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#15110175
@ckaihatsu

Yeah, so I was looking up some lightweight versions of Linux and Puppy Linux is pretty close to the top of the list. It's run from a live CD though and can be boot from the USB flash thumb drive. I think I read where you mentioned that in your posts above. I would say if you don't want to boot from a live CD or live USB flash thumb drive using Puppy Linux, you could instead use Sparky Linux to boot from your mass storage. Sparky Linux has got a CLI (command line interface), Home Edition (I am assuming if you are looking for a desktop) and GameOver Edition. Not sure what the GameOver Edition is but it sounds like it might be fore gamers. I wonder if this distribution is properly supported like Ubuntu or Lubuntu though? Here check out these links below:

https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

https://sparkylinux.org/

It looks like it might be supported from what I have been reading here:

https://9to5linux.com/sparkylinux-2020- ... n-bullseye
#15110183
Politics_Observer wrote:
@ckaihatsu

Yeah, so I was looking up some lightweight versions of Linux and Puppy Linux is pretty close to the top of the list. It's run from a live CD though and can be boot from the USB flash thumb drive. I think I read where you mentioned that in your posts above. I would say if you don't want to boot from a live CD or live USB flash thumb drive using Puppy Linux, you could instead use Sparky Linux to boot from your mass storage. Sparky Linux has got a CLI (command line interface), Home Edition (I am assuming if you are looking for a desktop) and GameOver Edition. Not sure what the GameOver Edition is but it sounds like it might be fore gamers. I wonder if this distribution is properly supported like Ubuntu or Lubuntu though? Here check out these links below:

https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

https://sparkylinux.org/

It looks like it might be supported from what I have been reading here:

https://9to5linux.com/sparkylinux-2020- ... n-bullseye



Cool -- I recall trying SparkyLinux once, because it's based on Debian, which is lower-level than Ubuntu. Also LMDE as well:

https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php


Also AV Linux:

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=avlinux


I think *any* Linux distro would boot from external storage, because to Linux any storage is just another filesystem to it.
#15110197
@ckaihatsu

Yes you are correct, but based on what I have read Puppy Linux ONLY boots from external storage like a CD or a USB Flash Thumb drive and NOT EVER from mass storage like an internal hard disk drive or solid state drive. I don't know as I have never used Puppy Linux. Perhaps you can provide some insight into that. Sparky Linux on the other hand, from my understanding, can be booted from mass storage, is very lightweight and works on modern systems as well as on older slower systems. My concern is if Sparky Linux is supported due to keeping that system as secure as possible from potential hacker exploits.
#15110319
Politics_Observer wrote:
@ckaihatsu

Yes you are correct, but based on what I have read Puppy Linux ONLY boots from external storage like a CD or a USB Flash Thumb drive and NOT EVER from mass storage like an internal hard disk drive or solid state drive. I don't know as I have never used Puppy Linux. Perhaps you can provide some insight into that. Sparky Linux on the other hand, from my understanding, can be booted from mass storage, is very lightweight and works on modern systems as well as on older slower systems. My concern is if Sparky Linux is supported due to keeping that system as secure as possible from potential hacker exploits.



No, that's not correct -- my foray into testing several kinds of Linux was awhile ago now, back around 2008-2012, but I can recall from experience that Puppy Linux can be installed onto an internal hard drive (back then -- SSDs now, of course), and it can be booted from that installation on that internal hard drive.

By all means, though, use what you like -- there's Sparky, also Solus is based on Debian, etc. Debian and its derivatives will be more user-friendly than Puppy, though I haven't been around Puppy lately. Puppy is interesting in that their user base has methodically gone through *every* Linux package and stripped them down to bare working essentials, for maximum performance, if a bit clunky for the user.

For *any* approach to Linux I'd recommend finding the distro that most approximates what you're going to use it for, so as to keep additional installations of software to a minimum, especially for Puppy. Also install a firewall and activate it after installation, if it doesn't come with the OS install.

