Home//Linux Format/June 2018/In This Issue
Linux Format|June 2018WHO WE AREJonni Bidwell I risked my work machine’s health and my own continued productivity/sanity by installing the daily image we used on our disc. These are the sacrifices I’m willing to make to ensure you glorious readers have a smooth cover disc experience. I’ve been keeping the image up to date and actually really like the new Ubuntu. But I still prefer Arch… Nick Peers Despite the name (Bionic Beaver? Really?), I shall be updating to Ubuntu 18.04. I’ll also be taking a fresh backup before doing so, because borked upgrades never end well and I’d prefer the security of a flawless roll-back option rather than having to unpick or reinstall from scratch. Les Pounder Ubuntu 18.04 is out and will I be upgrading? Well, yes. My trusty Lenovo X220 has…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Paint the town orangeI for one am genuinely excited by the latest release of Ubuntu. Canonical is no stranger to controversial decisions, but it feels recent moves – switching back to Gnome, abandoning convergence devices – have enabled it to focus on the core job of making Ubuntu as good as possible.Despite its comical Bionic Beaver codename, Ubuntu 18.04 will stand as the foundational basis for a plethora of Linux distros with support reaching out for five years. An untold number of servers will rely on its stability and support, while this release delivers the smallest footprint yet from its minimal install.On page 30 Linux Format’s own Bionic Bidwell will guide you through a smooth upgrade from older versions, a smooth install from scratch and a smooth guide around the all-important new features.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018EU copyright reforms for digital media sparks angerThe European Union has been looking to align its legislation with the copyright implications of the internet, with proposals known as the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. While some institutions have welcomed this, there’s also been concern. In her article, “Censorship machines are coming” (http://bit.ly/censorship-machines),Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament representing the Pirate Party outlines some of the objections. One of the most troubling aspects is the plan to introduce upload filters. According to Julia, Article 13, in conjunction with Recitals 38 and 39 of the proposed EU copyright reform, calls for internet platforms that are used to upload large amounts of content by its users, such as YouTube, or a photo-sharing website, to have to monitor user behaviour and filter future uploads to ensure…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Naughty Symantec caught outCompanies wanting to use Linux on an embedded device and sell it to consumers need to adhere to Linux’s GNU General Public License version 2 (http://bit.ly/gnu-public-license), which means agreeing to provide the source code for the device. It’s both a legal requirement and basic good manners. Sadly, many individuals and companies don’t adhere to this, and Symantec, the security company behind the Norton antivirus software, is one of them. Matthew Garrett, a Linux security programmer and Google engineer, noticed that Symantec’s Norton Core Router was running a Linux distro based on the QCA Software Development Kit project, which is an open-source platform based on OpenWRT (often used for router operating systems) and provided with the GPLv2 licence. The problem is that Symantec hasn’t provided the source code, and in the…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018IF THE CAP FITS…“We’ve long known that the year of the Linux desktop is never going to dawn. It’s not because Linux isn’t capable – far from it – but because things have changed.People don’t want Linux or Windows or Mac. They want applications: to write a letter, carry out a financial analysis, improve their sex appeal in a photo. Office 365, Google Apps… whatever.It’s the same on the server side of the fence. Businesses want to run their Docker container. They don’t care whether that’s on Azure, AWS, Google Cloud or in that noisy room down the corridor.The level of abstraction has just gone up. As one open source advocate and business leader said to me last week, “The operating system is becoming irrelevant”. Sure, there’ll always be the enthusiast, just as…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Valve confirms its OS gaming aimsValve is one of the most prominent names in PC gaming, and it has previously done a lot to support gaming on Linux, in the form of pre-built gaming PCs known as Steam Machines that run a customised Linux distro known as SteamOS, as well as encouraging ports of popular games to Linux. However, Valve’s decision to remove a link on its store’s front page to Steam Machines has led some people to worry that Valve is retreating from its support of Linux. Valve posted a defence of both Steam Machines and the future of gaming on Linux on its Steam Community forums (see http://bit.ly/steam-machines), insisting that the removal of any reference to Steam Machines was “a routine cleanup of the Steam Store navigation”, and that “while it’s true Steam…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Nvidia kills 32-bitNvidia has joined a growing list of hardware and software makers that are dropping support for 32-bit operating systems, halting GeForce graphics card driver support at the end of April 2018. This means owners of Nvidia tech running a 32-bit OS will lose out on future updates and fixes. Nvidia has also given a date for when it will cease security updates: January 2019. These changes will affect its range of GPUs, from high-end enthusiast cards to low-end Fermi models. While many gamers are unlikely to have an Nvidia GPU running on a 32-bit distro and hardware, people who don’t feel the need to keep up with the latest games, but still require a discrete graphics card, may find themselves out of luck. As hardware reviews site Phoronix.com points out,…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Distro watchFACEBOOK CONTAINER EXTENSIONFacebook’s handling of its users’ data has been under scrutiny recently, and if you’re concerned about what sort of information Facebook has on you, and how it’s being shared, then you’ll want to install Mozilla’s new Facebook Container Extension.With it installed, next time you visit the social network a new blue-coloured “container” tab will open, keeping your Facebook activity separate from your general web activity, and vice-versa. You can find out more at http://bit.ly/facebook-container-ex.RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 7.5The latest version of the enterprise-level distro by Red Hat is now available, and according to the release announcement (http://bit.ly/red-hat-enterprise), it comes with boosted security and compliance controls (thanks to OpenSCAP integration), as well as tools to reduce storage costs, and better integration with Microsoft’s Windows and Azure platforms.One change that’s…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018MailserverWindows MateI’ve been running Linux for some time. I usually buy your magazine at my local bookstore. Most of my current computers are a few years old and I’m pretty comfortable installing Linux on a Windows 7 box. But I really need to update my desktop and all of the new computers are running Windows 10.I’d like to see an article on any problems one might encounter buying a Windows 10 desktop and installing Linux on it. I don’t want to brick a perfectly good computer. I’m going to replace Windows since I normally use my desktop as a Samba and MySQL server. I’m running a Mint Mate box, but am open to moving to one of the other Mate distros.Terry HaimannNeil saysWe started running an “Escape Windows” issue a…8 min
Linux Format|June 2018LETTER OF THE MONTHPresentable usWe have an upcoming Linux Presentation Day Bristol 2018 event on Saturday 9 June, between 1pm and 6pm.It’s being held at the Ye Shakespeare Pub on Victoria Street. I was wondering if you could kindly give us a mention on the pages of Linux Format?Our Facebook presence for the event where most action is happening: http://facebook.com/LPDBristolUK.Our Twitter: http://twitter.com/LPDBristolUK.Linux Presentation Day UK: http://linux-presentation-day.org.uk.Bristol and Bath Linux User Group (the group we’re from): http://bristol.lug.org.uk.If you drop in to our free event in the backroom of the Ye Shakespeare Pub, Victoria Street Bristol BS1 6DR, 1pm to 6pm on Saturday 9 June 2018, then we can show you Linux distributions on laptops such as the popular Ubuntu and Fedora. You may even be able to pick up a free Linux USB drive…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018AnswersUbuntu two-step QI have a laptop that I use offline with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04 on it. Besides those two OS partitions, I have two other NTFS ones (for data and VMs). My 14.04 install hasn’t been updated since 2016. Am I right in thinking I can’t apt upgrade my 14.04 install after 18.04 is released? How can I upgrade smoothly to 18.04? I’m a newbie and don’t really want to have to format the Linux partition and reinstall everything. My Wi-Fi seems to have stopped working with the captive portal at my library – could this be because the distro hasn’t been updated in such a long time? Oliver, via the LXF forums AGood news, Oliver. Ubuntu 14.04 will be supported until April 2019– the LTS releases come…4 min
Linux Format|June 2018AnswersUbuntu two-stepQ I have a laptop that I use offline with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 14.04 on it. Besides those two OS partitions, I have two other NTFS ones (for data and VMs). My 14.04 install hasn’t been updated since 2016. Am I right in thinking I can’t apt upgrade my 14.04 install after 18.04 is released? How can I upgrade smoothly to 18.04?I’m a newbie and don’t really want to have to format the Linux partition and reinstall everything. My Wi-Fi seems to have stopped working with the captive portal at my library – could this be because the distro hasn’t been updated in such a long time?Oliver, via the LXF forumsA Good news, Oliver. Ubuntu 14.04 will be supported until April 2019– the LTS releases come with five…5 min
