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Testing Linux Mint 18

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I’ve been testing various versions of Linux Mint 18 (Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE) with an eye on possibly making it my main distro.
A few thoughts…
– It is wicked fast in a VM.
– I love everything about Cinnamon except the start menu. I don’t like that at all.
– The XFCE version is sluggish?
– The KDE version is good but openSUSE 42.2 comes out in 2 months. That has been my distro of choice for years.
– As of this writing the newest Firefox version Mint offers is 48. That is THREE versions and 1 month behind (48.0.1/48.0.2/49.0). Why?
– I love the fact they aren’t trying to ram BTRFS down my throat.

Any thoughts or tips?

Linux Stuff…

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linux1I know most of you don’t read the Linux stuff I put up but it interests me so I’m going to start posting more Linux related news.

Tails 2.0 Released
“Tails is a live operating system, that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity”
Announcement
Download

Cracks In The Linux Foundation?
Many in the Linux community are ticked off that the Linux Foundation has turned its back on the average user. They did this by allowing only those people with deep pockets to elect board members. While I find the news disheartening I do not find it surprising. Companies are involved in the Linux movement because they see a way to profit off of it. Altruism isn’t a factor. Why do you think so many distros got everyone to basically beta-test a server file system? (I’m talking BTRFS)
More: Controversy at the Linux Foundation

Cool Links
Hacking your Linux computer for a better listening experience

13 Years Ago, My Review Of Mandrake Linux 9.0

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thI’ve been doing this site for quite a while. If you haven’t been coming here for years you may not know this site hasn’t always been done in WordPress. I used to do it in Frontpage, then Expression Web and by hand. Since I’ve got better things to do than coding a website by hand I switched to WordPress.
Anywho, take a gander at the old site and my first experience with Linux:
TweakHound Reviews Mandrake 9.0 A “Newbie”ginning posted 11-19-02
Old Main Page
https://web.archive.org/web/*/tweakhound.com

Dual Boot openSUSE Leap and Windows 10 UEFI

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This is how I dual-boot my Windows 10 rig with openSUSE Leap.
This article is virtually unchanged from: Dual Boot openSUSE 13.2 and Windows 8.1 UEFI

Notes:
– BACKUP your computer with a disk image before attempting this!
– Please do not contact me with questions on this topic.
That’s what the openSUSE forums are for.
– For how I dual-boot with a standard BIOS (legacy) see here: Dual-Boot openSUSE 12.3 And Windows (article is NOT compatible with BTRFS)

Interesting Links
openSUSE:UEFI
BCD System Store Settings for UEFI
Dual booting with Windows 8, not as painful as expected.

Preparation
1 – Full disk image backup using Acronis True Image.
2 – Make or leave unpartitioned space on OS drive for openSUSE. (If you can’t do this without a tutorial, well…..)
3 – Make UEFI boot usb flash drive with Rufus.

Installation
Pardon the odd screenshots. I used Vmware player for this article.

I should note that I am not a believer in using multiple partitions for my Linux installs.

Boot up, go through setup until you get to the partitioning section.
I do not use BTRFS and I always use Create Partition Setup…
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Choose Custom Partitioning (for experts) and click Next

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Right-click on the DRIVE where you want to install openSUSE and choose Add Partition
Make a swap partition, 2-4GB is fine.

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Below are the options I use. Ext4 for file system, noatime, discard* (=trim)
*note – I am not using discard at the moment because it was causing errors on my Samsung 850 Pro SSD.

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This next step is critical as your system will not boot without it.

Right-click on the Windows EFI boot partition and choose Edit

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Choose Mount partition
Choose /boot/efi
Click Finish

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Done?  click Accept

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Last chance to bail…
Click Next

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I don’t use Secure Boot. It can be disabled here:

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Boot Screen:

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Everything should run just peachy until you boot into Windows again.

Windows will usually try and make its bootloader default again which means openSUSE isn’t an option.

While in Windows, open an Elevated Command Prompt and copy/paste this command (source):

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\opensuse\shim.efi

That’s it!

openSUSE Leap 42.1 Released

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opensusegeekoMy Linux distro of choice has received a significant update. openSUSE Leap changes the way openSUSE does things. Once divided between an enterprise and regular version openSUSE has merged these into what they are calling a hybrid system. You see the enterprise version (SLE) was a more stable version that was slow to implement changes. The regular version was considered “bleeding edge”. That meant stuff was either not quite done or could break stuff, a permanent beta version if you will. IMHO, his had the effect of frustrating many non-Linux Geeks. openSUSE Leap aims to speed up inclusion of software that is ready for the average users but leave the “bleeding edge” stuff to a version best left to Linux Geeks called “openSUSE Tumbleweed“.
Also includes: Kernel 4.1.12, KDE Plasma 5, GNOME 3.16.2

Release announcement: openSUSE Leap 42.1 Becomes First Hybrid Distribution
Download (I highly suggest you try this in a virtual machine first)
Release notes (very important to read these)
OpenSUSE Forums

Linux workstation security checklist

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linux1Linux Foundation – Linux workstation security checklist

This is a set of recommendations used by the Linux Foundation for their systems administrators. All of LF employees are remote workers and we use this set of guidelines to ensure that a sysadmin’s system passes core security requirements in order to reduce the risk of it becoming an attack vector against the rest of our infrastructure.

source