Linux Solutions

The article will provide a reader with information on G-Data Antivirus. G-Data Antivirus is generally easy to use. The main interface clearly indicates the PC’s protection status, though it does lack a “master” everything’s-protected-and configured-correctly status indicator that’s present in many antivirus products. The scan screen isn’t as simple as it is in some other products, but is still well laid out.

G-Data AntiVirus 2011 was tested and the tests revealed that it is one of the better performers at cleaning up malware: it detected all infections on our test PC, and disinfected active malware components in 80 percent of the cases, which tied it with several other products for the top score in this test. And it removed all traces of malware infections 60 percent of the time - again, a very good showing.

In addition, G-Data AntiVirus 2011 was one of the few antivirus packages that were tested that didn’t flag a single “safe” file as potentially dangerous. Scan speed results were mixed. G-Data AntiVirus 2011 performed well in the on-demand scan tests, which determine how quickly it can run a manually initiated scan. It completed the on-demand scan of 4.5GB of data in 1 minute, 51 seconds–the third-best score in this test. On the other hand, its on-access scan times lagged. (The on-access test is a good way to see how long it will take a product to scan files as they’re opened or saved to disk.) It finished this test - scanning 4.5GB of files - in 5 minutes, 36 seconds, a below-average showing. The test also revealed that its impact on performance was slightly lower than average relative to other antivirus software.

G-Data AntiVirus 2011 can have a moderate impact on overall PC performance. It can add less than a second to startup time versus a PC with no antivirus software installed.

• Pros
Uses two antivirus engines for enhanced detection. Includes CPU Load meter. Malicious website blocking very effective against phishing. Behavioural detection catches bad programs, not good ones.

• Cons
Malware cleanup rendered one test system unbootable. Many malware-linked executables and almost all non-executable traces left behind by cleanup. Detected but failed to prevent installation of two rootkit-based key loggers.

• Bottom Line
G Data has its good points, notably accurate protection and behavioural analysis that avoids false positives. But its cleanup leaves behind way too much, it rendered one test system unbootable, and some threats managed to install despite G Data’s attempt to prevent them.
Installation, Successful and Otherwise
Immediately after installation G Data wisely prompts the user to run an update. Once the update finishes the product prompts the user to run a scan.

By reading the article, a user would have gained knowledge and understanding for G-Data AntiVirus 2011.

The article will provide a user with information on Kon-Boot and resetting windows and Linux passwords.

Kon-Boot is an prototype piece of software which allows to change contents of a Linux kernel on the fly (while booting). Kon-Boot was moved to Windows platforms. So now it provides support for Microsoft Windows systems and also the Linux systems. Kon-Boot for Windows enables logging in to any password protected machine profile without without any knowledge of the password. This tool changes the contents of Windows kernel while booting, everything is done virtually – without any interferences with physical system changes. So far following systems were tested to work correctly with Kon-Boot:
• Windows Server 2008 Standard SP2 (v.275)
• Windows Vista Business SP0
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
• Windows Vista Ultimate SP0
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
• Windows XP
• Windows XP SP1
• Windows XP SP2
• Windows XP SP3
• Windows 7

In the current compilation state it allows to log into a Linux system as ’root’ user without typing the correct password or to elevate privileges from current user to root. For Windows systems it allows to enter any password protected profile without any knowledge of the password.
It was mainly created for Ubuntu, later the author has made a few add-ons to cover some other Linux distributions.
It has been tested with the following Linux distributions:
• Gentoo 2.6.24-gentoo-r5 GRUB 0.97
• Ubuntu 2.6.24.3-debug GRUB 0.97
• Debian 2.6.18-6-6861 GRUB 0.97
• Fedora 2.6.25.9-76.fc9.i6862 GRUB 0.97

Let’s have a look at the steps to get Kon-Boot to work from a USB pen-drive:
• First of all, write the floppy image to a USB flash drive using Unetbootin as seen in this image.
• Then extract the files in the zip folder to the root of the thumbdrive:
• Now, tell the BIOS to boot from a USB drive (F12 on most Dell’s brings up this boot device menu).
• When the syslinux menu comes up, choose “1st Kon-Boot” first and step through it.
• The 2nd time the syslinux menu comes up, choose the option “2nd try boot from drive C: as hd1″.
•
• If hd1 does not work, try hd2 and so forth until a user gets in. If a user has a multi-boot system a user may get a boot error.
• On Linux login as kon-usr at the terminal (not GDM/KDM/XDM). On Windows use any valid local user name and a blank password.

The article will provide a user with information and guidance on Pinguy Operating System.
The programs in Pinguy OS are considered to be user-friendly in terms of their ease of use and functionality. Please note that there are a number of programs out there for Linux to give the OS a good implementation, like CoverGloobus, Gloobus Preview, GNOME Do, and Docky. These programs don’t just give the OS a good look and feel but they are also very useful and handy.

Pinguy OS is an optimise build of Ubuntu 11.04 Minimal CD with added repositories, tweaks and enhancements that can run as a Live DVD or be installed. It has all the added packages needed for video, music and web content e.g. flash and java, plus a few fixes as well. Like fixing the wireless problems, gwibber’s Facebook problem and flash videos in full-screen.

