Linux Blimp

Eclipse Foundation seeks to replace the Java Community Process for Jakarta EE

The Eclipse Foundation, saddled with oversight of Java EE last year after Oracle washed its hands of the thankless business of community governance, wants to revise the process by which enterprise Java – rechristened Jakarta EE when Oracle declined to grant use of its Java trademark – gets improved.

Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, on Tuesday posted a draft of the Eclipse Foundation Specification Process (EFSP), seeking community review and comment. The intent is to replace the Java Community Process (JCP), the current system for evolving the technical specifications related to Java technology, as least as it applies to the enterprise flavored brew of Java.

The need to replace the JCP for Jakarta EE arises from intellectual property concerns. As software developer Richard Monson-Haefel observed over the summer, “Unfortunately, Oracle was not able to donate all of the Java EE 8 specification documents (e.g. JMS, EJB, Servlet) because these specifications were developed under the Java Community Process and included the efforts of hundreds of people, many of who are not Oracle employees.”

“We want to design a specification process to replace the JCP,” explained Milinkovich in a blog post. “While there are many differences with the JCP, the key objective was to make the whole process as lightweight as possible.”

In the Java community, there’s been concern Java isn’t evolving fast enough. That’s why Java’s minders adopted a six month release cadence last year.

Milinkovich cited other goals as well: Making the specification process as much like open source development as possible; reusing the Eclipse Development Process where possible; embracing a culture of experimentation; and ensuring that the tech specs derived from the planned EFSP are high-quality (which includes respecting IP concerns).

Oracle pours a mug o’ Java 11 for its addicts, tips pot of Binary Code License down the sink

READ MORE

To assure such quality, the EFSP introduces a class of community member called “Participants,” code committers from companies with IP (e.g. patents) related to a Spec Project. It also contemplates an extra level of approval for releases from Spec Projects.

Those with an interest in having their say are encouraged to chime in, preferably via Jakarta EE Community mailing list, or, if you must, through a comment appended to the shared spec.

On a related note, a survey of Java developers published on Wednesday, conducted by security biz Snyk and Oracle-owned Java Magazine, suggests the patient has stabilized.

“This is the first major survey that does not show an overall decline in Java EE adoption and in fact seems to indicate a mild recovery (about 4-5 per cent compared to previous renditions of the survey),” said Reza Rahman, former Java EE/GlassFish evangelist at Oracle, in a mailing list post.

“In addition, it shows fairly strong adoption of Java EE 8. Not anything to be ecstatic about but certainly not as worrisome as some of these surveys have been in recent years.” ®

Sponsored:
Following Bottomline’s journey to the Hybrid Cloud

Source

By Jack M. Germain
Jul 10, 2018 9:56 AM PT

Ascensio System SIA recently released its free office suite upgrade —
OnlyOffice Desktop Editors — with a ribbon and tab interface plus numerous updated features. The refresh makes version 5.1 a potential alternative to Web versions of the Microsoft Office suite and Google Docs for Linux users.

The three-module set of OnlyOffice Desktop Editors has an impressive collection of tools geared toward individual consumers and small offices. It provides many of the conveniences available when using MS Word or Google G-Suite apps.

However, the real workplace benefits of collaborating on files through cloud storage come at an add-on cost once the free-trial period ends. Still, the core functionality — word processor, spreadsheet and slide presentations — remains free and installs locally as standalone apps in Linux distributions that use .DEB, .RPM and Snap software packages.

The OnlyOffice Desktop Editors have a new tabbed and ribbon-style interface with numerous updated features.

The completely reorganized interface of the free version of OnlyOffice now matches that of the OnlyOffice commercial online suite. Its other benefits include a near-seamless connection to the Web-based OnlyOffice applications for collaboration tools that include two co-editing modes (fast and strict), commenting, built-in chat, tracking changes and version history. (But more later on how seamless is not always all that it seems.)

The free and the commercial versions of OnlyOffice on Linux offer a common appearance and tools organized into tabs by their purposes: File, Home, Insert, Layout, References, Collaboration and Plugins. OnlyOffice also gives users the ability to extend the fully functional office suite with ready-to-use add-ons such as macros, WordPress, Translator and YouTube.

Whether the mostly-free features will win out over the paid add-on collaboration tools depends solely on your workflow. I use the Google Doc apps only occasionally, having found over the years that the open source LibreOffice has met or exceeded my personal and professional office suite needs. I even run LibreOffice on my Windows computer instead of MS Office.

So for the purpose of this review, I used my hands-on familiarity with LibreOffice, MS Word and Google Docs as a baseline for comparisons. In most categories, OnlyOffice showed it was up to the task.

