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Top 10 Microsoft Visio Alternatives for Linux
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Brief: If you are looking for a good Visio viewer in Linux, here are some alternatives to Microsoft Visio that you can use in Linux.
Top 10 Microsoft Visio Alternatives for Linux
Brief: If you are looking for a good Visio viewer in Linux, here are some alternatives to Microsoft Visio that you can use in Linux.
Microsoft Visio is a great tool for creating or generating mission-critical diagrams and vector representations. While it may be a good tool for making floor plans or other kinds of diagrams – it is neither free nor open source.
Moreover, Microsoft Visio is not a standalone product. It comes bundled with Microsoft Office. We have already seen open source alternatives to MS Office in the past. Today we’ll see what tools you can use in place of Visio on Linux.
Best Microsoft Visio alternatives for Linux
Mandatory disclaimer here. The list is not a ranking. The product at number three is not better than the one at number six on the list.
I have also mentioned a couple of non open source Visio software that you can use from the web interface.
| Software | Type | License Type |
|---|---|---|
| LibreOffice Draw | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
| OpenOffice Draw | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
| Dia | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
| yED Graph Editor | Desktop and web-based | Freemium |
| Inkscape | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
| Pencil | Desktop and web-based | Free and Open Source |
| Graphviz | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
| darw.io | Desktop and web-based | Free and Open Source |
| Lucidchart | Web-based | Freemium |
| Calligra Flow | Desktop Software | Free and Open Source |
1. LibreOffice Draw
LibreOffice Draw module is one of the best open source alternatives to Microsoft Visio. With the help of it, you can either choose to make a quick sketch of an idea or a complex professional floor plan for presentation. Flowcharts, organization charts, network diagrams, brochures, posters, and what not! All that without even requiring to spend a penny.
Good thing is that it comes bundled with LibreOffice which is installed in most Linux distributions by default.
Overview of Key Features:
- Style & Formatting tools to make Brochures/Posters
- Calc Data Visualization
- PDF-File editing capability
- Create Photo Albums by manipulating the pictures from Gallery
- Flexible Diagramming tools similar to the ones with Microsoft Visio (Smart Connectors, Dimension lines, etc.,)
- Supports .VSD files (to open)
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PulseAudio Equalizer On Linux
A great way to improve the overall sound quality on Linux is to install an equalizer however equalizer built into the music player isn’t enough. Instead, there is a different solution: Pulse Audio Equalizer. It allows the user to have a system-wide equalizer for all audio coming in and out of the system. This means that no matter what you’re listening to, be it music, videos, or human voices, you’ll be able to easily tweak it.
Getting the equalizer working is easy, and it starts with installing it to the system. Due to the fact that Pulse is open code, a lot of plugins and add-ons have been developed over the years. The equalizer is probably the must used. As a result, many Linux distributions choose to ship it (in some form or another). Here’s how to install it.
Ubuntu
sudo apt install pulseaudio-equalizer
Debian
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-equalizer
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S pulseaudio-equalizer
Fedora
sudo dnf install pulseaudio-equalizer
OpenSUSE
The SUSE build service makes installing the equalizer quite easy. Head over to this page and click the 1-click install button. The software supports all current versions of the equalizer.
Other Linuxes
Unfortunately there isn’t much in the way of source code for this Pulse Audio plugin. As a result, you’ll have to look hard in your version of Linux for the equalizer. There are some project files on Launchpad, that users can take apart, but good luck. If you want a good system-wide equalizer, best to use one of the Linux distributions listed above.
Using The Equalizer
After the equalizer is on the system, simply open your application menu and search for “equalizer”, or “pulse audio equalizer”, and launch it. When it opens, you’ll notice it looks just like any other software equalizer out there. Complete with sliders, and presets. Click the preset menu and sort through the different EQ setups. These can be changed at any time.
To enable the EQ, check the box “EQ enabled”. In addition, make the EQ run at all times by checking the “Keep Settings” box. Lastly, click the “Advanced” button to access advanced settings.
Note: when a user moves the sliders up and down, the label of the EQ will change from the preset name, to “custom”. Save any custom preset by clicking “save preset”.
Quick Pulse Audio Tip
With the Equalizer installed, the Linux audio system is much better. Still, Pulse Audio is a very confusing tool, and as it stands not many users know how to easily manipulate it. That’s why, in this section, we’re going to talk about a tool anyone can install to easily take control of the complex Linux audio system. It starts by installing the Pavucontrol tool.
