Please note that some links may be broken
I know its been a while since a new release of FLY, dont worry, 0.7.3 is comming. I've been busy doing a near complete re-write of the autobuild scripts and merging the UPDATE script in as well. In the end, the final script will look much more professional. I've also started working on a Gentoo-wiki article on how to design a LiveCD. You can view the page at this link: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/LiveCD_from_scratch
Its been a while since the last release, and as I've said in the very beginnings of this project, I'd like to release versions periodically even if its just to update applications. Version 0.7.2 is one such version. There are though, two important things about this release: - The install scripts were modified to remove the 'Install FLY' menu entry from the Fluxbox menu once installed. This closes bug #15 ( http://bugs.criticalsecurity.net/show_bug.cgi?id=15 ) - This is the first version of FLY compiled exclusively using the UPDATE script rather than the traditional MAKE_NEW and MAKE_c_NEW scripts. The goal of the UPDATE script is to reduce compile time, and it will be used to compile all "patch" versions of FLY (ie: from 0.7.1 to 0.7.2) and the regular scripts will be used for major/minor versions (ie: 0.6.x to 0.7.0) Read more about it on the release log page linked in the section below. Torrent and direct downloads are now available! You can discuss about this version here.
After much delay, Im finally pleased to announce the release of version 0.7.1. I encountered several roadblocks with this version which caused the long delay. Read more about it on the release log page linked in the section below. Torrent and direct downloads are now available! You can discuss about this version For older news, click here.
Sid has setup Bugzilla on the server and it works, so I encourage you all to register and submit any bugs or suggestions you may find. I've also added a news archieve which will display all previous news items in a dechronological order. Just click the (tiny) link below:
Here's a welcome update for you all (now that I got my access back). A few days ago on October 16th I released version 0.7.0 of FLY. Most of the details can be found by clicking on the link in the Release Logs section so I encourage you all to go there and read :) On another note, Im not sure whether Sid is going to get the wiki back up but I'll be bugging him about it and I'll try to get the bugzilla moved over as well so that it can be used properly.
Since the upgrade to IPB3.0, links to the CriticalSecurity.NET forums need to be re-linked. I'll be fixing this shortly. As well, Sid has yet to implement the wiki feature and so, the wiki page is down. Temporarily I hope.
Here are the new fixes: Conky: - Thanks to someMoniker, a fix has been applied to the services section. Rather than running a 'ps aux | grep | wc' a simpler 'if_running' is used. This reduces the CPU load and provices an accurate reading. The only disadvantage for the time being is that if VNC is running, it will not display how many sessions are running. DHCP: - At the request of nebriv, and to close bug #10, a new script has been added as a part of Fluxbox and the Fluxbox menu. When Fluxbox first starts it'll run /root/.fluxbox/dhcp/dhcp which generates dhcpcd start and dhcpcd stop menu entries for all detected interfaces except the local loopback. initramfs: - Busybox has been properly added to the initramfs. This means that finally, the /bin/sh shell which is dropped when FLY fails to boot will become much more useful. - New block devices have been added into the 2nd autobuild script which are added to the initramfs. They were part of the mount command in the init script but the block devices were never there. Oops! wgetpaste: - nopaste has been removed from FLY because http://www.rafb.net shut down. wgetpaste has been added as replacement. Bugs closed: #5 - This bug will not be fixed. #6 - This bug will not be fixed. #7 - This bug will not be fixed. #10 - This feature request was completed by the addition of the /root/.fluxbox/dhcp/dhcp script #11 - This bug is invalid. #14 - This bug is invalid. Bugs still open: #2 - Kernel libraries mounted read-only. #4 - Tor not functioning. Possibly caused by no timezone set in /etc/localtime #8 - Unassigned #9 - Unassigned #12 - Until final artwork is selected for SLiM this bug cannot be closed. #13 - Unassigned #15 - Unassigned #16 - Removal of the installation menu entry on an HDD install. You can discuss about this version here.
I'll get right to the details of whats new: Conky: - I removed the CPU graph from the conkymaker.sh script. It wasnt working properlly (it would only appear as a 1px high graph, between 'CPU Usage' and 'Mem Usage') I tried to sort it out but then the colours were being screwy so I've just plain removed it. Theres enough info from the CPU bar anyways. - I added a new script (/etc/conky/df) to dynamically update Conky with new/removed mounted devices to display filesystem usage. This initially had issues with colour changing from StyleSwitcher (see note below). - I guess one of the new versions of Conky fixed up the exec set of commands (or I wasnt using them properly before). The status for services - Started, Stopped - now display in appropriate colours. Green for started, red for stopped. I also switched to the execp command with an interval of one second, rather than previously using the execi with an interval of 5 seconds. This means when you start/stop a service, Conky should display right away (within 1 second) the status change. StyleSwitcher: - I fixed up the colour switching that takes place with StyleSwitcher. Firstly, colours are now stored in a textfile (~/.fluxbox/styleswitcher/colours). There was an issue with the variables used previously. Global variables were set when startx ran and then were never used, and local variables were created everytime a style was changed. Since the variables were local to the StyleSwitcher script, the variables didnt make their way to the /etc/conky/df script. With a text file, all the scripts have to do is read from it. SLiM: - I've modified the background artwork to include the username and password (root:toor) as it wasnt being mentioned anywhere else. The artwork that is there is of course temporary and I'd really like to get it replaced with more appropriate FLY artwork soon! Bugs fixed: - I've fixed bug #1 which was related to the wrong Fluxbox style being started. The 'blue' StyleSwitcher theme is default, but the Fluxbox style for 'earth' was being used. - Nebriv reported bug #3 which was due to the xf86-video-i810 ebuild being (merged?) and renamed to xf86-video-intel. I had removed the former .. a while ago, but for some reason I never included the new one. It is included now. So that bug *should* be squashed as well. You can discuss about this version here.
