Other Distros
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
Exmouth on the south Devon coast is a place most British people will have heard of. Well, now it's got its own distro - based on Devuan and with the Trinity desktop, so fairly lightweight. Definitely worth a look IMO;
http://exegnulinux.net/
http://exegnulinux.net/
Last edited by Colonel Panic on Mon 19 Feb 2018, 22:08, edited 2 times in total.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.
I migrated over from freebsd to openbsd as the defaults/config is soooo much easier by comparison. X runs as a restricted user and they tweak the likes of firefox to remove vulnerabilities i.e. put security first. I did however drop using nvidia to do that, and their repos are more limited. I tend to just use it for secure activities (run firefox under a restricted userid), and use Debian as my main daily boot.Gordie wrote:Other distro? The past week I have been absorbed by FreeBSD
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
That's interesting. I tried OpenBSD (or a live disk based on it, whose name I forget) but I found it a bit slow compared to the Linux distros I'd tried up until then. What's it like for speed now?
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.
OpenBSD were kept out of the Meltdown loop, so they've had some catching up to do. Firefox was relatively quickly plugged to reduce the risk (OBSD tweak firefox to be more secure anyway by default), and a Meltdown fix for most Intel CPU's is only just now rolling out (to -current) https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article ... 0221201856
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
Thanks. Just for the heck of it, I'm downloading the live disk of OpenBSD but I don't know whether I'll install it or not (probably not - it's been my experience that Linux distros and BSDs don't sit well together on the same hard drive).
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.
Works fine for me. I have grub4dos and menu.lst on the first ext3 partition, Debian also installed along with its grub2 and I chain the menu.lst to the Debian installed grub2 using (alongside other Puppy etc type boots)Colonel Panic wrote:Thanks. Just for the heck of it, I'm downloading the live disk of OpenBSD but I don't know whether I'll install it or not (probably not - it's been my experience that Linux distros and BSDs don't sit well together on the same hard drive).
title chain grub2
find --set-root /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img
kernel /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img
boot
I also have a direct BSD boot in menu.lst
title BSD sda4
root (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot
For sda4 I originally just re-partitioned to create some free space for that, and set it as a type a6 and bootable ... and then I used a CD boot to install OBSD to that partition (I just use the default slices/partition that OBSD sets). OBSD in effect creates multiple partitions within a partition.
To update (I track -current) I use Debian to download the bsd.rd, in my case
Code: Select all
#!/bin/sh
# retrieve the latest snapshot bsd.rd to / folder
cd /
HOST='ftp.mirrorservice.org'
USER='anonymous'
PASS='anonymous'
DIR='/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/amd64'
FILE='bsd.rd'
ftp -n -v $HOST <<END_SCRIPT
ascii
user $USER $PASS
cd $DIR
binary
get $FILE
quit
END_SCRIPT
exit 0
menuentry 'OpenBSD' {
set root=(hd0,4)
chainloader +1
}
menuentry 'OpenBSD bsd.rd' {
kopenbsd /bsd.rd
}
that were added by creating/editing /etc/grub.d/40_custom to contain entries of
menuentry 'OpenBSD' {
set root=(hd0,4)
chainloader +1
}
menuentry 'OpenBSD bsd.rd' {
kopenbsd /bsd.rd
}
before updating grub
i.e. I use kopenbsd (that isn't available in grub4dos) to boot the bsd.rd that was downloaded to be alongside menu.lst on the first ext3 partition.
Once installed once, updates/reinstalls are mostly just a case of hitting ENTER to select the defaults and takes just 5 minutes or so (I reinstall freshly each time rather than update).
After that I boot OBSD and mount a ext3 partition (my sda2)
cd /mnt
mkdir sda2
mount /dev/sd0j sda2
cd to that and run a script that verifies the integrity of the bsd.rd, and another script that copies across copies of my configuration files (I use twm so for instance ~/.twmrc ...etc.).
The verification (using signify) script I use is ...