It also has a UPnP/DLNA server (pms-linux) so a user can share the music, video’s etc. With a PS3, XBOX 360, Smart Phones or any other UPnP/DLNA media reader. Just like Mint, Pinguy OS includes all the multimedia codecs a user will ever need, Adobe Flash, and Sun Java. In fact the only negative thing I have to say about Pinguy’s default software selection is that having Wine-Doors and Play On Linux both installed feels a little bit redundant. The default theme of the operating system largely resembles OSX (including a global menu bar at the top of the screen). There are two docky bars by default, one located at the bottom of the screen which houses the applications.

Please note that the Firefox that ships with Pinguy is heavily customized to include a fantastic selection of addons that add an array of features to the browser (and Firefox on Pinguy feels much “snappier” than it does on Mint/Ubuntu).

If a user has read the article then he/she would have learnt about Pinguy OS.

The article will provide a user with information and guidance on Diskless Remote Boot in Linux (DRBL).

DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) is a NFS-/NIS server providing a diskless or systemless environment for client machines.

DRBL can be used for:
• cloning machines with Clonezilla software inbuilt,
• providing for a network installation of Linux distributions like Fedora, Debian, etc.,
• providing machines via PXE boot (or similar means) with a small size operation system (e. g. DSL, Puppy Linux, FreeDOS).

Providing a DRBL-Server
• Installation on a machine running a supported Linux distribution via installation script,
• Live CD.

A user should note that installation is possible on a machine with Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Red Hat Linux, Fedora, CentOS or SuSE already installed. DRBL comes under the terms of a GPL license so providing the user with the ability to customize it.

DRBL’s categories
Disk Cloning
Clonezilla (packaged with DRBL) uses partimage to avoid copying free space, and gzip to compress Hard Disk images. The stored image can then be restored to multiple machines simultaneously using Multicast packets, thus greatly reducing the time it takes to image large numbers of computers. The DRBL Live CD allows a user to do all of this without actually installing anything on any of the machines, by simply booting one machine (the server) from the CD, and PXE booting the rest of the machines.

Hybrid Client
Using old hardware as Thin Clients is a good solution, but has some disadvantages that a Hybrid Client can make up for.
• Streaming Audio/Video - A Terminal Server must decompress, recompress, and send video over the network to the client. A Hybrid does all decompression locally, and can make use of any graphics hardware capabilities on the local machine.
• Software that requires real-time input - Since all input at a thin client is sent over the network before it is registered by the operating system, there can be substantial delay. This is a major problem in software that requires real-time input (i.e. video games). Hybrid clients run the software locally, and as such, do not have this problem.

DRBL allows a user to set up multiple Hybrid Clients with relative ease. The client computer is set to boot from the network card using PXE or Etherboot. The client requests an IP address, and tftp image to boot from, both are provided by the DRBL server. The client boots the initial RAM disk provided by the DRBL server via tftp, and proceeds to map an nfs share (also provided by the DRBL server) as its root (/) partition. From there, the client boots either the linux distribution in which the DRBL server is installed, Clonezilla, or an installer for various Linux distributions, depending on how that particular client was configured on the DRBL server.

If a user has read the article then he/she would have learnt about DRBL.

The article will provide a reader with information on YUMI. YUMI is the successor to MultibootISOs. It can be used to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more.

Creating a YUMI Multiboot MultiSystem USB Flash Drive
Let’s learn how to create a YUMI Multiboot MultiSYstem USB Flash Drive. Please note that YUMI stands for Your Universal Multiboot Installer. YUMI works much like Universal USB Installer, except it can be used to install more than one distribution to run from the USB. Distributions can also be uninstalled using the same tool.

If a user wants to create a MultiBoot USB Flash Drive, then he/she has to follow the steps as provided below:
1. First of all, please run* YUMI-0.0.2.9.exe
2. Now, run the tool again to Add More ISOs/Distributions to the Drive
3. Then restart the PC setting it to boot from the USB device
4. Finally, select a distribution to Boot from the Menu and enjoy!

It is good to learn how it works. YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer) enables each user to create their own custom Multiboot UFD containing only the distributions they want, in the order by which they are installed. A new distribution can be added to the UFD each time the tool is run.
If a user runs YUMI from the same location where it is stored, ISO downloads, they should be auto-detected, eliminating the need to browse for each ISO.

Please note that Windows Vista or 7 Installers will cause Ubuntu or any remix based on Ubuntu (I.E. Linux Mint) to hang during boot. A quick fix is to temporarily rename the Windows SOURCES folder found at the root of the USB device. A user should also note that if MultibootISOs was previously used, then he/she must reformat the drive and start over. YUMI uses Syslinux directly, and chainloads to grub only if necessary, so it is not compatible with the older Multiboot ISO tool.

The Basic Requirements or Essentials
Now, let’s have a look at the basic essentials to create a MultiSystem Bootable USB Drive
• Fat32 Formatted USB Flash or USB Hard Drive
• PC that can boot from USB
• Windows XP/Vista/7 host to create the Bootable USB
• YUMI-0.0.2.9.exe
• Selection of ISO Files

If a user has read the article then he/she would have learnt about YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator (Windows).