It’s a graphical control tool for the Linux audio system. With it, users can do all sorts of things.
Ubuntu
sudo apt install pavucontrol
Debian
sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S pavucontrol
Fedora
sudo dnf install pavucontrol
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper install pavucontrol
Other Linuxes
The Pavucontrol tool is easily found on many Linux distributions under the package name “pavucontrol”. Open your package manager and search for that, or something similar like “pulse audio control”.
Usage
Inside Pavucontrol, there are five tabs; “playback”, “recording”, “output devices”, “input devices”, and “configuration”. To start off, the playback tab represents any program currently using the pulse audio sound system. Control the volume of the playback of each program in this tab.
If you’ve got multiple audio devices, select the audio device label, and click it to swap to a different device.
In the recording tab, things are very much the same. Instead of showing playback, it shows all programs currently recording audio. Use the volume sliders to manage how loud the input volume is. Click the audio device label to switch what device Pulse uses to record with.
The next tab is “input devices”. This tab allows users to manage the volume of each individual microphone, and device set up for recording.
The “output” tab is similar to the “input” tab. Like the input section, output allows the user to easily manage the volume of playback devices individually.
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Flatpak Now Updates Apps
Alex Larsson released at the end of last week a new stable update of the Flatpak 0.10 Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework (formerly XDG-App) for GNU/Linux distributions.
Bringing a month’s worth of improvements, Flatpak 0.10.2 is out with support for OSTree 2017.14, which is required for building the new release. An interesting feature of Flatpak 0.10.2 is the ability of the “flatpak update” command to update apps from both system and user installations by default.
In addition, all Flatpak remote-* commands now automatically decide by default if they need to use either the –system or –user arguments, based on the given remote name. The “flatpak remote-ls” command has been updated as well to list the content of all remotes when no remote is given.
Flatpak 0.10.2 also makes the “flatpak update” to be less noisy when updating appstream information, and updates the “flatpak install” command to support the –reinstall argument for uninstalling previously installed versions of apps and letting users pass absolute pathnames for remote names.
“flatpak install now allows you to pass an absolute pathname as remote name, which will create a temporary remote and install from that. The remote will be removed when the app is uninstalled. This is very useful during development and testing,” reads the GitHub release notes.
flatpak override gets some new features too
The “flatpak override” command received some improvements as well in the Flatpak 0.10.2 release, being able to override globally with no argument and to support the –nofilesystem properly, which can be used for hiding certain directories, even those with Home access, for all Flatpak apps (e.g. flatpak override –nofilesystem=~/.ssh).
Lastly, Flatpak 0.10.2 addresses a regression that breaks xdg-user-dirs and theme selection for KDE apps, and Flatpak is now capable of creating CLI (command-line interface) wrappers for all installed apps, allowing users to start Flatpak apps by their application ID when adding /var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin or ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin to their PATH.
Flatpak 0.10.2 is available for download right now from its GitHub releases page as a source tarball if you fancy compiling it yourself on your favorite GNU/Linux distribution, and it should soon make its way into the stable software repositories of various Linux-based operating system, so make sure you update to this version at your earliest convenience.
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Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) Server Edition Won’t Ship with a 32-Bit ISO
Canonical engineer Josh Powers posted a message today on the ubuntu-server mailing list to confirm the removal of the 32-bit (i386) daily ISO images of Ubuntu Server starting with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Following in the footsteps of Ubuntu Desktop, the Ubuntu Server official flavor won’t be shipping with 32-bit ISO images when the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system will be released next year in April. Therefore, you won’t be able to install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as a server, nor desktop OS on an old 32-bit computer.
“After no objections or issues were brought up on the ubuntu-server mailing list, I am requesting the removal of the Ubuntu Server i386 daily images starting with 18.04. As with the desktop i386 ISO change, there are no other changes requested to d-i, mini.iso, archive, or the upgrade paths,” writes Josh Powers on the mailing list.
Email address and unique API key are both required. At least one is missing.
Official Ubuntu flavors still won’t drop 32-bit support
It would appear that existing Ubuntu 17.10 Server 32-bit users won’t be able to upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS next year, so they’ll have to do a reinstall, of course. More and more GNU/Linux distributions are dropping 32-bit support lately, yet most of the official Ubuntu flavors like Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu or Ubuntu MATE won’t very soon.