First Impressions

OnlyOffice is a free open source office suite that is well-tuned, and it reads and writes Microsoft Office file formats reliably. It also supports other mainstream file formats, making it a good contender for your computer’s hard drive.

LibreOffice developers have been slow to offer a ribbon-style user interface. So, that is a nice new feature in OnlyOffice, even though it takes some getting used to. Having open documents in tabs is a great design that is very useful.

OnlyOffice Desktop Editors use OOXML as a native format. The developer claims this offers better support for MS Office formats than any other office suite, allowing users to work with all popular formats: DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT, PDF, HTML, EPUB, XPS, DjVu, XLS, XLSX, ODS, CSV, PPT, PPTX, ODP.

This wide range of file formats is a good mix for users who have to exchange a variety of file types created by most of the popular text and graphics creation applications. This ability is essential for using open source software for certain work tasks. While I have a few gripes about other aspects of OnlyOffice, file interoperability is not one of them.

Modern Interface Options

One of the biggest user features that sets OnlyOffice apart from other office suites is the tabbed interface. It brings the same convenience of moving among open documents that tabbed pages bring to surfing in a Web browser.

Writing and researching require that I bounce around several websites constantly. I normally use Geany IDE or gEdit text editors to take notes or write in multiple files when document formatting is not required. Those two text editors use tabs for open documents.

So I can use OnlyOffice as an all-in-one text editor and word processor. OpenOffice gives me built-in access to spreadsheets and slide shows using the same interface and other features. LibreOffice and other office suites for Linux — even MS Office on line — do not offer a tabbed interface. So pairing tabs for open documents with a ribbon style interface is a great productivity combination.

Work in the Cloud

I often work with multiple computers in several office locations. Cloud storage is more than just a convenience for my work flow. It is a necessity. My primary cloud storage solution has been Dropbox, which has nice integration with the several Linux distros that I use.

OnlyOffice blends access to its own online storage and its online office service from the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors. That cloud access and the availability of collaboration tools, even with an add-on price — give me that same degree of flexibility.

The OnlyAccess cloud server is similar to Google Docs with its automatic storage on Google Drive. When you install OnlyOffice Desktop Editors, you also are prompted to set up a free account on the OnlyOffice cloud service associated with its standalone desktop office suite.

The Downside

OnlyOffice Desktop Editors give you solid performance and several reasons to switch from your current Linux office software — but it is not a perfect solution yet. This application has several quirks.

The spell check feature is active by default. You do not have to add anything. However, you can not add words to a personal dictionary. Your only option is to ignore words flagged as errors.

OnlyOffice is missing two critical components for any office software suite. It has no thesaurus or option to add one. Ditto for a grammar-checking feature.

Another big weakness in OnlyOffice Desktop Editors is the absence of significant settings to personalize or adapt it to your user preferences. There are no application-wide user preference settings. In an open file, however, under the File/Advanced Settings menu, is a skimpy check list for very minimal user options for that file. There is nothing “advanced” about these settings choices.

In OnlyOffice no application-wide settings exist, but you can make slight adjustments to default settings in an open file using the File/Advanced Settings menu.

More Feature Flameouts

Each of these feature missteps might be minor to some users. However, regular professional users will suffer from OnlyOffice’s shortcomings:

• You can auto recover a file, but you cannot set an auto save interval;
• There is no save all option; if multiple document tabs are open, each must be saved manually;
• You can not modify the tool bar or create special quick access icons. You must click through the ribbon categories;
• There is no ability to get a word count of highlighted text;
• You can hide/unhide the toolbar, but you can’t configure it — only a save icon, a print icon, and undo/redo arrows are available.

Two more bothersome quirks involve file conversion and spell checker glitches. I opened an MS Word document that had large bullets in the text. OnlyOffice replaced the bullets with small question marks in a box.

The spell checker did not always replace the selected correction from the options list. I had to redo the spell check correction several times for it to replace the typos.

Usage Fail Issues

I did discover one potentially serious flaw in the otherwise impressive ability of the OnlyOffice Desk Editors to read and write so many file formats. The seamless functionality the developer touts may have limitations. If you save your documents only to a hard drive or the OnlyOffice cloud, the process works reasonably well.

However, two quirks in the way OnlyOffice manages documents may force you to develop workarounds for the way *you* work. One, the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors insist on converting file formats from older to most-current versions. Two, it seems to have its own mind about where it places the file.

It took me a while to figure out what was happening. I would open an existing file created with another office application. After editing the file, I would click the Save File icon. A Save File As dialogue box would appear on the screen. At first, I didn’t pay close attention to its content. I merely clicked the OK button and closed the application.

In subsequent work sessions, I would open the file to resume editing by clicking on the file name in File Manager or from the recent files list within OnlyOffice. The file that loaded was not the last file saved. The content I added or edited was missing. This happened regularly if I used a different workstation or mobile device to access the file.

