Magzter Gold (Sitewide Promotion)

Magzter Gold (Sitewide Promotion)

Digital Delivery

Linux Format August 15th, 2017 Digital Back Issue Cover

Linux Format Summer 2017 (Digital)

(0)

Single Digital Issue

Summer 2017

$6.99

Powered By Zinio

Zinio

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Instant Start

Subscribe Instead

1 Year Subscription

13 digital issues

$38.99

($3.00/issue)

Go to Subscription

View Subscription Options

Also available on ZINIO Unlimited logo

Get unlimited access to Linux Format (Digital) + Back Issues & 5000+ other magazines

1-month free trial

Renews at $8.99/month after trial.
Cancel anytime.

Get unlimited access to Linux Format (Digital) + Back Issues & 5000+ other magazines. Renews at just $8.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Start Trial Learn more

100 Articles

What part of life do you wish you could virtualise? Jonni Bidwell Can we virtualise our government? And introduce our own changes and use snapshots to determine what is, and what is not, a good decision and berate those responsible accordingly. I suppose they wouldn’t let us do that, but watching virtualised leaders battle it out would make parliamentary debates more interesting. Nick Peers I don’t do nearly enough to keep fit, so perhaps being able to virtualise exercise might help me stay relatively trim without actually having to commit to doing the hard work that’s required. And I’ve never looked that good in shorts, anyway! Plus, I might be able to tweak my football ability stats to make me half-way competitive. Les Pounder Holodecks as found in Star Trek would be handy. After all, it…

What part of life do you wish you could virtualise? Jonni Bidwell Can we virtualise our government? And introduce our own changes and use snapshots to determine what is, and what is not, a good decision and berate those responsible accordingly. I suppose they wouldn’t let us do that, but watching virtualised leaders battle it out would make parliamentary debates more interesting. Nick Peers I don’t do nearly enough to keep fit, so perhaps being able to virtualise exercise might help me stay relatively trim without actually having to commit to doing the hard work that’s required. And I’ve never looked that good in shorts, anyway! Plus, I might be able to tweak my football ability stats to make me half-way competitive. Les Pounder Holodecks as found in Star Trek…

It’s a virtual world

We expect virtualisation isn’t anything new to you, our happy reader, but it’s a topic that’s constantly evolving, improving and has become essential to a world that expects the ability to spin up multiple instances remotely in seconds. So this issue we’re holding your hand and taking you through the vital basics of creating a VirtualBox, getting more from managed snapshots to newer Docker Containers and cutting-edge development of GPU passthrough. So by the end of this issue you should feel you know your KVMs from your kernel chroots. Even if you’re just using VirtualBox to keep a sneaky install of Windows hidden away (admit it, you know it’s true), the copious amounts of storage and computing power that even a modest PC offers can happily cope with storing and running…

It’s a virtual world

It’s a virtual world

We expect virtualisation isn’t anything new to you, our happy reader, but it’s a topic that’s constantly evolving, improving and has become essential to a world that expects the ability to spin up multiple instances remotely in seconds. So this issue we’re holding your hand and taking you through the vital basics of creating a VirtualBox, getting more from managed snapshots to newer Docker Containers and cutting-edge development of GPU passthrough. So by the end of this issue you should feel you know your KVMs from your kernel chroots. Even if you’re just using VirtualBox to keep a sneaky install of Windows hidden away (admit it, you know it’s true), the copious amounts of storage and computing power that even a modest PC offers can happily cope with storing and…

It’s a virtual world

CIA targets Linux users

“The CIA can reroute all of the traffic through a data mining server…” We’re not too fond of wearing our tinfoil hats here at Linux Format, but recently there’s been a spate of worrying news concerning security and privacy issues. Wikileaks has released a data dump that shows the CIA using OutlawCountry, a spying tool it created to explicitly target Linux users. The data splurge is part of WikiLeak’s Vault 7 series of leaks that cover the covert hacking operation by the US Central Intelligence Agency, and it features the OutlawCountry v1.0 User Manual, which can be seen at https://wikileaks.org/vault7/document/ OutlawCountry_v1_0_User_Manual. Since the release of the manual, people have been studying it to find out how OutlawCountryinstalls itself onto a PC, and what sort of data it collects. As the manual…

CIA targets Linux users

CIA targets Linux users

“The CIA can reroute all of the traffic through a data mining server…” We’re not too fond of wearing our tinfoil hats here at Linux Format, but recently there’s been a spate of worrying news concerning security and privacy issues. Wikileaks has released a data dump that shows the CIA using OutlawCountry, a spying tool it created to explicitly target Linux users. The data splurge is part of WikiLeak’s Vault 7 series of leaks that cover the covert hacking operation by the US Central Intelligence Agency, and it features the OutlawCountry v1.0 User Manual, which can be seen at https://wikileaks.org/vault7/document/OutlawCountry_v1_0_User_Manual. Since the release of the manual, people have been studying it to find out how OutlawCountryinstalls itself onto a PC, and what sort of data it collects. As the manual explains in the Installation section,…

CIA targets Linux users

Linux kernel 4.12 is out!

The 4.12 Linux kernel has been released, and in his release announcement (which can be read in full at https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/7/2/164), Linus Torvalds exclaimed that, “4.12 is one of the bigger releases historically, and I think only 4.9 ends up having had more commits.” Whereas 4.9 had the excuse of being an Long Term Support release, according to Torvalds, “4.12 is just plain big”. While Linux 4.12 is unusually big for a kernel update, Torvalds insists that there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary here – just normal updates, but a lot more of them than usual. So, what’s new that has been bulking up this release? While the full list of changes and improvements would be too long to publish here, Torvalds highlights a number of changes, including many new…

Linux kernel 4.12 is out!

Linux kernel 4.12 is out!

The 4.12 Linux kernel has been released, and in his release announcement (which can be read in full at https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/7/2/164), Linus Torvalds exclaimed that, “4.12 is one of the bigger releases historically, and I think only 4.9 ends up having had more commits.” Whereas 4.9 had the excuse of being an Long Term Support release, according to Torvalds, “4.12 is just plain big”. While Linux 4.12 is unusually big for a kernel update, Torvalds insists that there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary here – just normal updates, but a lot more of them than usual. So, what’s new that has been bulking up this release? While the full list of changes and improvements would be too long to publish here, Torvalds highlights a number of changes, including many new header files…

Linux kernel 4.12 is out!

Toyota brings Linux to its cars

Linux’s advancement into almost every aspect of our lives continues with the news that Toyota will be including an Automotive Grade Linux (AGL)-based (see Interview LXF218) infotainment system to its 2018 Camry model, making it the first car in the US market to do so. AGL is an open source platform based on Linux, and it’ll be used as a platform for Toyota’s Entune 3.0 system. With the increase in car manufacturers producing connected ‘smart cars’, there was a concern that it would give rise to a deluge of proprietary and incompatible systems, which is something AGL has been designed for to avoid. AGL is supported by the Linux Foundation and has a membership of over 100 of the most important names in the auto and tech industries. AGL will help these…

Toyota brings Linux to its cars

Toyota brings Linux to its cars

Linux’s advancement into almost every aspect of our lives continues with the news that Toyota will be including an Automotive Grade Linux (AGL)-based (see Interview LXF218) infotainment system to its 2018 Camry model, making it the first car in the US market to do so. AGL is an open source platform based on Linux, and it’ll be used as a platform for Toyota’s Entune 3.0 system. With the increase in car manufacturers producing connected ‘smart cars’, there was a concern that it would give rise to a deluge of proprietary and incompatible systems, which is something AGL has been designed for to avoid. AGL is supported by the Linux Foundation and has a membership of over 100 of the most important names in the auto and tech industries. AGL will…

Toyota brings Linux to its cars

Many open source projects have evocative, amusing and iconic mascots – including the beloved Tux the penguin, the mascot of the Linux kernel. Now LibreOffice is keen to get a mascot. The plain white document icon that it’s associated with (and which will remain) is a minimalist and concise representation of the software, but it doesn’t inspire much affection. So LibreOffice is running a competition to design its mascot – with the winner receiving a Slimbook Katana ultrabook, as well as having their design immortalised. find out more at http://bit.ly/LXF227libre contest ends 31 August! Let’s Encrypt, the free and open automated certificate authority, has reached a new milestone, with over 100 million certificates issued. This is certainly an impressive number, and bodes well for Let’s Encrypt’s worthy goal of a…

Many open source projects have evocative, amusing and iconic mascots – including the beloved Tux the penguin, the mascot of the Linux kernel. Now LibreOffice is keen to get a mascot. The plain white document icon that it’s associated with (and which will remain) is a minimalist and concise representation of the software, but it doesn’t inspire much affection. So LibreOffice is running a competition to design its mascot – with the winner receiving a Slimbook Katana ultrabook, as well as having their design immortalised. find out more at http://bit.ly/LXF227libre contest ends 31 August! Let’s Encrypt, the free and open automated certificate authority, has reached a new milestone, with over 100 million certificates issued. This is certainly an impressive number, and bodes well for Let’s Encrypt’s worthy goal of a 100…