Linux Format|June 2018GET HELP NOW!We’d love to try and answer any questions you send to lxf.answers@futurenet.com, no matter what the level. We’ve all been stuck before, so don’t be shy. However, we’re only human (although many suspect Jonni is a robot), so it’s important that you include as much information as you can. If something works on one distro but not another, then tell us. If you get an error message, please tell us the exact message and precisely what you did to invoke it. If you have, or suspect, a hardware problem, let us know about the hardware. Consider installing hardinfo or lshw. These programs list the hardware on your machine, so send us their output. If you’re unwilling, or unable, to install these, run the following commands in a root terminal and…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018AMD Ryzen 3 2200GBudget builders have never been so spoiled. After years of marginal performance increases and terrible integrated graphics, we find ourselves handling chips that would have been high-end a year ago. We’re talking quad-core at decent stock frequencies, with capable integrated graphics.The Ryzen 3 2200G, like the 2400G (see LXF236), uses architecture more readily found on AMD’s discrete graphics cards to power the chip’s 3D graphical grunt. Where the top-end Vega 64 has 64 compute units and the 2400G has 11, here we’re dealing with just eight. That equates to a core configuration of 512 unified shaders, 32 texture mapping units and 16 render outputs.In real terms, this means you’re looking at between 30 and 60fps in reasonably up-to-date games at 1080p, with sufficient tweaking of the game settings. The integrated…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Zentyal 5.1With the current state of most modern desktop Linux distributions, it’s hard to imagine a time when one was required to manually provide the horizontal and vertical refresh rates for the monitor when configuring the system. You ran a very real risk of torching your monitor if you got the values wrong.While desktop distros have come a long way since, enabling users to complete the installation in a matter of minutes, using Linux to run servers is still a more involved process. Thankfully, projects like Zentyal are determined to provide a mechanism to put together a multi-faceted server with the least amount of hair pulled.Installation is fairly straightforward and involves little more than selecting the destination for the distribution and providing key details such as keymap and timezone. You can…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Before the StormThis teen drama has that challenge peculiar to prequels of having to provide the build-up to a story which managed fine without it. Before the Storm takes characters from Life is Strange and digs into their lives a few years prior. The main focus this time is Chloe Price – a gawky ball of unresolved grief, an exuder of teen rage and a serial player of hooky. We join her after the death of her father, William, just as class princess, Rachel Amber, crashes into her life.Before the Storm offers a more streamlined experience than its predecessor. It prioritises conversation over puzzle-solving and fleshes out the relationship which is at the root of most of the action in Life is Strange.Teen tropesOne of the things we loved about the original…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Content ManagementHOW WE TESTED…A CMS doesn’t require much more than a properly configured web server and database. You have many choices nowadays depending on the type of website that you wish to create. For this month’s Roundup we’re only interested in CMS options that can help you create a complete website, rather than the specialised ones that are dedicated to blogs and wikis.The choice of database, web server and scripting language makes little different to end users, but we’ve selected only PHP-based CMSs for this Roundup. Along with Apache web server, we’re using MySQL for our database.We’ll test the projects on the number of features that they offer out of the box, ease of installation and whether or not they support add-ons to extend their functionality. With ever-increasing number of people…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Device supportDuring his keynote speech at Drupalcon Chicago in 2011, Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, best summarised the importance of mobile devices for CMSs by observing that if he were to “start Drupal from scratch today, I’d build it for mobile experiences first, and desktop experience second.” This makes even more sense now that several recent studies have shown that upwards of 60 per cent users are relying on their mobile devices to access websites instead of desktops and laptops.Responsive web design ensures that websites render well on a variety of devices. Since April 2015, Google now penalises non-mobile-friendly websites and pages. Thankfully, all the CMSs on our list enable you to create responsive websites. This means that they support the different elements such as responsive themes and images. The…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Device supportDuring his keynote speech at Drupalcon Chicago in 2011, Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, best summarised the importance of mobile devices for CMSs by observing that if he were to “start Drupal from scratch today, I’d build it for mobile experiences first, and desktop experience second.” This makes even more sense now that several recent studies have shown that upwards of 60 per cent users are relying on their mobile devices to access websites instead of desktops and laptops. Responsive web design ensures that websites render well on a variety of devices. Since April 2015, Google now penalises non-mobile-friendly websites and pages. Thankfully, all the CMSs on our list enable you to create responsive websites. This means that they support the different elements such as responsive themes and images.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Documentation and supportApart from the official documentation and forum boards, the projects featured in this Roundup are so popular, you’ll easily find user-contributed tutorials and guides on a variety of topics. The older projects, like Drupal and Joomla, are also the subject of a book or two. CMS Made Simple impressed us the most with its documentation covering all the aspects of setting up the system for installation. The official documentation provides step-by-step instructions on installation and configuration and other essential topics such as upgrading, user management, navigating the layout and more. The forums are teeming with activity and apart from general and module specific discussions are also a good source for tips and tricks shared by the community members. The Exponent CMS documentation mentions the essential pre-installation steps, such as creating…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Essential featuresAll the CMSs offer extensive user control options which enable you to define the permissions for each registered user. You can also find additional access control extensions for all projects except CMSMS and Exponent. The projects also boast of additional security features such as blocking specified IP addresses and creating blacklists.It’s advisable to take some time getting to know a CMS before deciding if it’s the right one for you. Even if a CMS does all you want from it, you might still be dissatisfied with its administrative interface, or vice versa.We bring this up because Exponent CMS, although very capable, has a peculiar approach to website design. It identified all the elements of a typical website as a module. Blogs, forums, search forms, social media feed, and more are…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Essential featuresAll the CMSs offer extensive user control options which enable you to define the permissions for each registered user. You can also find additional access control extensions for all projects except CMSMS and Exponent. The projects also boast of additional security features such as blocking specified IP addresses and creating blacklists. It’s advisable to take some time getting to know a CMS before deciding if it’s the right one for you. Even if a CMS does all you want from it, you might still be dissatisfied with its administrative interface, or vice versa. We bring this up because Exponent CMS, although very capable, has a peculiar approach to website design. It identified all the elements of a typical website as a module. Blogs, forums, search forms, social media feed, and…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018CMS The VerdictThe Wikipedia page that lists Open Source Content Management Systems lists dozens of projects and selecting five test subjects for this month’s Roundup was a pretty tall order in itself. In addition to restricting ourselves to projects that saw a release recently, we also limited our focus to CMSs that could meet the needs of a number of different users, in different capacities. We wanted CMSs that were aimed at individuals, but could just as easily be used by small businesses and even schools. As websites grow with time, we also wanted our CMS to provide a means to back up the configuration and databases, and to even import it, if possible. Most important of all, perhaps, was the availability of plug-ins and the ease of deployment. With ever-increasing bandwidth…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018UBUNTU 18.04 GEAR UP!Quiet your busy mind for just a moment, dear reader, and tell us what you hear. The sound of swallows, swifts and wheatears returning to their northern breeding grounds? No, listen more closely. There’s a vaguely mechanical gnawing sound from the trees over yonder. That’s the sound of a bionic beaver, and possibly some gnomes too, and it can mean only one thing: the latest Ubuntu LTS release is here. As is tradition, our cover has been emblazoned orange, our disc editor has been kept up for days testing the daily builds, and Jonni won’t stop wittering on about Walpurgisnacht. But things have changed since the last LTS two years ago. Back then, there was excitement about Canonical’s bold desktop projects: Unity 8, Mir and convergence. Those have all been…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Getting to Gnome youYou may have heard terrible things about Gnome: that it’s a hypermodern desktop environment more suited to phones than PCs, that it forces you to learn abstruse key combinations, that it can’t be configured, that it’s written in JavaScript… the list goes on. Though none of these are really true, the prospect of learning a whole new desktop environment may be, to say the least, daunting.Don’t worry, though – Canonical has put a lot of effort into making Gnome friendly to people used to working in Unity. There’s the familiar colour scheme, app indicators, the signature font and window decorations and, of course, the characteristic left-hand launcher bar. You can even put icons on the desktop if you really want to. However, Canonical has been quite deliberate in not making…5 min