Remember what I said earlier about my cloud storage setup? Each of my computers has a Dropbox folder with subfolders. These instantly sync with my master files stored in the Dropbox cloud. The key to this file management process is having the same folder and subfolder tree on each device and in the cloud storage system.

Problem Exposed

This was a major usability issue for me. When I clicked the Save File Button in OnlyOffice, the Save As dialogue box displayed two things that caused the problem.

One was the file location. It did not keep the path location of the opened file. It always defaulted to the main folder location, not the designated subfolder.

Two, OnlyOffice converts the existing file type when a document is first opened to a different file type. This is a problem with files created in another office application that were saved in an older format version. If you create a new file, on first saving you select the file type. However, OnlyOffice uses the latest file version for new file creations.

For example, when I first began testing OnlyOffice, I created a new file to write my observations and first draft of this review. I then used OnlyOffice to continue work projects on existing files. That is when I noticed the content was different.

Why Stuff Happens

OnlyOffice has a menu option to open local files. There is no auto save feature, so the first save pops up the Save As dialogue box. It defaults to username/documents/filename and adds the latest file format. Older format options are not available. Therein lies the problem for reliable file interoperability.

For example, I opened a work document saved as “ARTICLE1.DOC” created in MS Word stored in the /Dropbox/documents/Freelance/Client A subdirectory. OnlyOffice saved the file as “ARTICLE1.DOCX” in the /Dropbox/Documents directory.

When I thought I was resuming work on that file in a subsequent editing session, the recent documents list in the menu loaded an earlier file without the latest changes in it. The same wrong file loaded when accessed from my other devices.

A similar scenario occurred when I loaded a spreadsheet file in OnlyOffice created with LibreOffice Calc. OnlyOffice saved the original “SPREADSHEET2.xls”
as “SPREADSHEET2.xlxs” in the /Dropbox/documents/ directory.

Another usability issue involves default application status. OnlyOffice automatically appoints itself the default application after installation. In order to stop this default status, right-click on a file name in File Manager and select the file as the default application for that type of file. Some Linux distros give you that option in the Preferences panel also.

Give It a Spin

Unlike most office suite applications, OnlyOffice has a single launcher. It has no separate launchers for word processor, spreadsheet and slide presentation module. You click on the single menu item and the application opens to a file manager type page.

OnlyOffice does not have separate launchers for word processor, spreadsheet and slide presentation modules. You click on the single menu item and the application opens to a file manager page. From there you create a new file or open an existing document by clicking on the file name.

In the left column are buttons to create a new file for each of the three modules. On the larger right side of the screen is a directory view based on which option you select in the left column.

Under those options are buttons to display a list of recent files on the larger right column or open local files stored on the computer. Three other buttons let you sign up for a free trial period of collaboration features. The options are Share and Collaborate, view version histories, and collaborative review.

The OnlyOffice Desktop Editors release is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS. The source code is available on GitHub released under the AGPL v.3 license.

Want to Suggest a Review?

Is there a Linux software application or distro you’d like to suggest for review? Something you love or would like to get to know?

Please
email your ideas to me, and I’ll consider them for a future Linux Picks and Pans column.

And use the Reader Comments feature below to provide your input.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open source technologies. He has written numerous reviews of Linux distros and other open source software.
Email Jack.

Source

Fluxion (linset)

I hadn’t ventured into Hackforums since a while, and this time when I went there I saw a thread about a script called Fluxion. It’s based on another script called linset (actually it’s no much different from linset, think of it as an improvement, with some bug fixes and additional options). I did once think about (and was asked in a comment about) using something like a man in the middle attack/ evil twin attack to get WPA password instead of going the bruteforce/dictionary route, but never looked the idea up on the internet nor spent much time pondering over it. However, once I saw the thread about this cool script, I decided to give it a try. So in this post I’ll show you how I used Fluxion, and how you can too.
Disclaimer : Use this tool only on networks you own .Don’t do anything illegal.

Contents

• Checking if tool is pre-installed, getting it via github if it isn’t.
• Running the script, installing dependencies if required.
• Quick overview of how to use Fluxion.
• Detailed walk-through and demonstration with text explanation and screenshots
• Video demonstration (not identical to the written demo, but almost the same)
• Troubleshooting section

Just double checking

The first thing I did was make sure that Kali doesn’t already have this tool. Maybe if you are reading this post a long time after it was written, then you might have the tool pre-installed in Kali. In any case, try this out:

fluxion

I, personally tried to check if linset or fluxion came pre-installed in Kali (though I didn’t expect them to be there).

 

Getting the script

Getting the script is just a matter of cloning the github repository. Just use the git command line tool to do it.

git clone https://github.com/deltaxflux/fluxion

If you have any problems with this step, then you can just naviagate to the

repostitory

(updated link) and manually download the stuff.