Meeting the demand for Kubernetes know-how

“Kubernetes is an open-source system that makes it possible to automate the deployment, scaling and management of containerised apps. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community. As one of the top four highest velocity open source projects, Kubernetes is gaining traction as the standard open source platform enabling deployments across public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This means more individuals with knowledge in Kubernetes are needed to meet the growing demand. For this reason, The Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation have launched a free Introduction to Kubernetes training course, LFS158x, on the edX platform. LFS158x covers some…

Meeting the demand for Kubernetes know-how

Meeting the demand for Kubernetes know-how

“Kubernetes is an open-source system that makes it possible to automate the deployment, scaling and management of containerised apps. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community. As one of the top four highest velocity open source projects, Kubernetes is gaining traction as the standard open source platform enabling deployments across public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This means more individuals with knowledge in Kubernetes are needed to meet the growing demand. For this reason, The Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation have launched a free Introduction to Kubernetes training course, LFS158x, on the edX platform. LFS158x covers some of Kubernetes’ basic…

Meeting the demand for Kubernetes know-how

SHARKLINUX 2017.07 SharkLinux, an Ubuntu-based distro featuring the MATE desktop, and automatically upgrades packages to keep them secure, has a new version out. This new build includes improved hardware support through Ubuntu’s Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel, and LibreOffice no longer installs the full suite, instead using a slimmer default install. Offline installs are no longer required, which means the install media will no longer disable internet connectivity on a device when the installation process begins. Go to http://sharklinuxos.org/documents/current-release for more information about the SharkLinux release announcement. PROXMOX VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT 5.0 A new version of the Debian-based distro that specialises in running containers and virtual appliances has been released. This new version is based on Debian 9 Stretch and contains the Linux kernel 4.10. The distro includes a new Proxmox VE Storage Replication Stack, which enable…

SHARKLINUX 2017.07 SharkLinux, an Ubuntu-based distro featuring the MATE desktop, and automatically upgrades packages to keep them secure, has a new version out. This new build includes improved hardware support through Ubuntu’s Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel, and LibreOffice no longer installs the full suite, instead using a slimmer default install. Offline installs are no longer required, which means the install media will no longer disable internet connectivity on a device when the installation process begins. Go to http://sharklinuxos.org/documents/current-release for more information about the SharkLinux release announcement. PROXMOX VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT 5.0 A new version of the Debian-based distro that specialises in running containers and virtual appliances has been released. This new version is based on Debian 9 Stretch and contains the Linux kernel 4.10. The distro includes a new Proxmox VE…

Debian’s ever-flexible nature

“Last June, Debian 9 was released. One of the oldest Linux distributions around (almost 24 years), Debian is still purely community driven and has tallied some impressive numbers over the years: over 1,000 developers, over 25,000 source packages and 10 different hardware architectures officially supported. However, one aspect I really enjoy is its flexibility to be moulded into so many different shapes and sizes. At Collabora, not only do we run our servers on Debian, we also use it in a range of projects, from the smallest embedded systems to laptops and desktops. Debian keeps a Derivative Census on its wiki, which provides an interesting grab bag of things that have been done using Debian as a baseline, some of which Collabora has even helped start. There are the usual…

Debian’s ever-flexible nature

Debian’s ever-flexible nature

“Last June, Debian 9 was released. One of the oldest Linux distributions around (almost 24 years), Debian is still purely community driven and has tallied some impressive numbers over the years: over 1,000 developers, over 25,000 source packages and 10 different hardware architectures officially supported. However, one aspect I really enjoy is its flexibility to be moulded into so many different shapes and sizes. At Collabora, not only do we run our servers on Debian, we also use it in a range of projects, from the smallest embedded systems to laptops and desktops. Debian keeps a Derivative Census on its wiki, which provides an interesting grab bag of things that have been done using Debian as a baseline, some of which Collabora has even helped start. There are the usual suspects, like…

Debian’s ever-flexible nature

Liverpool Makefest A family day out with rockets and robots Now in its third year, Liverpool Makefest has become a quiet success. Taking place in Liverpool’s fantastic central library, this event sees technology meet art, music, science, special effects and cos-play. The event was organised in 2015 by husband and wife team Caroline and Mark Keep, but for 2017 the organising team was led by Jen Fenner and Mark Sabino. Both are makers in the Liverpool community, with Jen’s specialism in fine art and fashion. In previous years Makefest has seen attendee figures in the thousands and 2017 was no different: it was a packed day with something for everyone. In the Discover library we saw high-tech firing ranges using Arduino and Raspberry Pi to destroy evil aliens. In the foyer there were…

Liverpool Makefest A family day out with rockets and robots Now in its third year, Liverpool Makefest has become a quiet success. Taking place in Liverpool’s fantastic central library, this event sees technology meet art, music, science, special effects and cos-play. The event was organised in 2015 by husband and wife team Caroline and Mark Keep, but for 2017 the organising team was led by Jen Fenner and Mark Sabino. Both are makers in the Liverpool community, with Jen’s specialism in fine art and fashion. In previous years Makefest has seen attendee figures in the thousands and 2017 was no different: it was a packed day with something for everyone. In the Discover library we saw high-tech firing ranges using Arduino and Raspberry Pi to destroy evil aliens. In the…

Community events news

PyCon UK 2017 Back for another year in Cardiff between October 26 and 30, PyCon UK is a celebration of everything Python. Along with the many talks, workshops and panel discussions covering the breadth of Python, we see the return of the popular education track, supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The education track is open to teachers and educators and is there to help them use Python in the classroom. There will also be a special Raspberry Jam on the Saturday for families to attend. http://2017.pyconuk.org Barents Raspberry Jam The most northern Raspberry Jam has just been announced. This is the first jam for the organisers, so for those eager Raspberry Pi makers in Norway this is your chance to show off your project, and meet others who like…

Community events news

Community events news

PyCon UK 2017 Back for another year in Cardiff between October 26 and 30, PyCon UK is a celebration of everything Python. Along with the many talks, workshops and panel discussions covering the breadth of Python, we see the return of the popular education track, supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The education track is open to teachers and educators and is there to help them use Python in the classroom. There will also be a special Raspberry Jam on the Saturday for families to attend. http://2017.pyconuk.org Barents Raspberry Jam The most northern Raspberry Jam has just been announced. This is the first jam for the organisers, so for those eager Raspberry Pi makers in Norway this is your chance to show off your project, and meet others who like to hack! Taking…

Community events news

Linux? Due to terribly slow performance of Windows 10 I’m strongly considering Linux. Will installed Windows programs run in Linux? What else do I need to know? Bob Beyerlein, via email Neil says: The easy answer is no, installed Windows apps won’t run on Linux. Linux would run/install as its own OS either beside Windows 10 or as a replacement. You’re able to run many standard Windows EXE using a system called WINE, but this doesn’t extend to the new Windows Store Apps. Though frankly I’d advise you to seek out open source replacements where you can - they’ll be more stable, faster and respect your freedom as a user. If you want to get started see LXF226 for our ‘Install Linux’ in-depth guide. C the Answers Where is the “Answers” column in LFX225? One…

Linux? Due to terribly slow performance of Windows 10 I’m strongly considering Linux. Will installed Windows programs run in Linux? What else do I need to know? Bob Beyerlein, via email Neil says: The easy answer is no, installed Windows apps won’t run on Linux. Linux would run/install as its own OS either beside Windows 10 or as a replacement. You’re able to run many standard Windows EXE using a system called WINE, but this doesn’t extend to the new Windows Store Apps. Though frankly I’d advise you to seek out open source replacements where you can - they’ll be more stable, faster and respect your freedom as a user. If you want to get started see LXF226 for our ‘Install Linux’ in-depth guide. C the Answers Where is the…

I’ve been contributing to your magazine since July 2008 and still enjoy receiving each issue ever since. My main interest at present centres on SymPy and matplotliband so far I haven’t found anything in the archives in the way of PDFs or tutorials on these applications. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places? I also wondered whether there was any other FOSS, similar in intent to SymPy. Any information you can give me would be appreciated. Alan James, Jonni says: It’s always nice to know people are doing maths on Linux. As far as symbolic computation goes, Octave is king of the open source crop. It works as a drop-in replacement for Matlab most of the time, and can do pretty much anything it can, including having mexs (C++ snippets) to…

I’ve been contributing to your magazine since July 2008 and still enjoy receiving each issue ever since. My main interest at present centres on SymPy and matplotliband so far I haven’t found anything in the archives in the way of PDFs or tutorials on these applications. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places? I also wondered whether there was any other FOSS, similar in intent to SymPy. Any information you can give me would be appreciated. Alan James, Jonni says: It’s always nice to know people are doing maths on Linux. As far as symbolic computation goes, Octave is king of the open source crop. It works as a drop-in replacement for Matlab most of the time, and can do pretty much anything it can, including having mexs (C++…

