Ubuntu for the NHS?

Is the NHS looking to Replace it's outdated Window XP with Ubuntu?

Could the NHS really  be considering switching its software infrastructure from Windows to Ubuntu,after Windows XP vulnerabilities were exploited in the recent ransomeware cyber attack that cause severe disruption to several NHS trusts?

News of the "NHSbuntu" platform came to light via Dr Dean Jenkins, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and editor-at-large of BMJ Case Reports, who writes about it on his blog Differential Diagnosis.

According to Dr Jenkins, the Linux-based NHSbuntu is a "modern, secure, open source, operating system being considered by Jeremy Hunt for the NHS."

He adds that as NHSbuntu is built on the "industrial strength Ubuntu desktop," it offers a full-fat security feature set to meet the NHS's needs, including secure email, smartcard authentication and whole disk encryption, plus support for modern web browsers and popular office softtware.

He also notes Ubuntu was found to be the most secure operating system by the UK government's National Technical Authority for Information Assurance (CESG, formerly the Communications-Electronics Security Group), which is part of the National Cyber Security Centre. Although he takes a dig that this assessment was made "more than two years ago."

The NHSbuntu project is currently available to view on GitHub, and news that it is apparently being considered by Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt first appeared on the openhealth hub forums, where user Barry Schofield claims: "I have passed your disc to Jeremy Hunt and he was extremely interested. He is passing it on to his tech people."

It should be noted that while the NHSbuntu platform appears to be real,based on the GitHub code.Reports that it is one of the  software options being considered by the government aren't entirely implausible,but it is not possible to independently verify the claims.

Wishful thinking,or a mischievous dig at IT funding within the NHS,Or could Canonical and Ubuntu really be the cost effective solution to cash strapped NHS trusts?

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Fedora:A Brief History

Part four in our series "A Brief History " Looks at Fedora,Red Hat incs,community distro,seen by some as a test bed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux,to others it's a leading light in Linux innovation and technology.

Although Fedora was formally unveiled only in September 2004, its origins effectively date back to 1995 when it was launched by two Linux visionaries -- Bob Young and Marc Ewing -- under the name of Red Hat Linux. The company's first product, Red Hat Linux 1.0 "Mother's Day", was released in the same year and was quickly followed by several bug-fix updates. In 1997, Red Hat introduced its revolutionary RPM package management system with dependency resolution and other advanced features which greatly contributed to the distribution's rapid rise in popularity and its overtaking of Slackware Linux as the most widely-used Linux distribution in the world. In later years, Red Hat standardised on a regular, 6-month release schedule.

In 2003, just after the release of Red Hat Linux 9, the company introduced some radical changes to its product line-up. It retained the Red Hat trademark for its commercial products, notably Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and introduced Fedora Core (later renamed to Fedora), a Red Hat-sponsored, but community-oriented distribution designed for the "Linux hobbyist". After the initial criticism of the changes, the Linux community accepted the "new" distribution as a logical continuation of Red Hat Linux. A few quality releases was all it took for Fedora to regain its former status as one of the best-loved operating systems on the market. At the same time, Red Hat quickly became the biggest and most profitable Linux company in the world, with an innovative product line-up, excellent customer support, and other popular initiatives, such as its Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification programme.

Although Fedora's direction is still largely controlled by Red Hat, Inc. and the product is sometimes seen -- rightly or wrongly -- as a test bed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there is no denying that Fedora is one of the most innovative distributions available today. Its contributions to the Linux kernel, glibc and GCC are well-known and its more recent integration of SELinux functionality, virtualisation technologies, systemd service manager, cutting-edge journaled file systems, and other enterprise-level features are much appreciated among the company's customers. On a negative side, Fedora still lacks a clear desktop-oriented strategy that would make the product easier to use for those beyond the "Linux hobbyist" target.