Code: Select all
#!/bin/sh
# run after booting the newly installed bsd.rd to check that the bsd.rd
# used to do the install has a valid signify
cd /mnt
mkdir sda1
mount /dev/sd0i sda1
cd sda1
cp bsd.rd /mnt/sda2/reinstall-openbsd/bsd.rd
# also copy to / so if we need to boot that under bsd
cp bsd.rd /bsd.rd
cd /mnt
umount sda1
cd /mnt/sda2/reinstall-openbsd
ftp https://ftp.mirrorservice.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/`uname -m`/SHA256.sig
key1=`ls /etc/signify/openbsd-??-base.pub | tail -2 | head -1`
key2=`ls /etc/signify/openbsd-??-base.pub | tail -2 | tail -1`
(signify -C -p $key1 -x SHA256.sig bsd.rd || signify -C -p $key2 -x SHA256.sig bsd.rd) || exit 1
ext3 is a good choice for Linux IMO as it can be mounted as though a ext2 by BSD whilst it can also be mounted as though it were ext4 under Linux. I tend to store all my data files under ext3 for that portability. If you use native ext4 then yes Linux/Debian and OBSD might not sit well with each other.
Other Distros
I did a new install of Slackware 64 to my HP desktop:
System: Host: ************* Kernel: 4.4.115 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Slackware 14.2
Machine: Device: desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HPE-410f serial: N/A
Mobo: FOXCONN model: 2AB1 v: 1.00 serial: N/A BIOS: American Megatrends v: 6.02 date: 07/21/2010
CPU: 6 core AMD Phenom II X6 1045T (-MCP-) speed/max: 800/2700 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Redwood PRO [Radeon HD 5550/5570/5630/6510/6610/7570]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,vesa)
Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD REDWOOD (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0) version: 3.3 Mesa 11.2.2
Network: Card-1: Ralink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe driver: rt2800pci
Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: NA (-)
Weather: Conditions: 39 F (4 C) - Overcast Time: February 23, 9:10 PM EST
Info: Processes: 239 Uptime: 3:20 Memory: 1346.6/7966.6MB Client: Shell (sh) inxi: 2.3.56
Have to relearn lots of things
System: Host: ************* Kernel: 4.4.115 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Slackware 14.2
Machine: Device: desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HPE-410f serial: N/A
Mobo: FOXCONN model: 2AB1 v: 1.00 serial: N/A BIOS: American Megatrends v: 6.02 date: 07/21/2010
CPU: 6 core AMD Phenom II X6 1045T (-MCP-) speed/max: 800/2700 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Redwood PRO [Radeon HD 5550/5570/5630/6510/6610/7570]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,vesa)
Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD REDWOOD (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0) version: 3.3 Mesa 11.2.2
Network: Card-1: Ralink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe driver: rt2800pci
Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: NA (-)
Weather: Conditions: 39 F (4 C) - Overcast Time: February 23, 9:10 PM EST
Info: Processes: 239 Uptime: 3:20 Memory: 1346.6/7966.6MB Client: Shell (sh) inxi: 2.3.56
Have to relearn lots of things
- Attachments
-
- screenshot.jpg
- (50.4 KiB) Downloaded 238 times
That USED to be what I thought too but times have changed. The problem I experienced came from my lack of understanding of the different terms used to explain partitions of the hdd. Once I found the answer it is easy for me nowColonel Panic wrote:Thanks. Just for the heck of it, I'm downloading the live disk of OpenBSD but I don't know whether I'll install it or not (probably not - it's been my experience that Linux distros and BSDs don't sit well together on the same hard drive).
--
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
I find it slow. Seems like the graphics driver needs attention. Things like automount won't work no matter what I do, Only can do ext2 so is impossible for me to get Slackware and BSD to communicate with a usb thumbColonel Panic wrote:That's interesting. I tried OpenBSD (or a live disk based on it, whose name I forget) but I found it a bit slow compared to the Linux distros I'd tried up until then. What's it like for speed now?
--
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
That's a shame. I think if mission-critical security is a top priority for you OpenBSD is probably a good choice, but otherwise I'm left wondering what advantages it offers over a Linux distro such as Slackware (which I suppose it most closely resembles). Also, I format my partitions with ext4 as standard so it doesn't sound like they'd sit well with OpenBSD on the same hard drive.Gordie wrote:I find it slow. Seems like the graphics driver needs attention. Things like automount won't work no matter what I do, Only can do ext2 so is impossible for me to get Slackware and BSD to communicate with a usb thumbColonel Panic wrote:That's interesting. I tried OpenBSD (or a live disk based on it, whose name I forget) but I found it a bit slow compared to the Linux distros I'd tried up until then. What's it like for speed now?
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.