Linux Format|June 2018Getting to Gnome youYou may have heard terrible things about Gnome: that it’s a hypermodern desktop environment more suited to phones than PCs, that it forces you to learn abstruse key combinations, that it can’t be configured, that it’s written in JavaScript… the list goes on. Though none of these are really true, the prospect of learning a whole new desktop environment may be, to say the least, daunting. Don’t worry, though – Canonical has put a lot of effort into making Gnome friendly to people used to working in Unity. There’s the familiar colour scheme, app indicators, the signature font and window decorations and, of course, the characteristic left-hand launcher bar. You can even put icons on the desktop if you really want to. However, Canonical has been quite deliberate in not…5 min
Linux Format|June 2018Flavours and spin-offsFirst came Ubuntu (2004) and then, one year later came Kubuntu, because KDE fans wanted the Ubuntu system under their desktop of choice. Other flavours followed, some of these don’t have a release this cycle, and some are no more (such as Ubuntu Gnome). But here’s a summary of our favourites.Ubuntu BudgieBudgie is up-and-coming distro Solus OS’s desktop, and it’s the newest addition to the Ubuntu flavour family. It strives to be “a clean and… powerful desktop without unnecessary bloat”. One of its proudest features is the Raven sidebar, which makes it possible to configure elements without having to go hunting around in settings applets. This is hidden by default in this release, but is accessible from an icon in the top right. By default the Raven bar houses a…5 min
Linux Format|June 2018THE WIDER UBUNTU ECOSYSTEMBesides the official flavours, Ubuntu provides the basis for a number of popular derivative distributions, many of which will be releasing updates soon. The most popular is Linux Mint, and we look forward very much to Mint 19, which hopefully will be released in June. We were nothing but impressed with Mint 18 (see LXF214), where we saw Mint start to move away from Gnome applications, launching its own desktop-agnostic X-apps. The goal here is to avoid the new GTK3 stylings, most notably headerbars, which broke from tradition. The rather beautiful ElementaryOS will be getting a version bump from 0.4 to 5.0, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Apart from confounding our ideas about how versioning should work, this reflects elementary’s growing maturity and stability. Like Mint, the team are working…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Next-generation UbuntuKernel 4.14 is an LTS release too, so the kernel team will support it for at least five years. The plan was to use this for Ubuntu, but since 4.15 was released in January, and makes working with the ever-evolving KPTI patches for Spectre/Meltdown somewhat easier than the backported solutions, it was decided to use 4.15 for Ubuntu. Kernel 4.15 has been one of the busiest releases for a long time. Besides frantic patching of Spectre and Meltdown, it also includes many exciting new features. After extensive reworking, AMD’s DC (Display Code) layer has landed, which means owners of Vega and Raven Ridge series cards (including the 2200G reviewed on page 18) can use the open source AMDGPU driver without relying on a custom kernel. It also enables that driver…6 min
Linux Format|June 2018PROGRESSIVE SESSIONSThomas Sigdestad is CTO and co-founder of Enonic, a company that’s grown from humble beginnings in a garage in downtown Oslo to one of Norway’s most successful open source companies. It had the bold idea of providing people with something useful and usable during the dotcom boom, and that remains very much part of its strategy today. We caught up with him at the O’Reilly Software Architecture 2017 conference in London to talk about the future of cross platform applications: progressive web apps. You may not have heard of them, but the chances are, if you’ve gone anywhere near a major website recently, that you’ve already used one. New technologies enable web browsers to do all kinds of things – things that hitherto were strictly the preserve of native applications.…13 min
Linux Format|June 2018Getting You Started KitThe Raspberry Pi is the perfect platform for hardware experimentation. That’s sort of the point. But how many of those ubiquitous mini boards are being run with absolutely nothing done with their headers? We’d wager it’s the vast majority – and, as Maker Life’s most basic kit so ably shows, it’s not actually that tricky to drive outputs and read inputs, either from a hardware or code standpoint.The Getting You Started Kit comes with literally everything you might need to, well, get started with the business of driving electronics. There’s a Raspberry Pi Zero W, a Noobs-loaded MicroSD card, all the cables and adapters required to get it powered and hooked up to a monitor and peripherals, and a small selection of components.Small is the operative word here. This isn’t…4 min
Linux Format|June 2018WHO WE AREJonni BidwellI risked my work machine’s health and my own continued productivity/sanity by installing the daily image we used on our disc. These are the sacrifices I’m willing to make to ensure you glorious readers have a smooth cover disc experience. I’ve been keeping the image up to date and actually really like the new Ubuntu. But I still prefer Arch…Nick PeersDespite the name (Bionic Beaver? Really?), I shall be updating to Ubuntu 18.04. I’ll also be taking a fresh backup before doing so, because borked upgrades never end well and I’d prefer the security of a flawless roll-back option rather than having to unpick or reinstall from scratch.Les PounderUbuntu 18.04 is out and will I be upgrading? Well, yes. My trusty Lenovo X220 has been rocking 16.04 since release…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Google vs Oracle: the struggle is real!The battle between Google and Oracle over whether Google used Oracle’s intellectual property when using Java to build the Android platform has added a new chapter to the sorry tale, with an appeals court recently siding with Oracle. If you’ve missed this back and forth over the past eight years, Oracle claims that Google’s Android operating system infringes on two patents that relate to its Java language, while Google maintains that it should have been able to use Java for free considering that the 11,500 lines of code that are claimed to have been copied are insignificant compared to the millions of lines of code that makes up Android. In 2012 a jury decided that Java isn’t protected under copyright law, but in 2014 an appeals court rejected that decision,…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018EU copyright reforms for digital media sparks angerThe European Union has been looking to align its legislation with the copyright implications of the internet, with proposals known as the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. While some institutions have welcomed this, there’s also been concern.In her article, “Censorship machines are coming” (http://bit.ly/censorship-machines),Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament representing the Pirate Party outlines some of the objections. One of the most troubling aspects is the plan to introduce upload filters. According to Julia, Article 13, in conjunction with Recitals 38 and 39 of the proposed EU copyright reform, calls for internet platforms that are used to upload large amounts of content by its users, such as YouTube, or a photo-sharing website, to have to monitor user behaviour and filter future uploads to ensure that…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018SECURE VIDEO COMES OF AGE“Launched by Haivision in 2017, and freely available on GitHub via the Mozilla Public License 2.0, SRT is an innovative UDPbased protocol enabling high-quality, low-latency video streaming across unpredictable networks.With secure, end-to-end AES encryption, optimised packet retransmission and controllable buffering, SRT leverages the best of IP standard attributes while maintaining compatibility to traditional UDP-based broadcast and streaming workflows. Its main purpose is to send live TV streams across the internet, for example, to upload to streaming services as a low latency RTMP replacement.While an SRT Alliance was also formed to support its implementation, the open source nature of SRT played a key role in driving its adoption in both the community and end users.Thanks to collaborative development, initial support for SRT has already made its way into the latest releases…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018IF THE CAP FITS…“We’ve long known that the year of the Linux desktop is never going to dawn. It’s not because Linux isn’t capable – far from it – but because things have changed. People don’t want Linux or Windows or Mac. They want applications: to write a letter, carry out a financial analysis, improve their sex appeal in a photo. Office 365, Google Apps… whatever. It’s the same on the server side of the fence. Businesses want to run their Docker container. They don’t care whether that’s on Azure, AWS, Google Cloud or in that noisy room down the corridor. The level of abstraction has just gone up. As one open source advocate and business leader said to me last week, “The operating system is becoming irrelevant”. Sure, there’ll always be the…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Mintbox boostWhile Valve is having trouble shifting its compact Linux-toting PCs (see above), Linux Mint has had more success with the Mintbox Mini, and it has now revealed the Minitbox Mini 2, available to buy in June. This new version ditches the AMD A4 Micro-6400T processor for an Intel Celeron J3455, which brings a four-fold increase in performance, and over twice the performance of the Mintbox Mini Pro. It also gets 802.11ac wireless support, Bluetooth and a new fanless design for £211, which is only $4 more than the original. There’s also a Mini Pro 2, which comes with 8GB RAM and a 120GB SSD, which will go on sale for £207. You can find out more about the device at http://bit.ly/mintbox-mini-2.