• Pros: Highly innovative; outstanding security features; large number of supported packages; strict adherence to the free software philosophy; availability of live CDs featuring many popular desktop environments
• Cons: Fedora's priorities tend to lean towards enterprise features, rather than desktop usability; some bleeding edge features, such as early switch to KDE 4 and GNOME 3, occasionally alienate some desktop users
• Software package management: YUM graphical and command line utility using RPM packages
• Available editions: Fedora for 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) processors; also live CD editions with GNOME, KDE, LXDE, MATE and Xfce desktops
• Suggested Fedora-based alternatives: Korora (live DVD with GNOME, KDE, LXDE or Xfce)
• Suggested Red Hat-based alternatives: CentOS, Scientific Linux

Fedora Gnome Desktop

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KDE Connect.SMS to your desktop...

With KDE Connect you can bridge  the gap between your Linux desktop and your Android phone. 

It allows you to view the notifications from your Android phone on your desktop,and,should you wish, It allows you to respond to text messages through your Linux PC.

KDE Connect also has other useful features.
You can control your Linux computer from your Android device. It even lets you share web pages between devices.

Install KDE Connect on Ubuntu Linux

You don’t need to have KDE installed on Ubuntu to run KDE Connect. It will work well with Unity, GNOME, or whichever desktop environment you’re running.

Since it’s part of KDE, it is available in Ubuntu’s repositories, and is therefore available to most if not all Ubuntu based distros,Mint included,and can be installed directly with the  Apt command.Just open a terminal and copy and paste the following command.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install kdeconnect

In order to get the most out of KDE Connect on non-KDE desktop environments,
you can install a third-party program called Indicator KDE Connect.
It provides integration for other desktop environments via their notification systems.

However to download the indicator, head over to the author’s Github repository and download the latest release as a .deb.

But before you can run KDE Connect  you'll need to install one additional dependency, so open your terminal again and copy and paste the following command.

sudo apt install python3-requests-oauthlib

Then, change directory into your Downloads folder and install the indicator package with dpkg.

Open your terminal again and copy and paste the following command. (Assuming that you downloaded the package to your Downloads folder,if not just substitute Downloads with the actual location you downloaded it to).

cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i indicator-kdeconnect_0.8.1-amd64.deb

Indicator is a graphical program. You can open it by searching in KDE,Unity etc
There will be two entries. “Settings” one is the one you  need to connect.
The other is the taskbar applet.

Install KDE Connect on Android

KDE Connect for Android is also free and open source. 
It’s available in both the Google Play Store and on F-Droid. 
Either way, you can type in a search for it. 
The app will come right up.Install it like you would any other app on your Android device. 

Sync Android and Linux.

Syncing up your phone is very easy. Open the KDE Connect app on your phone.
Then, open Indicator KDE Connect Settings on your Ubuntu,Mint etc Pc or Laptop.

In the “Settings” window when you see your phone listed in the box to the left, click on it.
The window will change to display information about your phone.
It will also include a “Pair” button. Click on that.
You will receive a notification on your phone of the pair request which you should accept.

With your phone connected, open the regular Indicator KDE Connect from Unity to run the applet.

Testing Out SMS

There are a couple of ways to test out KDE Connect. 

Start with sending and receiving text messages. 

You can either send yourself a message or have a friend do it. If you are sending the test then you need to text your own phone number. 

A dialog box will pop up  with the number that sent the text and the message itself.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to reply directly, but you can send a message back.
Click on the applet in the top-right of your screen on Ubuntu. You’ll see the options that are available with KDE Connect.
One of them allows you to send a text message. Select that.

The window that opens is quite basic.
There are two boxes:
One for the number of the recipient and one for the message.
When you’re done, you can send it.
Try sending one to yourself to make sure that it’s working properly.
It’s important to remember that your PC/Laptop isn’t actually sending the message.It’s passing the message along to your phone,so sending a message without a paired Android phone wont work.

Other Connect Features

KDE Connect can open web pages from your phone on your Linux computer. 

You can send interesting pages that you come across on your mobile device to your desktop to view on a larger screen or read later.