Update : There seems to be some legal trouble with Fluxion. The creator of the script has removed the source code of the tool, and uploaded code that is supposed to delete fluxion from your computer. I don’t know the specifics of what is going on, but will provide updates ASAP.

Update 2: Now the repository is gone altogether!

What this means : As of now, this tutorial is useless. If you can find the source code for Fluxion, then you can use it and continue with the tutorial. Otherwise, not much can be done without the tool.

Update 3!You can try this repo – https://github.com/wi-fi-analyzer/fluxion. It’s an old version, might or might not work.

git clone https://github.com/wi-fi-analyzer/fluxion

 

Update 4

<!–Update_begins–>

Now you can find the latest version of Fluxion

here

. There shouldn’t be any further issues at all.-

git clone https://github.com/FluxionNetwork/fluxion

At the time of updating this post, the latest version was v2 rev 8. Make sure you also have the same or later revision if one has been released. In case any new issues arise with the repository, I’ll update you guys again! Meanwhile, I have tested the installation part and written the updated instructions for it below the instructions for older version. However, I haven’t got the opportunity to test the application. If any of the steps in the new version have changed compared to old version, please comment and I’ll update the tutorial ahead at the earliest possible. Thanks 🙂

<!–Update_ends–>

There are 4 dependencies that need to be installed

Running the script

Just navigate to the fluxion directory or the directory containing the scripts in case you downloaded them manually. If you are following the terminal commands I’m using, then it’s just a simple change directory command for you:

cd fluxion

Now, run the script.

sudo ./fluxion

 

Dependencies (for older version)

If you have any unmet dependencies, then run the installer script.

 

sudo ./Installer.sh

I had 4 unmet dependencies, and the installer script run was a buggy experience for me (though it might be becuase I have completely screwed up my system, editing files I wasn’t supposed to and now I can’t get them back in order) .It got stuck multiple times during the process, and I had to ctrl+c my way out of it many times (though ctrl+c didn’t terminate the whole installer, just the little update popup). Also, I ran the installer script twice and that messed up with some of the apt-get settings. I suggest that after installation is complete, you restore your /etc/apt/sources.list to it’s original state, and remove the bleeding edge repositories (unless you know what you’re doing). To know what your repository should look like, take a look here.

Anyways, one way or the other, your unmet dependencies will be resolved, and then you can use Flexion.
PS: For those trying to use apt-get to install the missing stuff – some of the dependencies aren’t available in the default Kali repos, so you’ll have to let the script do the installation for you, or manually add the repos to /etc/apt/sources.list (look at the script to find out which repos you need to add)

 

Dependencies (for newer version)

The only difference lies in the directory structure and name of script. The install.sh script is in the fluxion/install/ directory and not fluxion/ (and is called install.sh instead of Installer.sh) . Basically you just have to change one line. Run the below command on terminal and wait for it to finish executing. Then proceed.

sudo ./install/install.sh

Fluxion

Once again, type the following:

sudo ./fluxion

This time it should run just fine, and you would be asked a few very simple questions.

• • For the wireless adapter, choose whichever one you want to monitor on. For the channels question, choose all, unless you have a specific channel in mind, which you know has the target AP.
  • Then you will see an airodump-ng window (named Wifi Monitor). Let it run while it looks for APs and clients. Once you think you have what you need, use the close button to stop the monitoring.

Fluxion using airodump-ng

• You’ll then be prompted to select target.
• Then you’ll be prompted to select attack.
• Then you’ll be prompted to provide handshake.
• If you don’t have a handshake captured already, the script will help you capture one. It will send deauth packets to achieve that.
• After that, I quit the procedure (I was using the script in my college hostel and didn’t want to cause any troubles to other students).

If you are with me so far, then you can either just close this website, and try to use the tool on your own (it look intuitive enough to me), or you can read through the test run that I’m going to be doing now.

Getting my wireless network’s password by fooling my smartphone into connecting to a fake AP

So, in this example run, I will try to find out the password of my wireless network by making my smartphone connect to a fake AP, and then type out the password in the smartphone, and then see if my Fluxion instance on my Kali machine (laptop) gets the password. Also, for the handshake, I will de-authenticate the same smartphone.

PS: You can probably follow this guide without having any clue how WPA works, what handshake is, what is actually going on, etc., but I suggest you do read up about these things. Here are a few links to other tutorials on this website itself that would prove useful (the first two are theoretical, yet nice, the third one is a pretty fun attack, which I suggest you try out, now or later):

Anyways, with the recommended reading material covered, you can comfortably move on to the actual hacking now:

The real stuff begins!

