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## Linux Mint 18?

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74 posts • Page 3 of 8 • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 8

### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by AlexRey » Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:54 am

Now that is odd.
I've been busy and still not had a chance to install Mint 18 Final to test yet but thought i'd have a quick play with the USB stick i previously made from Mint 18 Beta but i had a completely different log in screen.
Instead of the small refracta welcome username and login box i had a Mint Cinnamon full screen picture and it asked for F1 to be pressed to select a username and login? <headscratch>
I had this for about 6 or 7 more boots but now it has gone back to the standard refracta welcome login box.
Something seems glitchy.

AlexRey
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  Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:43 am

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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by fsmithred » Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:52 pm

Yeah, that's weird. What is the directory structure on the usb stick? (What's in the root directory of the stick, and maybe one level down. Look at it when you plug it into a running system and mount it.)
And what does 'fdisk -l' show for it?

fsmithred
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  Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by AlexRey » Mon Jul 11, 2016 8:16 am

It's the same USB stick i made previously in this thread.
Formated with Gparted to fat32 with boot flag and i used mint iso to usb after refracta2usb was problematic.
Corair 8gb USB 2.0 that i've owned for a couple of years and it's never been any problem booting live disks on both my uefi and Non-uefi machines and has also been regularly used for windows ISO installs.
fdisk -l

Code: Select all
  `Disk /dev/sdc: 7.6 GiB, 8166703104 bytes, 15950592 sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: dos
  `

I can't read the USB stick as it doesn't show in Mint file manager though the desktop bleeps when it is inserted and removed. Users have also mention on the Mint forum that they can't see their USB stick after using the (mint iso to usb) tool so i don't know if it is written i some way with DD as a hidden boot disk to protect it.
I've booted loads of times this morning choosing different refracta boot option such as standard, text prompt and load toram and it's worked perfectly and shown the correct refracta login everytime instead of the cinnamon login, so it seems to be a one off glitch at the moment that happened to repeat itself a few times in a row for that particular session.
This is a pure guess unless it's not possible but i wonder if it is Mint 18 Beta itself that was the problem that may have caused a glitch or some type of boot collision because i've noticed when booting from Hardrive that sometimes Mint shows the Nvidia logo at the bootup and other times without any rhyme or reason it just shows the standard Mint dots on a black screen loading , so obviously being a Beta it's showing that it is buggy.
http://blog.linuxmint.com/
Mint 18 Final was released last week so i need to find time to install it to remove that as a bug factor.

AlexRey
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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by fsmithred » Mon Jul 11, 2016 12:57 pm

There must still be some data from the mint iso on the usb stick, and occasionally, the wrong part of the stick gets read at boot. Next time you put an image on the stick, you might zero the first few megabytes before you put anything new on it. We've seen weirdness after imaging a thumb drive with an isohybrid image before.
Plug in the usb stick, and run 'dmesg | tail' to get the device name (sdb, sdc, or whatever).
Then use the dd command in a root terminal. I don't remember what dd really stands for, but everyone refers to it as Disk Destroyer, so make sure you have the right device name, or you will lose all your data.

Code: Select all
  `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1024 count=4096`

will write zeros to the first 4MB of drive X. (Replace X with the correct letter for your usb stick.)
4MB is not a magic number, but I think you need to do at least 2MB. I've even had to do it twice to get the stick back to normal.

fsmithred
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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by AlexRey » Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:04 am

Thanks for that , I'll make sure that i do that from now on before formatting the drives to be sure.
There are some services that run with Refracta tools that i don't feel comfortable with if i'm going to run it full time as they keep having security issues.
A couple of examples:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14 ... ming_flaw/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/23 ... force_bug/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/02 ... erability/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/30 ... esearcher/
I'm never going to do any type of remote or network share computing and would like the absolute bare minimum services running to boot to desktop , is it possible to remove or disable openssh , openVPN or any other type of netbios services from Refracta Tools and lock it down?
Thanks

AlexRey
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  Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:43 am

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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by fsmithred » Tue Jul 12, 2016 11:19 am

Sure. Don't install services you don't want to run. The code in refractasnapshot and refractainstaller that handles ssh can't do anything if openssh-server is not installed. I don't think it's in mint18, anyway. If you're running a distro that uses sysvinit, you can install sysv-rc-conf and use that to configure which services run in which runlevels. If you're using systemd, there's anther way to turn services on and off, but I'm not familiar with that.

fsmithred
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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by AlexRey » Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:01 pm

the refracta boot toram option has something about ip=livemedia and openssh and the boot screen text before it goes to login says something about openssh and openvpn.
The shutdown text also has openssh and openvpn mentioned, Are these false messages if Mint doesn't have openssh and openvpn services installed and can be ignored?
Sorry i'm abit slow at this and confused.

AlexRey
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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by fsmithred » Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:47 pm

ip=frommedia should not be in the boot command, unless you want the snapshot to preserve your network settings (including any stored wireless passwords.) I thought I removed all of those in later versions. What version of refractasnapshot are you using?
I just fired up the mint18 iso, and there's no ssh server running. You can check for installed packages with 'dpkg -l' like this:

Code: Select all
  `dpkg -l | grep ssh
  dpkg -l | grep vpn
  dpkg -l | grep samba`

You can see what services are listening for connections with

Code: Select all
  `sudo netstat -ltu (or -ltun if you want to see the open port number)`

Note: if you're behind a router, these listening ports are closed to the outside world unless you configured your router to open those ports and forward them to your computer.)
Samba is running and listening, and so is avahi. There's no ssh or vpn running, other than ssh-agent, which is ready to help you if you want to log into some remote computer. So you can probably ignore those messages.
To see what's running:

Code: Select all
  `ps ax
  ps aux
  ps ax | grep ssh
  ps ax | grep vpn
  ps ax | grep smb`

fsmithred
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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by AlexRey » Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:08 pm

http://distro.ibiblio.org/refracta/file ... cta_Tools/
I used all the Debs from above.
ip=frommedia and openssh= is in the boot options and all the text about openssh looks to be part of the boot sequence before it gets to the refracta login and then shells into mint.
Thanks for firing up Mint ISO and the info on how i can check what is running when in Mint.

AlexRey
  Posts: 72
  Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:43 am

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### Re: Linux Mint 18?

by fsmithred » Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:17 pm

Oops. My mistake. Those are old versions, and I should move them to a location that makes it more obvious.
Try the latest versions from here -
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/
Or, even newer (if you need your live system to boot on uefi hardware)
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac ... s/testing/
The boot messages are probably coming from the live-boot or live-config scripts - it's normal for them to looks for things to do, and some of them like to tell you about it, even if they don't find anything.

fsmithred
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