I like how its integral - kernel, userland (including X) and documentation all bound together. man pages are fantastic, and errors in that text are recorded/managed as any other 'bug'. Makes things far simpler, avoids systemD and collectively can be much better security audited. By default OBSD boot is very secure. They even tweak 3rd party programs such as firefox to be more secure by default. Package (program) installation is as easy as pkg_add xxxxColonel Panic wrote:I think if mission-critical security is a top priority for you OpenBSD is probably a good choice, but otherwise I'm left wondering what advantages it offers over a Linux distro
I've switched back from -current to install/use -release/stable and I'm using openup to provide all the binary patches/updates to both the base system and packages (third party programs). Nice and quick/easy to keep patched up.
The default of being secure does mean that the default setup is slower than if you tweak some of the settings. Async disk IO for instance instead of synd'd. Some graphics tweaks as well ... and speed is comparable, perhaps even better than Linux whilst still being acceptably secure for a typical desktop setup.
Of the three windows managers in the base system I find fvwm to be too configurable. Tempts you into tweaking things often. So I mostly flip between cwm and twm preferring cwm on a laptop type setup, twm for a desktop. The default configs for those aren't to most peoples taste so you do have to make changes there, but for instance cwm config is pretty simple/light, my .cwmrc for instance consists of just ...
Code: Select all
fontname "sans-serif:pixelsize=24"
ignore xclock
borderwidth 4
color inactiveborder AntiqueWhite
color activeborder LightCoral
color selfont "#CCCCFF"
color font "#000000"
color menufg "CCCCFF"
color menubg "222222"
gap 4 0 0 0
bind-key 4-f window-fullscreen
bind-key 4-r restart
bind-key 4-q window-delete
bind-key 4-Left "mixerctl outputs.master=-12"
bind-key 4-Right "mixerctl outputs.master=+12"
bind-mouse M-1 window-resize
bind-mouse 4-2 window-lower
bind-mouse 4-1 window-move
bind-mouse S-1 window-hide
sticky yes
command " Xterm " 'xterm -geometry 80x24'
command " FireFox " "firefox-esr"
command " Xfe " "xfe"
command " Xfw " "xfw"
command " XCalc " "xcalc"
command " gnumeric " "gnumeric"
command " mtpaint " "mtpaint"
command " osmo " "osmo"
command " Exit " pkill cwm
"Secure by Default"
To ensure that novice users of OpenBSD do not need to become security experts overnight (a viewpoint which other vendors seem to have), we ship the operating system in a Secure by Default mode. All non-essential services are disabled. As the user/administrator becomes more familiar with the system, he will discover that he has to enable daemons and other parts of the system. During the process of learning how to enable a new service, the novice is more likely to learn of security considerations.
This is in stark contrast to the increasing number of systems that ship with NFS, mountd, web servers, and various other services enabled by default, creating instantaneous security problems for their users within minutes after their first install.
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
Good post. When I'm in Debian Stretch I use a variant of Dan Lilliehorn's ctwmrc file, here (Ive enlarged the menu fonts and added a couple more programs to mine);rufwoof wrote:I like how its integral - kernel, userland (including X) and documentation all bound together. man pages are fantastic, and errors in that text are recorded/managed as any other 'bug'. Makes things far simpler, avoids systemD and collectively can be much better security audited. By default OBSD boot is very secure. They even tweak 3rd party programs such as firefox to be more secure by default. Package (program) installation is as easy as pkg_add xxxxColonel Panic wrote:I think if mission-critical security is a top priority for you OpenBSD is probably a good choice, but otherwise I'm left wondering what advantages it offers over a Linux distro
I've switched back from -current to install/use -release/stable and I'm using openup to provide all the binary patches/updates to both the base system and packages (third party programs). Nice and quick/easy to keep patched up.
The default of being secure does mean that the default setup is slower than if you tweak some of the settings. Async disk IO for instance instead of synd'd. Some graphics tweaks as well ... and speed is comparable, perhaps even better than Linux whilst still being acceptably secure for a typical desktop setup.
