michael Tunnell (RottN) to now include Linux details.
• JB Mumble Setup Tutorial

The post Will Flash Be Trashed? | LINUX Unplugged 101 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.