KDE Connect is interesting and works just fine,how useful it would be in the real world,rather depends on the end user.

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Slackware: A Brief History

Our fifth instalment of " A Brief History",looks at the oldest surviving,and to many,quite simply the best distro,Slackware,not big on hand holding,but designed for stability,and security,with a wealth of documentation available,"learn Slackware,learn linux"

Slackware Linux, created by Patrick Volkerding in 1992, is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. Forked from the now-discontinued SLS project, Slackware 1.0 came on 24 floppy disks and was built on top of Linux kernel version 0.99pl11-alpha. It quickly became the most popular Linux distribution, with some estimates putting its market share to as much as 80% of all Linux installations in 1995. Its popularity decreased dramatically with the arrival of Red Hat Linux and other, more user-friendly distributions, but Slackware Linux still remains a much-appreciated operating system among the more technically-oriented system administrators and desktop users.

Slackware Linux is a highly technical, clean distribution, with only a very limited number of custom utilities. It uses a simple, text-based system installer and a comparatively primitive package management system that does not resolve software dependencies. As a result, Slackware is considered one of the cleanest and least buggy distributions available today - the lack of Slackware-specific enhancements reduces the likelihood of new bugs being introduced into the system. All configuration is done by editing text files. There is a saying in the Linux community that if you learn Red Hat, you'll know Red Hat, but if you learn Slackware, you'll know Linux. This is particularly true today when many other Linux distributions keep developing heavily customised products to meet the needs of less technical Linux users.

While this philosophy of simplicity has its fans, the fact is that in today's world, Slackware Linux is increasingly becoming a "core system" upon which new, custom solutions are built, rather than a complete distribution with a wide variety of supported software. The only exception is the server market, where Slackware remains popular, though even here, the distribution's complex upgrade procedure and lack of officially supported automated tools for security updates makes it increasingly uncompetitive. Slackware's conservative attitude towards the system's base components means that it requires much manual post-installation work before it can be tuned into a modern desktop system.

• Pros: Considered highly stable, clean and largely bug-free, strong adherence to UNIX principles
• Cons: Limited number of officially supported applications; conservative in terms of base package selection; complex upgrade procedure
• Software package management: "pkgtool" using TXZ packages
• Available editions:Slackware Live Edition. Installation CDs and DVD for 32-bit (i486) and 64-bit (x86_64) processors
• Suggested Slackware-based alternatives: Zenwalk Linux (desktop), Salix (desktop, live CD), Porteus (live CD with KDE, LXDE, MATE, Razor-qt or Xfce), VectorLinux (desktop)
• Other distributions with similar philosophies: Arch Linux, Frugalware Linux

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Ubuntu Unity Security Patch

A security vulnerability has been discovered in the Ubuntu login screen,which would give would-be
attackers unauthorised access to your files.

The issue concerns LightDM, the display manager for the Unity Desktop that powers the Unity Greeter login screen,and affects both Ubuntu 17.04 and Ubuntu 16.10.

LightDM does not correctly confine the guest user session enabled by default on Ubuntu. An attacker with physical access to an affected system could exploit the weakness to gain access to the files or other users on the system, including files in users’ home directories.

Based on discussions in the bug report attached to the issue (which is now public) it seems the move to systemd is (partly) to blame, and explains why earlier versions of Ubuntu (which use upstart) are not affected.

If you’re running a fully up-to-date system you do not need to panic. Canonical has already pushed out an update that temporarily disables Ubuntu guest session logins (so if you noticed it was missing, that’s why).

If you haven’t installed the update,then please do.It’s easy enough: just open the Update Manager, check for updates, and install all critical security patches listed.

While the likelihood of this issue actually being exploited is minimal — remember: someone would need to have physical access to your computer, and need to know about the vulnerability and how to use it,it's reassuring that the security patch required has been made available.

Canonical says it may re-enable guest sessions in a future update but, for now, they’re off by default. Anyone who needs to use guests sessions can knowingly and manually re-enable them.

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