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Nvidia kills 32-bitNvidia has joined a growing list of hardware and software makers that are dropping support for 32-bit operating systems, halting GeForce graphics card driver support at the end of April 2018. This means owners of Nvidia tech running a 32-bit OS will lose out on future updates and fixes.Nvidia has also given a date for when it will cease security updates: January 2019. These changes will affect its range of GPUs, from high-end enthusiast cards to low-end Fermi models. While many gamers are unlikely to have an Nvidia GPU running on a 32-bit distro and hardware, people who don’t feel the need to keep up with the latest games, but still require a discrete graphics card, may find themselves out of luck.As hardware reviews site Phoronix.com points out, however (http://bit.ly/nvidia-32-bitend),…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018MailserverWindows Mate I’ve been running Linux for some time. I usually buy your magazine at my local bookstore. Most of my current computers are a few years old and I’m pretty comfortable installing Linux on a Windows 7 box. But I really need to update my desktop and all of the new computers are running Windows 10. I’d like to see an article on any problems one might encounter buying a Windows 10 desktop and installing Linux on it. I don’t want to brick a perfectly good computer. I’m going to replace Windows since I normally use my desktop as a Samba and MySQL server. I’m running a Mint Mate box, but am open to moving to one of the other Mate distros. Terry Haimann Neil says We started running…7 min
Linux Format|June 2018LINUX USER GROUPSFIND AND JOIN A LUGAlpinux, le LUG de Savoie Meets on the first and third Thursday of the month at the Maison des Associations de Chambéry, France. www.alpinux.orgBuild Brighton Thursday evenings is open night. www.buildbrighton.comSandbox Sandbox Digital, 5 Brasenose Road, Liverpool L20 8HL. Open maker night is Tuesday 6-9. Kids clubs are Monday (six to eight years) and Wednesday (eight to 12 years). www.sandboxdigital.co.ukLeeds Hackspace Open night every Tuesday 7pm-late, open day second Saturday of the month, 11am-4pm. www.leedshackspace.org.ukHorsham Raspberry Jam Park side, Chart Way, Horsham. www.facebook.com/hackhorsham rLab Reading Hackspace Unit C1, Weldale Street, Reading. Open sessions held on Wednesdays from 7pm. http://rlab.org.ukHuddersfield Raspberry Jam Meet every month at Huddersfield Library, typically the fourth Saturday of each month. www.huddersfieldraspberryjam.co.ukMedway Makers 12 Dunlin Drive, St Mary’s Island, Chatham, ME2 3JE. www.medwaymakers.comCornwall…4 min
Linux Format|June 2018BALL AND (KEY) CHAINQ Last features year of I was various looking Linux at the distributions and I heard somewhere (DistroWatch, Linux Format or maybe even YouTube) of a distribution that had the equivalent of Apple’s Mac OS Keychain built in, but unfortunately I can’t remember which one it was. Can you help?Charles Keane, via emailA I don’t recall ever seeing such a distribution, or indeed why a distro would seek to emulate Apple’s tool on Linux. The Seahorse (also known as Passwords and Keys) utility for Gnome does an excellent job of managing keys (GPG and SSH), passwords and certificates. Maybe this is what you saw?KDE Plasma has its own Kwallet, which does a similar task, but this has a habit of being slightly buggy and also has a tendency of forgetting…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018ORTHOGRAPHICAL ODDITIESQ I have an embarrassing problem. When I use LibreOffice in KDE Plasma, spell checking doesn’t work. At first I thought this was just my impeccable spelling, but colleagues started laughing at my work. Obviously, incorrectly spelt words are not underlined, and when I invoke the check manually it just says “The spelling check is complete”, oblivious to my errors. If I dig around in the options, I can see some dictionaries installed, but in the actual Spelling dialog, the Text Language drop-down is blank. I’m using Arch, and have installed what I assume are all the required packages – hunspell, hunspell-en and hunspell-en_GB – but to no effect. I know I have my system locale set up correctly (via /etc/locale.conf), which is confirmed when I run localectl on a…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018GET HELP NOW!We’d love to try and answer any questions you send to lxf.answers@futurenet.com, no matter what the level. We’ve all been stuck before, so don’t be shy. However, we’re only human (although many suspect Jonni is a robot), so it’s important that you include as much information as you can. If something works on one distro but not another, then tell us. If you get an error message, please tell us the exact message and precisely what you did to invoke it.If you have, or suspect, a hardware problem, let us know about the hardware. Consider installing hardinfo or lshw. These programs list the hardware on your machine, so send us their output. If you’re unwilling, or unable, to install these, run the following commands in a root terminal and send…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Intel Optane SSD 800pWe have our hands on Intel’s first mainstream SSD for PCs based on its 3D XPoint tech (see LXF232), the Intel Optane SSD 800p. But what’s this? Sequential reads of 1,450MB/s? Writes of just 640MB/s? AIOPs at just 250K read and 140K for writes? All of this is falling well short of the pre-release marketing hype. What’s going on? It’s complicated… We found the 800p to be unremarkable by conventional SSD standards, and a major letdown given the hype that accompanied 3D XPoint. Sequential throughput is pretty much in line with Intel’s claims, and thus miles off the fastest NAND-based SSDs. Granted, Intel has gone with a dual-lane PCI Express interface for the 800p, which limits peak transfer performance compared to high-end NAND drives with quad-lane interfaces, but that’s clearly…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Zentyal 5.1With the current state of most modern desktop Linux distributions, it’s hard to imagine a time when one was required to manually provide the horizontal and vertical refresh rates for the monitor when configuring the system. You ran a very real risk of torching your monitor if you got the values wrong. While desktop distros have come a long way since, enabling users to complete the installation in a matter of minutes, using Linux to run servers is still a more involved process. Thankfully, projects like Zentyal are determined to provide a mechanism to put together a multi-faceted server with the least amount of hair pulled. Installation is fairly straightforward and involves little more than selecting the destination for the distribution and providing key details such as keymap and timezone.…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018MX Linux 17.1According to several studies, the human brain is much quicker to form negative conclusions than develop a positive opinion. You can experience this phenomenon yourself when you try a new beer or come across yet another Nicholas Cage film. If you’re impatient, you can find out this reviewers thoughts about MX Linux by glancing at the verdict box. The latest release of MX Linux is based on Debian Stable, but the project started when the Mepis and antiX communities came together. But don’t let its ancestry cloud your judgement. The distribution ships live installable ISO images for 32- and 64-bit images. Along with XFCE desktop, the distribution boasts of a large selection of applications out of the box, including essential office and multimedia software, and even a handful of games.…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Ease of deploymentWith an ever-increasing number of forks and alternatives popping up, users have the choice of several web servers and DBMS software to choose from. Most of the CMSs are quite happy if you provide them with the supported instances of Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP.Although you don’t have to master any of these to install and use a CMS, you must be familiar with a few key concepts so as to prepare the environment for installation. In addition to the software, most CMSs also require specific libraries to be installed and enabled on PHP.At a minimum, you’re required to create a database and a user for managing the said database, because you’re asked to provide this information during the installation. All the CMSs in our list feature a…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Documentation and supportApart from the official documentation and forum boards, the projects featured in this Roundup are so popular, you’ll easily find user-contributed tutorials and guides on a variety of topics. The older projects, like Drupal and Joomla, are also the subject of a book or two.CMS Made Simple impressed us the most with its documentation covering all the aspects of setting up the system for installation. The official documentation provides step-by-step instructions on installation and configuration and other essential topics such as upgrading, user management, navigating the layout and more. The forums are teeming with activity and apart from general and module specific discussions are also a good source for tips and tricks shared by the community members.The Exponent CMS documentation mentions the essential pre-installation steps, such as creating a database…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018The user experienceCMSs are designed to serve one function: help you create a website with the minimum hassle. Once installed, a CMS shouldn’t get in the way of content creation. But a CMS is a complex piece of software. The sheer number of elements and configurable options for a typical modern website makes administration a difficult task. A good CMS must find the right balance between pleasing users and administrators alike. From creating users and managing their permissions, to extending functionality with add-ons and performing maintenance tasks such as backups and updates, the administration interface must find a way to help you navigate between the elements logically. Whether it’s with the help of a sidebar, or tiles on the Dashboard or via drop-down menus on the top bar, the CMSs on our…4 min