Specs OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow CPU: Mediatek quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A53 GPU: Mali-T720 RAM: 3GB SSD: 32GB Display: IPS 5.5-inch, 720x1280 Camera: 13MP 1080p@30fps video (main), 5MP (rear) Comms: 802.11n, A-GPS, micro USB 2.0, Bluetooth v4.1 Battery: 4,000mAh Size: 153x76.6 x10.5mm, 191g While we wait for a truly open source mobile OS to appear from the wreckage of the Ubuntu Phone, LineageOS (see next issue) and the other initiatives to bear fruit, models like this latest Android phone from Blu is proof you don’t need to spend silly money to get a feature-rich, unlocked smartphone. Having launched in the US with an Amazon tie-in (including Amazon apps, optional adverts and Prime discount), it’s an Android phone that costs one-eighth of the price of most “flagship” models, and it also has a similar fraction of features. That’s an acceptable compromise for someone looking for a…

AMD Ryzen 5 1400

Specs Socket: AM4 Type: 64-bit Clock: 3.2GHz Turbo: 3.4GHz Cores: Four Threads: Eight Process: 14nm FinFET Cache: 384KB L1, 2MB L2, 8MB L3 Memory: DDR4-2666 (64MB max) Channels: Two TDP: 65W Virtual: AMD-V, AMD-Vi Be careful what you wish for. One moment, we’re begging Intel to stop with the sandbagging. The next, it’s slinging a bewildering array of new CPUs into the market, featuring everything from four to 18 cores. Strange and exciting times indeed. But with the fallout from Computex 2017 still in the air, it’s easy to lose sight of the less-spectacular versions of the chip that started it all. We speak of AMD’s Ryzen – in particular, the Ryzen 5 1400. Currently, it’s the lowliest Ryzen of all. But considered in context, it’s also the most relevant. That context is delivering four proper CPU cores and support for eight software threads at…

AMD Ryzen 5 1400

Tanglu 4.0 Gnome

In brief... Based on Debian, the distro was born due to frustration with Debian’s slow release cycle. It comprises packages from the stable and the testing repositories of Debian. The severely delayed release features Gnome 3.20 and older versions of most software. If you don’t mind the release cycle, Debian itself is a robust alternative, or try Linux Mint Debian Edition if you prefer a rolling distro. The growing number of Linux distributions has had an unfortunate side effect, albeit one that’s never been discussed, and would have remained unspoken if not for Tanglu Linux. When choosing a name for the project, the developers decided that they’d have to invent a name to meet all their criteria: unique, memorable and easy to remember, which also sounds good in English, German and Brazilian…

Tanglu 4.0 Gnome

Specs OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow CPU: Mediatek quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A53 GPU: Mali-T720 RAM: 3GB SSD: 32GB Display: IPS 5.5-inch, 720x1280 Camera: 13MP 1080p@30fps video (main), 5MP (rear) Comms: 802.11n, A-GPS, micro USB 2.0, Bluetooth v4.1 Battery: 4,000mAh Size: 153x76.6 x10.5mm, 191g While we wait for a truly open source mobile OS to appear from the wreckage of the Ubuntu Phone, LineageOS (see next issue) and the other initiatives to bear fruit, models like this latest Android phone from Blu is proof you don’t need to spend silly money to get a feature-rich, unlocked smartphone. Having launched in the US with an Amazon tie-in (including Amazon apps, optional adverts and Prime discount), it’s an Android phone that costs one-eighth of the price of most “flagship” models, and it also has a…

AMD Ryzen 5 1400

Specs Socket: AM4 Type: 64-bit Clock: 3.2GHz Turbo: 3.4GHz Cores: Four Threads: Eight Process: 14nm FinFET Cache: 384KB L1, 2MB L2, 8MB L3 Memory: DDR4-2666 (64MB max) Channels: Two TDP: 65W Virtual: AMD-V, AMD-Vi Be careful what you wish for. One moment, we’re begging Intel to stop with the sandbagging. The next, it’s slinging a bewildering array of new CPUs into the market, featuring everything from four to 18 cores. Strange and exciting times indeed. But with the fallout from Computex 2017 still in the air, it’s easy to lose sight of the less-spectacular versions of the chip that started it all. We speak of AMD’s Ryzen – in particular, the Ryzen 5 1400. Currently, it’s the lowliest Ryzen of all. But considered in context, it’s also the most relevant.…

AMD Ryzen 5 1400

Robolinux 8.8.1

In brief... This is a Debian 8-based distribution aimed at Windows users. Its USP is the ability to run existing Windows 7 and 10 installations as a virtual machine. Along with support, this feature is only offered commercially and not part of the default setup. If you’re a home user or running a SOHO, then Linux Mint or Debian, with support community might be a safer alternative. Niche distros designed for Windows users to help them acclimatise to the Linux environment aren’t new. The freedom, security, stability and the ever-growing popularity are reason enough to interest desktop users, and even SOHO and SMBs to try their hand at Linux. Robolinux, based on the Stable branch of Debian 8, is designed for Windows users and attempts to present a distro without a steep…

Robolinux 8.8.1

In brief... For newbies, Rosa Fresh LXQt presents an easy-to-use desktop. Its stability and rich flexibility of the desktop environment will appeal to enthusiasts and experienced users looking to venture beyond the familiarity of Gnome, Mate and Cinnamon. Because of its humble beginnings as a Mandriva fork, Rosa is best known as a KDE distro. This, despite the fact that the distro is now developed by Rosa Labs. Apart from the official KDE and Plasma-based editions, the project also produces community-driven spins featuring Gnome and LXQt, a lightweight desktop environment. While the recent releases of the other popular desktop environments such as Gnome and Plasma have all but put them out of the reach of low-spec machines, the advantage with Rosa LXQt is that it only requires 512MB of RAM to deliver a…

Tanglu 4.0 Gnome

In brief... Based on Debian, the distro was born due to frustration with Debian’s slow release cycle. It comprises packages from the stable and the testing repositories of Debian. The severely delayed release features Gnome 3.20 and older versions of most software. If you don’t mind the release cycle, Debian itself is a robust alternative, or try Linux Mint Debian Edition if you prefer a rolling distro. The growing number of Linux distributions has had an unfortunate side effect, albeit one that’s never been discussed, and would have remained unspoken if not for Tanglu Linux. When choosing a name for the project, the developers decided that they’d have to invent a name to meet all their criteria: unique, memorable and easy to remember, which also sounds good in English, German…

Tanglu 4.0 Gnome

Robolinux 8.8.1

In brief... This is a Debian 8-based distribution aimed at Windows users. Its USP is the ability to run existing Windows 7 and 10 installations as a virtual machine. Along with support, this feature is only offered commercially and not part of the default setup. If you’re a home user or running a SOHO, then Linux Mint or Debian, with support community might be a safer alternative. Niche distros designed for Windows users to help them acclimatise to the Linux environment aren’t new. The freedom, security, stability and the ever-growing popularity are reason enough to interest desktop users, and even SOHO and SMBs to try their hand at Linux. Robolinux, based on the Stable branch of Debian 8, is designed for Windows users and attempts to present a distro without…

Robolinux 8.8.1

Dawn of War III

Specs MINIMUM: OS: Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit, SteamOS 2.0 CPU: 3.40GHz Intel Core i3-4130 Mem: 8GB RAM GPU: 1GB Nvidia 650Ti, 1GB VRAM (driver 375.66) HDD: 30 GB RECOMMENDED: OS: Ubuntu 16.10 64-bit, SteamOS 2.0 CPU: 3.40GHz Intel Core i7-4770 Mem: 8GB RAM GPU: Nvidia 980Ti (Driver 375.66), 4GB VRAM (AMD and Intel GPUs not supported at release) HDD: 30GB Vulkan: Nvidia driver 381.22, Mesa 17.1 for AMD, Mesa 17.2-devel for Intel Outlandish swagger seeps through every pixel of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, and we can’t help but admire it. Here we find a future so advanced that people flit about in spacecraft as easily as we take the bus, and yet one of its greatest heroes is a guy wielding a big frickin’ hammer. And oh, how he uses it. The man is Gabriel Angelos, commander of the Blood Ravens of the Space…

Dawn of War III

In brief... For newbies, Rosa Fresh LXQt presents an easy-to-use desktop. Its stability and rich flexibility of the desktop environment will appeal to enthusiasts and experienced users looking to venture beyond the familiarity of Gnome, Mate and Cinnamon. Because of its humble beginnings as a Mandriva fork, Rosa is best known as a KDE distro. This, despite the fact that the distro is now developed by Rosa Labs. Apart from the official KDE and Plasma-based editions, the project also produces community-driven spins featuring Gnome and LXQt, a lightweight desktop environment. While the recent releases of the other popular desktop environments such as Gnome and Plasma have all but put them out of the reach of low-spec machines, the advantage with Rosa LXQt is that it only requires 512MB of RAM…

Business servers

“We’re testing distros that enable you to build a server installation using point-and-click interfaces” Our selection ClearOS Koozali SME Server NethServer Univention Corporate Server Zentyal The stability and reliability of Linux distributions might lead some to conclude that any ol’ Linux distribution can be moulded to run complex servers, but they’d be wrong. To begin, a desktop distro has many components that just don’t belong on a server. Replacing these with crucial server apps is a bothersome task and you’d be best served with relying on distros designed for server deployments. But deploying and configuring a server is an involved process. If you’re willing to trade some control over the choice of software and configurations, there are specially tuned distros out there, put together by professionals, that perform a variety of server tasks. In this Roundup, we’ve limited…