This section is going to be a set of pictures with captions below them explaining stuff. It should be easy to follow I hope.

Select language

After selecting language, this step shows up. Note how I am not using any external wireless card, but my laptop’s internal card. However, some internal cards may cause problems, so it’s better to use an external card (and if you are on a virtual machine you will have to use an external card).

The scanning process starts, using airodump-ng.

You get to choose a target. I’m going after network number 21, the one my smartphone is connected to.

You choose an attack. I am going to choose the Hostapd (first one) attack.

If you had already captured a 4-way handshake, then you can specify the location to that handshake and the script will use it. Otherwise, it will capture a handshake in the next step for you. (A tutorial on capturing the handshake separately)

If you didn’t capture a handshake beforehand, then you get to choose which tool to use to do that. I’m go with aircrack-ng.

Once you have a handshake captured (see the WPA Handshake: [MAC Address] on top, if it’s there, then you have the handhake), then type 1 and enter to check the handshake. If everything’s fine, you’ll go to the next step.

Use the Web Interface method. I didn’t try the bruteforce thing, but I guess it’s just the usual bruteforce attack that most tools use (and thus no use to us, since that’s not what we are using this script for).

This offers a variety of login pages that you can use to get (phish) the WPA network’s password. I went with the first choice.

After making your decision, you’ll see multiple windows. DHCP and DNS requests are being handled in left two windows, while the right two are status reporting window and deauth window (to get users off the actual AP and lure them to our fake AP)

In my smartphone, I see two network of the same name. Note that while the original network is WPA-2 protected, the fake AP we have created is an open network (which is a huge giveaway stopping most people from making the mistake of connecting to it). Anyways, I connected to the fake AP, and the DNS and DHCP windows (left ones), reacted accordingly.

After connecting to the network, I got a notification saying that I need to login to the wireless network. On clicking that, I found this page. For some people, you’ll have to open your browser and try to open a website (say facebook.com) to get this page to show up. After I entered the password, and pressed submit, the script ran the password against the handshake we had captured earlier to verify if it is indeed correct. Note how the handshake is a luxury, not a necessity in this method. It just ensures that we can verify if the password submitted by the fake AP client is correct or not. If we don’t have the handshake, then we lose this ability, but assuming the client will type the correct password, we can still make the attack work.

Aircrack-ng tried the password again the handshake, and as expected, it worked. We successfully obtained the password to a WPA-2 protected network in a matter of minutes.

Video Demonstration

PS: The creator of the video has forked the Fluxion repository, and in the video he cloned from it instead. You may choose to fork from either of those. The original repository being more updated, and forked one being more stable (but less frequently updated). As of the time of creation of the video, both the repositories were the same, so it doesn’t make a different which one you clone,

but this may not always be the case

. In case of any issues, you can probably try cloning both and see which one works for you.

Troubleshooting

Since fluxion and Kali both are constantly evolving (you might be using a different rolling release of Kali, as well as a different version of Fluxion. There are times when the tool break, and there’s an interval of time for which it stays broken. Look at the

issues page

, and you will most probably find a fix for your problem. Note that the issue may as well be in closed issues (it would most probably be in closed issue).

For those who are able to follow the guide to the second last step, but don’t get any Login page on their device,

this issue suggests a solution

. [Dated : 17th September 2016, if you’re reading this much later then this might not be relevant, and some other issue would be]

Update : There are some important things mentioned in the README.file on the github repository. See if that helps.

https://github.com/deltaxflux/fluxion/blob/master/README.md

As of 1st November, 2016 (again, might not be relevant if you read this much later), the README suggested this for the no fake login page problem (which seems quite common)-

FakeSites don’t work
There might be a problem with lighttpd. The experimental version is tested on lighttpd 1.439-1. There are some problems with newer versions of lighttpd. If you problems use the stable version. Check the fix out.

Again, as I said, it all breaks down to one of two things-

1. You are doing some step wrong (easy to fix, follow the tutorial again).
2. There is a dependency issue somewhere (some tool has it’s wrong version installed). This can be a pain to fix, and there’s no guidance I can provide for it really. You’ll have to filter through all the issues on the github page of the tool. Hopefully, as the tool grows popular, it’ll get more full time developers, and then get integrated in the Kali repository, till then, these problems will continue.

What now?

I illustrated one possible scenario. This script can work with other devices (laptops for example) too as the fooled clients (not just smartphones). One possible short-coming to this attack is that most smartphones/laptops these days don’t automatically connect to open networks (unless they have before), and hence the user has to do it manually. If your fake AP has more signal strength than the real one, then a person who doesn’t know about WPA and open networks could very easily end up connecting to your network instead. So, overall this attack has a fair chance of succeeding.

Have any problems/comments/suggestions, leave them in the comments below.

