Linux Magazine February 2025

Dear Reader, The strange case of James Howells’s hard drive reached a judge this week, which should be cause for all of us to pause and reflect. In case you’re not familiar with the heart-rending tale, Mr. Howells had quite a sum of cryptocurrency back in 2013, with his private keys stored on a hard drive that he removed from his computer and placed in a black bag [1]. His partner at the time came across the bag in the hallway and thought it was trash, so she threw it out, or so his story goes. His former partner has acknowledged her role in the incident but says Howells “begged” her to toss out the trash in the inconspicuous black bag [2]. But the he said/she said details are not…

Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon Edition 64-bit Linux Mint is a Debian derivative known for its responsiveness to users, including the development of the Cinnamon desktop environment. Code named Wilma, Linux Mint is a long-term support (LTS) release based on Ubuntu 22.04, which is supported until 2029. From Ubuntu 22.04, Linux Mint 22 Cinnamon Edition inherits numerous software upgrades, such as the 6.8 kernel, systemd v255.4, and numerous programming tools, including Binutils 2.42, glibc 2.39, Python 3.12, and Rust 1.75. Linux Mint 22 now uses a thinner version of Ubuntu for its default font and reduces the time before automatic shutdown to 10 seconds when logging out. It also removes the ZFS filesystem as an installation choice due to a lack of interest from users. Users of this release should read…

There’s a new Cinnamon desktop (version 6.4) for everyone to enjoy, and it has a decidedly newer (and more modern) look. The new polish on the default theme includes darker colors, an increased radius on window corners, and better use of accent colors. But that’s not all. The new look also makes use of Clutter (a toolkit for creating Linux GUIs) for nearly all modal dialogs (pop-up windows that require user input). The buttons within those dialogs also pick up the chosen accent color, so there’s more uniformity throughout. Other changes to version 6.4 include a native Night Light feature, adjustable color temperature (to replace Redshift), over-amplification is now easier to find (Settings | Sound), an improved Power applet to simplify switching between power profiles, Quit now renamed Shutdown, menu…

The developers of Armbian have announced the general availability of Armbian 24.11. This major update not only adds enhanced functionality but also expands hardware support. Armbian 24.11 now supports system-on-chip (SoC) computers, such as the Radxa ROCK 5B+, Radxa E20C, ArmSoM-CM5, ArmSoM-Sige3, OrangePi 5 Max, OK3568-C, NanoPi M6, Retro Lite CM5, CherryBa M1, Luckfox Core3566, and Turing RK1. But there’s more: Armbian also now supports other types of devices such as the OnePlus 8T phone, TV Box Magicsee C400 Plus, Android TV box, and the Cyber Aib RK3588 octa-core 64-bit processor. In addition to expanded hardware support, you’ll also find a much improved system configuration utility that now includes task automation, network configuration, SSH settings management, installing/uninstalling applications, and more. The 24.11 release only offers KDE Plasma, Gnome, and Xfce…

SUSE has been around for a long time and offers several outstanding products, one of which has gone by the moniker SUSE Linux Enterprise. Another product SUSE has offered for a while now has lived under the name Liberty Linux, which provides customers with a unified support experience for managing heterogeneous environments. Well, Liberty Linux is now SUSE Multi Linux Support (https://www.zdnet.com/article/suse-unveils-major-rebranding-and-a-new-ai-platform-that-protects-your-data/), a product that offers support not only for SUSE users but also stands as an alternative to Red Hat’s support. Liberty Linux isn’t the only product that has seen a name change. There’s also Rancher (SUSE’s Kubernetes), which is now SUSE Rancher; Harvester is now SUSE Virtualization; Longhorn is now SUSE Storage; and New Vector is now SUSE Security. The goal is to make it clear these products…

WolfsBane, a Chinese malware, has been discovered by ESET and is being used by a group known as Gelsemium. This malware is listed as an all-in-one because it contains everything necessary to do what it needs to do, including a dropper (named cron), which “drops” the launcher disguised as a KDE desktop component. Wolfs-Bane then (if needed) disables SELinux, creates required system service files, and/or modifies a configuration for persistence. The malware also includes the Hider rootkit, which is capable of hooking into functions such as open, stat, readdir, and access. The reason why this is labeled an all-in-one is because it doesn’t depend on the work of others to succeed; everything is included. WolfsBane’s key feature is the ability to grant control over a compromised system to those deploying…