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Top 5 Linux Music Players
Top 5 Linux Music Players
Discussion in ‘Linux Beginner Tutorials’ started by Rob, Jul 9, 2013.
Rob Administrator Staff Member
Joined: Oct 27, 2011 Messages: 177 Likes Received: 505 Shutting down Linux
At this point you should have installed Linux, and you’ve looked around at what you have. And then when you’re finished you’ll have to shut off your computer. Actually, there are computers that are never shut off. Imagine if your ISP shut off the computer every night! The Internet is a 24/7 business so that wouldn’t be practical. There are also people who probably just shut off their monitor. As you probably get some sleep occasionally, so we should maybe let our machine have a rest too once and a while. For this, we’ll use the shutdown command
As anyone who’s used a computer knows, if you shut off you’re computer before you’ve finished saving work, or if there’s a power outage that shuts it off for you, data will be lost. At first, if you shut off Linux incorrectly or there was an inopportune thunder storm and you lost electrical power, you could do severe damage to your Linux file system. That will very rarely happen these days, but you should always use the shutdown command when you want to shut off your computer. Linux will tell you about it if you don’t – it will run a check on your hard disk automatically when you use it again. If you have a big hard disk, you might as well go and make yourself a sandwich because it’s going to take a while. Linux will also run a routine check every once and a while automatically. You also have our permission to fix yourself a sandwich in these cases too.
Shutdown a single computer
The most common way of shutting down a single user Linux system is for you as root to issue the command:
Code: shutdown -h now You use this when you plan on shutting your computer off at that moment, as opposed to some later time.
Linux is going for system halt NOW
It will start to shut off programs that you’re computer is using and you’ll see it all happening. That’s because Linux is a transparent system. It lets you see everything it’s doing. It won’t give you a simple message telling you to wait and then another one telling you you can shut it off now. If something is causing a problem, it will tell you about it when it starts up and when it shuts down. That way, if you are having a problem, you may be able to track it down. If you don’t know how to solve it, you can tell another person what you saw and he or she may be able to help you.
With the shutdown command, you must wait until you see the message:
System halted
Power down before you shut off the computer.
Re-booting the computer
Rebooting Your Computer
Code: shutdown -r now If you have installed a dual-boot system and you want to use the other operating system, (why would you want to do that?) you would use this command. You will get a similar message as with the -h (halt) option that will say something like:
System going for reboot NOW
The basic reason behind all of these messages is that Linux was conceived to be a networked operating system. You have people at workstations on the network busily doing their work. The last part of the shutdown commandnow is fine for a single-user home PC, but on a network system this would be changed to indicate a time. That way people would have a chance to finish what they were doing before the system went down for maintenence. Using ‘now’, in a network, would probably be hazardous to the health of the person who sent that command.
The next time you shutdown your system, you may want to try using some time options instead of just now. For example, you may want to try shutting down the computer at a given time.
Code: shutdown -h 20:01 Which will shutdown the computer at 8:01 PM. You could also try:
Code: shutdown -h +5 That shuts down the computer in 5 minutes time.
Now you know the correct way to shutdown your Linux system.
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rowty.net: share your code snippets #1 Rob, Jul 9, 2013 Rafael Marques, theicewitch, manover and 13 others like this.
AlienGod New Member
Joined: Sep 13, 2017 Messages: 11 Likes Received: 8 Gratitude #2 AlienGod, Sep 17, 2017
Pratham New Member
Joined: Oct 25, 2017 Messages: 16 Likes Received: 1 Rob said: ↑ Shutting down Linux
At this point you should have installed Linux, and you’ve looked around at what you have. And then when you’re finished you’ll have to shut off your computer. Actually, there are computers that are never shut off. Imagine if your ISP shut off the computer every night! The Internet is a 24/7 business so that wouldn’t be practical. There are also people who probably just shut off their monitor. As you probably get some sleep occasionally, so we should maybe let our machine have a rest too once and a while. For this, we’ll use the shutdown command
As anyone who’s used a computer knows, if you shut off you’re computer before you’ve finished saving work, or if there’s a power outage that shuts it off for you, data will be lost. At first, if you shut off Linux incorrectly or there was an inopportune thunder storm and you lost electrical power, you could do severe damage to your Linux file system. That will very rarely happen these days, but you should always use the shutdown command when you want to shut off your computer. Linux will tell you about it if you don’t – it will run a check on your hard disk automatically when you use it again. If you have a big hard disk, you might as well go and make yourself a sandwich because it’s going to take a while. Linux will also run a routine check every once and a while automatically. You also have our permission to fix yourself a sandwich in these cases too.
