mintCast 257 – Websites for the IT professional
257]
News:
- Linux Mint news for the month of November
- Microsoft—yes, Microsoft—joins the Linux Foundation
- Major Linux security hole gapes open
Main Topic:
- Rob and Isaac talk about their favorite websites that they use to keep their IT skills up-to-date.
Tips & Websites:
- Read “Clean Code”
- Websites mentioned during the Main Topic:
Pre-Show Music:
- “Yesterday’s Conversation” by Angus Wallace
- “The Red Stone” by Ground & Leaves
Podcast Announcements:
- Conferences and events according to Red Hat
- Events according to Linux Magazine
- List of FOSS events according to Wikipedia
More Information:
Hosts: Rob, Scott, Joe and Isaac
Live Stream every other Sunday 2:00 p.m.(Central): mintcast.org/livestream
Contact Us:
- Forum: forums.linuxmint.com (rarely)
- Email: [email protected]
- Twitter: @mintCast @3dbeef @txhawkins @JoeRessington @Linux_Mint
- IRC: irc.spotchat.org – #mintcast
- Google+: mintCast
More Linux Mint info: website, blog, forums, community
Credits:
Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). Podcast bumpers provided by Oscar.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Rob said KDE Neon was hacked. This is not true. For one month, their server was misconfigured to allow unauthorized uploading of packages. They don’t have evidence that anyone did anything malicious but they disclosed the issue to be safe. The fact that they don’t have log data to say for sure whether or not anyone outside of the project uploaded a package is a little troubling.
You’re exactly right Will. That’s what I get for going off-script and not doing my homework! Thanks for clearing it up.
To answer your question about firefox’s “mwad0hks.default” profile name, that’s the result of a default Mint config located in /etc/skel. There’s a few other settings in that folder, including a custom terminal profile with those green colors. Whenever a new user is added to the system, anything in /etc/skel gets copied into their home folder.
Have a nice European-style vacation!
I think the reason some are concerned about the fact that this identical profile directory ends up in every user’s home directory of every mint installation on the planet is because it’s a deterministic place that malware could work with to infect firefox. The malware knows it’s always there on every box and every user and it’s a place for malicious browser extensinos to install to. Another possibility is that the default settings for Firefox given to everyone contain some insecurity that opens all mint users to a web-based attack.
Personally I think the risk from this is not much different than normal risk.
You asked us, in the latest episode of the podcast, to share our places of studying or researching online, should we feel it is worthwhile. These below do not provide online certification or similar ,as per my understanding, however they are troves of knowledge, free for all (so I believe).
The following link leads to the MIT OpenCourseWare site. https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
This second link here leads to the video lecture sharing site: VideoLectures.NET. http://videolectures.net/
Both of these I consider to be highly valuable with lots of course materials, video lectures and more, if you dig in deep enough.
Thank you for posting these links! I had completely forgot about the MIT courses, which are really good.
When’s the prediction show out guys? Last year I wrote mine out http://mintcast.org/2016/01/08/mintcast-238-2016-foss-predictions/#comment-9286 and (predictably, heh) got not much right…
1. I said that you’d ignore Arch on the Mintcast podcast. Big fail! You did a whole episode on Arch, and Isaac has mentioned his fondness for it during the year. True story: I changed my router last month, couldn’t get Wifi working again on my Arch machine for a week!
2. Ubuntu 16.04, 16.10 and Mint 18 = boring – Failed again I think.
Ubuntu 16.04 had Snappy packages and ZFS, which made it a release with decent new stuff. Mint 18 has not set the world alight maybe and 16.10 was conservative, but I distinctly remember more enthusiasm around them than the previous year’s “boring” Ubuntu 15.xx releases and 17.x for Mint.
3. Solus drama – fail! Nothing dramatic happened.
A game called “The Solus Project” was released on PC in February. No drama came of this, sadly. Josh Stroble, one of the developers of Solus, was on Bad Voltage 63. He seemed like a normal guy, and kept his cool in the face of some probing questions and the typical stupid comments from Bryan Lunduke. No drama here either. In July, Solus switched to a rolling release model. That was big news for the project, but not much drama unfortunately. Ikey Dohety was on the Linux Unplugged podcast a handful of times, but stayed on-topic and didn’t cause any drama.
4. Mintcaster quits – maybe yay?
I said that a Mincast host would officially step down from the podcast. I thought it might be Joe or Scott. Seems like they have both left now, though not officially.
In show 244 Rob mentioned that Scott had moved to Florida and didn’t have any podcasting equipment. Joe criticised Linux Mint a fair amount on the Luddites 78 in May, and has mentioned at least one more time that he stopped running Mint due to the project’s security decisions. If he came back then a roasting would be well deserved! 🙂
Scott was last on episode 241, Joe on 239. Shows 242 through to the last one, 258, have all been Rob and Isaac. Half marks?
5. “What about Mint 17.x?” FAIL/Nobody cares. There has been literally no news on Mint 17.x. I guess nobody cares anymore?
6. Community Manager of Ubuntu quits – FAIL. Popey has been drinking the Canonical kool-aid (as they say) harder than ever in 2016.
Bonus Prediction: Wimpy joins Canonical – result! I thought it was inevitable at one point, but then he said he had just got a new job elsewhere (he mentioned it on Linux Unplugged) and that threw me. In the end Canonical finally assimilated Martin Wimpress towards the end of September 2016.
No way I’m predicting anything for 2017! It’s harder than it sounds. 🙂