Linux Format|June 2018ALSO CONSIDERThere are a vast number of specialised CMSs that we couldn’t cover in this Roundup. One that we found quite attractive was Wagtail. Written in Python, the project uses the Django framework and claims to be built by developers for developers. This was reason enough to not consider it for inclusion, and its documentation, which is at times outdated, sealed its fate.We also didn’t want a CMS dedicated solely to e-commerce, but if that’s what you’re after then you should consider WebGUI, which is written in Perl, but hasn’t seen a new release in over two years.If you want to set up a CMS without having to create a database first, you might want to explore CMSimple, which stores content in HTML files, and doesn’t require a database. The project…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018ALSO CONSIDERThere are a vast number of specialised CMSs that we couldn’t cover in this Roundup. One that we found quite attractive was Wagtail. Written in Python, the project uses the Django framework and claims to be built by developers for developers. This was reason enough to not consider it for inclusion, and its documentation, which is at times outdated, sealed its fate. We also didn’t want a CMS dedicated solely to e-commerce, but if that’s what you’re after then you should consider WebGUI, which is written in Perl, but hasn’t seen a new release in over two years. If you want to set up a CMS without having to create a database first, you might want to explore CMSimple, which stores content in HTML files, and doesn’t require a database.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018INSTALL UBUNTU1 Download the official ISOIf you re short on bandwidth and already running Linux, copy the ISO from our disc (it’s in the Ubuntu/ directory), install zsync and update the ISO:Now write the new image to disc or USB.2 Boot the live mediumInsert your disc or USB drive into the appropriate place and then boot your machine. The official image will work with secure boot (note that our disc will not), but finding the magic key to summon the boot menu or UEFI settings may take some trial and error on your part. F2, F10 and Del are common options. Mac users should hold down C. Select the optical drive or USB and then choose ‘Try Ubuntu without installing’.3 Test and installCheck as much of your hardware as possible from…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018INSTALL UBUNTU1 Download the official ISO If you re short on bandwidth and already running Linux, copy the ISO from our disc (it’s in the Ubuntu/ directory), install zsync and update the ISO: Now write the new image to disc or USB. 2 Boot the live medium Insert your disc or USB drive into the appropriate place and then boot your machine. The official image will work with secure boot (note that our disc will not), but finding the magic key to summon the boot menu or UEFI settings may take some trial and error on your part. F2, F10 and Del are common options. Mac users should hold down C. Select the optical drive or USB and then choose ‘Try Ubuntu without installing’. 3 Test and install Check as much…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018THE WIDER UBUNTU ECOSYSTEMBesides the official flavours, Ubuntu provides the basis for a number of popular derivative distributions, many of which will be releasing updates soon. The most popular is Linux Mint, and we look forward very much to Mint 19, which hopefully will be released in June. We were nothing but impressed with Mint 18 (see LXF214), where we saw Mint start to move away from Gnome applications, launching its own desktop-agnostic X-apps. The goal here is to avoid the new GTK3 stylings, most notably headerbars, which broke from tradition.The rather beautiful ElementaryOS will be getting a version bump from 0.4 to 5.0, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Apart from confounding our ideas about how versioning should work, this reflects elementary’s growing maturity and stability. Like Mint, the team are working on…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Flavours and spin-offsFirst came Ubuntu (2004) and then, one year later came Kubuntu, because KDE fans wanted the Ubuntu system under their desktop of choice. Other flavours followed, some of these don’t have a release this cycle, and some are no more (such as Ubuntu Gnome). But here’s a summary of our favourites. Ubuntu Budgie Budgie is up-and-coming distro Solus OS’s desktop, and it’s the newest addition to the Ubuntu flavour family. It strives to be “a clean and… powerful desktop without unnecessary bloat”. One of its proudest features is the Raven sidebar, which makes it possible to configure elements without having to go hunting around in settings applets. This is hidden by default in this release, but is accessible from an icon in the top right. By default the Raven bar…5 min
Linux Format|June 2018BEYOND THE DESKTOPWe’ve focused on the desktop side of things, but this isn’t how Canonical makes its money and is far from the whole Ubuntu story.Ubuntu Core is Canonical’s diminutive distro that’s designed for constrained devices, particularly IoT things, and containers. Core uses the same kernel as desktop and server Ubuntu, and leverages Snap packages to provide smooth and secure installations, and upgrades. Canonical is hoping that Ubuntu Core will become popular for Edge (or Fog) computing. This is the boundary between the cloud and real world devices, where devices sit on the edge of low-powered (for example, sensor) networks and marshall their data to the cloud.Sometimes less is more, and this adage ne’er rang truer than for containers, embedded systems and IoT. To this end, Canonical now provides a minimal image…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018BEYOND THE DESKTOPWe’ve focused on the desktop side of things, but this isn’t how Canonical makes its money and is far from the whole Ubuntu story. Ubuntu Core is Canonical’s diminutive distro that’s designed for constrained devices, particularly IoT things, and containers. Core uses the same kernel as desktop and server Ubuntu, and leverages Snap packages to provide smooth and secure installations, and upgrades. Canonical is hoping that Ubuntu Core will become popular for Edge (or Fog) computing. This is the boundary between the cloud and real world devices, where devices sit on the edge of low-powered (for example, sensor) networks and marshall their data to the cloud. Sometimes less is more, and this adage ne’er rang truer than for containers, embedded systems and IoT. To this end, Canonical now provides a…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Quantum ComputingQuantum computing has caught the attention of large companies, academics and hobbyists. This article will cover the history, the different ways to make a quantum computer and the logic behind programming. You’ll also learn about some programming toolkits that you can use to get started.To run a quantum computer, the physics has to be understood so programmers can then manipulate and measure the final results. Scientists have observed quantum effects in photons, electrons and isotopes of many materials. This means engineers use superconducting materials such as niobium and aluminium to construct workable quantum computing systems.The logic gates are made of silicon wafers and are controlled using microwave emitters. These solutions may not be the best in the long run, but they’re the ones that are running now. To use quantum…10 min
Linux Format|June 2018ENCRYPTION MAY BE AT RISKOne big question is whether encryption systems are at risk with quantum computers. The major concern is the RSA encryption scheme. The scheme is secure because it relies on the condition that factoring a large number into its primes is too time-consuming. When trying to find the prime numbers, there are many strategies, so the simplest one is to guess and try. A trial and error approach isn’t practical, though, since a 2,048 bit number will have millions of solutions. Some strategies can reduce the number of possible solutions, but even the most powerful methods will take years or millions of years. With the right algorithms, a quantum computer could reduce that time to a practical level. Efforts are underway to create other algorithms that aren’t breakable this way.While this…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Quantum ComputingQuantum computing has caught the attention of large companies, academics and hobbyists. This article will cover the history, the different ways to make a quantum computer and the logic behind programming. You’ll also learn about some programming toolkits that you can use to get started. To run a quantum computer, the physics has to be understood so programmers can then manipulate and measure the final results. Scientists have observed quantum effects in photons, electrons and isotopes of many materials. This means engineers use superconducting materials such as niobium and aluminium to construct workable quantum computing systems. The logic gates are made of silicon wafers and are controlled using microwave emitters. These solutions may not be the best in the long run, but they’re the ones that are running now. To…10 min