Shutdown a single computer
The most common way of shutting down a single user Linux system is for you as root to issue the command:
Code: shutdown -h now You use this when you plan on shutting your computer off at that moment, as opposed to some later time.
Linux is going for system halt NOW
It will start to shut off programs that you’re computer is using and you’ll see it all happening. That’s because Linux is a transparent system. It lets you see everything it’s doing. It won’t give you a simple message telling you to wait and then another one telling you you can shut it off now. If something is causing a problem, it will tell you about it when it starts up and when it shuts down. That way, if you are having a problem, you may be able to track it down. If you don’t know how to solve it, you can tell another person what you saw and he or she may be able to help you.
With the shutdown command, you must wait until you see the message:
System halted
Power down before you shut off the computer.
Re-booting the computer
Rebooting Your Computer
Code: shutdown -r now If you have installed a dual-boot system and you want to use the other operating system, (why would you want to do that?) you would use this command. You will get a similar message as with the -h (halt) option that will say something like:
System going for reboot NOW
The basic reason behind all of these messages is that Linux was conceived to be a networked operating system. You have people at workstations on the network busily doing their work. The last part of the shutdown commandnow is fine for a single-user home PC, but on a network system this would be changed to indicate a time. That way people would have a chance to finish what they were doing before the system went down for maintenence. Using ‘now’, in a network, would probably be hazardous to the health of the person who sent that command.
The next time you shutdown your system, you may want to try using some time options instead of just now. For example, you may want to try shutting down the computer at a given time.
Code: shutdown -h 20:01 Which will shutdown the computer at 8:01 PM. You could also try:
Code: shutdown -h +5 That shuts down the computer in 5 minutes time.
Now you know the correct way to shutdown your Linux system.Click to expand… Thanks #3 Pratham, Nov 2, 2017
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TOOL TO CREATE BOOTABLE WINDOWS USB STICK FROM LINUX
- Legacy / MBR-style / IBM PC compatible bootmode;
- Native UEFI booting is supported for Windows 7 and later images (with a limitation: only FAT filesystem can be used as the target filesystem).
- support for both wxWidgets 2 and 3;
- use pkexec instead of gksudo for privilege escalation;
- UEFI boot support;
- numerous bug fixes.
Some newer WoeUSB changes include:
- support customizing the –label of the newly created filesystem in –format mode;
- implement checking on target filesystem in –install mode;
- command line: check if target media is busy before continuing and bail out when the target partition is mounted;
- support Linux distributions that uses “grub2” as prefix name, such as Fedora;
- –install and –format installation options are deprecated in favor of –partition and –device, to be more clear what both options will do. The old options will still be available until WoeUSB v3.0;
- from now on, GRUB will pause when the ENTER key is used before starting to load Windows. This is useful if you want to see if there are errors in the GRUB loading stage.
Also, since the application name has changed, the executables have changed as well: “woeusbgui” for the GUI and “woeusb” for the command line tool.
You can see what’s new in each new WoeUSB release (there were 13 new releases for the past 2 days) on GitHub.
Despite the major code refactoring and numerous bug fixes, I still encountered an error using the WoeUSB GUI, which I also found in the original WinUSB. When the Windows USB stick is completed, WoeUSB displayed the following message: “Installation failed ! Exit code: 256”. This bug was closed on GitHub and it looks like it doesn’t affect the actual Windows USB stick in any way.
In my test, I was able to install Windows 10 64bit in VirtualBox (on an Ubuntu 17.04 host) despite this error.
Install WoeUSB in Ubuntu or Linux Mint via PPA
WoeUSB is available in the main WebUpd8 PPA, for Ubuntu 17.04, 16.10, 16.04 or 14.04 / Linux Mint 18.x or 17.x. To add the PPA and install WoeUSB, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update
sudo apt install woeusbIf you don’t want to add the PPA, you can grab the latest WoeUSB deb from HERE (you’ll only need the “woeusb” deb; the “winusb” deb is there as a transitional dummy package, so those that had the old fork installed will receive the new WoeUSB package as an update).
For how to build WoeUSB from source, report bugs, etc., see its GitHub page.
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Restore Corrupted USB Drive to Original state
Restore Corrupted USB Drive to Original state
|
Restore Corrupted USB Drive To Original State In Linux
Many times our storage devices like sd cards and Pen drives get corrupted and unusable due to one or other reasons.
