Samsung M.2
Your article in LXF207 [Reviews, p17] about the Samsung PRO 950 SSD has whetted my appetite for an upgrade to my desktop computer. Can you recommend a suitable motherboard and CPU which would allow me to install and run Kubuntu using this SSD as the root and home drive please? Internet searches only refer to Windows and that only a few boards can boot from this SSD so I am a bit hesitant to take the plunge and purchase without further guidance. Alan Reid, via email Neil says: I’m glad you found the review helpful – I like putting in the odd cutting-edge hardware review to keep readers up to date – I’m never sure how interested readers really are in these types of reviews (but I find them useful and interesting, so I guess someone else must!). As this is a new technology direct chipset support is only on the high-end Intel chipsets and so motherboards. Look to the Z97 or H97 range of socket 1150 boards or the Z/H/ Q170 range of socket 1151 Skylake motherboards. Though you’ll still need to confirm the connections on the motherboard.
Alternatively you are able to get slot-in PCIe adaptors into which you can mount your M.2 drive and get full speed access, but unless your mobo supports booting from a M.2 port or PCIe drive it’s unlikely to support booting from one of these. A BIOS update could add in support, but we wouldn’t hold out much hope except for the latest of boards.
Absolute beginners
I am an absolute beginner when it comes to Linux, being at the stage of trying out various distros in the hope of ridding myself of Microsoft (and not just the OS). I am sure it’s a familiar story nowadays.
I was very impressed by the Linux Mint 17.2 version that was supplied with the October 2015 issue of Linux Format [ LXF203], and – because ‘eye candy’ is important to me – I was really pleased with the large amount of wallpapers that came with it (about 160). I decided though not to install it permanently but rather to wait for Mint 17.3. I was delighted to see that you had included it with the February 2016 edition [ LXF207] and duly gave it a full installation.
I am not lodging a complaint by any means, but I am puzzled by what appears to be a reduction of about 73 stunning background pictures in the latest version. My enquiry was sparked by a screenshot on
www.linuxmint.com in an article about Mint 17.3 entitled ‘New Features in Linux Mint’, which appears to show all of the background sets including Rosa and Retro. Perhaps the earlier backgrounds had been imported into the version the author was using for the article?
Tony Frost, via email.
Neil Bothwick says: I used a virgin 17.3 ISO, so they must have been dropped from the default list. However, they can be installed from the package manager, just search for ‘mint-backgrounds’ and you’ll get a list of all the older sets.
DNSing it
Regarding your feature on Plasma 5 in LXF206 [p59]. I actually have a sweet spot for KDE/Plasma (although I feel your bashing of Plasma 4 is unwarranted—some great features of 4 have disappeared in 5, notably the ability to tab different windows), and I don’t have the most cutting edge hardware, but 4 used to run fine, just as 5 does.
The issue is that we all know that KDE/Plasma can be tweaked to your heart’s content, so it was quite a disappointment to see that your feature didn’t indicate anywhere where one would go to tweak stuff. Tell me where I can
really tweak things, and forget the fluff about how great Plasma 5 is—yes, it’s great, but I want to set it up to my needs!
This has nothing to do with the previous rant. A long time ago there was a nice article in
LXF about using Dnsmasq as a simple but effective DNS service on your own network. Together with a couple of comments in
LXF forums about his, I was able to set things up like I wanted.
That is: I have a dedicated computer acting as mail and file server. Using Fetchmail it sweeps my emails from a number of accounts I have and makes it available to my working computers. Using Unison, I have the server keep an updated copy of all my essential files.
To do this from outside my LAN I (obviously) have to open an appropriate port on my router. The trick comes when I want to use these features (POP3 access to my mail on the server and SSH access used by
Unison to synch files) both inside my LAN and when I am out in the wild.
This is where the Dnsmasq +Exchange did the job: I have a No-IP service providing an URL to my system when I am on the road, and setting up my
Dnsmasq server with a hosts field that includes the No-IP URL as its local hostname, allows me to use one URL for email and file synch access.
