Ubuntu- my 2c

[PaddyTM]

Seeing as I switched to Ubuntu after reading everything on this forum, here is my feedback.

I'm not a power user (to put it mildly), and a lot of the people on this site who recommend a linux based OS seem to have a IT background. I, on the other hand, am closed to a functional retard.

1) Set up is a breeze. The only real difficulty are the drivers, but I can live with it. Especially since I had only 1 driver problem, as compared to quite a few with MS.

2) Getting media to play- yes it is a small hassle, but getting all the correct codecs for windows was hardly a breeze.

3) Getting software- this is a tricky one; not yet comfortable using the terminal, but absolutely love the package manager.
Windows was generally a bit hit or miss for me in terms of finding the right software, installing it, hoping that it was right and that it didn't mess up my system. Now I can see what is highly rated software, and get it from the community itself, knowing that the source it reliable.

3) Obviously the virus/ malware issue is great.

4) The online support for me is very comprehensive.

Negatives:

1) Wifi management under Ubuntu is not great. It may be the network manager, or the fact that it is a Broadcom card, but where I struggle on Ubuntu, on Vista I dont.

2) The whole terminal aspect. Yes you need to adjust, but if the aim is attract market share, the average user is always going to be uncomfortable after switching from a more streamlined OS to a text based interface where none of the commands make sense.

Saying this, would it be possible to sticky a list of common commands and a brief explanation in the linux sub forum? I know its on the net, but a lot of people are going to start their searches on mybb first.

2c done

[Garyvdh]

Thanks for the feedback! Good to see someone else jumping in. Hopefully this will encourage more to take the dive. Yes would be nice to see a stickied thread for us novices. I save all my commonly used terminal commands in my Gmail. Can share them with people if they want. I'll post some of them here when I get the chance.

[icyrus]

2) The whole terminal aspect. Yes you need to adjust, but if the aim is attract market share, the average user is always going to be uncomfortable after switching from a more streamlined OS to a text based interface where none of the commands make sense.

If you don't mind answering, what did you need to do in the terminal?

[hawker]

Maybe apt-get?

[ghoti]

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras to get all the codecs in one command. Should be in the gui as well.

Try the command:

sudo iwconfig wlan0

For your wireless problem, let me know what it says. Do you know which broadcom card you have?

[PaddyTM]

Trying to set up a network, trying to check status of some hardware etc.

Getting a laptops restricted driver enabled (broadcom) required a bit of time (no wifi=no package manager).

Installing a few pieces of software that were downloaded in compressed form (hadn't added the repo's, but hey, now i know)

Not much time, and i've since found other ways of doing some of it using the GUI, but a bit of time none the less.

[ghoti]

I think I had an acer laptop with a broadcom card on it once. Also had issues with it, so I installed the windows drivers on it and used those instead.

If that command I gave you earlier does not work, try: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766560 (not an easy follow)

[PaddyTM]

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras to get all the codecs in one command. Should be in the gui as well.

Try the command:

sudo iwconfig wlan0

For your wireless problem, let me know what it says. Do you know which broadcom card you have?

All fixed now; the problem with apt-get and package manager is that for them to work you need to be online first (same problem with any OS where you need to download a driver). So I had to download b43 and the driver and run them from the terminal. Lets hope I remember because I need to do it again on a similar system later this week.

Current problem is the network manager. Ubuntu sometimes can't find it, so I switch to Vista (dual boot), and no problem. As I say, I don't know if the problem is the driver or the manager itself. Have played with "wifi radar", maybe I'll get a better result.

[DBoy_25]

Well I just wanted to let you know that if you using Ubuntu on a server or computer and you go online. You can be hacked within a few seconds. I work for an SSL company and Ubuntu is a big no-no.

[PaddyTM]

Please explain what makes Ubuntu vulnerable? Is it only Ubuntu or all the distros as well?

[Garyvdh]

Well I just wanted to let you know that if you using Ubuntu on a server or computer and you go online. You can be hacked within a few seconds. I work for an SSL company and Ubuntu is a big no-no.

lol :D Care to elaborate on this? How does the hack happen?