It may be because of making bootable media with that device, formatting via wrong platforms or creating partitions in that device.
Restore Corrupted USB Drive to Original stateWarning: The following procedure will format all your data from your device
Whatever the reason, the final outcome is that we are not able to use that device.
So here is a solution to restoring a corrupted USB drive or sd card to its original working state. Most of the time a simple format via the file browser solves the problem, But for extreme cases where the file manager isn’t helpful and you need your device working, you can follow this guide. We will be using a small tool called mkusb for this purpose. The installation is easy. Add the repository tor mkusb and install it.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa # and press Enter
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi Now launch mkusb. You will get this prompt, click ‘Yes’.
run mkusb dus
Now mkusb will ask you one last time if you wish to proceed with the formatting of the data, ‘Stop’ will be selected by default. You now select ‘Go’ and click ‘OK’.
linux mkusb
The window will close and your terminal will look like this.
mksub console
In a few seconds, the process will be completed and you will get a window popup like this.
restore corrupted usb drive
You need to now remove the device from the system and plug it back in. Your device is Restored to a normal device and it will function properly like before.
Linux disk manager
Now I know all of these could have been done via terminal commands, gparted or some other software etc. But that would require some level of knowledge about partition management. So it’s always good to have a small tool like this to automate the boring work for you. Conclusionmkusb is a fairly easy to use program that can help you repair your usb storage devices and sd cards. It is available through the mkusb ppa as mkusb. All operations on mkusb will require superuser permissions and all your data on that device will be formatted.
Once the operation is completed You will have to reattach the device to make it work. If you have any queries feel free to post them in the comments section below. |
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Cryptr – A Simple CLI Utility To Encrypt And Decrypt Files
Looking for a quick, easy, and secure method to protect your files? Well, there is a simple shell utility called “Cryptr” that helps you to encrypt and decrypt files. All from command line, and you don’t need to be a security ninja or Linux expert to learn how to secure your data. Cryptr uses OpenSSL AES-256 cipher block chaining method to encrypt files. It is free to use and is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
Encrypt And Decrypt Files Using Cryptr
Installation is not a big deal. Git clone Cryptr repository using command:
git clone https://github.com/nodesocket/cryptr.git
This command will clone the contents of Cryptr repository in a folder called cryptr in your current working directory.
Then link the cryptr.bash file to your bin folder using command:
sudo ln -s "$PWD"/cryptr/cryptr.bash /usr/local/bin/cryptr
That’s it. It’s time to see some usage examples.
Let us encrypt a file called “test.txt”. To do so, run the following command from your Terminal. Cryptr will ask you to enter the password to the file twice.
$ cryptr encrypt test.txt enter aes-256-cbc encryption password: Verifying - enter aes-256-cbc encryption password:
The above command will encrypt the given file (I.e test.txt) using AES-256-CBC encryption method and save it with an extension .aes. You can use “ls” command to verify if the file is really encrypted or not.
If there is .aes at the end in the file name, it menas the file is encrypted.
To decrypt an encrypted file, use the following command. Enter the correct password and voila!
$ cryptr decrypt test.txt.aes enter aes-256-cbc decryption password:
You can also define the password to use when encrypting a file using the CRYPTR_PASSWORD environment variable like below.
$ CRYPTR_PASSWORD=BC1rO7K7SspYcLChMr28M cryptr encrypt test.txt Using environment variable CRYPTR_PASSWORD for the password
Here, BC1rO7K7SspYcLChMr28M is the password to the file.
Similarly, to decrypt an encrypted file, use:
$ CRYPTR_PASSWORD=BC1rO7K7SspYcLChMr28M cryptr decrypt test.txt.aes Using environment variable CRYPTR_PASSWORD for the password
This can be helpful in scripts and batch operations.
To view the help, run:
$ cryptr help Usage: cryptr command <command-specific-options> encrypt <file> Encrypt file decrypt <file.aes> Decrypt encrypted file help Displays help version Displays the current version
If you’re looking for a simple utility that just works out of the box without much hassle, give Cryptr a try. I will be soon here with another interesting guide. Until then stay tuned with OSTechNix.
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Things to do After Installing Ubuntu 17.10
Ubuntu 17.10 is released. By now, you might have seen the new features in Ubuntu 17.10 and I recommend you should also start looking at Ubuntu 18.04 release date. If you are giving 17.10 a try with a fresh install, here I am listing a few things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10 that will make your experience with Ubuntu better. If you are a new Ubuntu user, I also recommend reading this getting started guide with Ubuntu that will help you to understand Ubuntu and use it easily.