We now have a new Bugzilla! Check it out at http://bugs.linuxfly.net!
Most of what is in this update are minor cosmetic changes. However a few significant changes do exist. For starters, here are the more important changes: - GCC was updated from version 4.1.2 to 4.3.2-r3. - The SLiM login manager was added to this version. A temporary artwork has been added while FLY artwork is in development. The login credentials remain the same; username 'root' and password 'toor'. - Ettercap has been added with GTK support. Minor fixes include starting Fluxbox with the 'blue' background as well as the blue Conky font style. The Fluxbox style is still on 'earth', I'll fix that later. A fix in the Conkymaker.sh script has been made so that the names of network interfaces are now the proper colour. A minor kernel update was also made to 2.6.27-r10 from 2.6.27-r8. Other versions are still keyworded. Finally, one somewhat major change to the way FLY is designed. The process has now been moved to a regular user rather than the previous requirement for the root account. This significantly increases security as there is no longer a requirement for keeping a root shell active, and also decreases the chances of something going wrong due to lower priveledges of the regular user. Check the link in the section 'Release Logs' below for the devlog and the autobuild log. Discuss this
This release offers a few upgrades to the previous release (duh?) and main focus again was the FLYinstaller. Here's a list of changes: - Added a library and definition file so that 'lspci' works properlly in the initscript in the even that a CD driver cannot be loaded. Previously all you'd get was a bunch of useless error messages about a missing library. As well, the path to /bin/sh has been fixed. Previously it was trying to look for /sbin/sh - The Compile section of the FLYinstaller is now functional. Its nowhere near finished and nowhere near perfect, but it works. Previous experience with Gentoo is recommended, as toying with USE flags and kernel configs isnt for the faint of heart. If anyone is willing to help tweak the script, I'd much appreciate! - The install scripts have been chmod to 700 so that they cannot be run by the regular user once FLY is installed. Of course the ideal thing would also be to remove the install section from the Fluxbox menu once installed... - sun-jdk was removed from this version. If you really need it, either download 0.6.2 or download this version, do a compile install, and then run 'emerge -av sun-jdk' to install it again. Discuss this
Version 0.6.2 was made available just a few hours ago. Its currently past midnight and I have a VMware conference in the morning, so I'll update this later.
I've put up this version for download. There hasn't been a lot of change; perhaps the most noticeable is the move to Firefox3. Several modifications have been made to the installer, mostly on the Compile section. Made a lot of headway although its not yet complete. Aside from a few minor changes, everything else just centers around various application updates, and a slightly different way of building FLY. This version is still locked to the 2.6.25-r9 kernel as I've yet to find the cause of the failure with 2.6.27-r7. For now, head on over to http://www.criticalsecurity.net/oldies/livecd you'll find the usual, ISO file, MD5, and the torrent file (with a correct tracker this time!)
The downloads are available at http://www.criticalsecurity.net/oldies/livecd as always. You'll find direct links to download the ISO and the md5sum, as well as a torrent file to download both files from our seeds. A few points to note about this release: The version bump to 0.6.x from 0.5.x is primarily for FLYinstaller. The 0.6.x will have the ability to be installed onto a user's hard drive. Though there are still some quirks, and the compile install is still not functional. I also figure some of you were getting bored of seeing the 0.5.x versions The FLYinstaller's manual partitioning now uses gParted. The reason behind this is that at quick glance I found no way for fdisk to re-size partitions, whereas gParted can do this fairly easily. gParted has been correctly compiled with all the extra filesystems support that was supposed to have been compiled in 0.5.8 For some reason, it didnt get compiled correctly in 0.5.8 StyleSwitcher is fully functional in this release and is implemented more as a proof-of-concept than anything else. I hope to see users making modifications and suggestions to better it's functionality. Read more here.
I uploaded 0.5.8 to the server and it's available for download. No torrent yet but I'm sure Easter will fix that up. And when I can VNC to my box I'll start seeding it. Right, here's the what's new: -the installer has been tweaked, a manual partitioning will NOT wipe the drive's existing partition table, thus allowing you to dual-boot. I've tested this in a Windows XP VM and was able to dualboot XP and FLY from the same drive. -gParted has been compiled with support for JFS, HFS, XFS, FAT, and NTFS. Useful for re-sizing drives. -Truecrypt was temporarily removed. It has been masked in the Portage tree due to legal issues (which I haven't read up on yet). I will look into this and try to get it back in the next version of FLY. -I've modified Conky so that it better displays the status of services, and added the SSH and HiveMind daemons. For more information, click here.