Linux Format|June 2018ENCRYPTION MAY BE AT RISKOne big question is whether encryption systems are at risk with quantum computers. The major concern is the RSA encryption scheme. The scheme is secure because it relies on the condition that factoring a large number into its primes is too time-consuming. When trying to find the prime numbers, there are many strategies, so the simplest one is to guess and try. A trial and error approach isn’t practical, though, since a 2,048 bit number will have millions of solutions. Some strategies can reduce the number of possible solutions, but even the most powerful methods will take years or millions of years. With the right algorithms, a quantum computer could reduce that time to a practical level. Efforts are underway to create other algorithms that aren’t breakable this way. While…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018SPREADING THE WORDIt’s a weird joy when someone says “Raspberry Pi? Never heard of it”. You get to show them what’s possible, what people are doing, all the projects, the joy. It’s rare to find someone who can’t suddenly see a way it can make a positive difference.From simple servers, old-skool arcade machines and media centres to providing education and science where it’s needed most, but hasn’t been delivered before because it was too hard or too expensive.But hey, not everyone learns the way you do, or may like the way you do things. That’s okay, because somewhere in the fluffy clouds of the Raspberry Pi community are 10 people doing things 10 different ways, just itching to tell people all about the things they can make and how to do it.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Paint the town orangeI for one am genuinely excited by the latest release of Ubuntu. Canonical is no stranger to controversial decisions, but it feels recent moves – switching back to Gnome, abandoning convergence devices – have enabled it to focus on the core job of making Ubuntu as good as possible. Despite its comical Bionic Beaver codename, Ubuntu 18.04 will stand as the foundational basis for a plethora of Linux distros with support reaching out for five years. An untold number of servers will rely on its stability and support, while this release delivers the smallest footprint yet from its minimal install. On page 30 Linux Format’s own Bionic Bidwell will guide you through a smooth upgrade from older versions, a smooth install from scratch and a smooth guide around the all-important…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Google vs Oracle: the struggle is real!The battle between Google and Oracle over whether Google used Oracle’s intellectual property when using Java to build the Android platform has added a new chapter to the sorry tale, with an appeals court recently siding with Oracle.If you’ve missed this back and forth over the past eight years, Oracle claims that Google’s Android operating system infringes on two patents that relate to its Java language, while Google maintains that it should have been able to use Java for free considering that the 11,500 lines of code that are claimed to have been copied are insignificant compared to the millions of lines of code that makes up Android. In 2012 a jury decided that Java isn’t protected under copyright law, but in 2014 an appeals court rejected that decision, suggesting…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Naughty Symantec caught outCompanies wanting to use Linux on an embedded device and sell it to consumers need to adhere to Linux’s GNU General Public License version 2 (http://bit.ly/gnu-public-license), which means agreeing to provide the source code for the device. It’s both a legal requirement and basic good manners.Sadly, many individuals and companies don’t adhere to this, and Symantec, the security company behind the Norton antivirus software, is one of them. Matthew Garrett, a Linux security programmer and Google engineer, noticed that Symantec’s Norton Core Router was running a Linux distro based on the QCA Software Development Kit project, which is an open-source platform based on OpenWRT (often used for router operating systems) and provided with the GPLv2 licence.The problem is that Symantec hasn’t provided the source code, and in the documentation for…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018SECURE VIDEO COMES OF AGE“Launched by Haivision in 2017, and freely available on GitHub via the Mozilla Public License 2.0, SRT is an innovative UDPbased protocol enabling high-quality, low-latency video streaming across unpredictable networks. With secure, end-to-end AES encryption, optimised packet retransmission and controllable buffering, SRT leverages the best of IP standard attributes while maintaining compatibility to traditional UDP-based broadcast and streaming workflows. Its main purpose is to send live TV streams across the internet, for example, to upload to streaming services as a low latency RTMP replacement. While an SRT Alliance was also formed to support its implementation, the open source nature of SRT played a key role in driving its adoption in both the community and end users. Thanks to collaborative development, initial support for SRT has already made its way into…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Valve confirms its OS gaming aimsValve is one of the most prominent names in PC gaming, and it has previously done a lot to support gaming on Linux, in the form of pre-built gaming PCs known as Steam Machines that run a customised Linux distro known as SteamOS, as well as encouraging ports of popular games to Linux.However, Valve’s decision to remove a link on its store’s front page to Steam Machines has led some people to worry that Valve is retreating from its support of Linux. Valve posted a defence of both Steam Machines and the future of gaming on Linux on its Steam Community forums (see http://bit.ly/steam-machines), insisting that the removal of any reference to Steam Machines was “a routine cleanup of the Steam Store navigation”, and that “while it’s true Steam Machines…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Mintbox boostWhile Valve is having trouble shifting its compact Linux-toting PCs (see above), Linux Mint has had more success with the Mintbox Mini, and it has now revealed the Minitbox Mini 2, available to buy in June.This new version ditches the AMD A4 Micro-6400T processor for an Intel Celeron J3455, which brings a four-fold increase in performance, and over twice the performance of the Mintbox Mini Pro. It also gets 802.11ac wireless support, Bluetooth and a new fanless design for £211, which is only $4 more than the original. There’s also a Mini Pro 2, which comes with 8GB RAM and a 120GB SSD, which will go on sale for £207.You can find out more about the device at http://bit.ly/mintbox-mini-2.…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Distro watchFACEBOOK CONTAINER EXTENSION Facebook’s handling of its users’ data has been under scrutiny recently, and if you’re concerned about what sort of information Facebook has on you, and how it’s being shared, then you’ll want to install Mozilla’s new Facebook Container Extension. With it installed, next time you visit the social network a new blue-coloured “container” tab will open, keeping your Facebook activity separate from your general web activity, and vice-versa. You can find out more at http://bit.ly/facebook-container-ex. RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 7.5 The latest version of the enterprise-level distro by Red Hat is now available, and according to the release announcement (http://bit.ly/red-hat-enterprise), it comes with boosted security and compliance controls (thanks to OpenSCAP integration), as well as tools to reduce storage costs, and better integration with Microsoft’s Windows and…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018LETTER OF THE MONTHPresentable us We have an upcoming Linux Presentation Day Bristol 2018 event on Saturday 9 June, between 1pm and 6pm. It’s being held at the Ye Shakespeare Pub on Victoria Street. I was wondering if you could kindly give us a mention on the pages of Linux Format? Our Facebook presence for the event where most action is happening: http://facebook.com/LPDBristolUK. Our Twitter: http://twitter.com/LPDBristolUK. Linux Presentation Day UK: http://linux-presentation-day.org.uk. Bristol and Bath Linux User Group (the group we’re from): http://bristol.lug.org.uk. If you drop in to our free event in the backroom of the Ye Shakespeare Pub, Victoria Street Bristol BS1 6DR, 1pm to 6pm on Saturday 9 June 2018, then we can show you Linux distributions on laptops such as the popular Ubuntu and Fedora. You may even be able to…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018LINUX USER GROUPSFIND AND JOIN A LUG Alpinux, le LUG de Savoie Meets on the first and third Thursday of the month at the Maison des Associations de Chambéry, France. www.alpinux.org Build Brighton Thursday evenings is open night. www.buildbrighton.com Sandbox Sandbox Digital, 5 Brasenose Road, Liverpool L20 8HL. Open maker night is Tuesday 6-9. Kids clubs are Monday (six to eight years) and Wednesday (eight to 12 years). www.sandboxdigital.co.uk Leeds Hackspace Open night every Tuesday 7pm-late, open day second Saturday of the month, 11am-4pm. www.leedshackspace.org.uk Horsham Raspberry Jam Park side, Chart Way, Horsham. www.facebook.com/hackhorshamrLab Reading Hackspace Unit C1, Weldale Street, Reading. Open sessions held on Wednesdays from 7pm. http://rlab.org.uk Huddersfield Raspberry Jam Meet every month at Huddersfield Library, typically the fourth Saturday of each month. www.huddersfieldraspberryjam.co.uk Medway Makers 12 Dunlin Drive, St…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018BALL AND (KEY) CHAINQ Last features year of I was various looking Linux at the distributions and I heard somewhere (DistroWatch, Linux Format or maybe even YouTube) of a distribution that had the equivalent of Apple’s Mac OS Keychain built in, but unfortunately I can’t remember which one it was. Can you help? Charles Keane, via email A I don’t recall ever seeing such a distribution, or indeed why a distro would seek to emulate Apple’s tool on Linux. The Seahorse (also known as Passwords and Keys) utility