That’s great, but I ran into a glitch that I haven’t seen flagged anywhere. So, it turns out that if
any participant in the LAN lists a DNS server on its own (except
128.0.0/1.1 or the router—in my latest case, it’s my VoIP gadget), opening up a port on my router for POP3 or SSH (or whatever, I assume) breaks access from the LAN as the requests to the server is listed as coming from the router instead of the actual originating computer.
This seems pretty exotic, but it has entirely messed up my access to email and synch, and the way out was to keep the POP3, SSH, whatever ports open strictly only when I am actually using them (from outside my LAN), but shut otherwise. This is actually a good safety feature, and my Linksys router allows me to manage
those ports from anywhere via a web interface.
I don’t know that much about DNS, but, as I mentioned, I have not seen any flag about this issue, and when I asked for help when things were not working, I got plenty of feedback, but nobody even mentioned this issue as a possible solution! How about you doing a thorough job explaining how DNS would work in a local setting like mine?
Federico Marchetti, Washington, USA
Neil says: That does sound something of an exotic network arrangement for a home system. While we’re not a full-on answer service here (that’s saved for the super-smart Neil Bothwick), as mentioned in Jason’s letter later on, I think it’s helpful and interesting for readers to explain their interesting and unusual set ups. Write in and tell us what you’re up to!
In this case I think you’ve answered your own problem, without realising it. You can only have one DNS registered. This is fine for your internal network, but as soon as you move outside you need to use a standard general public DNS such as Google’s at 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4. As these are unaware of your internal network this breaks access to your internal network. An answer would be to set up a VPN, which retains direct access to the internal network set up.
Quick view
I use a Linux distro called Vortexbox as a complete media server and think it might be a topic of interest to readers. Alex Morrison, Canada Neil says: Thanks for the suggestion, we’ll take a look! You can check out this dedicated audio streaming server at http://vortexbox.org.
Fail2ban
I can’t remember exactly how long, but I’ve been trying for two weeks to visit the LinuxFormat site ( www.linuxformat.co.uk?) but keep getting time outs. Did you move to a different address or is there another solution for this problem? Guy, Belgium Jonni says: We’ve been operating an experimental blacklist to mitigate against excessive bottraffic on the site. We’re still tweaking these settings, but at the moment an IP wins a 1-week ban if it performs 2,000 requests in an hour. I checked your IP from the subscribers’ archive and it was indeed in the blocklist, so I’ve removed it and hopefully your access is restored. Not sure why your IP wasn’t removed after one week like it should’ve been. But hopefully it’s solved now, thanks for your patience.
The switcherer
If anyone out there is thinking of trying Linux, as a non-techie computer user, I say do! I switched to Ubuntu about two years ago after buying a new, allegedly super-fast laptop with Windows 8. When the OS failed to work with the wireless/ network card 18 times in one day, I gave up and I am so glad I did. Since then I’ve tried SUSE (wouldn’t find my phone or printer), Manjaro (loved it), the previous Deepin (buggy) and Fedora (a bit plain). Now, I’m on a triple boot of Mint 17.3, Deepin 2015 and the latest Chromixium. All three are brilliant and very easy to use. There is so much choice out there I just keep swapping OSes.
The journey continues—I’ve even swapped my hard drive to a SSD. Combined with the Linux OSes this has reduced boot times from 80 to just about 10 seconds. I’m learning everything I can about using the terminal (painfully slow though it is) and following all the Linux tutorials I can find. I’ve set up a home network and even tried a new career as a systems analyst—
GNU/Linux (we do try!) remains open so we can all have fun working, tinkering and playing with it. whatever that is!? I also get Linux Format on subscription. So, Linux has, quite simply, changed my life and I love it. Now all I need is a Raspberry Pi for my birthday and a 3D printer and I’ll never get out of my Linux man-shed.
As a suggestion for articles, how about you pick subscribers at random and ask for a member profile and a bit about their favourite Linux software and bits of kit? It might help new readers and those people thinking of trying Linux to realise we and our kit are (mostly) all completely normal! Jason Spinney, via email. Neil says: I’m glad to hear you’re having so much fun with Linux! I think that’s one of the big attractions for home enthusiasts, the ability to tinker and just play without the restrictions Windows and OS X insist on. I’ll certainly consider your suggestions of a reader’s system section, I just wouldn’t want it to become repetitive, which would be my main worry…