Things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10
Just to be clear, what to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10 depends upon you, the user. If you are into graphics design, you’ll like to install plenty of Linux graphics tools. If you are into Linux gaming, you might look for installing more Linux games and configuring your graphics card for that. If you are into programming, you would want to install programming tools, editors, IDEs etc.
So, let’s begin with the written list of things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10:
1. Update your system
Whenever you do a fresh install of Ubuntu, update the system. It may sound strange because you just installed a fresh OS but still, you must run the updater. I have experienced that if you don’t update the system right after installing Ubuntu, you might face issues while trying to install a new program. You may even see fewer applications to install. To update your system, press Super Key (Windows Key) to launch the Activity Overview and look for Software Updater. Run this program. It will look for available updates. Install them.
Alternatively, you can use the following command in the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade2. Enable Canonical Partner repositories
Another must do thing is to enable Canonical Partner repositories. Ubuntu has a number of software available from its repositories. You can find them in the Software Center. But you get even more software in the Software Center if you enable the Canonical Partner repositories. This additional repository consists of third-party software, often proprietary stuff, that have been tested by Ubuntu. Go to Activity Overview by pressing Super Key (Windows key), and look for Software & Updates: 
3. Install media codecs
By default, Ubuntu doesn’t provide a number of media codecs because of copyright issues. But it does provide an easy way to install these media codecs so that you could play MP3, MPEG4, AVI and a number of other media files. You can install these media codecs thanks to Ubuntu Restricted Extra package. Click on the link below to install it from the Software Center. Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras4. Install software from the Software Center
Once you have upgraded the system and installed the codecs, it’s time to install some software. If you are rather new to Ubuntu, I suggest reading this detailed beginner’s guide to installing software in Ubuntu. Basically, there are various ways to install software in Ubuntu. The easiest, most convenient and most reliable way is to use the Software Center to find and install new software. You can open the Software Center to look for software to install in this graphical tool.
- VLC media player for videos
- GIMP – Photoshop alternative for Linux
- Shutter – Screenshot application
- Calibre – eBook management tool
- Chromium – Open Source web browser
- Kazam – Screen Recorder Tool
- Gdebi – Lightweight package installer for .deb packages.
You can also refer to this list of must-have Linux applications for more software recommendations.
5. Install software from the web
You’ll find plenty of applications in the Software Center. But you’ll also find that many applications are not included in the Software Center despite the fact that they support Linux. Actually, a number of software vendors package their software in .deb format that can be easily installed in Ubuntu. You can download the .deb files from their official websites and install them by double-clicking on it. Some of the main software that I download and install from the web are:
- Chrome web browser
- Slack communication tool
- Dropbox cloud storage service
- Skype (the new beta version)
- Viber instant messenger
6. Tweak the look and feel of Ubuntu 17.10
Ubuntu 17.10 uses GNOME desktop environment. While the default setup looks good, it doesn’t mean you cannot change it.
In the System Settings, you can change the wallpaper of the desktop and the lock screen, you can change the position of the dock (launcher on the left side), change power settings, Bluetooth etc. In short, you can find many settings that you can change as per your need. Remember that there is no “set to default” button here so try to keep a track of changes you make to your system.
sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool
7. Prolong your battery and prevent overheating
One of the best ways to prevent overheating in Linux laptops is to use TLP. Just install TLP and forget it. It works wonder in controlling CPU temperature and thus prolonging your laptops’ battery life in long run. You can install it using the command below in a terminal:
sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdwOnce installed, run the command below to start it:
sudo tlp startNo need for any configuration changes (you can do that if you know what you are doing). It will be automatically started with each boot and tweak your system’s power consumption.
8. Save your eyes with Nightlight
9. Moving back to Xorg from Wayland (if needed)
I have separately discussed moving back to Xorg from Wayland in Ubuntu 17.10. As Ubuntu 17.10 moves away from the legacy Xorg display server, not all desktop applications are compatible with the new Wayland display server.
To switch to Xorg from Wayland, log out of your system, at the login screen, click the gear icon and select Ubuntu on Xorg option:
What do you do after installing Ubuntu?