Source

When installing Ubuntu 18.04, Canonical’s installer will offer to send some statistics to them. Canonical have now released some of this. One thing to note, is that this data does not include Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core, cloud images or and any other Ubuntu derivatives that don’t include the report in their own installer.

They’ve had some good results from it, with 66% of people sending them their data although they don’t mention how many results this is actually from. It’s a nice start, but I think they really need to do some separation of physical and virtual machines, since it seems they’re merged together which will skew a bunch of the data I would imagine. If you’re interested in seeing what data is sent on Ubuntu, it can be found in “/.cache/ubuntu-report/”.

Their data shows that 98% of people are using the 64bit version on Ubuntu, which lines up with our own user survey. On top of that, a desktop resolution of 1920×1080 remains the most popular at 28% with 1366×768 being the next highest at 25%. What’s interesting, is that higher resolutions have a pretty low use with 2560×1440 and 3840×2160 both only seeing 1% although that could easily be watered down due to virtual machines.

One thing that’s quite odd is the CPU section under the “Number of CPUs” heading, which claims 27% of people have 4-6 CPUs. Something about that doesn’t seem right. 27% of people have at least 4 CPUs in the computer they’re installing Ubuntu on? I think they need to improve the wording on this quite a bit just so it’s crystal clear on exactly what the statistic represents. Likely CPU cores. I’ve let them know about it to take a look.

Take a look here at their full statistics page if you’re interested.

Article edited and re-posted due to a mess up with the text causing some confusion, mostly my own—apologies.

Source

ClipGrab

is a free software to download and convert videos from different famous sites of Internet. You can easily save your favorite videos from sites like Dailymotion or Vimeo. And you can convert these videos into “usable” formats like WMV, MPEG or MP3. You can check here  which sites are supported by this software.

It can convert videos to WMV, MPEG4, OGG Theora, MP3 (audio only), OGG Vorbis (audio only) or simply download videos in their original format. However, downloading from some sites doesn’t allow you to select other format from drop-down menu, it could be issue with site videos.

ClipGrab can download from the following sites: Clipfish, Collegehumor, Dailymotion, MyVideo, MySpass, Sevenload, Tudou, Vimeo and others. ClipGrab isn’t limited to the sites listed, because many more sites are supported “unofficially” through the automatic site-recognition of ClipGrab. By the way, ClipGrab can also download HD videos from sites that have support for high definition.

To Install ClipGrab in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic/16.04 Xenial/14.04 Trusty/Linux Mint 19/18/17 open Terminal (Press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the following commands in the Terminal:What do you say about this application?

Source

If you have a Linux distribution installed, you can replace it with another distribution in the dual boot. You can also keep your personal documents while switching the distribution.

Suppose you managed to successfully dual boot Ubuntu and Windows. But after reading the Linux Mint versus Ubuntu discussion, you realized that Linux Mint is more suited for your needs. What would you do now? How would you remove Ubuntu and install Mint in dual boot?

You might think that you need to uninstall Ubuntu from dual boot first and then repeat the dual booting steps with Linux Mint. Let me tell you something. You don’t need to do all of that.

If you already have a Linux distribution installed in dual boot, you can easily replace it with another. You don’t have to uninstall the existing Linux distribution. You simply delete its partition and install the new distribution on the disk space vacated by the previous distribution.

Another good news is that you may be able to keep your Home directory with all your documents and pictures while switching the Linux distributions.

Let me show you how to switch Linux distributions.

Replace one Linux with another from dual boot

Let me describe the scenario I am going to use here. I have Linux Mint 19 installed on my system in dual boot mode with Windows 10. I am going to replace it with elementary OS 5. I’ll also keep my personal files (music, pictures, videos, documents from my home directory) while switching distributions.

Let’s first take a look at the requirements:

• A system with Linux and Windows dual boot
• Live USB of Linux you want to install
• Backup of your important files in Windows and in Linux on an external disk (optional yet recommended)

Things to keep in mind for keeping your home directory while changing Linux distribution

If you want to keep your files from existing Linux install as it is, you must have a separate root and home directory. You might have noticed that in my dual boot tutorials, I always go for ‘Something Else’ option and then manually create root and home partitions instead of choosing ‘Install alongside Windows’ option. This is where all the troubles in manually creating separate home partition pay off.

Keeping Home on a separate partition is helpful in situations when you want to replace your existing Linux install with another without losing your files.

Note: You must remember the exact username and password of your existing Linux install in order to use the same home directory as it is in the new distribution.

If you don’t have a separate Home partition, you may create it later as well BUT I won’t recommend that. That process is slightly complicated and I don’t want you to mess up your system.

With that much background information, it’s time to see how to replace a Linux distribution with another.

