Linux Solutions

The article will provide a user with information on SARDU. SARDU is a free software that can build one multiboot support CD, DVD or a USB device (USB stick/pendrive and all removable are supported). The name is the short of Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility. The disk or USB device may include comprehensive collections of “antivirus rescue cd”, collections of utilities, popular distributions of Linux Live, the best known Windows PE , recovery disks and Install of Windows XP , Windows Vista and Windows Seven .

SARDU includes a few utilities, but is primarily a tool for managing the software (ISO image files) that a user can download from other companies and developers.
SARDU has multilanguage support. At startup it checks to see if a system language exists, then sets the software language accordingly. If a system language does not exist, the language is set to English.

Software manageable by SARDU
The user must download all the ISO image who wants to integrate in the support. Downloaded the ISO images, have to be placed inside the “ISO” folder. Alternatively user can select a different path by selecting the “ISO icon” at the top of the GUI.

SARDU’s menu is divided into four categories:
• Antivirus
• Utility
• Linux
• Windows

User-friendliness
With a few clicks the media is ready. If a user wants to make a multiboot USB a user has to press the ‘Search USB’ button. The software will then look for all devices with FAT32. Only FAT 32 is supported. The device can be chosen from the combo box. By default the combo boxes of devices are disabled, and is activated only when one (or more) devices with FAT32 are detected. In the tab `Report` a user can find details about the selected USB: Type (Removable or Hard Disk), Serial, Label, Space used and free.

Pressing the button with the ‘USB icon’ causes SARDU to extract the needed files from one ISO at a time. After a careful examination it builds the menu and makes a multiboot USB device. If a user wants to make a multibootable CD or DVD a user will have to press the button with `disk`. SARDU then extracts the needed files one ISO at a time and, after a careful examination, builds the menu and makes a multibootable ISO. The ISO must then be burned to disk using the burning software or the burn option of SARDU.

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

The article will provide a user with information on controlling Tor with Vidalia. It will cover network map information and also new identity feature. Vidalia is an anonymity manager. Basically this means that it can be used to control Tor, and is automatically launched on network connection.

As soon as the Tor client managed to establish a route to the Tor network, Vidalia hides as an onion icon on the upper right corner of the screen. By right-clicking this icon displays a configuration menu.

Please note that vidalia menu proposes essentialy two features:
• a Network map which displays a window showing a map of the Tor network, a list of Tor relays and a the list of currently used routes and their status.
• a New identity entry, which will make Tor use a different route for future connections, so that they will appear to come from a different address. A user should be careful as some software might still continue to use the old route, depending on how it behaves with network connections. If a user wants to be sure a software is using a new route, a user may want to close it, hit the New identity button, and then start the software again once the popup window disappears.

The network map
Now, let’s have a look at the network map. All the Tor nodes in the Tor network are listed, as are all a users circuits and connections that go through the Tor network. All this requires a bit of technical knowledge of how Tor works in order to understand and use, but it is not at all necessary. From the connection listing it should at least be relatively easy for a user to see which exit node and country it appears a users connections come from. Right-clicking on any established circuits enable a user to close it in case this one is too slow.

The New identity featureA user will not a very useful thing when he/she is working with Tor is the following option, found in the Vidalia menu that a user can get by right-clicking its systray icon.

By clicking on the “New Identity” option will tear down all users current circuits and build new ones which means that the set of computers a users route his/her Internet traffic through will exchanged by some others. This is very useful if a user experiences bad performance or even time-outs accessing some Internet resource as a user might have better luck with the new circuits that are built.

If a user has read this article then he/she would have learnt about controlling Tor with Vidalia.

The article will provide a user with information on how to use Tails. Please note that starting a computer on a media containing Tails doesn’t change anything on the operating system actually installed on the hard drive: as a live system, Tails doesn’t use a users hard drive during the whole session. Whether the hard drive is absent or damaged, it wouldn’t prevent the computer to start Tails. Consequently, removing the CD or USB stick containing Tails is enough to retrieve the usual operating system.

A consequence of this amnesia is that a user can’t save anything on the device containing Tails be it files that user create or download or any configuration. A user should save anything that he/she wants to keep for later access into a separate device (other USB stck, other CD or any device a user would choose). Tails is based on alpha software and is always being developped, which means it might contain programming errors or obsolete protections.

Please note that the graphical user interface used in Tails is called GNOME and shares many fundamentals with that of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and most other modern operating systems, so if a user has used any of them, getting used to GNOME will take no time. A user will note that in the upper left corner of the screen there is a button with a logo in it, followed by three menus: Applications, Places and System.

The Applications menu is where a user will find short cuts to the installed applications. Please explore the different categories of applications and try out those that seem interesting.

The Places menu is to make it easy to access storage media.