[Swift-wp]

I would also like to know...:confused:

[Swift-wp]

Seeing as I switched to Ubuntu after reading everything on this forum, here is my feedback.

I'm not a power user (to put it mildly), and a lot of the people on this site who recommend a linux based OS seem to have a IT background. I, on the other hand, am closed to a functional retard.

1) Set up is a breeze. The only real difficulty are the drivers, but I can live with it. Especially since I had only 1 driver problem, as compared to quite a few with MS.

2) Getting media to play- yes it is a small hassle, but getting all the correct codecs for windows was hardly a breeze.

3) Getting software- this is a tricky one; not yet comfortable using the terminal, but absolutely love the package manager.
Windows was generally a bit hit or miss for me in terms of finding the right software, installing it, hoping that it was right and that it didn't mess up my system. Now I can see what is highly rated software, and get it from the community itself, knowing that the source it reliable.

3) Obviously the virus/ malware issue is great.

4) The online support for me is very comprehensive.

Negatives:

1) Wifi management under Ubuntu is not great. It may be the network manager, or the fact that it is a Broadcom card, but where I struggle on Ubuntu, on Vista I dont.

2) The whole terminal aspect. Yes you need to adjust, but if the aim is attract market share, the average user is always going to be uncomfortable after switching from a more streamlined OS to a text based interface where none of the commands make sense.

Saying this, would it be possible to sticky a list of common commands and a brief explanation in the linux sub forum? I know its on the net, but a lot of people are going to start their searches on mybb first.

2c done

Oh yes, can't forget to say congrats to you. Another one comes to the dark side:p

[icyrus]

Well I just wanted to let you know that if you using Ubuntu on a server or computer and you go online. You can be hacked within a few seconds. I work for an SSL company and Ubuntu is a big no-no.

Please elaborate? Which service is the vulnarability in and how is it exploitable? What level of access can be attained from this exploit?

Also, what is a SSL company?

[PaddyTM]

:) Thanks; I've got to say people have been very cool, and I'd be amiss if i didn't give big ups to Chiskop, who first helped me.

[Swift-wp]

This sounds like a major bug if it's highly exploitable.

[hawker]

Well I just wanted to let you know that if you using Ubuntu on a server or computer and you go online. You can be hacked within a few seconds. I work for an SSL company and Ubuntu is a big no-no.

Please substantiate!

[Swift-wp]

He can't exactly say something like that and not elaborate. Looking at his post count it doesn't look like he is a regular, or he just browses and doesn't post. We might be in for a long wait:(

[hawker]

:( - AFAIK Linux is pretty secure, I mean they had that hacking competition and a laptop running Ubuntu Linux was the only one that was not breached after the 3days.

+Ubuntu has iptables running by default.
+Linux in general is more secure, because only the /home is free editable changeable. The rest of the file system is protected unless you run as root.

[Garyvdh]

Methinks we have someone who knows not whereof he speaketh.

The IT guys at his office probly told him that to get rid of him.

[Swift-wp]

Exactly. That's why we want him to provide evidence and elaborate. This is bugging me now.

[hawker]

Doublepost, mods plse remove.

[hawker]

Good thing he isn't on ubuntuforums.org.

They wouldn't have had any mercy.


Exactly. That's why we want him to provide evidence and elaborate. This is bugging me now.

Exactly, one can't make a claim like that without substantiating it.

Edit: plse excuse double post.

[Swift-wp]

Methinks we have someone who knows not whereof he speaketh.

The IT guys at his office probly told him that to get rid of him.

LOL. Could be.

[Garyvdh]

I think I found him!

he must have written this....

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=30680

http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/6984_ubuntusucks.jpg

[hawker]

Haha! I saw those on ubuntuforums.org :P

Very good...btw, have you finished compiling programs level 7 yet? ;)

[Garyvdh]

Haha! I saw those on ubuntuforums.org :P

Very good...btw, have you finished compiling programs level 7 yet? ;)

Yikes!!!!!!! The only thing I ever compiled in my life was a list of traffic tickets!!! :p I'll let others do the compiling for me... I'm strictly a binaries man myself! ;)

[koffiejunkie]

1) Wifi management under Ubuntu is not great. It may be the network manager, or the fact that it is a Broadcom card, but where I struggle on Ubuntu, on Vista I dont.

