These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of August, 2016. 1. Why Desktop Linux Still Hasn’t Taken Over the…
FOSS Force
Would you like to use a Raspberry Pi as a topflight security tool? Here’s how to install BlackArch Linux on a Pi to get you on your way.
The Raspberry Pi Report
Currently Kali Linux is the de facto OS for those looking to do security research or penetration testing, but that could be changing in the months and years to come. This month BlackArch Linux, another penetration testing OS, released new ISOs that could put it ahead of Kali. BlackArch now includes over 1,500 tools for penetration testing and security research as well as support for kernel 4.7.1. In the months to come, I’ll write about using select tools from BlackArch on the Raspberry Pi, but in order to get to that point, we first need to install it. Instead of taking any credit for the install steps or reproduce them over again, I’m simply going to provide links to the same steps that I found and followed which lead me to a successful install of both Arch Linux and BlackArch on my Raspberry Pi 3.
Big data is all the rage these days in the enterprise. If you’re trying to wrap your head around exactly what big data is, our contributing video editor has found this video from AWS.
The Video Screening Room
For all you open source data scientists out there, this hour-long recorded webinar explains the big data tools and services you can use on Amazon. I learned a lot of data science lingo watching this video.
Much of what Linus Torvalds talks about in this excerpt from his onstage interview at LinuxCon 2016 will be recent memories for many of our readers. For others, it’ll be ancient history.
On Wednesday, when Linus Torvalds was interviewed as the opening keynote of the day at LinuxCon 2016, Linux was a day short of its 25th birthday. Interviewer Dirk Hohndel of VMware pointed out that in the famous announcement of the operating system posted by Torvalds 25 years earlier, he had said that the OS “wasn’t portable,” yet today it supports more hardware architectures than any other operating system. Torvalds also wrote, “it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks.”
“You have to realize the background is that it was a completely personal project,” Torvalds explained. “I expected other people to be interested from a theoretical standpoint. Students of operating systems might want to look at ‘here’s another operating system we can look at.’ That was my expectation, which meant that the kind of hardware I had was the only hardware that it ran on.”
Also included: Gilles Chanteperdrix passes, corporate Linux, Cisco patches against the NSA, MariaDB’s proprietary moves, Netrunner becomes Maui, Ubuntu to replace Upstart, Fedora and Wayland, and Linux client for Yandex Disk.
FOSS Week in Review
The last LinuxCon: This year’s LinuxCon, held in the city of Toronto which is one of my favorite old haunts, was the last love fest for Linux under the name LinuxCon, which had come to be synonymous for a certain type of Linux festival. In a way, it’s fitting this should be the last as the show ended on the day before Linux’s 25th birthday and was, in many ways, a celebration of the first quarter century of Linux. In another way it’s a crying shame. LinuxCon has come to stand for the community spirited nature of Linux, even though backed by the Linux Foundation, which becomes less of a community organization with the passing of each year.
Wow! This live Hangout show looks a lot like a DIY version of one of the morning shows on over-the-air TV — and if there’s any doubt that the maker movement thrives on open source, the first guest’s project is all about Python and Arduino. Be sure to check out the cool Star Trek combadge. Beam us up, Mr. Shapiro!
The Video Screening Room
Lady Ada and Philip Torrone are both legendary makers and exemplary sharers of hacks and tips. Their weekly “Show-And-Tell” Google Hangout is always fascinating. These Hangouts are archived to YouTube.
“Secure by design” doesn’t mean that Linux users should take a carefree approach to security. On the Internet, somebody’s always hiding behind the firewall trying to pick the lock.
The FOSS Force Video Interview
Security expert and co-creator of the Linux-hardening (and now Unix-hardening) project Bastille Linux. That’s Jay Beale. He’s been working with Linux, and specifically on security, since the late 1980s. The greatest threat to Linux these days? According to Beale, the thing you really need to watch out for is your Android phone, which your handset manufacturer and wireless carrier may or may not be good about updating with the latest security patches. Even worse? Applications you get outside of the controlled Google Play and Amazon environments, where who-knows-what malware may lurk.
While the Linux Foundation’s executive director Jim Zemlin’s opening keynote address at LinuxCon 2016 was filled with visions of the past, present and future of Linux and open source, the focus was on the enterprise and making money.
Op-ed
“Linux. We made it. Twenty-five years.”
With these words Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, opened up LinuxCon North America, this year being held on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario in Toronto. As expected, the opening keynote address was a 25 minute pep rally that was long on the enterprise and short on the desktop or any other area where Linux is important but not lining anyone’s pockets with cash.
In this video, web developers can learn how to get their hands dirty with the PHP dependency manager, Composer.
The Video Screening Room
If you’re a WordPress developer, Sal Ferrarello (@salcode) of Reading, PA, explains how to install Composer, use it with a plugin or a theme and use it with a WordPress project. This video is from his WordCamp Philly 2015 talk.