The System menu allows to:
• customize some aspects of the GNOME desktop (Preferences);
• change some important aspects of the system and hardware behavior (Administration);
• shutdown the computer.
On the right of these three menu entries, a few shortcuts allow to launch the most frequently used applications. Passing the mouse cursor over one of these shortcut will display the application name and its function.

In the upper right corner a user will find a couple of icons, each which offers an interface for some running application : the onion icon is made to control Tor, the two computer screens are for the network settings. Other icons help a user keep an eye on the battery level if he/she runs from a laptop, one allows to instantly change the keyboard layout, another controls the sound level. Please note that the clock icon allows to change the current timezone to make it show the local time.
At the centre of the screen, a user will note a vast area called the Desktop. A Computer icon provides access to storage media and the Trash is the place where “deleted” files are moved. Please note that when media storage is connected to the computer, additional icons appear on the Desktop.

On the bottom of the screen is another panel: on its left, an icon allows to minimize all open windows to show the Desktop; then come the buttons for open windows; on the right, a set of four similar rectangle icons gives access to four different workspaces.

The article will provide a user with information on Tails 0.8.1. Tails is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL.

Tails is a live system: a complete operating-system designed to be used from a CD or a USB stick independently of the computer’s original operating system. It is Free Software and based on Debian GNU/Linux. Please note that Tails comes with several built-in applications pre-configured with security in mind: web browser, instant messaging client, email client, office suite, image and sound editor, etc.
Tails relies on the Tor anonymity network to protect a users privacy online: all outgoing connections to the Internet are forced to go through Tor.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps a user defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis. Tor protects a user by bouncing a users communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching the Internet connection from learning what sites a user visits, and it prevents the sites a user visits from learning a users physical location.

Using Tails on a computer doesn’t alter or depend on the operating system installed on it. A user can use it in the same way on his computer or the computer of a friend or one at the local library. After removing a users Tails CD or USB stick the computer can start again on its usual operating system.
Tails is configured with a special care to not use the computer’s hard-disks, even if there is some swap space on it. The only storage space used by Tails is the RAM memory, which is automatically erased when the computer shuts down. It means that a user will not leave any trace neither of the Tails system nor of what a user did on the computer. This allows a user to work on sensitive documents on any computer and protect a user from data recovery after shutdown.

If a user has read the article then he/she would have learnt about Tails 0.8.1

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).

The article will provide a user with information on vQuake and QuakeWorld. These are Quake releases.

VQuake
Let’s have a look at VQuake. In late 1996, id Software released VQuake, a port of the Quake engine to support hardware accelerated rendering on graphics cards using Rendition Vérité chipset. Aside from the expected benefit of improved performance, VQuake offered numerous visual improvements over the original software-rendered Quake. It boasted full 16-bit color, bilinear filtering (reducing pixelation), improved dynamic lighting and even optional anti-aliasing. VQuake was a proprietary port specifically for the Vérité; consumer 3D acceleration was in its infancy at the time, and there was no standard 3D API for the consumer market. After completing VQuake, John Carmack vowed never to write a proprietary port again, citing his frustration with Rendition’s Speedy3D API.

QuakeWorld
Now, let’s have a look at QuakeWorld . QuakeWorld was released in order to improve the quality of online play. It was relased by id Software released on December 17, 1996. It featured significantly revamped network code including the addition of client-side prediction. The original Quake’s network code would not show the player the results of his actions until the server sent back a reply acknowledging them. For example, if the player attempted to move forward, his client would send the request to move forward to the server, and the server would determine whether the client was actually able to move forward or if he ran into an obstacle, such as a wall or another player.

With the help of client-side prediction, which allowed players to see their own movement immediately without waiting for a response from the server, QuakeWorld’s network code allowed players with high-latency connections to control their character’s movement almost as precisely as when playing in single-player mode. The netcode parameters could be adjusted by the user, so that QuakeWorld performed well for users with high and low latency.

The tradeoff to client-side prediction was that sometimes other players or objects would no longer be quite where they had appeared to be, or, in extreme cases, that the player would be pulled back to a previous position when the client received a late reply from the server which overrode movement the client had already previewed; this was known as “warping”. As a result, some serious players, particularly in the USA, still preferred to play online using the original Quake engine (commonly called NetQuake) rather than QuakeWorld. However, the majority of players, especially those on dial-up connections, preferred the newer network model, and QuakeWorld soon became the dominant form of online play. Following the success of QuakeWorld, client-side prediction has become a standard feature of nearly all real-time online games.

As with all other Quake upgrades, QuakeWorld was released as a free, unsupported add-on to the game and was updated numerous times through 1998.

If a user has read the article then he/she would have learnt about the Quake’s releases vQuake and QuakeWorld.