Good luck on the remote box. It's *interesting*, regardless, and you can even do all that on *routers* these days, with OpenWRT and the command line, because routers have gotten downright beefy in recent decades.
#15110322
The only distros people care about:

Ubuntu/Debian
RedHat/Fedora/CentOS
SUSE
Alpine for people that care about Dockerizing shit.

Everything else are just university projects.
#15110324
Rancid wrote:
The only distros people care about:

Ubuntu/Debian
RedHat/Fedora/CentOS
SUSE
Alpine for people that care about Dockerizing shit.

Everything else are just university projects.



Hmmmm, I'm getting a tangible *anti-Puppy-Linux* vibe from you two -- it's too bad, really, since Puppy Linux is quite impressive in its own right, and shouldn't be so summarily dismissed.
#15110335
ckaihatsu wrote:Hmmmm, I'm getting a tangible *anti-Puppy-Linux* vibe from you two -- it's too bad, really, since Puppy Linux is quite impressive in its own right, and shouldn't be so summarily dismissed.


I'm not anti-puppy. Just pointing out, that from an industry perspective, the distros I listed are the only one's people care about. Mainly because they have corporate backing/support.

I'd imagine that for you, that's not important, however for @Politics_Observer, it might be relevant.
#15110338
@Rancid

It is relevant as I need to be good at the Linux distributions that corporations and business care about and use. However, I do enjoy the other distributions that are not widely used by business as long as they are properly supported so that any newly discovered vulnerabilities in the operating system are patched up so they can't be exploited by hackers.

@ckaihatsu

Actually, if I can run Puppy Linux off my hard drive (when I say mass storage this is what I am referring to) then sure I will be happy to give it a go. My question is this though, is it supported? Does Puppy Linux release patches to patch up newly discovered vulnerabilities in it's operating system on a consistent basis? Do you know?
#15110340
Rancid wrote:
I'm not anti-puppy. Just pointing out, that from an industry perspective, the distros I listed are the only one's people care about. Mainly because they have corporate backing/support.

I'd imagine that for you, that's not important, however for @Politics_Observer, it might be relevant.



Okay, I stand corrected, and I concur.

TinyCoreLinux deserves a mention, too, for its LEGO-blocks-like building-from-scratch approach.


Politics_Observer wrote:
@Rancid

It is relevant as I need to be good at the Linux distributions that corporations and business care about and use. However, I do enjoy the other distributions that are not widely used by business as long as they are properly supported so that any newly discovered vulnerabilities in the operating system are patched up so they can't be exploited by hackers.

@ckaihatsu

Actually, if I can run Puppy Linux off my hard drive (when I say mass storage this is what I am referring to) then sure I will be happy to give it a go. My question is this though, is it supported? Does Puppy Linux release patches to patch up newly discovered vulnerabilities in it's operating system on a consistent basis? Do you know?



No, you're at the edge of my knowledge on this -- I'd invite you to look into it yourself.
#15110344
@ckaihatsu

I'll go ahead and take a look at it when I finish my school work first. I'll do an install on the Virtual Box hypervisor on my Linux Ubuntu 20.04 partition of my dual boot laptop. I'll run Puppy Linux as a guest operating system. Probably do the same with Sparky Linux.
#15110345
Politics_Observer wrote:
@ckaihatsu

I'll go ahead and take a look at it when I finish my school work first. I'll do an install on the Virtual Box hypervisor on my Linux Ubuntu 20.04 partition of my dual boot laptop. I'll run Puppy Linux as a guest operating system. Probably do the same with Sparky Linux.