Step 1: Create a live USB of the new Linux distribution

Alright! I already mentioned it in the requirements but I still included it in the main steps to avoid confusion.

You can create a live USB using a start up disk creator like Etcher in Windows or Linux. The process is simple so I am not going to list the steps here.

Step 2: Boot into live USB and proceed to installing Linux

Since you have already dual booted before, you probably know the drill. Plugin the live USB, restart your system and at the boot time, press F10 or F12 repeatedly to enter BIOS settings.

In here, choose to boot from the USB. And then you’ll see the option to try the live environment or installing it immediately.

You should start the installation procedure. When you reach the ‘Installation type’ screen, choose the ‘Something else’ option.

Select ‘Something else’ here

Step 3: Prepare the partition

You’ll see the partitioning screen now. Look closely and you’ll see your Linux installation with Ext4 file system type.

Identify where your Linux is installed

In the above picture, the Ext4 partition labeled as Linux Mint 19 is the root partition. The second Ext4 partition of 82691 MB is the Home partition. I haven’t used any swap space here.

Now, if you have just one Ext4 partition, that means that your home directory is on the same partition as root. In this case, you won’t be able to keep your Home directory. I suggest that you copy the important files to an external disk else you’ll lose them forever.

It’s time to delete the root partition. Select the root partition and click the – sign. This will create some free space.

Delete root partition

When you have the free space, click on + sign.

Create a new root partition

Now you should create a new partition out of this free space. If you had just one root partition in your previous Linux install, you should create root and home partitions here. You can also create the swap partition if you want to.

If you had root and home partition separately, just create a root partition from the deleted root partition.

Creating root partition

You may ask why did I use delete and add instead of using the ‘change’ option. It’s because a few years ago, using change didn’t work for me. So I prefer to do a – and +. Is it superstition? Maybe.

One important thing to do here is to mark the newly created partition for format. f you don’t change the size of the partition, it won’t be formatted unless you explicitly ask it to format. And if the partition is not formatted, you’ll have issues.

It’s important to format the root partition

Now if you already had a separate Home partition on your existing Linux install, you should select it and click on change.

Retouch the already existing home partition (if any)

You just have to specify that you are mounting it as home partition.

Specify the home mount point

If you had a swap partition, you can repeat the same steps as the home partition. This time specify that you want to use the space as swap.

At this stage, you should have a root partition (with format option selected) and a home partition (and a swap if you want to). Hit the install now button to start the installation.

Verify the partitions

The next few screens would be familiar to you. What matters is the screen where you are asked to create user and password.

If you had a separate home partition previously and you want to use the same home directory, you MUST use the same username and password that you had before. Computer name doesn’t matter.

To keep the home partition intact, use the previous user and password

Your struggle is almost over. You don’t have to do anything else other than waiting for the installation to finish.

Wait for installation to finish

Once the installation is over, restart your system. You’ll have a new Linux distribution or version.

In my case, I had the entire home directory of Linux Mint 19 as it is in the elementary OS. All the videos, pictures I had remained as it is. Isn’t that nice?

About Abhishek Prakash

I am a professional software developer, and founder of It’s FOSS. I am an avid Linux lover and Open Source enthusiast. I use Ubuntu and believe in sharing knowledge. Apart from Linux, I love classic detective mysteries. I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s work.

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In today’s workplace, our colleagues may not be located in the same office, city, or even country. A growing number of tech companies have a global workforce comprised of employees with varied experiences and perspectives. This diversity allows companies to compete in the rapidly evolving technological environment.

But geographically dispersed teams can face challenges. Managing and maintaining high-performing development teams is difficult even when the members are co-located; when team members come from different backgrounds and locations, that makes it even harder. Communication can deteriorate, misunderstandings can happen, and teams may stop trusting each other—all of which can affect the success of the company.

What factors can cause confusion in global communication? In her book, “The Culture Map,” Erin Meyer presents eight scales into which all global cultures fit. We can use these scales to improve our relationships with international colleagues. She identifies the United States as a very low-context culture in the communication scale. In contrast, Japan is identified as a high-context culture.

Read more at OpenSource.com

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Learn to love the browser instead

Microsoft loves Linux. Unless you are a Linux user who happens to want to use Teams. In that case, you probably aren’t feeling the love quite so much.

Users of that other collaboration platform, Slack, have enjoyed a Linux client for some time. Teams users, on the other hand, have had to make do with a browser experience that is often less than ideal. Hence the fifth most requested Teams feature in Microsoft’s UserVoice forum is a Linux client.

The request was made nearly two years ago and, at time of writing, has attracted 5,376 votes and 37 pages of comments. Yesterday, however, Linux users hoping to become first class citizens were dealt a cruel blow. A Microsoft representative has admitted that no, there is no dedicated engineering resource working on a Linux client.

