Also included: Remembering Vernon Adams, Red Hat vs. VMware, a new distro release, openSUSE Leap and ransomware that deletes files.
FOSS Week in Review
The summer of ’16 is all but over. Good riddance. Here in my piece of the woods we’ve seen all of the 90 plus days with high humidity I can take. Time to get out the long sleeves and sweaters.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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.
In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.
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.”
Linus Torvalds being interviewed by VMware’s Dirk Hohndel on the last day of LinuxCon 2016.“Because it is what I had,” Torvalds quickly quipped back, which was almost an exact quote of what he had written back in 1991. The line about AT hard disks had ended with the clause, “as that’s all I have.”
“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.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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.
Linus Torvalds being interviewed by VMware’s Dirk Hohndel on the last day of the last LinuxCon North America. Next year’s event in Los Angeles will be renamed Open Source Summit.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
“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.
Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.
These days, thanks to Apple’s move to Intel about a decade back, bringing new life to an old Mac by installing your favorite Linux distro is just as easy as it is with a standard PC, as you will see in this video.
The Video Screening Room
All Macintosh computers from about 2006 onwards were made using Intel CPUs and installing Linux on these computers is a breeze. You don’t need to download any Mac specific distro — just choose your favorite distro and install away. About 95 percent of the time you’ll be able to use the 64-bit version of the distro. On CoreDuo Macs, from 2006, you’ll need to use a 32-bit version.
Here is a screencast video I made on a revived Macbook that came into my hands recently. I downloaded Linux Mint 18 Xfce 64-bit ISO, burned it to DVD, inserted it into the Macbook (after the Macbook was turned on) and then booted the Macbook from DVD by holding the the letter “C” (which tells the Mac to boot from the optical drive).
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
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.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Software patent issues aren’t in the news as much now as they were only a few years back, partly due to the Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice v. CLS decision. Another reason is the patent pool the Open Invention Network has amassed to discourage patent trolls.
The FOSS Force Video Interview
The Open Invention Network — OIN, as its friends call it — “is a defensive patent pool and community of patent non-aggression which enables freedom of action in Linux.” That’s what it says (among other things) on the front page of the organization’s website. Basically, if you join OIN (which costs $0) you agree not to sue other members over Linux and Android-related patents, and in return they promise not to sue you. Google, IBM, and NEC are the top three members shown on OIN’s “community” page, which lists over 2,000 members/licensees ranging from Ford to one-person Android app developers.
Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.
Chromebooks are really nice laptops, except for one tiny problem which is…well, Chrome OS. This week, our contributing video editor found an easy to follow step-by-step guide for installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel. Problem solved.
The Video Screening Room
The Chromebook Pixel of 2013 is a lovely computer. Want to make it even lovelier? Install Ubuntu on it. This well-done tutorial video shows and explains all the steps.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