There are two drivers that can make the broadcom chipsets work. First there was only ndiswrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/), a wrapper for the windows driver. This works very well, but requires you to have the windows drivers handy, and has some shortcomings in terms of ACPI (suspend/resume, etc). Then came the free/oss reverse engineered bcm43xx driver. Which frankly suck. It has poor range, poor power management. On the upside, it can do monitor mode (i.e. sniff the neighbour's traffic) which ndiswrapper can't.

disclaimer: my notebook that has a broadcom chip in has been dead for a year, and I've been using an atheros card since, so my information might be somewhat old, but I believe the bcm43xx driver is still far from perfect, especially on newer chips.


2) The whole terminal aspect. Yes you need to adjust, but if the aim is attract market share, the average user is always going to be uncomfortable after switching from a more streamlined OS to a text based interface where none of the commands make sense.

It irony is once you get a real good grip on the commands, the windows commands make less sense every time you use them :) To be serious, Windows has a commandline interface too, which has limited use when troubleshooting networking, for example.


Saying this, would it be possible to sticky a list of common commands and a brief explanation in the linux sub forum? I know its on the net, but a lot of people are going to start their searches on mybb first.

Good idea. I'd be happy to contribute, although I don't work with Ubuntu much, so I can only give you the generic stuff.


If that command I gave you earlier does not work, try: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766560 (not an easy follow)

+1
Stick to ndiswrapper - it's worth the trouble.


Please explain what makes Ubuntu vulnerable? Is it only Ubuntu or all the distros as well?

He is referring to the OpenSSL vulnerability in Debian and distributions based on Debian. Here's the debian version (http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1571) and the ubuntu version (http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1571). Of course, both had fixes released almost instantly, so he's a little behind the times.

For what it's worth, any operating system can be compromised in minutes if the attacker knows enough about what he's up against. A firewall is only really useful if it controls both incoming and outgoing traffic. It is also only one layer (of several) of security. You can all the firewalls you want, if you are, for example, running Joomla/Mambo, with all files belonging to the user that the webserver runs as, and set world writeable, you're more likely than not already helping to spread the word about quality replicas, penis enlargers and pre-approved mortgages.

[JazzeD]

Here is a link of the SSL vulnerability.
But it has been fixed.
Just "sudo apt get update" and "sudo apt get upgrade"

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/ubuntu-linux-critical-openssl-ruby-vulnerabilities.html

[Garyvdh]

Here is a link of the SSL vulnerability.
But it has been fixed.
Just "sudo apt get update" and "sudo apt get upgrade"

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/ubuntu-linux-critical-openssl-ruby-vulnerabilities.html

but fortunately Ubuntu offers to upgrade all by itself :D

[PaddyTM]

+1
Stick to ndiswrapper - it's worth the trouble.

I'm under the impression impression that it is better to use the reverse engineered solution rather than the workaround which handles black listed hardware i.e ndiswrapper ??:confused:

I know the bcm43 has been upgraded now, with (in theory) better firmware management. Not entirely sure myself.



...you're more likely than not already helping to spread the word about quality replicas, penis enlargers and pre-approved mortgages


All my favourite things.



I'd be happy to contribute, although I don't work with Ubuntu much, so I can only give you the generic stuff


How different are the basic commands?

I'm trying out my first multi quote post...

[koffiejunkie]

I'm under the impression impression that it is better to use the reverse engineered solution rather than the workaround which handles black listed hardware i.e ndiswrapper ??:confused:

Depends on what you consider "better" - if you want to figure out the neighbours' WEP key, yeah, then the bcm43xx is better. Otherwise, I'll stick to ndiswrapper. What you might encounter is, if your hardware is very new, ndiswrapper might not yet support your card's windows drivers that well. That happened to me when I just got my HP (or was it because I was running gentoo - not sure?), but they release pretty often, so that's not much of an issue. I still prefer using my Netgear (atheros) PCMCIA card, but the built-in ones do tend to have better range, thanks to the big antenna.