Business servers

Dawn of War III

Specs MINIMUM: OS: Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit, SteamOS 2.0 CPU: 3.40GHz Intel Core i3-4130 Mem: 8GB RAM GPU: 1GB Nvidia 650Ti, 1GB VRAM (driver 375.66) HDD: 30 GB RECOMMENDED: OS: Ubuntu 16.10 64-bit, SteamOS 2.0 CPU: 3.40GHz Intel Core i7-4770 Mem: 8GB RAM GPU: Nvidia 980Ti (Driver 375.66), 4GB VRAM (AMD and Intel GPUs not supported at release) HDD: 30GB Vulkan: Nvidia driver 381.22, Mesa 17.1 for AMD, Mesa 17.2-devel for Intel Outlandish swagger seeps through every pixel of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, and we can’t help but admire it. Here we find a future so advanced that people flit about in spacecraft as easily as we take the bus, and yet one of its greatest heroes is a guy wielding a big frickin’ hammer. And oh, how he…

Dawn of War III

Tools of the trade

ALinux server can refer to a box serving web pages, files and emails or a firewall or gateway, protecting your sensitive network machines from the threats on the Internet. Koozali can be configured as a gateway server, if you want it to act as a firewall and provide external web and mail servers. It can also be configured as a private gateway server, in which case it acts as a firewall, but disables all incoming traffic. The third choice is to configure it in a server-only mode. If you choose the latter option, you’re cautioned to also set up a separate gateway server to act as a firewall if your server requires Internet access. The distro also enables you to create backups, and can restore a previous Koozali installation. Zentyal can be…

Tools of the trade

Stability and security

When picking a server distro, you’ll want a stable foundation and a thorough system of bug reporting and fixing. But even that’s only a part of the equation. Ideally, the distro should routinely ship bug fixes, patches and security updates so as to ensure maximum uptime for your servers. Owing to their CentOS parentage, NethServer, ClearOS and Koozali all depend on upstream releases and don’t have a fixed release schedule. While Koozali is still based on CentOS 6.7, the others are based on CentOS 7. Each Zentyal release is based on the most recent Ubuntu LTS release. The Community Edition serves as the testbed of technologies that will eventually find their way into the commercial offing. The free variant provides community-driven, untested updates while official and thoroughly tested updates are reserved…

Stability and security

Business servers

“We’re testing distros that enable you to build a server installation using point-and-click interfaces” Our selection ClearOS Koozali SME Server NethServer Univention Corporate Server Zentyal The stability and reliability of Linux distributions might lead some to conclude that any ol’ Linux distribution can be moulded to run complex servers, but they’d be wrong. To begin, a desktop distro has many components that just don’t belong on a server. Replacing these with crucial server apps is a bothersome task and you’d be best served with relying on distros designed for server deployments. But deploying and configuring a server is an involved process. If you’re willing to trade some control over the choice of software and configurations, there are specially tuned distros out there, put together by professionals, that perform a variety…

Business servers

Documentation and support

A familiarity with Linux internals and mastery of networking may be all that you need to install a server, but an installed distro does not a server make. Even a seasoned operator needs a little help getting all the services to play nice together. This is why documentation is an important factor in choosing a server distro. All the distros on test provide similar set of aids for users. Each hosts forum boards that serve as comprehensive repositories on configuration tips for various services and best security practices. Even a small amount of time spent on the forums would reveal the pitfalls to avoid. There’s also the wiki-hosted tutorials and how-tos, and user and administrator guides. For its community edition, Univention provides forums and a host of detailed tutorials and screenshotaided guides…

Documentation and support

Management interface

The distros all have a straightforward installation and nearly identical feature set. But once installed you still need to configure the distro to suit your specific setup. More importantly, managing and monitoring a business distro is an ongoing process. Unless you’re comfortable mucking about with configuration files in a terminal using emacs or vim, you’d want to use a distro that ships with a good administrative interface. This is particularly required on headless servers that must be administered using other machines on the network. A typical server deployment is made up of many distinct services and software. This is why it’s important that the interface is organised and intuitive, ensuring that you’re able to find your way around easily quickly. ClearOS The web-based Dashboard appears bare by default, but you can add several…

Management interface

Tools of the trade

ALinux server can refer to a box serving web pages, files and emails or a firewall or gateway, protecting your sensitive network machines from the threats on the Internet. Koozali can be configured as a gateway server, if you want it to act as a firewall and provide external web and mail servers. It can also be configured as a private gateway server, in which case it acts as a firewall, but disables all incoming traffic. The third choice is to configure it in a server-only mode. If you choose the latter option, you’re cautioned to also set up a separate gateway server to act as a firewall if your server requires Internet access. The distro also enables you to create backups, and can restore a previous Koozali installation. Zentyal…

Tools of the trade

Stability and security

When picking a server distro, you’ll want a stable foundation and a thorough system of bug reporting and fixing. But even that’s only a part of the equation. Ideally, the distro should routinely ship bug fixes, patches and security updates so as to ensure maximum uptime for your servers. Owing to their CentOS parentage, NethServer, ClearOS and Koozali all depend on upstream releases and don’t have a fixed release schedule. While Koozali is still based on CentOS 6.7, the others are based on CentOS 7. Each Zentyal release is based on the most recent Ubuntu LTS release. The Community Edition serves as the testbed of technologies that will eventually find their way into the commercial offing. The free variant provides community-driven, untested updates while official and thoroughly tested updates are…

Stability and security

Hardware support

There’s no room for bleeding-edge software on a server. Veteran distros like Slackware and Debian put software through a relentless testing phase. As with software, it’s advisable to also use slightly dated and supported hardware for your production servers. Once you decide on a distro, it’s best to find hardware that the distro is certified to run on so as to avoid any surprises. Red Hat Enterprise Linux publishes a list of certified hardware. ClearOS and NethServer recommend users only use hardware from this list. This makes sense considering that these distros are based on CentOS, which is built using the RHEL codebase. ClearOS also retails the ClearBOX server with certified hardware. It’s available in multiple specs, depending on how you plan to use it, the numbers of users it’ll serve…

Hardware support

Add-on services

All these distros can trace their roots to established distros. Their underlying package management systems makes it easy for you to install additional packages to extend the functionality of these distros beyond their default skill set. With the exception of Koozali that relies on donations from users to deliver a finished product, all the distros on our list also offer additional services and features, but at a premium. These projects generate revenue by offering add-on technical support, commercial applications and monitoring services. Some, like ClearOS and Univention, provide tailored solutions depending on the size of your deployment or the exact use requirements. ClearOS offers two subscription models. The Basic model, priced at £28/year will get you access to 65 quality-tested apps, verified updates and much more. The pricier Essential subscription at £47/year…

Add-on services

Management interface

The distros all have a straightforward installation and nearly identical feature set. But once installed you still need to configure the distro to suit your specific setup. More importantly, managing and monitoring a business distro is an ongoing process. Unless you’re comfortable mucking about with configuration files in a terminal using emacs or vim, you’d want to use a distro that ships with a good administrative interface. This is particularly required on headless servers that must be administered using other machines on the network. A typical server deployment is made up of many distinct services and software. This is why it’s important that the interface is organised and intuitive, ensuring that you’re able to find your way around easily quickly. ClearOS The web-based Dashboard appears bare by default, but you…

Management interface

Ease of deployment

Compared to distros from a few years ago, the installation of modern server distros has come a long way. The point and click installation offered by all the distros coupled with easy package management that makes it possible to install and configure services such as firewall, DNS server and gateway serve make the distro comfortable for even relatively inexperienced users. The Univention server’s installation is fast and smooth throughout, but embarrassingly slow once it starts copying packages. You get to choose which servers to install such as cups, KVM virtualisation server, Nagios, Mail server, and useful add-ons such as Fetchmail and KDE desktop, among others. Koozali, which defaults to a curses-driven installer, blazes through the installation by comparison. But as it’s based on CentOS, Koozali also offers the choice of Anaconda…

Ease of deployment

Documentation and support

A familiarity with Linux internals and mastery of networking may be all that you need to install a server, but an installed distro does not a server make. Even a seasoned operator needs a little help getting all the services to play nice together. This is why documentation is an important factor in choosing a server distro. All the distros on test provide similar set of aids for users. Each hosts forum boards that serve as comprehensive repositories on configuration tips for various services and best security practices. Even a small amount of time spent on the forums would reveal the pitfalls to avoid. There’s also the wiki-hosted tutorials and how-tos, and user and administrator guides. For its community edition, Univention provides forums and a host of detailed tutorials and…