Sounds like a plan.
#15110353
@ckaihatsu

See, for me, I like to take some lightweight versions of Linux that are supported that way I can take old hardware and turn them either into a server to use in my home network or the home network of a family member or turn it into a regular desktop computer. The desktop computers I prefer to ensure they have things like the latest LibreOffice on them and if I don't need them, in some cases I might consider giving them away to a charity so that less advantaged students of computer science somewhere can have a computer to use for their classes. I generally wipe the hardware clean before doing any installs of Linux on any hardware. I also check the BIOS and all aspects of the firmware too of that old hardware. Sophos is a good anti-malware scanner to use on Linux systems.

It's hard being a student, ESPECIALLY when you come from a less advantaged background, which is why it's important that we as a society try to lend a helping hand when we are able to. Plus, using Linux, will make you a better computer professional and programmer anyway than utilizing Linux. It's just you have to learn how to use Linux. But as a Computer Science student that's part of your job is to learn Linux.
#15110358
Politics_Observer wrote:
@ckaihatsu

See, for me, I like to take some lightweight versions of Linux that are supported that way I can take old hardware and turn them either into a server to use in my home network or the home network of a family member or turn it into a regular desktop computer. The desktop computers I prefer to ensure they have things like the latest LibreOffice on them and if I don't need them, in some cases I might consider giving them away to a charity so that less advantaged students of computer science somewhere can have a computer to use for their classes. I generally wipe the hardware clean before doing any installs of Linux on any hardware. I also check the BIOS and all aspects of the firmware too of that old hardware.



Yeah, for *this* kind of thing *several* kinds of Linux come to mind, especially Lubuntu (XFCE).

And, of course, Turnkey Linux for any headless server setup.

Keep in mind, though, that *newer* computers -- and even Windows tablets turned Linux -- have *far less* in power requirements than just a few years ago, so you can save more in the long run with lesser wattage requirements. (Also, try investments in solar panels and batteries for free electricity from the sun for your computational needs.)


Politics_Observer wrote:
It's hard being a student, ESPECIALLY when you come from a less advantaged background, which is why it's important that we as a society try to lend a helping hand when we are able to. Plus, using Linux, will make you a better computer professional and programmer anyway than utilizing Linux. It's just you have to learn how to use Linux. But as a Computer Science student that's part of your job is to learn Linux.



I agree, but I'll also add that there's an inherent trade-off between *comprehensiveness* and *self-motivation* -- you're describing the conventional 'textbook' approach to learning, but if one focuses more on what *one* *oneself* wants to learn, as for a specific personal project, then all of the information out there is automatically 'winnowed' down to what's *applicable* to one's needs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning


But here's a good place to start, regardless:

https://tldp.org/docs.html#howto

https://tldp.org/guides.html
#15115076
If you are an active Windows users like most people, you can use CCleaner to do a low level format of your hard drive on free space that is available. This particular tool for Windows is available from their site here: https://www.ccleaner.com/ . Generally, there is formatting and then there is low level formatting. When you format your hard drive, you do not really get rid of the data on your mass storage drive (mass storage being your hard disk drive or solid state drive). So, if you are wanting to retire an old computer and give it away to charity, you most certainly want to conduct an extensive low level format of your hard drive that way the data on your hard disk drive or solid state drive of that computer you are giving away cannot be recovered.

Linux is really the best tool to use when doing a COMPLETE and TOTAL low level format of your hard drive. You can going to the BIOS of your computer, boot into Linux from a live USB flash thumb drive. You wan to make sure you use the Live CD version as it's called from the Live USB Flash thumb drive when you do so. You can then run the Linux Bash Shell and execute the "dd" command in a similar fashion like this but is not the exact syntax you would use on your command line on your own computer: "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx." This is a screen shot that illustrates what I am talking about:

Image

Here is a quote from a great article in regards to low level formatting your mass storage of your computer if you are going to retire it:

Dedoimedo.com wrote: Low level formatting, as opposed to high level formatting is an operation performed directly against disk sectors. You skip the file system layer and you go directly for the underlying storage. Let me elaborate.