The omission is an odd one. Microsoft has a Skype client for Linux, so a similar client for Teams should not be beyond the imagination of the Windows giant. Particularly given its much-publicised love for the Linux platform.

Using Teams through a browser on Linux is a limiting experience. Video conferencing, calling and desktop sharing are problematic, if not impossible. In the current documentation for Teams, Microsoft states that Meetings is supported on Chrome 59 or later, but Firefox users are out of luck for Calling or Meetings and should download a desktop client. Oh, or use Edge.

Neither of the latter two options are really viable for Linux users.

One enterprising Teams enthusiast has published a method of coaxing video calls and presentations into life on Linux via Chrome or Chromium, but the process is a little convoluted and effectively has the browser pretend it is actually Edge in order to prevent Teams from ignoring it.

It is all rather unsatisfactory, and we’ve contacted Microsoft to get more detail on its decision.

Linux has a vanishingly small share of the desktop market compared to Windows. However, this has not stopped Microsoft releasing developer tools such as Visual Studio Code on the platform. In the light of that, it seems an odd call to exclude those same developers from the full fat version of Redmond’s collaboration vision. ®

Sponsored:
Following Bottomline’s journey to the Hybrid Cloud

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Among the changes to find in Ubuntu 18.10 are the latest stable Linux kernel as well as a significant Mesa upgrade and also the latest X.Org Server. These component upgrades make for a better Linux gaming experience particularly if using a modern AMD Radeon graphics card. Here are some results as well as whether it’s worthwhile switching to Linux 4.19 and Mesa 18.3-dev currently on Ubuntu 18.10.

 

 

The move from Linux 4.15 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to now Linux 4.18 with Ubuntu 18.10 is significant due to many AMDGPU DRM improvements during that time as covered in numerous Phoronix articles over the summer. There is also the transition from Mesa 18.0.5 to Mesa 18.2.2 that is very significant especially for the RADV Vulkan driver with performance optimizations, new Vulkan extensions, and numerous fixes. The RadeonSI Gallium3D driver has also received improvements as well this year though in Mesa 18.0 it was already quite mature so if you are solely using OpenGL applications/games the impact is likely much less.

The largest underlying upgrade is from X.Org Server 1.19.6 to X.Org Server 1.20.1. X.Org Server 1.20 is a very big update given its lengthy development cycle. There are DRI3 additions, server-side GLVND, many XWayland improvements, a lot of GLAMOR 2D optimizations, and more.

 

 

For Radeon gamers the X.Org Server 1.20 adoption is most significant if you have an HTC VIVE headset and utilize Steam VR for virtual reality gaming… X.Org Server 1.20 paired with Linux 4.18 have the necessary bits around RandR leasing, non-desktop quirk handling for VR headsets, and other plumbing/infrastructure work made by Keith Packard over the past nearly two years to improve the support around VR on Linux. I’ll have some fresh Linux VR tests using Ubuntu 18.10 coming up soon on Phoronix.

Given the numerous upgrades, I ran some benchmarks with a Radeon RX 580 and RX Vega 64 graphics cards to show the impact of the upgrade. The configurations tested were:

– Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS with its stock Linux 4.15 + X.Org Server 1.19.6 + Mesa 18.0.5 built against LLVM 6.0.

– Ubuntu 18.10 with its default Linux 4.18 kernel + X.Org Server 1.20.1 + Mesa 18.2.2 built against LLVM 7.0.

– Ubuntu 18.10 when upgrading to the Linux 4.19 Git kernel using the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA and also using the Oibaf PPA to switch to Mesa 18.3-devel Git built against LLVM 7.0 for the latest open-source graphics experience.

Various OpenGL and Vulkan games were benchmarked using the Phoronix Test Suite.
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Oct 17, 2018, 09:00

(Other stories by Sean Michael Kerner)

ShieldX announced its new Elastic Security Platform on Oct. 17 providing organizations with Docker container based data center security, that uses advanced machine learning to determine intent.

At the core of the Elastic Security Platform is a technology that ShieldX calls the Adaptive Intention Engine that automatically determines the right policy and approach for security controls across multicloud environments. The intent-based security model can provide network microsegmentation, firewall and malware detection capabilities, among other features

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• NeuVector 1.3 Boosts Container Security with Improved Threat Detection(Nov 13, 2017)
• Layered Insight Takes Aim at Container Security(Feb 05, 2018)
• Twistlock 2.3 Advances Container Security with Serverless Support(Jan 03, 2018)
• DockerCon EU 17 Panel Debates Docker Container Security(Oct 20, 2017)
• 10 layers of Linux container security(Oct 09, 2017)
• CNCF Adds Notary, The Update Framework to Boost Container Security(Oct 24, 2017)

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