Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Leopard... why I should listen to myself
My advice for endusers when a new OS comes out is usually to wait a while before installing, like waiting for the first service pack for a Windows OS. This is because upgrades inevitably break software or are incompatible with hardware.
Well I should listen to the stuff that comes out of my own mouth... I rushed out and installed Leopard. My rush was mainly to fix stability issues that were bugging me, plus I was mesmerised by the Apple eye candy. Anyway, two of primary apps - encryption (PGP) and corporate email (Lotus Notes) broke and it looks like it will be in the new year before these problems are fixed!
Also, somehow in the rebuild two crucial VM's were corrupted. This was not a happy or fun upgrade for me. Plus "stacks" which look really cool are a total pain, I now need to find a way to disable them.
Well I should listen to the stuff that comes out of my own mouth... I rushed out and installed Leopard. My rush was mainly to fix stability issues that were bugging me, plus I was mesmerised by the Apple eye candy. Anyway, two of primary apps - encryption (PGP) and corporate email (Lotus Notes) broke and it looks like it will be in the new year before these problems are fixed!
Also, somehow in the rebuild two crucial VM's were corrupted. This was not a happy or fun upgrade for me. Plus "stacks" which look really cool are a total pain, I now need to find a way to disable them.
Labels: Apple Mac
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Desktop switchover
I am still running Linux for my primary home desktop but have dropped Sabayon and switched to Kubuntu.
Why the swap?
I tested the most popular KDE based distros (inc PCLinuxOS & OpenSUSE) and chose Kubuntu for it's simplicity and large package repository.
It was a no brainer to install but not that great with my hardware detection. I had a lot of probs getting TwinView and my nVidia card working properly.
I would never use Kubuntu for pentesting, I will always stick with Gentoo/Sabayon there, as all the tools I need and use are in the source tree (which is not the case for Kubuntu).
Similarly for my headless servers I would only ever run Gentoo.
So the lesson is "horses for courses", use the right Linux distro for the task at hand.
Why the swap?
- The pain of updating packages and breaking the system (did it twice)
- Time wasted compiling packages with lots of dependencies (sometimes 24 hours)
- Conflicting packages preventing installs
- Constantly having to messing around with /etc/portage/package.*
I tested the most popular KDE based distros (inc PCLinuxOS & OpenSUSE) and chose Kubuntu for it's simplicity and large package repository.
It was a no brainer to install but not that great with my hardware detection. I had a lot of probs getting TwinView and my nVidia card working properly.
I would never use Kubuntu for pentesting, I will always stick with Gentoo/Sabayon there, as all the tools I need and use are in the source tree (which is not the case for Kubuntu).
Similarly for my headless servers I would only ever run Gentoo.
So the lesson is "horses for courses", use the right Linux distro for the task at hand.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Linux Desktop. I did it!
I have now converted over to Linux full time as my desktop. I thought the install would be easy and usability would be more difficult, but it was/is very much the other way around.
I used Sabayon Business Edition as the base because it uses the stable tree and KDE, however the build is now a lot more Gentoo than Sabayon. The install process took about 4 days including compiling (debugging & fixing) over 400 packages. I recompiled the entire system as I modified the make.conf file to suit me and my systems architecture.
I actually learnt to use the files in /etc/portage properly now instead of doing emerge command line hacks (oneshot & ACCEPT_KEYWORDS).
The benefits have been a faster machine, access to free and/or open source software, the power of Linux and total control over every aspect of my PC experience
So here is my list of tools I have used to replace Windows tools:
Issues I am still wrangling with:
Other than that it's all good and I am very happy with Linux as a desktop. I think if you were a newbie and grabbed one of the main stream binary distro's, switching over would be a piece of cake.
I used Sabayon Business Edition as the base because it uses the stable tree and KDE, however the build is now a lot more Gentoo than Sabayon. The install process took about 4 days including compiling (debugging & fixing) over 400 packages. I recompiled the entire system as I modified the make.conf file to suit me and my systems architecture.
I actually learnt to use the files in /etc/portage properly now instead of doing emerge command line hacks (oneshot & ACCEPT_KEYWORDS).
The benefits have been a faster machine, access to free and/or open source software, the power of Linux and total control over every aspect of my PC experience
So here is my list of tools I have used to replace Windows tools:
- Base OS - Gentoo/KDE
- Dual monitor support - Nvidia Linux drivers
- HP Printer Scanner Copier - hplip + kdeprint
- Email - Thunderbird
- Web browser - Firefox & Konqueror
- IM Client - Kopete
- File Management - Krusader
- PDF viewing - kpdf
- Terminal Services Client - rdesktop
- IDE - Kdevelop & Eclipse
- Graphic Editing - Gimp
- Photo Management - DigiKam
- CD/DVD Burning - K3B
- Media Player - VLC & Kaffiene
- Office Suite - Open Office
- Mind Mapping - FreeMind
- eBook Reader - kchmViewer
- Password management - KeepassX
Issues I am still wrangling with:
- Sound card - its stop working after emerge --update world
- Phone sync - For my contacts, appointments etc
- Compiz Fusion - haven't got the wobbly windows working
- GUI tweaks - Gnome apps still ugly, some KDE apps look "flat"
Other than that it's all good and I am very happy with Linux as a desktop. I think if you were a newbie and grabbed one of the main stream binary distro's, switching over would be a piece of cake.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Getting Kopete to compile on Gentoo
There is a known bug/issue with Kopete where Kopete wants to compile with webcam support and there is no option to disable this. This issue prevented one of my KDE meta packages from installing.
The work around, enforce opengl USE flags for x11-libs/qt through /etc/portage/package.use making sure there are no other entries for qt (mine had 3!). Recompile qt by doing emerge qt kdelib. Don't do an emerge --upgrade for qt and kdelib as this won't force a full recompilation and all should be well.
The work around, enforce opengl USE flags for x11-libs/qt through /etc/portage/package.use making sure there are no other entries for qt (mine had 3!). Recompile qt by doing emerge qt kdelib. Don't do an emerge --upgrade for qt and kdelib as this won't force a full recompilation and all should be well.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Wake up and smell the input validation
The Gentoo server got "owned" a while back through a command injection vulnerability in the packages page search function. No biggie, it happens...
That was two months ago and the page is still down. To quote the page "Please bear with us as we audit the code for the online packages database".
Wake up... its called INPUT VALIDATION. Validate your input and only permit the search function to search the database not execute operating system commands. It scares me that such technical people are having trouble fixing such basic functionality and most of all its a PITA being without the package search functionality.
That was two months ago and the page is still down. To quote the page "Please bear with us as we audit the code for the online packages database".
Wake up... its called INPUT VALIDATION. Validate your input and only permit the search function to search the database not execute operating system commands. It scares me that such technical people are having trouble fixing such basic functionality and most of all its a PITA being without the package search functionality.