Normally, operations against storage devices are performed using a logical abstraction layer called the filesystem. Humans do not think in terms of bits and sectors and such, they think in terms of file names and possibly file sizes. This is exactly what filesystems do, plus a few other things, like keep relations betweens files and directories, optimize read and writes, maintain integrity of operations, and more.

In Linux, for example, you have filesystem drivers, responsible for this kind of work, called ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, and others. When you create a partition, say using GParted, you then format it with some filesystem. The choice will dictate what you can and cannot do with the underlying storage, which is now exposed to you.

This is the so-called high-level formatting, because you do not care what kind of hardware you have. You do not really need to know anything except that there's a hard disk that can now contain your stuff.

The high-level formatting can be considered a sort of a possibility map - it tells the kernel, which manages all those useful hard disk operations, where data can be stored and in what manner. This means that if you are reusing a hard disk, old data that has been previously stored on the device may still be available in its raw form, a series of zeros and ones physically written to the storage medium. Of course, this old data is meaningless, as the new filesystem residing on top it does not know about it and will freely overwrite segments during normal operations. But if you're only using 1-2% of your total storage, theoretically, there might be entire blocks of old data that you could read, bypassing the filesystem, so to speak.

Some consider this a privacy risk, as old disks given away or stolen or accidentally reused could be gleaned for old data. In most cases, determined and skilled users might be able to harvest bits and pieces of randomly stored data from the storage media. For some people, this is an unacceptable risk. Enter low level formatting.


https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/low ... tting.html

You can also use GParted tool discussed earlier in this thread, booted from a live USB flash thumb drive which is a great partitioning tool to low level format an entire hard drive too after erasing existing partitions on that hard drive and then setting up simply one partition for the entire hard drive. You would then follow up by opening the Bash Shell in the Live Flash USB thumb drive GParted program and execute the "dd" command to conduct the low level format before giving away your computer to charity or to a friend or somebody else.
#15116137

Access to these VPNs is being facilitated by lone actors at a grassroots level. “You would see people in the elevator just leaving USB sticks with VPN access files. It’s funny, this is like low tech in action,” said Milta. “Some didn’t know about VPN, so there were a few people offline for three days,” added Kirila. “I even had the idea to spread lists with instructions on VPNs, but on the same night I came up with that idea, the internet was back.”



Denials of service

“At the orders of official state bodies, from 20:40 on August 26 in Minsk mobile internet bandwidth will be restricted. [Our] compliance with this requirement will lead to a decline in the quality of data transmission or temporary service failures,” mobile network provider A1 tweeted Wednesday.

While there were different types of network challenges across August, the government attempted to play off earlier issues. Lukashenko, for his part, originally blamed “foreign cyberattacks” for the internet outages, while the National Computer Incident Response Center of Belarus alleged DDoS attacks on government infrastructure. However, Belarus’ internet went down via a method called Deep Packet Inspection. DPI attacks were based around actual domain names, so Telegram bypassed them, benefitting from using IP addresses instead of domains.

DPI is more commonly known as “packet sniffing” outside cyber security circles and is used for watching where packets go, which is useful for monitoring traffic on sensitive networks, but is often also used for censorship. DPI was also used in Iran, according to NetBlocks, which tracks online disruptions and shutdowns. It appeared that the government employed listed keywords that it could use to block access to specific URLs. “DPI is used for filtering domain name[s]—it can filter protocols but that can be worked around,” said Alp Toker, NetBlocks CEO.

Image
NetBlocks recorded some of the DPI-filtered domains, including the Belarusian version of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and human rights NGO ‘Vyasna’. Local media report that more than 70 have been blocked.
Screenshot: NetBlocks.Org


“Two primary mechanisms at play here when it comes to the restrictions—the link layer/network layer disruptions—the chunk of the internet route being disrupted at different times, and the DPI,” he added. Telegram was able to work because it doesn’t use domain names at all—it uses IP addresses directly. “They’re quite good at leaping from address to address, so if one network goes down they switch over either automatically or just by having users enter a new setting to connect to another server,” said Toker.

