Tag: Linux

Tails 3.0 Released

The latest version of the privacy-oriented Linux distro, Tails, is now out. Tails 3.0 is based on Debian 9 and includes a number of usability and security improvements.

Among those is a requirement to run Tails on 64-bit platforms,

Tails 3.0 works on 64-bit computers only and not on 32-bit computers anymore. Dropping hardware support, even for a small portion of our user base, is always a hard decision to make but being 64-bit only has important security and reliability benefits. For example, to protect against some types of security exploits, support for the NX bit is compulsory and most binaries are hardened with PIE which allows ASLR.

 

Which Version of CentOS Is This Server Running?

Just parking this here. Most of the servers I maintain run CentOS, and occasionally I need to know which version of CentOS they’re running. For the servers I maintain, all of these works from the command line to return the version, though the RPM command gives the most detailed information.

# rpm --query centos-release

or

# lsb_release -d

or

cat /etc/centos-release

Full Disk Encryption on Ubuntu

An article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation from back in November 2012 notes that Canonical has begun incorporating easy-to-install full disk encryption beginning with Ubuntu 12.10.

When you install Ubuntu, now there’s a checkbox to “Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security.” Users who are new to GNU/Linux and just making the switch can easily have the same level of security against physical-access attacks as seasoned nerds.

Super Ubuntu

I have gotten so fed up with Windows that I’ve gradually been moving pretty much every computer I have to use over to Ubuntu. Super Ubuntu is Ubuntu plus a whole bunch of helpful stuff that helps save time getting everything up and running on a new install.

Super Ubuntu is just Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), but it also includes: