The officially official Devuan Forum!

You are not logged in.

#1 Re: Off-topic » What are you reading/want to read ? » 2024-03-27 07:21:21

Blood Money by Peter Schweizer. It was just released late last month. I'm going to try to get my local library to order a copy.

I ordered used copies of two of his older books yesterday. I'll read those while I'm waiting for my library to purchase a copy of his latest book.

#2 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » A devuan wiki page on virt-manager » 2024-03-16 22:39:17

I have never used virt-manager. I tried using about a year ago, but quickly became annoyed with it and gave up. Since it is unnecessary and I can use QEMU without it, that is my current preference. I only mention that because some people seem to think that using virt-manager is a requirement.

#4 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] Beowulf to Chimaera - precautions II » 2024-03-11 00:48:31

Did you try connman, like I suggested here?:

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=48061#p48061

If not, now would be a good time to do so.

#5 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] Beowulf to Chimaera - precautions » 2024-03-05 19:35:17

Altoid wrote:

If I were to go ahead, I will need to make a foolproof image of my system drive, a Kingston 120Gb SSD.

Although there are a number of ways to accomplish this, I prefer to use Clonezilla. To use Clonezilla, you would need to boot to a live CD/DVD/USB system that (preferably) comes with Clonezilla. Refracta is a good choice for this. For good measure, you could also make a second backup using FSArchiver.

It would also be prudent to make separate additional backups of /etc and /home using an archiver utility like tar.

Altoid wrote:

Is disks ie: gnome-disk-utility 3.30.2 up to the task?

No.

#6 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Intermittent Network Disconnections » 2024-02-28 03:49:00

@Ron,

Do you happen to have an eero router? Those things are notorious for this. In my experience, on Windows 10 the problem is very bad. I'll click on the Connect button, and it will connect after a considerable delay. But then, very often, it will disconnect immediately or within a minute or so. The problem is bad enough that when I run Windows Update I plug an Ethernet cable into the laptop and don't even bother with Wi-Fi. So far, on Devuan the problem has been nonexistent for me; however, I don't use Devuan with Wi-Fi very often, so the problem may still be there but with much less severity compared to Windows.

#7 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Wer synchronisiert die Systemuhr? » 2024-02-25 10:41:58

On my Chimaera-based Refracta system, the responsible program is ntpdate.

$ whereis ntpdate
ntpdate: /usr/sbin/ntpdate /usr/share/man/man8/ntpdate.8.gz

#8 Re: Freedom Hacks » Securing my/our computer systems » 2024-02-19 04:10:36

zapper wrote:

Don't take that person's opinions seriously.

This person thinks that proprietary software is more secure then open source or if you prefer more secure than libre software.

Point being,  a bunch of empty air. tongue

An example:

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html

Windows is not ahead of linux in any security focused way. Quite the opposite... which this page lies about.

I don't agree with you. It's very clear from this person's writings that he is very knowledgeable about matters of computer security.

You misrepresent what this person wrote. He never claims that Windows is more secure than GNU/Linux. What he does is provide numerous examples showing that other operating systems, including Windows, are making progress addressing different security issues, while Linux is basically standing still. And when he talks about Linux, it appears to me that he is really only talking about kernel development.

I sometimes use Windows 10 because some useful software runs only on Windows (and sometimes MacOS as well). Because it's a proprietary OS, I don't really trust it -- I believe that the likelihood of built-in backdoors is high. As such, it only gets access to the internet when it's absolutely necessary. However, in its defence, Windows 10 has built-in security features (most disabled by default) that allow me to lock it down so tightly that any unknown program that gets onto the system will be blocked and will not run. I wish that I could do the same on GNU/Linux, but so far I have not found any simple, easy way to replicate that behavior on Linux.

Getting back to Linux, one of Madaiden's recommendations is to use Alpine Linux. That seems like very good advice to me. Alpine Linux has no systemd, uses musl instead of libc, and all userland binaries are compiled as Position Independent Executables (PIE) with stack smashing protection. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be a good choices for novices.

#9 Re: Off-topic » Refracta-SnapShot - Question » 2024-02-18 06:43:06

How flexible are the Refracta tools? If I were to successfully install them (and their dependencies) on a non-Debian distro, like Alpine Linux, is there a reasonable chance that they would work?

#11 Re: Freedom Hacks » Securing my/our computer systems » 2024-02-16 03:50:35

GlennW wrote:

I am considering switching facebook to a different browser, instead of the most convenient ff-latest,

Like flashpeak-slimjet, it's a pain to setup because I don't use sudo, but it has it's own sandbox...

I would not use Slimjet. I recommend using Chromium instead.

If you do use Chromium, be sure to also install its sandbox:

# apt install chromium chromium-sandbox

However, using complete physical separation is a better approach. Your message stimulated me into thinking about this some more, and I am now considering buying an inexpensive tablet PC to use for Facebook. Either that, or an inexpensive Android smartphone with a fairly large screen. But probably not, though, since I hate browsing the web on a phone.

And there's another good reason for choosing an Android tablet. Although Android is based on Linux, Google has done a lot of work on hardening the OS. However, if you decide to go this route, do not install the Facebook app. If it comes preinstalled, uninstall it or, if that's not possible, disable it. At least one privacy expert has stated that the FB app is essentially spyware.

#12 Re: Freedom Hacks » Securing my/our computer systems » 2024-02-13 23:17:16

Glenn,

I recommend downloading the most recent BIOS update for your computer and saving it in a safe place (preferably multiple places). Does your computer use UEFI or the old-style BIOS?

Then become very familiar with how to use flashrom.

Website: https://www.flashrom.org/
Package: flashrom

Very important: Always make a backup copy of your current BIOS before using flashrom to flash it with a new (or clean) version. Do it even if you suspect that your BIOS has been corrupted or maliciously modified.

The first time I used flashrom to update my computer's BIOS to the last available version, I lost internet after rebooting. After a considerable amount of research, I learned that the chip that holds the BIOS, also holds something called the SMBIOS. On my computer's motherboard, the SMBIOS contains the MAC address for the network card, the motherboard serial number, and some other information. Flashrom had overwritten the SMBIOS with zeroes, so that info was gone. That's why networking was no longer working. Fortunately, I had the sense to make a backup of the BIOS before I flashed it, so I just restored that and I was back in business.

For years I felt frustrated that there seemed to be no easy way to restore my computer's BIOS to a pristine state. Recently, I resumed my research on this problem and discovered that there are DOS utilities that allow one to edit the SMBIOS. I downloaded one of them but haven't tested it yet. If it works, I'll be able to insert the missing SMBIOS data after using flashrom to flash the chip holding the BIOS with the last available update.

#13 Re: Freedom Hacks » Securing my/our computer systems » 2024-02-12 01:18:20

This post may be helpful:

Linux Hardening Guide

The information on this website may also be helpful:

PRISM Break

#14 Re: Installation » Installing from src and apt » 2024-02-11 16:11:20

Altoid wrote:

I refuse to deal with the useless bloat that is Network-Manager, so I will stick with Devuan Beowulf and WiCD.

There is a better solution:

# apt install connman-gtk connman-ui

And, optionally, connman-vpn.

Then, for better Devuan compatibility, make this configuration change:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=48040#p48040

Now remove all wicd-related packages.

This may be enough:

# apt remove wicd-gtk

Reboot.

Optional:

Before doing all of the above, run this command:

# aptitude -d install wicd-gtk

That will ensure that wicd-gtk and its dependencies are present in the package cache. In the unlikely event that something goes wrong and you lose internet connectivity, this will allow you to easily reinstall wicd-gtk.

#15 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Can't connect to repos » 2024-02-10 19:48:45

For anyone who is running connman and having this problem, there is a simple fix.

Edit this file: /etc/init.d/connman

Change this:

DAEMON=/usr/sbin/connmand
DESC="Connection Manager"

To this:

DAEMON=/usr/sbin/connmand
DAEMON_OPTS='--nodnsproxy'
DESC="Connection Manager"

Reboot.

#16 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Can't connect to repos » 2024-02-09 15:48:12

After my post last night, I realized that my Chimaera-based Refracta system uses connman, whereas my Daedalus-based Refracta system uses Network Manager. As an experiment, I installed network-manager-gnome and removed connman, connman-gtk, connman-ui, and connman-vpn. Now apt update works. However, I don't recommend using this solution on Chimaera because Network Manager isn't quite working right (which is probably why the system came with connman instead).

THE SOLUTION IN THIS POST IS DEPRECATED. Please go to https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=48040#p48040 for current working solution.

This is my original solution to this problem:

# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1        refracta                localhost
::1              ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0          ip6-localnet
fe00::0          ip6-mcastprefix
fe02::1          ip6-allnodes
fe02::1          ip6-allrouters

# U.S. Devuan mirror -  mirrors.hyperreal.coffee
172.234.26.53	deb.devuan.org

# Alternate U.S. Devuan mirror -  dev.beard.ly
#198.58.118.8	deb.devuan.org

As you can see, I added two mirrors to my hosts file. I could have just used one, but I wanted to have a backup mirror listed as well to make it easy to switch in the event that my primary mirror is ever offline for some reason. I obtained the IP addresses of those mirrors using nslookup. It's not a "perfect" solution, but it works.

The Devuan mirror list can be found here:
https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/mirror_list.txt

#17 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Can't connect to repos » 2024-02-09 02:05:04

I have Daedalus-based Refracta on an old laptop that I use infrequently. I ran apt update on it this morning and there were no problems. I wondered if maybe the problem had been fixed. I just tried doing the same on my Chimaera-based Refracta system, and it failed the same way as before.

#18 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Can't connect to repos » 2024-02-07 23:58:39

Yes, I have been seeing something similar with apt since yesterday on a Chimaera-based Refracta system.

# apt update
Err:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
Err:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-updates InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
Err:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-security InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
Err:4 http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-backports InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
Reading package lists... Done    
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
W: Failed to fetch http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/chimaera/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
W: Failed to fetch http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/chimaera-updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
W: Failed to fetch http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/chimaera-security/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
W: Failed to fetch http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/chimaera-backports/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.devuan.org'
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

A couple of things I did to try to diagnose the problem:

$ wget -c --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0" https://deb.devuan.org/merged
--2024-02-07 13:34:14--  https://deb.devuan.org/merged
Resolving deb.devuan.org (deb.devuan.org)... failed: Temporary failure in name resolution.
wget: unable to resolve host address ‘deb.devuan.org’
$ nslookup deb.devuan.org
Server:		::1
Address:	::1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 103.146.168.12
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 95.216.15.86
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 200.236.31.1
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 46.4.50.2
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 130.225.254.116
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 141.84.43.19
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 190.64.49.124
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 160.16.137.156
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 185.178.192.43
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 158.69.153.121
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 125.228.189.120
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 89.174.102.150
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 94.16.114.15
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 185.236.240.103
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 106.178.112.231
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 172.234.26.53
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 185.38.15.84
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 185.183.113.131
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 131.188.12.211
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 147.78.194.22
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 195.85.215.180
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a0a:e5c0:10:3::6eeb
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a01:9e40::180
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2407:b6c0::12
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a01:4f9:2a:fa9::2
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2801:82:80ff:8000::2
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a01:4f8:140:1102:2b76:955d:b48f:bdf3
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2001:878:346::116
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2001:4ca0:4300::1:19
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2800:a8:c001::a
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2001:e42:102:1704:160:16:137:156
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2607:5300:61:95f:7283:11d9:f86:e691
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2001:4190:801c:1::150
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a03:4000:28:24c::
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a0d:eb00:8006::acab
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 240b:10:f00:1b00::240
Name:	deb.devuan.org
Address: 2a02:2a38:1:400:2a42:2a42:2a42:2a42

Those results are puzzling to me.

#19 Re: Devuan Derivatives » refracta 32 » 2024-02-07 19:54:18

Since yesterday, apt has been failing for me on a Chimaera-based Refracta system. It appears to be due to some kind of network issue. I assumed that it is (most likely) being caused by my ISP, but I may be wrong. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe the OP is having the same problem. However, without seeing the error messages I can only guess as to what the problem might be.

#20 Re: Devuan Derivatives » refracta 32 » 2024-02-07 18:57:27

If apt fails, there should be error messages.

Run this command:

sudo apt update

Post the output in a reply.

#21 Re: Devuan » Praise for the security updates » 2024-01-27 15:25:36

boughtonp wrote:

Xorg does not depend on systemd. The promptness of its security updates is due to the Debian X Strike Force, and the Debian Security Team.

None of these packages depend on systemd, none of these packages are forked by Devuan, security for them is not handled by the Devuan team.

That is not completely true. The package xserver-xorg-core does not come directly from Debian; it is a Devuan package. Is this true for any other Xorg-related packages? I don't know because I haven't had time to check.

By the way, someone pointed out this fact out a little over a month ago on this forum.

#22 Re: Forum Feedback » [SOLVED] Quote Button » 2024-01-22 05:25:04

I also noticed the absence of the quote button.

This is my workaround:

[quote=$username]
$text-to-quote
[/quote]

Replace "$username" with the person's username.
Replace "$text-to-quote" with the text that you would like to quote.

#23 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] can't install firefox addons uBlock & NoScript » 2024-01-18 21:22:50

boughtonp wrote:

Since you can use uBlock Origin to disable and selectively enable scripts per domain, do you actually have a need for NoScript?

Yes. As I explained here, using NoScript is useful even when one is using uBlock Origin.

#24 Re: Forum Feedback » Forum Login Security » 2024-01-17 06:53:36

Recently, the login page link for the forum was not secure (http instead of https). I don't remember how long it was like that. Whenever I encountered this, I would copy the link, paste it into a text editor, change it from http to https, and then log in using the corrected link.

However, I have not seen this behavior lately. Maybe it only happens under certain conditions. If it happens again I will report it here.

#25 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] Software MGR Doesn't Update Software & Software Isn't Found » 2024-01-10 02:08:22

If Synaptic isn't what you're looking for, consider installing Software Center for GNOME.

Installation:

sudo apt install gnome-software

And if you're interested in having Flatpak support, then:

sudo apt install gnome-software gnome-software-plugin-flatpak

Board footer

Forum Software