Of the three windows managers in the base system I find fvwm to be too configurable. Tempts you into tweaking things often. So I mostly flip between cwm and twm preferring cwm on a laptop type setup, twm for a desktop. The default configs for those aren't to most peoples taste so you do have to make changes there, but for instance cwm config is pretty simple/light, my .cwmrc for instance consists of just ...Code: Select all
fontname "sans-serif:pixelsize=24" ignore xclock borderwidth 4 color inactiveborder AntiqueWhite color activeborder LightCoral color selfont "#CCCCFF" color font "#000000" color menufg "CCCCFF" color menubg "222222" gap 4 0 0 0 bind-key 4-f window-fullscreen bind-key 4-r restart bind-key 4-q window-delete bind-key 4-Left "mixerctl outputs.master=-12" bind-key 4-Right "mixerctl outputs.master=+12" bind-mouse M-1 window-resize bind-mouse 4-2 window-lower bind-mouse 4-1 window-move bind-mouse S-1 window-hide sticky yes command " Xterm " 'xterm -geometry 80x24' command " FireFox " "firefox-esr" command " Xfe " "xfe" command " Xfw " "xfw" command " XCalc " "xcalc" command " gnumeric " "gnumeric" command " mtpaint " "mtpaint" command " osmo " "osmo" command " Exit " pkill cwm
https://www.ctwm.org/ctwmrc
It works well but unfortunately still looks somewhat drab (grey, grey and more grey) so I may get round to changing that soon.
Here's a Computer Science professor's page on ctwm;
https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/laptop/ctwm/
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.
I have been curious about FreeBSD for years now. GhostBSD was a shoe-in for me since it has a live system for me to try.Colonel Panic wrote:That's a shame. I think if mission-critical security is a top priority for you OpenBSD is probably a good choice, but otherwise I'm left wondering what advantages it offers over a Linux distro such as Slackware (which I suppose it most closely resembles). Also, I format my partitions with ext4 as standard so it doesn't sound like they'd sit well with OpenBSD on the same hard drive.Gordie wrote:I find it slow. Seems like the graphics driver needs attention. Things like automount won't work no matter what I do, Only can do ext2 so is impossible for me to get Slackware and BSD to communicate with a usb thumbColonel Panic wrote:That's interesting. I tried OpenBSD (or a live disk based on it, whose name I forget) but I found it a bit slow compared to the Linux distros I'd tried up until then. What's it like for speed now?
So much is different from Slackware I am now a duck without water. Seems the lack of (gag) systemd is where most of the similarity is lost. Anyway, now want to find a bootloader to boot Windows 10, Puppy Linux (frugal) and GhostBSD on the same machine. Windows/Puppy on sda1 and BSD on sdb1 (separate hard drive)
--
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
Cheers
Gordie
Slackware64-Current, Thinkpad W510, Intel i7, 8G/500G, Lilo / Legacy.
Fatdog64 + 6 Puppies on USB flash drives.
Windows 10 / Slackware64-Current, HP desktop, Intel Core2 Duo, 4G/500G/250G, Lilo / Legacy.
cwm is good for laptops (mousepad), twm is good for desktops (mouse) IMO. twm comes as integral part of X Windows System so conceptually any Unix like system that is running X windows system will have twm.Colonel Panic wrote:When I'm in Debian Stretch I use a variant of Dan Lilliehorn's ctwmrc file
I've configured mine so that a right click of a windows title bar shows the same main menu as when the desktop is right clicked. I also include a windows title button (ball) that when clicked raises the iconlist so all other open windows can be quickly/easily accessed/switched-to. I've set a coloured theme so that the iconlist, window titles and menu entries all have the same colour for the same program, as a form of visual aid.
- Colonel Panic
- Posts: 2171
- Joined: Sat 16 Sep 2006, 11:09
Thanks for replying rufwoof. I think they both have their uses on the desktop.
I use twm in Slack-based distros because the configuration file doesn't get overwritten as it does in Debian (where I use ctwm). Ctwm also allows you to send a window to another desktop, which twm doesn't (because it only supports one desktop).
Your twm configuration looks good though. Mine works well but there's no denying it looks like a 1990s window manager - retro with a capital 'R'.
I use twm in Slack-based distros because the configuration file doesn't get overwritten as it does in Debian (where I use ctwm). Ctwm also allows you to send a window to another desktop, which twm doesn't (because it only supports one desktop).
Your twm configuration looks good though. Mine works well but there's no denying it looks like a 1990s window manager - retro with a capital 'R'.
Gigabyte M68MT-52P motherboard, AMD Athlon II X4 630, 5.8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 250 GB Hitachi hard drive running Ubuntu 16.04.6, MX-19.2, Peppermint 10, PCLinuxOS 20.02, LXLE 18.04.3, Pardus 19.2, exGENT 200119, Bionic Pup 8.0 and Xenial CE 7.5 XL.