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Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

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Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#51
post #16
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would avoid running LTS unless you really need the stability. Otherwise, having the latest applications (and utilities like git) is going to be difficult.

I'm on 16.04 and I have no problems with that. I use the repositories of the developers, so I get the latest versions. I use Canonical's repositories for the OS and the software I don't really care much about. I had no problems with this approach (LibreOffice, PostgreSQL, etc). I occasionally run some software in a docker container to get the latest version, or to run multiple versions of the same server application…

I'll definitely look into Gnome Flashback. I'm not all that happy with Gnome 3. It often fails to restore my windows when attaching an external monitor at work, and the caffeine extension for keeping the display on during presentaitons etc somehow managed to lock up Gnome entirely when suspending. A sign of a unhealthy plug-in architecture, maybe...

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the only users that predictively fall to browser exploits when we run end user targeted red-team ops are the devs and IT peeps that run Linux instead of OSX/Windows. In fact across the board Linux machines in many enterprises are more likely to run outdated and possibly vulnerable software.

It sounds like that's a failure of your IT team to handle updates. Either that or your sourceless claims are just to spread FUD. Most distros have different update channels so that you can install security updates without feature updates. Tools like unattended-upgrades make it trivial to automatically install daily security updates. You can then manually install other updates at a later time if you're concerned with…

I'm very well aware that there are ISM solutions for ensuring updates for all operating systems.

For Linux Desktops it is especially hard since many of the solutions are not oriented for desktop users and when the package manager is not used there are gaps in software enumeration.

The best solutions I've seen so far are essentially block access to all online repos and manage your own but many organizations don't want to go that route, with ubuntu you can even use the "appstore" UI for displaying only your repo.

Your thinking is also too narrow while I gave examples from a managed environment there are plenty of Linux users running on unmanaged machines. Most users even "technically savvy" ones are not going to be reading release notes and reviewing CVEs daily via RSS.

Having a reliable way to ensure automated updates for Linux especially for commonly used and exploited software is an important tool to have and I wish more repos would implement something like Windows Update than say "what if Firefox puts in a keylogger" because that isn't a good argument as you can argue to them back "what if you put in a keylogger?" if you already pull your updates from your distro's managed repo you already accept that risk as such the risk of having no automatic updates at that point makes you less secure not more.

If you want to use a different repo or build everything from source locally that's fine but that is a completely different security model.

Also neither shifting the blame or claiming FUD are good arguments. Firstly there was no blame associated with the end user, at any point where there is a security system failure the end user isn't the "causal factor" doesn't matter if it's an unpatched system or did clicked on a phishing link they are do not own any of the causal blame.

As for FUD, calling something FUD is generally intellectually lazy and is used to end an argument by moving the goal post and changing the subject.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#53
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the only users that predictively fall to browser exploits when we run end user targeted red-team ops are the devs and IT peeps that run Linux instead of OSX/Windows. In fact across the board Linux machines in many enterprises are more likely to run outdated and possibly vulnerable software.

This is because Ubuntu doesn't automatically install updates by default. On Fedora you can install updates when shutting down your computer, resulting in less people delaying it.

My point wasn't about Ubuntu or not but rather about this so called "threat model" that is the reason behind the lack of automatic updates.

The threat model is simply not valid for the security model that users who use a package manager follow.

Don't get me wrong supply chain based threat models including the source and intermediates are a valid concern.

But you already accept those risk by using a package manager and a managed repo which contains the source code and or binaries for the applications you want.

Not providing automatic updates to protect me from Mozilla won't reduce the risk when the risk from the package manager and the managed repo is just as high if not higher it just increases the overall risk as now I need to ensure that I follow their release cycle closely to make sure that my browser is always up to date.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#55
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a hard issue to solve.

It’s already solved in 16.04 though. They have _removed_ support for it in this case.

Unity's approach introduced some visual glitches due to rounding errors and didn't work with multiple monitors (with different dpi), I wouldn't call that "solved".

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#56
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already solved in 16.04 though. They have _removed_ support for it in this case.

Unity's approach introduced some visual glitches due to rounding errors and didn't work with multiple monitors (with different dpi), I wouldn't call that "solved".

It solved the practical “80%” use case: single HiDPI monitor. That’s strictly better than the current, utterly busted state of things.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#57
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unity's approach introduced some visual glitches due to rounding errors and didn't work with multiple monitors (with different dpi), I wouldn't call that "solved".

It solved the practical “80%” use case: single HiDPI monitor. That’s strictly better than the current, utterly busted state of things.

True, but I can see why they went for the 100% solution this time, which they couldn't finish for 18.04.

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#58

Weird, I am still getting "No new release found." when running `do-release-upgrade`... EDIT: Found the answer in another comment: > I also learned that there's an official plan for 18.04.1, to be released July 26th. This is the release that will prompt 16.04 LTS for an upgrade. In other words, the official upgrade path for an LTS is to wait for the first patch release, and not upgrade immediately. So I'm considering…

Same here, but I think that's because it takes some time for the new Ubuntu releases to be considered stable...

For now its still in development according to them.

Ref: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-18-04-lts-b...

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#59
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always use something like the Nix package manager[1] to install Firefox, Git, and Emacs, and leave the rest to Ubuntu. Save for Firefox, which I install from a tarball and use auto-update, I have been doing that with Debian stable on my laptop, and it works well. [1] https://nixos.org/nix/

So they will run on X11 that's from Debian stable? Will for example Emacs read your .Xresources from your home directory? I've been eyeing this setup with Guix but I have some concerns. If I install a newer version of GCC through Nix/Guix, can I run update-alternatives on it?

Yes, it will run on your system X11 obeying your .Xresources. I have never tried using update-alternatives to replace the system-wide GCC (or any piece of software for that matter).

Re: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver Released

#60
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they will run on X11 that's from Debian stable? Will for example Emacs read your .Xresources from your home directory? I've been eyeing this setup with Guix but I have some concerns. If I install a newer version of GCC through Nix/Guix, can I run update-alternatives on it?

Yes, it will run on your system X11 obeying your .Xresources. I have never tried using update-alternatives to replace the system-wide GCC (or any piece of software for that matter).

that's nice it hooks back into your system. I might just have to try it :)
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