...you're more likely than not already helping to spread the word about quality replicas, penis enlargers and pre-approved mortgages.All my favourite things.


How different are the basic commands?

They're not different - the basic stuff are the same on all distros. There are just some ubuntu specific stuff, such as


sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

where ubuntu-restricted-extras is an ubuntu specific software collection, but


sudo iwconfig wlan0

is generic and would work on any linux distro assuming your wireless device is wifi0.

Some generic stuffy you may be insterested in:


ifconfigShows you your network devices, their addresses and some basic stats

iwconfigShows you your wireless devices with some more information that is specific to wireless devices

uptimeHow long your machine has been running and the average load at the moment

wget -t0 -c URLDownloads a file, continues if interrupted, and retries indefinitely. If this is not installed, run
apt-get install wget

wall "jou ma se e-pos"Sends a friendly message to all consoles - open two terminals side by side and try it!

smbclient -L IP_ADDRESSShows you the SMB shares (windows file sharing) on another machine. You may need a username/password. It will even show you the hidden shares, if there are any.

iptables -L -nShows you the firewall rules.

route -nShows you your network routes (e.g. your default gateway)

rsync -av /home/yourname/* /media/externaldisc/bacup/syncs the content of /home/yourname/ (i.e. your home directory where 'yourname' is your username) to a 'backup' directory on an external drive, assuming the external drive is at /media/externaldisc/ - it might be somewhere else, depending on the volume name of the disc and your distro. The cool thing about this is, when you do it again tomorrow, it will only copy what's new or changed. This won't delete anything off the external disc if you have deleted it from your home dir. To do that, do
rsync -av --delete /home/yourname/* /media/externaldisc/bacup/

Most of the above assumes that you are root, not a regular user. If you're running ubuntu, you'll need to prefix it with 'sudo'. With most other distros, you can type 'su -' and type the root password, which would make you root and load up root's environment variables, including the PATH.

[flarkit]

Methinks koffiejunkie consumes too much of that evil dark liquid!

But seriously, awesome posts there mate. Very helpful bits for the CLI-inexperienced persons

[ghoti]

Well I just wanted to let you know that if you using Ubuntu on a server or computer and you go online. You can be hacked within a few seconds. I work for an SSL company and Ubuntu is a big no-no.

You are talking rubbish... want some toilet paper for that mouth? At a recent hacking desktop competition, Ubuntu... vs Mac and MS.. was the only OS to come out bullet proof. A b0xs security is only as good as its admin.. so now I know.. your admins SUCK.

[Swift-wp]

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/ubuntu-linux-critical-openssl-ruby-vulnerabilities.html


You are talking rubbish... want some toilet paper for that mouth? At a recent hacking desktop competition, Ubuntu... vs Mac and MS.. was the only OS to come out bullet proof. A b0xs security is only as good as its admin.. so now I know.. your admins SUCK.

According to that link, it's Hardy that was affected, and if I remember correctly the competition was before Hardy was released. At least i can set my mind to rest now knowing that it has been patched.

[sn3rd]

For the newly enlightened: For a good read, browse through Slackware Unleashed. Gives you some good insight into the basic linux commands, and was my first forage into the world of the terminal.

[Threepwood]

Also, what is a SSL company?

Maybe an SSL company is just a company that doesn't want you using Linux? :P

I too, would like to know why Ubuntu is so exploitable, and, if it is, why in Ubuntu circles no-one seems much worried about it.

A simple google for "ubutnu exploit" throws up a few results, but I can't see anything remarkable just from the "hit list", I'm not reading through all that.

[hawker]

Why doesn't he reply?

Oh well, Ubuntu is innocent until proven guilty :D - not like Windoze.

[PaddyTM]

I see that he's looking to get hold of distros though ("Where can I download Linux operating system?").

Whole thing seems a bit odd.

[hawker]

Hmmm,that is rather odd.

The plot thickens...

[Fudzy]

I found Ubuntu Ultimate a greatway to dive into Linux. Has Ubuntu plus TONS of apps/games.

http://ultimateedition.info