Documentation and support

Hardware support

There’s no room for bleeding-edge software on a server. Veteran distros like Slackware and Debian put software through a relentless testing phase. As with software, it’s advisable to also use slightly dated and supported hardware for your production servers. Once you decide on a distro, it’s best to find hardware that the distro is certified to run on so as to avoid any surprises. Red Hat Enterprise Linux publishes a list of certified hardware. ClearOS and NethServer recommend users only use hardware from this list. This makes sense considering that these distros are based on CentOS, which is built using the RHEL codebase. ClearOS also retails the ClearBOX server with certified hardware. It’s available in multiple specs, depending on how you plan to use it, the numbers of users it’ll…

Hardware support

“Zentyal is a polished distro with an intuitive web interface that makes administering it a breeze” Your choice of server depends on your intended purpose. A one-size-fits-all approach isn’t always advisable for a server setting. Sometimes all you need is a simple firewall and it’ll be unwise to set up a complete server solution for such a task. We’re usually able to determine a clear winner by the time all the tests are done, but that isn’t the case this time around. On account of offering only a limited number of services, Zentyal has edged itself out of the podium. But this is unfortunate as Zentyal is a highly polished distro with an intuitive web interface that makes administering it a breeze. If all you want is a quick-to-deploy and configure gateway…

Add-on services

All these distros can trace their roots to established distros. Their underlying package management systems makes it easy for you to install additional packages to extend the functionality of these distros beyond their default skill set. With the exception of Koozali that relies on donations from users to deliver a finished product, all the distros on our list also offer additional services and features, but at a premium. These projects generate revenue by offering add-on technical support, commercial applications and monitoring services. Some, like ClearOS and Univention, provide tailored solutions depending on the size of your deployment or the exact use requirements. ClearOS offers two subscription models. The Basic model, priced at £28/year will get you access to 65 quality-tested apps, verified updates and much more. The pricier Essential subscription…

Add-on services

Also consider...

The choice of a server distribution depends entirely on the intended use. If all you need is a limited or a specific function server, such as to protect your privacy by hiding behind a proxy, or running a firewall to protect yourself, it makes little sense to adopt a multi-purpose server distribution. While you can configure iptables on most Linux distros, specialist distros such as IPFire are quite easy to roll out and configure. If you need more features such as spam filtering, bandwidth control, virus blocker, and such, you can try Untangle. Apart from the ever popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its host of community supported derivatives, Ubuntu and Fedora too have launched themselves into the server domain and their respective server editions can be viable options if you’re…

Ease of deployment

Compared to distros from a few years ago, the installation of modern server distros has come a long way. The point and click installation offered by all the distros coupled with easy package management that makes it possible to install and configure services such as firewall, DNS server and gateway serve make the distro comfortable for even relatively inexperienced users. The Univention server’s installation is fast and smooth throughout, but embarrassingly slow once it starts copying packages. You get to choose which servers to install such as cups, KVM virtualisation server, Nagios, Mail server, and useful add-ons such as Fetchmail and KDE desktop, among others. Koozali, which defaults to a curses-driven installer, blazes through the installation by comparison. But as it’s based on CentOS, Koozali also offers the choice of…

Ease of deployment

“However you use Linux, the chances are there’s something to be gained from virtualisation” Running an operating system on real hardware is so passé. All those hours making sure your hardware is set up and behaving correctly, gently massaging each component’s quirks away with udev rules, modprobe options and demon-exorcising incantations. Yawn. Then so many more hours installing and configuring all the required software so that everything’s just right. It can seem like an awful lot of effort just to, say, try out a Linux distribution. And it can also present you with a whole lot of extra work if something goes wrong and it wipes out your everyday Linux install (this should never happen, but never say never). In an enterprise scenario, one also needs to figure out a back-up strategy, because…

“Zentyal is a polished distro with an intuitive web interface that makes administering it a breeze” Your choice of server depends on your intended purpose. A one-size-fits-all approach isn’t always advisable for a server setting. Sometimes all you need is a simple firewall and it’ll be unwise to set up a complete server solution for such a task. We’re usually able to determine a clear winner by the time all the tests are done, but that isn’t the case this time around. On account of offering only a limited number of services, Zentyal has edged itself out of the podium. But this is unfortunate as Zentyal is a highly polished distro with an intuitive web interface that makes administering it a breeze. If all you want is a quick-to-deploy and…

Virtualise it! Open the VirtualBox

“Whether you want to set up a Windows XP VM or try out a distro, it’s easy with VirtualBox” For the casual user, no matter what operating system they may use, the easiest way to get into virtualisation is Oracle’s VirtualBox. It’s free and open source (barring some extensions that provide USB passthrough) and has a friendly and simple GUI that will enable you to set up a virtual machine in just a few clicks. Whether you want to set up a Windows XP VM to practise your hacking skills or try out a new Linux distro (from our cover disc or one that you’ve downloaded), it’s easy and intuitive with VirtualBox. Installing on Linux is just a matter of typing $ sudo apt install virtualbox or whatever is your distro’s equivalent. Windows…

Virtualise it! Open the VirtualBox

Also consider...

The choice of a server distribution depends entirely on the intended use. If all you need is a limited or a specific function server, such as to protect your privacy by hiding behind a proxy, or running a firewall to protect yourself, it makes little sense to adopt a multi-purpose server distribution. While you can configure iptables on most Linux distros, specialist distros such as IPFire are quite easy to roll out and configure. If you need more features such as spam filtering, bandwidth control, virus blocker, and such, you can try Untangle. Apart from the ever popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its host of community supported derivatives, Ubuntu and Fedora too have launched themselves into the server domain and their respective server editions can be viable options if…

Be our Guest, be our Guest…

So our VM is up and running, but you might notice it’s running a little sluggishly. If you didn’t notice that, try playing a YouTube video. We can fix this, to some extent anyway, by installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions inside the VM. Many distributions such as Ubuntu include these by default, but Debian isn’t one of them, so we must compile these by hand. Don’t worry, it’s not hard. First (in the VM) install the compiler gubbins and module tools with: $ sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant dkms Now from the menu bar in the VM’s window, choose Devices>Insert Guest Additions CD Image. You’ll be prompted to download the disc image, do this (it’s about 60MB). Next, insert this into the virtual drive, which you should do. The disc has an…

“However you use Linux, the chances are there’s something to be gained from virtualisation” Running an operating system on real hardware is so passé. All those hours making sure your hardware is set up and behaving correctly, gently massaging each component’s quirks away with udev rules, modprobe options and demon-exorcising incantations. Yawn. Then so many more hours installing and configuring all the required software so that everything’s just right. It can seem like an awful lot of effort just to, say, try out a Linux distribution. And it can also present you with a whole lot of extra work if something goes wrong and it wipes out your everyday Linux install (this should never happen, but never say never). In an enterprise scenario, one also needs to figure out a…

Get talking with QEMU

Virtual what? What does hardware virtualisation do? The AMD-V and VT-x systems added virtual MMU modes to greatly speed memory operations, later specific instructions to trick guests into thinking they’re on native hardware and more recently virtual I/O modes for peripherals via AMD-Vi and VT-d. We’ve just seen that VirtualBox is easy to get to grips with. It’s cross platform, which makes it handy for people familiar with other OSes. It’s also open source, including (since 2010) the Guest additions. The fact that it’s made by Oracle gives some people the heebie-jeebies though, and we know that many of our readers prefer to do things at the command line. QEMU (Quick Emulator) isn’t just a hypervisor (see later), but also a machine and processor emulator, and we’re going to be using its KVM…

Get talking with QEMU

Virtualise it! Open the VirtualBox

“Whether you want to set up a Windows XP VM or try out a distro, it’s easy with VirtualBox” For the casual user, no matter what operating system they may use, the easiest way to get into virtualisation is Oracle’s VirtualBox. It’s free and open source (barring some extensions that provide USB passthrough) and has a friendly and simple GUI that will enable you to set up a virtual machine in just a few clicks. Whether you want to set up a Windows XP VM to practise your hacking skills or try out a new Linux distro (from our cover disc or one that you’ve downloaded), it’s easy and intuitive with VirtualBox. Installing on Linux is just a matter of typing $ sudo apt install virtualbox or whatever is your…

Virtualise it! Open the VirtualBox

Hardware considerations

Virtualisation has been around for a long time, and any old machine capable of running desktop Linux can run a guest VM. However, if you’d like that VM to carry out complex tasks smoothly, then something more modern is required. Specifically you’ll want a processor that supports virtualisation extensions, Intel VT-x or AMD-V, which are present on most 64-bit desktop CPUs since 2006. You can check for this by running egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ / proc/cpuinfo . If the extensions aren’t there then the command won’t return anything. Note that these things can be switched off by default in the BIOS/UEFI, where they’re often named differently. So check for this - the egrep command above will still display capabilities even though they’re disabled. VMs can be a glut on memory, and both guest and…

Be our Guest, be our Guest…

So our VM is up and running, but you might notice it’s running a little sluggishly. If you didn’t notice that, try playing a YouTube video. We can fix this, to some extent anyway, by installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions inside the VM. Many distributions such as Ubuntu include these by default, but Debian isn’t one of them, so we must compile these by hand. Don’t worry, it’s not hard. First (in the VM) install the compiler gubbins and module tools with: $ sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant dkms Now from the menu bar in the VM’s window, choose Devices>Insert Guest Additions CD Image. You’ll be prompted to download the disc image, do this (it’s about 60MB). Next, insert this into the virtual drive, which you should do. The disc…