for Gnome does an excellent job of managing keys (GPG and SSH), passwords and certificates. Maybe this is what you saw? KDE Plasma has its own Kwallet, which does a similar task, but this has a habit of being slightly buggy and also has a…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018ORTHOGRAPHICAL ODDITIESQ I have an embarrassing problem. When I use LibreOffice in KDE Plasma, spell checking doesn’t work. At first I thought this was just my impeccable spelling, but colleagues started laughing at my work. Obviously, incorrectly spelt words are not underlined, and when I invoke the check manually it just says “The spelling check is complete”, oblivious to my errors. If I dig around in the options, I can see some dictionaries installed, but in the actual Spelling dialog, the Text Language drop-down is blank. I’m using Arch, and have installed what I assume are all the required packages – hunspell, hunspell-en and hunspell-en_GB – but to no effect.I know I have my system locale set up correctly (via /etc/locale.conf), which is confirmed when I run localectl on a TTY,…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Intel Optane SSD 800pWe have our hands on Intel’s first mainstream SSD for PCs based on its 3D XPoint tech (see LXF232), the Intel Optane SSD 800p. But what’s this? Sequential reads of 1,450MB/s? Writes of just 640MB/s? AIOPs at just 250K read and 140K for writes? All of this is falling well short of the pre-release marketing hype. What’s going on? It’s complicated…We found the 800p to be unremarkable by conventional SSD standards, and a major letdown given the hype that accompanied 3D XPoint. Sequential throughput is pretty much in line with Intel’s claims, and thus miles off the fastest NAND-based SSDs.Granted, Intel has gone with a dual-lane PCI Express interface for the 800p, which limits peak transfer performance compared to high-end NAND drives with quad-lane interfaces, but that’s clearly not what’s…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018AMD Ryzen 3 2200GBudget builders have never been so spoiled. After years of marginal performance increases and terrible integrated graphics, we find ourselves handling chips that would have been high-end a year ago. We’re talking quad-core at decent stock frequencies, with capable integrated graphics. The Ryzen 3 2200G, like the 2400G (see LXF236), uses architecture more readily found on AMD’s discrete graphics cards to power the chip’s 3D graphical grunt. Where the top-end Vega 64 has 64 compute units and the 2400G has 11, here we’re dealing with just eight. That equates to a core configuration of 512 unified shaders, 32 texture mapping units and 16 render outputs. In real terms, this means you’re looking at between 30 and 60fps in reasonably up-to-date games at 1080p, with sufficient tweaking of the game settings.…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018MX Linux 17.1According to several studies, the human brain is much quicker to form negative conclusions than develop a positive opinion. You can experience this phenomenon yourself when you try a new beer or come across yet another Nicholas Cage film. If you’re impatient, you can find out this reviewers thoughts about MX Linux by glancing at the verdict box.The latest release of MX Linux is based on Debian Stable, but the project started when the Mepis and antiX communities came together. But don’t let its ancestry cloud your judgement. The distribution ships live installable ISO images for 32- and 64-bit images. Along with XFCE desktop, the distribution boasts of a large selection of applications out of the box, including essential office and multimedia software, and even a handful of games.You can…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Before the StormThis teen drama has that challenge peculiar to prequels of having to provide the build-up to a story which managed fine without it. Before the Storm takes characters from Life is Strange and digs into their lives a few years prior. The main focus this time is Chloe Price – a gawky ball of unresolved grief, an exuder of teen rage and a serial player of hooky. We join her after the death of her father, William, just as class princess, Rachel Amber, crashes into her life. Before the Storm offers a more streamlined experience than its predecessor. It prioritises conversation over puzzle-solving and fleshes out the relationship which is at the root of most of the action in Life is Strange. Teen tropes One of the things we loved…3 min
Linux Format|June 2018Content ManagementHOW WE TESTED… A CMS doesn’t require much more than a properly configured web server and database. You have many choices nowadays depending on the type of website that you wish to create. For this month’s Roundup we’re only interested in CMS options that can help you create a complete website, rather than the specialised ones that are dedicated to blogs and wikis. The choice of database, web server and scripting language makes little different to end users, but we’ve selected only PHP-based CMSs for this Roundup. Along with Apache web server, we’re using MySQL for our database. We’ll test the projects on the number of features that they offer out of the box, ease of installation and whether or not they support add-ons to extend their functionality. With ever-increasing…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Ease of deploymentWith an ever-increasing number of forks and alternatives popping up, users have the choice of several web servers and DBMS software to choose from. Most of the CMSs are quite happy if you provide them with the supported instances of Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP. Although you don’t have to master any of these to install and use a CMS, you must be familiar with a few key concepts so as to prepare the environment for installation. In addition to the software, most CMSs also require specific libraries to be installed and enabled on PHP. At a minimum, you’re required to create a database and a user for managing the said database, because you’re asked to provide this information during the installation. All the CMSs in our list…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Customisation and themesUnlike the other CMSs that enable you to log in to the administrator account like any other user, for CMS Made Simple and Exponent CMS, you must manually point the browser to http://127.0.0.1/sitename/admin or http://127.0.0.1/sitename/login.php respectively if you wish to log in to the site.With the exception of Drupal, all the CMSs volunteer to create sample content during installation, which option makes it easy to assess the different themes offered out of the box.In addition to nine different designs that are offered out of the box, with CMS Made Simple you can even download more user contributed themes, some of which are sold commercially. Do note however that these are untested and the project makes no guarantees about these third-party offerings. Each theme comprises many different elements, called templates, such…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Customisation and themesUnlike the other CMSs that enable you to log in to the administrator account like any other user, for CMS Made Simple and Exponent CMS, you must manually point the browser to http://127.0.0.1/sitename/admin or http://127.0.0.1/sitename/login.php respectively if you wish to log in to the site. With the exception of Drupal, all the CMSs volunteer to create sample content during installation, which option makes it easy to assess the different themes offered out of the box. In addition to nine different designs that are offered out of the box, with CMS Made Simple you can even download more user contributed themes, some of which are sold commercially. Do note however that these are untested and the project makes no guarantees about these third-party offerings. Each theme comprises many different elements, called…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018CMS The VerdictThe Wikipedia page that lists Open Source Content Management Systems lists dozens of projects and selecting five test subjects for this month’s Roundup was a pretty tall order in itself. In addition to restricting ourselves to projects that saw a release recently, we also limited our focus to CMSs that could meet the needs of a number of different users, in different capacities. We wanted CMSs that were aimed at individuals, but could just as easily be used by small businesses and even schools.As websites grow with time, we also wanted our CMS to provide a means to back up the configuration and databases, and to even import it, if possible. Most important of all, perhaps, was the availability of plug-ins and the ease of deployment.With ever-increasing bandwidth speeds, projects…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018UBUNTU 18.04 GEAR UP!Quiet your busy mind for just a moment, dear reader, and tell us what you hear. The sound of swallows, swifts and wheatears returning to their northern breeding grounds? No, listen more closely. There’s a vaguely mechanical gnawing sound from the trees over yonder.That’s the sound of a bionic beaver, and possibly some gnomes too, and it can mean only one thing: the latest Ubuntu LTS release is here. As is tradition, our cover has been emblazoned orange, our disc editor has been kept up for days testing the daily builds, and Jonni won’t stop wittering on about Walpurgisnacht. But things have changed since the last LTS two years ago.Back then, there was excitement about Canonical’s bold desktop projects: Unity 8, Mir and convergence. Those have all been bequeathed to…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Eager beaversAfter 14 years of Ubuntu releases, you might think they weren’t such a big deal anymore. But make no mistake, this is big news. For one thing, it’s an LTS release so will very likely be many people’s daily driver for a good few of the next five years. Furthermore, a number of those other popular desktop distros are based on Ubuntu LTS, so this release crystallises their foundations too. And finally, this release sees Ubuntu return to the Gnome desktop after seven years of going their own way with Unity.Install with cautionInstalling