That was my suggestions for getting started with Ubuntu. Now it’s your turn. What steps do you recommend as things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10? The comment section is all yours. Read More
Increase your network security – Deploy a honeypot
Deploying a honeypot system on your internal network is a proactive measure that enables you to immediately detect an intruder before any data is damaged or stolen.
Have you ever wondered how a hacker breaks into a live system? Would you like to keep any potential attacker occupied so you can gather information about him without the use of a production system? Would you like to immediately detect when an attacker attempts to log into your system or retrieve data? One way to see and do those things is to deploy a honeypot. It’s a system on your network that acts as a decoy and lures potential hackers like bears get lured to honey. Honeypots do not contain any live data or information, but they can contain false information. Also, a honeypot should prevent the intruder from accessing protected areas of your network. A properly configured honeypot should have many of the same features of your production system. This would include graphical interfaces, login warning messages, data fields, etc. An intruder shouldn’t be able to detect that he is on a honeypot system and that his actions are being monitored.
Benefits of a honeypot system
Many organization wonder why they should spend money and time setting up a system that will attract hackers. With all the many benefits of a honeypot, however, the real question should be why you have not already set one up. A honeypot’s most significant value is based on the information that it obtains and can immediately alert on. Data that enters and leaves a honeypot allows security staff to gather information that is not available from an intrusion detection system (IDS). An attacker’s keystrokes can be logged during a session, even if encryption was used to establish it. Also, any attempts to access the system can trigger immediate alerts. An IDS requires published signatures to detect an attack, but it will often fail to detect a compromise that is not known at the time. Honeypots, on the other hand, can detect vulnerabilities based off the attacker’s behavior that the security community may not be aware of. These are often called zero-day exploits. The data collected by honeypots can be leveraged to enhance other security technologies. You can correlate logs generated from a honeypot with other system logs, IDS alerts and firewall logs. This can produce a comprehensive picture of suspicious activity within an organization and enable more relevant alerts to be configured that can produce fewer false positives. Another benefit of a honeypot is that once attackers enter the system, it can frustrate them and cause them to stop attacking the organization’s network. The more time spent in the honeypot means less time spent on your production system.
Design and operation of a honeypot
There are variety of operating systems and services a honeypot can use. A high-interaction honeypot can provide a complete production-type system that the attacker can interact with. On the other end is a low-interaction honeypot that simulates specific functions of a production system. These are more limited, but they’re useful for obtaining information at a higher level. In my experience, the high-interaction honeypot is the most beneficial because it can completely simulate the production environment. However, it requires the most time to deploy and configure. It is critical to have proper alerting configured for your honeypot. You should have logs for all devices in the honeypot sent to a centralized logging server, and security staff should be paged whenever an attacker enters the environment. This will enable staff to track the attacker and closely monitor the production environment to make sure it is secure. It is important your honeypot system is attractive to a potential attacker. It should not be as secure as your production system. It should have ports that respond to port scans, have user accounts and various system files. Passwords to fake accounts should be weak, and certain vulnerable ports should be left open. This will encourage the attacker to go into the honeypot environment versus the live production environment. Attackers typically attack the less secure environment before going to one that has stronger defenses. This allows security staff to learn how hackers bypass the standard controls, and afterwards they can make any required adjustments. You can deploy a physical or virtual honeypot. In most cases, it is best to deploy a virtual honeypot because it is more scalable and easier to maintain. You can have thousands of honeypots on just one physical machine, plus virtual honeypots are usually less expensive to deploy and more easily accessible.
Honeypot on internal network protects against insider threats
Honeypots can also protect an organization from insider threats. According to the 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Survey, IBM found that 60% of all attacks were carried by insiders. A honeypot should be deployed within your internal network and only a minimal number of employees should know the system exists. Internal deployment is preferred over external due to the larger number of attacks carried by insiders and the fact that many hackers prefer to establish command-and-control servers for communication to compromised servers on the internal network. Honeyd is an open-source tool used for creating honeypots. It is a daemon that can be used to create many virtual hosts. You can configure each host differently and run a variety of services on them. They can be configured to run on different operating systems. You can set up real HTTP servers, FTP servers and run Linux applications on it. It is also enables you to simulate various network topologies. Honeypots have been used mostly by researchers to study the tactics and techniques of attackers. But as I explained earlier, they can be very useful to defenders as well. It is time for more organizations to consider using them as a proactive way to protect their network. The benefits of deploying them far outweigh the costs for organizations that manage a significant amount of sensitive data. Read More