Fire up a virtual machine

1 Start virt-manager Start Virtual Machine Manager (you may need to enter your password to connect to libvirtd) and click the New button in the toolbar. Select Local install media>Use ISO Image>Browse>Browse Local to navigate to your desired ISO. We’ve already mentioned the Debian ISO twice, so we’ll stick with that. 2 Allocate resources Give your machine sufficient memory, and if you have cores to spare, then consider allocating more than one to the VM. Give your machine a virtual disk image. The first option will create a qcow2 image, the second enables you to specify the image type and choose an alternate location (the default is /var/lib/libvirt/images). 3 Names and networking Give your VM a meaningful or affectionate (or both) name and check the “Customise configuration before install” box. If you’ve installed bridge-utils and…

Fire up a virtual machine

Get talking with QEMU

Virtual what? What does hardware virtualisation do? The AMD-V and VT-x systems added virtual MMU modes to greatly speed memory operations, later specific instructions to trick guests into thinking they’re on native hardware and more recently virtual I/O modes for peripherals via AMD-Vi and VT-d. We’ve just seen that VirtualBox is easy to get to grips with. It’s cross platform, which makes it handy for people familiar with other OSes. It’s also open source, including (since 2010) the Guest additions. The fact that it’s made by Oracle gives some people the heebie-jeebies though, and we know that many of our readers prefer to do things at the command line. QEMU (Quick Emulator) isn’t just a hypervisor (see later), but also a machine and processor emulator, and we’re going to be…

Get talking with QEMU

Containers and Docker

For all the benefits they offer, every new VM spun up means a new copy of an operating system. This means lots of duplication of data and effort. A virtual OS still takes time to install, and even though this can be automated to some extent most VMs will still take some configuring before they’re useful. New advances in kernel technology (cgroups and namespaces) have enabled a new, more streamlined way of isolating applications and services without installing a whole new OS. These ‘containers’ have their origins in BSD jails and chroots, so the idea itself (having some access to the host’s kernel but a restricted userspace) isn’t new, but it wasn’t until Linux Containers (LXC) came along in 2008 that people were able to do this in a robust manner. The…

Containers and Docker

Moving beyond Docker

Docker isn’t the only container fruit, and when people say “Docker containers” the things they refer to (the files stored on disk and their metadata) are entirely portable to other runtimes. CoreOS’s rkt and runc are two such examples, libvirt-lxc is another. Systemd has a lightweight container mechanism, systemd-nspawn . There’s a neat account of using it to run Steam and prevent your system being polluted by its ancient 32-bit runtime at http://ludiclinux.com/Nspawn-Steam-Container. The Snap and Flatpak standards for distribution-agnostic application distribution make extensive use of container-related technologies to provide their isolation features. While many apps distributed this way don’t work as well as their packaged counterparts (cough cough LibreOffice), there’s a quiet revolution underway that will reduce developer headaches and get new releases into the hands of users sooner. CoreOS’s Container…

Moving beyond Docker

Hardware considerations

Virtualisation has been around for a long time, and any old machine capable of running desktop Linux can run a guest VM. However, if you’d like that VM to carry out complex tasks smoothly, then something more modern is required. Specifically you’ll want a processor that supports virtualisation extensions, Intel VT-x or AMD-V, which are present on most 64-bit desktop CPUs since 2006. You can check for this by running egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ / proc/cpuinfo . If the extensions aren’t there then the command won’t return anything. Note that these things can be switched off by default in the BIOS/UEFI, where they’re often named differently. So check for this - the egrep command above will still display capabilities even though they’re disabled. VMs can be a glut on memory, and both…

Fire up a virtual machine

1 Start virt-manager Start Virtual Machine Manager (you may need to enter your password to connect to libvirtd) and click the New button in the toolbar. Select Local install media>Use ISO Image>Browse>Browse Local to navigate to your desired ISO. We’ve already mentioned the Debian ISO twice, so we’ll stick with that. 2 Allocate resources Give your machine sufficient memory, and if you have cores to spare, then consider allocating more than one to the VM. Give your machine a virtual disk image. The first option will create a qcow2 image, the second enables you to specify the image type and choose an alternate location (the default is /var/lib/libvirt/images). 3 Names and networking Give your VM a meaningful or affectionate (or both) name and check the “Customise configuration before install” box.…

Fire up a virtual machine

Hardware requirements

For this trickery to work some vaguely modern hardware is required, and even with modern hardware you may run into issues. The graphics card used by the host can be anything, even integrated graphics. If you have two discrete GPUs, then you’ll want to be familiar with the key combination for entering the BIOS/UEFI as, due to Murphy’s law, your machine will try and boot from the wrong graphics card. The guest’s graphics card will need to support UEFI (the motherboard needn’t) since we’re booting with OVMF. It’s possible that an updated GPU BIOS is available from the manufacturer (some people have reported success by just asking them), which you can pass to QEMU via the -romfile option, rather than flashing your graphics card. Generally, anything manufactured after 2012 will be fine.…

Containers and Docker

For all the benefits they offer, every new VM spun up means a new copy of an operating system. This means lots of duplication of data and effort. A virtual OS still takes time to install, and even though this can be automated to some extent most VMs will still take some configuring before they’re useful. New advances in kernel technology (cgroups and namespaces) have enabled a new, more streamlined way of isolating applications and services without installing a whole new OS. These ‘containers’ have their origins in BSD jails and chroots, so the idea itself (having some access to the host’s kernel but a restricted userspace) isn’t new, but it wasn’t until Linux Containers (LXC) came along in 2008 that people were able to do this in a robust…

Containers and Docker

Graphics passthrough

“VFIO enables PCI devices to be remapped and reset from within the Linux kernel” Linux gaming has come a long way in a relatively short time. This is due to various factors: a flourishing indie games scene, major game engines supporting Linux, Valve and their SteamOS play, improvements to display drivers, and porting work from the likes of Feral and Virtual Programming. That notwithstanding, there are titles that will never come to Linux and those that do generally perform worse there. Serious gamers will, in some situations, be forced to resort to Redmond’s OS, and this is unfortunate. It’s long been possible to run Windows in a virtual machine, but even with fast hardware this doesn’t work very well. Virtualbox’s 3D acceleration doesn’t really do anything for DirectX 10, 11 or 12…

Graphics passthrough

Installing Windows

Not really the sort of thing you’d expect to read in Linux Format, huh? This pretty much follows the guide earlier, except you’ll need a Windows ISO, which you can download from Microsoft and use free for 30 days. In the Overview section, change BIOS for UEFI. You may need to restart libvirtd for this option to become available. In the CPUs section, we need to change the model to hostpassthrough , which probably won’t appear in the drop-down, but it can be entered manually. It’s advisable to use a VirtIO SCSI controller and use a virtual SCSI disk instead of the default virtual IDE disk, but Windows needs extra drivers before the installer will recognise this. Said drivers can be found at https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio and the ISO mounted inside the VM…

Installing Windows

Moving beyond Docker

Docker isn’t the only container fruit, and when people say “Docker containers” the things they refer to (the files stored on disk and their metadata) are entirely portable to other runtimes. CoreOS’s rkt and runc are two such examples, libvirt-lxc is another. Systemd has a lightweight container mechanism, systemd-nspawn . There’s a neat account of using it to run Steam and prevent your system being polluted by its ancient 32-bit runtime at http://ludiclinux.com/Nspawn-Steam-Container. The Snap and Flatpak standards for distribution-agnostic application distribution make extensive use of container-related technologies to provide their isolation features. While many apps distributed this way don’t work as well as their packaged counterparts (cough cough LibreOffice), there’s a quiet revolution underway that will reduce developer headaches and get new releases into the hands of users sooner.…

Moving beyond Docker

Graphics passthrough

“VFIO enables PCI devices to be remapped and reset from within the Linux kernel” Linux gaming has come a long way in a relatively short time. This is due to various factors: a flourishing indie games scene, major game engines supporting Linux, Valve and their SteamOS play, improvements to display drivers, and porting work from the likes of Feral and Virtual Programming. That notwithstanding, there are titles that will never come to Linux and those that do generally perform worse there. Serious gamers will, in some situations, be forced to resort to Redmond’s OS, and this is unfortunate. It’s long been possible to run Windows in a virtual machine, but even with fast hardware this doesn’t work very well. Virtualbox’s 3D acceleration doesn’t really do anything for DirectX 10, 11…

Graphics passthrough

From physical to virtual

“There will be things we don’t want to copy for pragmatic reasons, like large directories” Physical to virtual (P2V) conversions involve making a virtual version of a physical system. If that physical system is quite simple, say a server that has just had Ubuntu Server installed on it, then it’s much easier to create a new VM and re-enact the installation process there than to migrate everything across. On the other hand, if that machine is running all kinds of services then replicating and configuring all that will be tricky and seem like wasted effort. Moving everything into the virtual space is not without its pitfalls though. For one thing, any configuration files that refer to hardware, be it network interfaces, hard drives (or their partitions’ UUIDs), or video adapters will need…