Ubuntu is as easy as it’s ever been. However, this is a new release and so shouldn’t be used on systems you’re depending on day to day. You should make sure everything works from the live environment…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018Eager beaversAfter 14 years of Ubuntu releases, you might think they weren’t such a big deal anymore. But make no mistake, this is big news. For one thing, it’s an LTS release so will very likely be many people’s daily driver for a good few of the next five years. Furthermore, a number of those other popular desktop distros are based on Ubuntu LTS, so this release crystallises their foundations too. And finally, this release sees Ubuntu return to the Gnome desktop after seven years of going their own way with Unity. Install with caution Installing Ubuntu is as easy as it’s ever been. However, this is a new release and so shouldn’t be used on systems you’re depending on day to day. You should make sure everything works from the…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018INSTALLING EXTENSIONSThere are also a great selection of Gnome extensions that provide new functionality. Only two small hurdles need to be overcome before you can avail yourself of them. Gnome extensions are installed via the https://extensions.gnome.org website. Before you can use this (as the website tells you) you’ll need two things: a ‘native host messaging application’ and a browser extension.The former is found in the chrome-gnome-shell package available from the software application and the latter can be found by following the ‘Click here to install browser extension’ link. Now a whole world of extensions awaits you. One of the most popular, you’ll note, is User Themes, which enables you to use themes from sites such as https://gnome-look.org, by extracting them to the ~/.themes directory. Once that’s done you can select them…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018INSTALLING EXTENSIONSThere are also a great selection of Gnome extensions that provide new functionality. Only two small hurdles need to be overcome before you can avail yourself of them. Gnome extensions are installed via the https://extensions.gnome.org website. Before you can use this (as the website tells you) you’ll need two things: a ‘native host messaging application’ and a browser extension. The former is found in the chrome-gnome-shell package available from the software application and the latter can be found by following the ‘Click here to install browser extension’ link. Now a whole world of extensions awaits you. One of the most popular, you’ll note, is User Themes, which enables you to use themes from sites such as https://gnome-look.org, by extracting them to the ~/.themes directory. Once that’s done you can select…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018Next-generation UbuntuKernel 4.14 is an LTS release too, so the kernel team will support it for at least five years. The plan was to use this for Ubuntu, but since 4.15 was released in January, and makes working with the ever-evolving KPTI patches for Spectre/Meltdown somewhat easier than the backported solutions, it was decided to use 4.15 for Ubuntu.Kernel 4.15 has been one of the busiest releases for a long time. Besides frantic patching of Spectre and Meltdown, it also includes many exciting new features. After extensive reworking, AMD’s DC (Display Code) layer has landed, which means owners of Vega and Raven Ridge series cards (including the 2200G reviewed on page 18) can use the open source AMDGPU driver without relying on a custom kernel. It also enables that driver to…6 min
Linux Format|June 2018PROGRESSIVE SESSIONSThomas Sigdestad is CTO and co-founder of Enonic, a company that’s grown from humble beginnings in a garage in downtown Oslo to one of Norway’s most successful open source companies. It had the bold idea of providing people with something useful and usable during the dotcom boom, and that remains very much part of its strategy today. We caught up with him at the O’Reilly Software Architecture 2017 conference in London to talk about the future of cross platform applications: progressive web apps. You may not have heard of them, but the chances are, if you’ve gone anywhere near a major website recently, that you’ve already used one.New technologies enable web browsers to do all kinds of things – things that hitherto were strictly the preserve of native applications. This…13 min
Linux Format|June 2018HOW ENONIC CAN SAVE YOU TIME…LXF: So you started Enonic in the dotcom crash, right? But you had a good idea, unlike a lot of companies who were just putting the word “Internet” into wonkybusiness plans.TS: Yup, we started in summer 2000 and one month later the whole world fell down. We went straight into platforming, which isn’t the easiest thing to do. In a way we were lucky, because we were thinking, “Let’s make things dead simple to use”, so we wanted to make a CMS so simple that anyone can use it.We had to give users form-based input, and to present this requires quite extensive coding. It turns out that no small company wanted to invest in this level of coding, but the big companies wanted this, and since we were already involved…2 min
Linux Format|June 2018HOW ENONIC CAN SAVE YOU TIME…LXF: So you started Enonic in the dotcom crash, right? But you had a good idea, unlike a lot of companies who were just putting the word “Internet” into wonkybusiness plans. TS: Yup, we started in summer 2000 and one month later the whole world fell down. We went straight into platforming, which isn’t the easiest thing to do. In a way we were lucky, because we were thinking, “Let’s make things dead simple to use”, so we wanted to make a CMS so simple that anyone can use it. We had to give users form-based input, and to present this requires quite extensive coding. It turns out that no small company wanted to invest in this level of coding, but the big companies wanted this, and since we were…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018QUANTUM SIMULATORSTo help understand how quantum computers work, there are a large number of simulators. There’s no way that you can simulate one efficiently, but if you want to understand the underlying principles then many of these are excellent. The first one that’s worth exploring is a Bloch sphere simulator. Without having at least a rudimentary understanding of the Bloch sphere, you’ll have trouble understanding what the gates do. Learn more about it at : http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~cahaymm/blochsphere.There are many more simulators – most of them are the results of Ph.D. thesis work. For that reason, most of them are not active, only good starts. The few mentioned here are useful for self-education.The JQuantum simulator looks and behaves like a quantum score. Using it is a little cumbersome, but if you’re practising this…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018TOOLKITS FROM THE BIG GUYSTo program yourself requires the standard called OpenQASM. This is the basis for all development kits.Many groups have developed toolkits using this standard. The best known ones are from IBM, D-Wave and Microsoft.IBM decided to use Python to create Qiskit, and you can download this kit from Github. It also has many sources and demonstration collections available. You can learn all about the current development state from there.In both Eclipse and Netbeans, all you need to do is import the code into a project and explore. Don’t forget to install Python 3.5 or higher before you try to compile. IBM’s QE has these examples in their Python toolkit.When you have the sources installed, you can only run simulations on your own computer. If you want to run on a real…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018QUANTUM SIMULATORSTo help understand how quantum computers work, there are a large number of simulators. There’s no way that you can simulate one efficiently, but if you want to understand the underlying principles then many of these are excellent. The first one that’s worth exploring is a Bloch sphere simulator. Without having at least a rudimentary understanding of the Bloch sphere, you’ll have trouble understanding what the gates do. Learn more about it at : http://eecs.ceas.uc.edu/~cahaymm/blochsphere. There are many more simulators – most of them are the results of Ph.D. thesis work. For that reason, most of them are not active, only good starts. The few mentioned here are useful for self-education. The JQuantum simulator looks and behaves like a quantum score. Using it is a little cumbersome, but if you’re…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018TOOLKITS FROM THE BIG GUYSTo program yourself requires the standard called OpenQASM. This is the basis for all development kits. Many groups have developed toolkits using this standard. The best known ones are from IBM, D-Wave and Microsoft. IBM decided to use Python to create Qiskit, and you can download this kit from Github. It also has many sources and demonstration collections available. You can learn all about the current development state from there. In both Eclipse and Netbeans, all you need to do is import the code into a project and explore. Don’t forget to install Python 3.5 or higher before you try to compile. IBM’s QE has these examples in their Python toolkit. When you have the sources installed, you can only run simulations on your own computer. If you want to…1 min
Linux Format|June 2018ExaGear DesktopThe x86 CPU is in our laptops, desktops and in our data centres. But for mobile devices and the Raspberry Pi, ARM CPUs dominate the market thanks to their power consumption and relevant size to processing power. Applications are compiled to use the architecture (ARM/x86) of the device they’re intended to be used on, but what if you need to use an x86 application on an ARM CPU? ExaGear Desktopfrom Eltechs is a virtual machine emulator that claims to run “...any kind of software on almost any hardware” and it does run x86 software on the ARM CPU, albeit with some limitations.Installation is painless, requiring a payment of around £21 for a single Raspberry Pi 3 licence. Once the payment has gone through you’ll be emailed a link to download…3 min