The tech-heavy Belarusian economy took a severe hit as a result of the outages, reportedly losing as much as $56 million each day. More than 2,000 investors, executives, and tech sector workers signed an open letter saying conditions in the country meant their businesses could not function. “Startups are not born in an atmosphere of fear and violence. Startups are born in an atmosphere of freedom and openness,” they stated, anticipating a slowdown in growth and even a mass exodus.



https://gizmodo.com/belarus-turned-off- ... 1844853575
#15116143
@ckaihatsu

You can use a packet sniffer called Wireshark (commonly called a protocol analyzer) if you want to do deep packet inspection. Cybersecurity professionals use them to conduct assessments of networks they are charged with protecting. You also have anomaly based and signature based Network Intrusion Detection Systems and Intrusion Prevention systems that use deep packet inspection. The anomaly based Network IDS/IPS especially use deep packet inspection for detecting zero day exploits as part of a defense in depth strategy. Fireeye is a good example of an anomaly based Network IDS used to detect zero day exploits.

Host IDS/IPS's can also be installed on endpoint machines to layer the protection of the network and provide endpoint security. Snort is a signature based network IDS and a good host IDS is Ossec and Tripwire. You can use Ossec on Windows machines but you need to have it Ossec Linux server set up to use it on Windows thick clients in your network or active directory domain. These can be used with a signature based anti-malware scanners along with behavior based Aritificial Intellligence next generation anti-malware scanners designed to detect malware that is custom built and designed to evade the signature based anti-malware scanners.

Check out this article. Hackers shut down the New Zealand stock market exhange using a DDoS attack by leveraging public clouds. This makes these attack very cheap to launch but inflict high cost damage on their targets:

BBC wrote:NZX said it had first been hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack from abroad, on Tuesday.

The exchange said the attack had "impacted NZX network connectivity" and it had decided to halt trading in cash markets just before 16:00 local time.

Trading halted briefly for a second time, on Wednesday, but was back up and running before the end of the day.

A DDoS attack is a relatively simple type of cyber-attack, in which a large array of computers all try to connect to an online service at once, overwhelming its capacity.

They often use devices compromised by malware the owners do not know are part of the attack.

Genuine traders may have had problems carrying out their business.

But it does not mean any financial or personal information was accessed.


https://www.bbc.com/news/53918580
#15146623
Here is a good browser extension to help avoid websites that engage in crypto mining of your CPU. Here is the Firefox link for it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-coin/ . Not sure if Google Chrome has that specific extension but Google Chrome does have No Miner which helps to avoid crytpo mining websites: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... cdmd?hl=en .
#15151112
ckaihatsu wrote:
Btw, on all this system stuff, I recommend Stacer.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/stacer/



I noticed a *problem* with Stacer the other day -- the line graphs for the processors' activity were all *bullshit*, compared to what I'm used to seeing from the 'System Monitor' app's graphs for the same.

Stacer's line graphs were just *steady* fluctuating cycles for all of the processors, even when I was doing nothing with the processor, and basically idling.
#15151118
@ckaihatsu

I would simply use Top on a Linux system to check to see how much % CPU processing power specific processes are using of the CPU. It can also check to see how much RAM memory a process is also using and give it to you in a percentage. On a Windows operating system you can run Performance Monitor with specific counters to track certain statistics over time as well to help you figure out any sort of performance issues your computer and operating system might be having.

You can use your performance monitor to monitor specific counters of your choosing as a baseline. You can use a user defined collector set to monitor things over time within Performance Monitor. Using the data collector sets in Performance Monitor will create a log file you can look over to see any performance issues over time. You can make the log files cyclic to where if the log file reaches a certain size, it will simply start writing over old data. This is a good idea so your log file doesn't get too large on the mass storage of your Windows system.
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