From physical to virtual

The past and the future of virtual machines

Towards the end of the last decade there was an industry-wide trend towards virtualising everything. People realised that there were potential savings to be made by stuffing a machine full of VMs, rather than the traditional “one server, one task” approach. This is to some extent reasonable: a mail server might spend a lot of its time idle, so maybe there’s enough spare resources to run some kind of database backend on the same machine? However, running both services on the same OS is risky since a failure of one service could bring down the whole system, or maybe we can’t trust the OS to handle the resource contention, should both services become simultaneously very busy. So we virtualise both services and thanks to hardware advances neither suffers any tangible performance hit,…

The past and the future of virtual machines

Hardware requirements

For this trickery to work some vaguely modern hardware is required, and even with modern hardware you may run into issues. The graphics card used by the host can be anything, even integrated graphics. If you have two discrete GPUs, then you’ll want to be familiar with the key combination for entering the BIOS/UEFI as, due to Murphy’s law, your machine will try and boot from the wrong graphics card. The guest’s graphics card will need to support UEFI (the motherboard needn’t) since we’re booting with OVMF. It’s possible that an updated GPU BIOS is available from the manufacturer (some people have reported success by just asking them), which you can pass to QEMU via the -romfile option, rather than flashing your graphics card. Generally, anything manufactured after 2012 will…

Installing Windows

Not really the sort of thing you’d expect to read in Linux Format, huh? This pretty much follows the guide earlier, except you’ll need a Windows ISO, which you can download from Microsoft and use free for 30 days. In the Overview section, change BIOS for UEFI. You may need to restart libvirtd for this option to become available. In the CPUs section, we need to change the model to hostpassthrough , which probably won’t appear in the drop-down, but it can be entered manually. It’s advisable to use a VirtIO SCSI controller and use a virtual SCSI disk instead of the default virtual IDE disk, but Windows needs extra drivers before the installer will recognise this. Said drivers can be found at https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio and the ISO mounted inside the…

Installing Windows

Presenting the case for Casync

Lennart Poettering recently announced a new project, Casync, which is designed to ease the burden of distributing filesystem images across the network. In an age of containers and atomically updated OSes it’s easy to see that such a tool will be handy. Casync(content-addressable synchronisation) aims to be more efficient than traditional tools (if you want, you can achieve all this with some ninja command line skills), particularly when dealing with images that are frequently updated. The project is inspired by traditional tools such as rsync, git and tar, and aims to do better than current mechanisms. Docker, for example, uses overlay2 layered filesystems, which store differences between layers. Storing these can be an unnecessary burden on the deployment system. OSTree, the git-like model that’s used for distributing/ updating filesystems as used by…

From physical to virtual

“There will be things we don’t want to copy for pragmatic reasons, like large directories” Physical to virtual (P2V) conversions involve making a virtual version of a physical system. If that physical system is quite simple, say a server that has just had Ubuntu Server installed on it, then it’s much easier to create a new VM and re-enact the installation process there than to migrate everything across. On the other hand, if that machine is running all kinds of services then replicating and configuring all that will be tricky and seem like wasted effort. Moving everything into the virtual space is not without its pitfalls though. For one thing, any configuration files that refer to hardware, be it network interfaces, hard drives (or their partitions’ UUIDs), or video adapters…

From physical to virtual

Life on the Edge

WORKING WITH BUSINESS IN MIND “You need to make sure that you design an OS that’s fit for purpose” Mike Bell is executive vice-president at Canonical’s Devices and IoT division. Earlier in 2017 we talked to Mike (back in LXF223) about some of what Canonical exhibited at Mobile World Congress 2017, and didn’t have space to print everything. Now we’ve made room with updates… Mike shares his valuable insights about Snaps, Canonical’s secure and distro-agnostic packaging format, and Ubuntu Core, the slimline Linux designed for IoT. Since MWC2017, there have been some changes at Canonical - obviously, some readers will still be sore about Unity being shuttered, but some exciting new partnerships have been made in the area of Edge Computing, where data is processed near where it’s collected/generated, rather than on…

Life on the Edge

The past and the future of virtual machines

Towards the end of the last decade there was an industry-wide trend towards virtualising everything. People realised that there were potential savings to be made by stuffing a machine full of VMs, rather than the traditional “one server, one task” approach. This is to some extent reasonable: a mail server might spend a lot of its time idle, so maybe there’s enough spare resources to run some kind of database backend on the same machine? However, running both services on the same OS is risky since a failure of one service could bring down the whole system, or maybe we can’t trust the OS to handle the resource contention, should both services become simultaneously very busy. So we virtualise both services and thanks to hardware advances neither suffers any tangible…

The past and the future of virtual machines

LINUX Vs BSD DEATHMATCH

“Peel the Linux and BSD lids and the similarities soon pave way to a host of differences” How often have you heard people lump together Linux and BSDs? Hey, they’re both open source, say some, while the more informed point to their common lineage. We’re sure we’ve also equated them more than once especially when comparing them superficially. But peel the lids and the similarities soon pave way to a host of differences. While BSDs haven’t caught the fancy of the mainstream tech press, they’re favoured for their robustness, reliability and security and are fairly popular with system administrators. That said, you can also easily slap popular open source apps on top and use BSDs for everyday desktop computing tasks and even for playing games. Also of note is their strong and…

LINUX Vs BSD DEATHMATCH

Presenting the case for Casync

Lennart Poettering recently announced a new project, Casync, which is designed to ease the burden of distributing filesystem images across the network. In an age of containers and atomically updated OSes it’s easy to see that such a tool will be handy. Casync(content-addressable synchronisation) aims to be more efficient than traditional tools (if you want, you can achieve all this with some ninja command line skills), particularly when dealing with images that are frequently updated. The project is inspired by traditional tools such as rsync, git and tar, and aims to do better than current mechanisms. Docker, for example, uses overlay2 layered filesystems, which store differences between layers. Storing these can be an unnecessary burden on the deployment system. OSTree, the git-like model that’s used for distributing/ updating filesystems as…

Licence to kill

Another significant difference between Linux and the BSDs is the licencing. The Linux kernel, GNU-based applications, and many pieces of software originating in the Linux world are licensed under the GNU General Public License, more commonly referred to as the GPL. This license is often described as a copyleft license as opposed to copyright. It means that the GPL allows the freedom to view, distribute, and modify the source code, while demanding that all derivative works maintain the same essentials of the license. In essence, the GPL necessitates that Linux developers release the source code of their modifications. BSDs, in contrast use the BSD License which, in simple terms, permits modifications to be kept under wraps if the developer so desires. The BSD license is more permissive than the GPL in…

The BSD musketeers

FreeBSD is the most used of the BSDs according to the BSD usage survey report. The OS had its first release back in 1993 and its popularity has spawned several derivatives. TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD) is one such descendent that’s made a name for itself by extending FreeBSD’s famed stability to everyday desktop users. OpenBSD is seen as one of the safest operating systems. Thanks to its rigorous code audit and security-first development model, it’s a popular option for security-conscious deployments such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and general purpose servers. It’s designed for specialised usage so OpenBSD’s hardware supports focuses more on Enterprise-grade hardware and even virtual hardware. True to its tagline which reads “Of course it runs NetBSD”, the BSD distro that’s been around since the early 90s is very portable…

Life on the Edge

WORKING WITH BUSINESS IN MIND “You need to make sure that you design an OS that’s fit for purpose” Mike Bell is executive vice-president at Canonical’s Devices and IoT division. Earlier in 2017 we talked to Mike (back in LXF223) about some of what Canonical exhibited at Mobile World Congress 2017, and didn’t have space to print everything. Now we’ve made room with updates… Mike shares his valuable insights about Snaps, Canonical’s secure and distro-agnostic packaging format, and Ubuntu Core, the slimline Linux designed for IoT. Since MWC2017, there have been some changes at Canonical - obviously, some readers will still be sore about Unity being shuttered, but some exciting new partnerships have been made in the area of Edge Computing, where data is processed near where it’s collected/generated, rather…

Life on the Edge

Popular products based on BSD

There are many open source as well as commercial products based on BSD, due to its technical prowess and permissive licensing. Popular open source products include NAS distros like FreeNAS and NAS4Free and firewall projects such as the embedded m0n0wall distro and its fork for regular computers, pfsense. Then there’s the open source Darwin project by Apple, which produces the core components upon which the company’s proprietary OSes, OS X and iOS, are based. Darwin uses code that’s derived from BSD, which is also used as the basis for the file systems and networking facilities of OS X. There are other commercial products based on BSD by multinational hardware and software companies, such as Dell’s iSCSI SAN arrays. Silicon Graphics International also uses FreeBSD in their ArcFiniti MAID (standing for Massive Array…

LINUX Vs BSD DEATHMATCH

“Peel the Linux and BSD lids and the similarities soon pave way to a host of differences” How often have you heard people lump together Linux and BSDs? Hey, they’re both open source, say some, while the more informed point to their common lineage. We’re sure we’ve also equated them more than once especially when comparing them superficially. But peel the lids and the similarities soon pave way to a host of differences. While BSDs haven’t caught the fancy of the mainstream tech press, they’re favoured for their robustness, reliability and security and are fairly popular with system administrators. That said, you can also easily slap popular open source apps on top and use BSDs for everyday desktop computing tasks and even for playing games. Also of note is their…

LINUX Vs BSD DEATHMATCH

Find your way around G’MIC’s interface

Preview area Assess the expected result before applying the chosen filter to your image. Search for effects If the resource tree is too large for manual browsing, use the search field above. Set input and output options Use these drop-downs to select input layers, output mode, messages and a preview mode. Extra search buttons Mark effects as Favourites, switch the tree to Selection mode or show the whole list of effects. Configure it your way Each effect can be configured, so you can dial back or ramp up the effects with ease.…

Find your way around G’MIC’s interface

“Smart Coloring can colourise a series of hand-drawn sketches” Image-processing application G’MIC-Qt Version: 2.0 Web: https://github.com/c-koi/gmic-qt This major release of G’MIC is much-anticipated news for those who enjoys editing images in Linux. Users of Gimp are obviously the primarily target group, because GREYC’s Magic for Image Computing has now been tightly integrated with this famous bitmap editor. G’MIC is a fully featured, open-source framework for processing your images, including converting, applying filters, manipulating bitmap datasets and more. Along with the gmic_gimp plugin, the project provides the command line gmic executable (which works similarly to the ImageMagick suite), a C++ library called libgmic, and a few other tools. Version 2.0 G’MIChas since moved to Qt5, although it’s still bound to Gimp and can be found under the Filters menu of the image editor. G’MIC-Qtis ideal for photographers…

Licence to kill

Another significant difference between Linux and the BSDs is the licencing. The Linux kernel, GNU-based applications, and many pieces of software originating in the Linux world are licensed under the GNU General Public License, more commonly referred to as the GPL. This license is often described as a copyleft license as opposed to copyright. It means that the GPL allows the freedom to view, distribute, and modify the source code, while demanding that all derivative works maintain the same essentials of the license. In essence, the GPL necessitates that Linux developers release the source code of their modifications. BSDs, in contrast use the BSD License which, in simple terms, permits modifications to be kept under wraps if the developer so desires. The BSD license is more permissive than the GPL…

The BSD musketeers

FreeBSD is the most used of the BSDs according to the BSD usage survey report. The OS had its first release back in 1993 and its popularity has spawned several derivatives. TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD) is one such descendent that’s made a name for itself by extending FreeBSD’s famed stability to everyday desktop users. OpenBSD is seen as one of the safest operating systems. Thanks to its rigorous code audit and security-first development model, it’s a popular option for security-conscious deployments such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and general purpose servers. It’s designed for specialised usage so OpenBSD’s hardware supports focuses more on Enterprise-grade hardware and even virtual hardware. True to its tagline which reads “Of course it runs NetBSD”, the BSD distro that’s been around since the early 90s is…

HotGames Entertainment apps

“You deal with different objects like a bowling pin or a volley ball” Physics game Butterfly Effect Version: 0.9.3 Web: http://the-butterfly-effect.org We can’t change the laws of physics, but we can explore them and observe various effects caused by gravity, wind, rolling movement and more. The Butterfly Effect is a true-to-life physics simulation in the form of a meditative puzzle, divided into a series of levels. The Butterfly Effect is still considered by its developer to be in the alpha stage of development, but it’s perfectly playable. The name of the game is the same as a film about time travel, and in a similar fashion we had to hunt down a dusty copy of LXF136 for the last time we reviewed it. Quite a few changes have occurred since then. Perhaps the most noticeable one…

HotGames Entertainment apps

My days are spent growing eyes in the lab to study child blindness. But I have big dreams and am always thinking of the next thing that would change the world for the better. I noticed that there’s a huge lack of cross-disciplinary research, so I thought, “Why don’t I bridge the gap between arts, science and tech?” That’s why I decided to learn coding and robotics. My adventures with the Raspberry Pi begin with the launch of the Pi Zero W. In the same week, I successfully confused The Pi Hut with modmypi and Pimoroni on Twitter, and I attended the Raspberry Pi fifth birthday in Cambridge! My confusion led to my first friendship from the Raspberry Pi community. It’s been incredibly easy to learn from Pi enthusiasts by attending various…

Popular products based on BSD

There are many open source as well as commercial products based on BSD, due to its technical prowess and permissive licensing. Popular open source products include NAS distros like FreeNAS and NAS4Free and firewall projects such as the embedded m0n0wall distro and its fork for regular computers, pfsense. Then there’s the open source Darwin project by Apple, which produces the core components upon which the company’s proprietary OSes, OS X and iOS, are based. Darwin uses code that’s derived from BSD, which is also used as the basis for the file systems and networking facilities of OS X. There are other commercial products based on BSD by multinational hardware and software companies, such as Dell’s iSCSI SAN arrays. Silicon Graphics International also uses FreeBSD in their ArcFiniti MAID (standing for…

In This Issue

Description

Details

Reviews

Recent Digital Issues Browse all

Recent Linux Format Digital Issues Browse all back issues

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription November 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) November 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) October 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription September 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) September 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription July 16th, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) Summer 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription May 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) May 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) April 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription March 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) March 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) February 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription January 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) January 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription December 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) December 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription November 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) November 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) October 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription September 1st, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) September 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription July 16th, 2024 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) Summer 2024: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription May 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) May 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) April 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription March 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) March 2025: $6.99

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Linux Format (Digital) February 2025: $6.99

Customers Also Viewed

Apple Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 25th, 2025 Issue

Apple Magazine (Digital)

(2)

26 Issues: $17.49 ~~$103.74~~

Totally Awesome Hulk Magazine Subscription

Totally Awesome Hulk Magazine

12 Issues: $33.97 ~~$47.89~~

The Olympic & World Records Book Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 8th, 2016 Issue

The Olympic & World Records Book Magazine (Digital)

The Olympic & World Records Book 2016: $7.28

Linux: The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 8th, 2011 Issue

Linux: The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital)

The Complete Manual 2nd edition: $5.46

The Ultimate Linux Handbook Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 1st, 2016 Issue

The Ultimate Linux Handbook Magazine (Digital)

The Ultimate Linux Handbook 2016: $7.28

Linux The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Linux The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital)

2nd Edition: $7.99

Star Wars: Adventures Magazine (Digital) Subscription July 31st, 2019 Issue

Star Wars: Adventures Magazine (Digital)

Star Wars Adventures: Smuggler's Run: $50.00

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription

Linux Format (Digital)

February 2014: $5.99

Power & Motoryacht Magazine (Digital) Subscription May 1st, 2025 Issue

Power & Motoryacht Magazine (Digital)

(3)

10 Issues: $17.00 ~~$59.90~~

Retrobike (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2023 Issue

Retrobike (Digital)

Issue 49: $2.38

Apple Magazine (Digital) Subscription April 25th, 2025 Issue

Apple Magazine (Digital)

(2)

26 Issues: $17.49 ~~$103.74~~

Totally Awesome Hulk Magazine Subscription

Totally Awesome Hulk Magazine

12 Issues: $33.97 ~~$47.89~~

The Olympic & World Records Book Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 8th, 2016 Issue

The Olympic & World Records Book Magazine (Digital)

The Olympic & World Records Book 2016: $7.28

Linux: The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 8th, 2011 Issue

Linux: The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital)

The Complete Manual 2nd edition: $5.46

The Ultimate Linux Handbook Magazine (Digital) Subscription June 1st, 2016 Issue

The Ultimate Linux Handbook Magazine (Digital)

The Ultimate Linux Handbook 2016: $7.28

Linux The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Linux The Complete Manual 2nd edition Magazine (Digital)

2nd Edition: $7.99

Star Wars: Adventures Magazine (Digital) Subscription July 31st, 2019 Issue

Star Wars: Adventures Magazine (Digital)

Star Wars Adventures: Smuggler's Run: $50.00

Linux Format (Digital) Subscription

Linux Format (Digital)

February 2014: $5.99

Reviews

0

0

0

0

0

No reviews yet

Ask a Question

Click stars to rate

Please select a rating for the review.

Please enter title for the review.

Please enter content for the review.

Please enter order number.

Please enter your first name and last name.

Only letters allowed for first name and last name.

Please enter your email.

Upload photo

Cancel Submit

Processing...

Thank you for your feedback! Your review has been submitted and will be published soon.

OK

Be the first to ask a question about this product

Please enter content for the question.

Please enter at least 10 characters.

Your question can not be more than 150 characters.

Please enter your first name and last name.

Only letters allowed for first name and last name.

Please enter your email.

Submit Processing...

Thank you for your question! Your question has been submitted and will be published soon.

Answer this question

Please enter content for the answer.

Please enter at least 10 characters.

Please enter your first name and last name.

Only letters allowed for first name and last name.

Please enter your email.

Submit Cancel Processing...

Thank you for your answer! Your answer has been submitted and will be published soon.

OK

×