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Discussion => Security => Topic started by: kittenfluff on May 04, 2013, 10:35 am

Title: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: kittenfluff on May 04, 2013, 10:35 am
I had been looking into Liberte Linux and was planning on creating a bootable SD card this weekend, but I go to the Liberte website and I get some crappy holding page saying the website's been suspended due to over-traffic! WTF?! Anyone know what's up, or anywhere else I can go for it? I get the sourceforge download when I search, but I'm reluctant to use it as I wanted to use the checksums to ensure it was the unadulterated version...
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: Jack N Hoff on May 04, 2013, 11:04 am
Sourceforge is fine.
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: PerPETualMOtion on May 04, 2013, 07:15 pm
Personally, I had trouble using an SD card... Much simpler to use a USB, but you might have better luck.
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: narcocapitalist9 on May 05, 2013, 06:23 am
my netbook has a lame bios that does not know how to boot off the inbuilt SD card reader. It also refuses to boot of any other kind of SD card reader plugged in via USB. one can be more certain of having success by using a USB stick, which shows up in most bioses as a removable hard drive, same as an external USB IDE/SATA adapter. You don't need a big one. for most ubuntu based distros the total image size is well under 4gb, so for most purposes a 4gb usb stick is enough. there is 'dvd' live images for some distributions as well, that are often 4.5gb in size so for those you need to have an 8gb stick.
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: jorgecassio on May 05, 2013, 08:01 am
I run liberte off a CD (My laptop is too old and crummy to boot from USB properly). Is booting from a CD safe? I never save anything to my HDD when using Liberte.
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: narcocapitalist9 on May 05, 2013, 08:33 am
running from cd is even better. then you know that it's impossible for a remote attacker to alter the live image at all once it's restarted it's the same as before. sd cards have write protect tabs but readers don't always respect them and there can even be ways to hack through the write protect. so, yes, running of cd is even better. just make sure the live image isn't setting up or using a swap on the hard drive because (while unlikely) it is possible sensitive information could get into the swap (virtual memory) file/partition. you can find out by opening up a console window (terminal) and type in 'swapon -s' which will show you what swap partitions are activated. there should be none.
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: kittenfluff on May 05, 2013, 08:54 am
Thanks everyone! Yeah, had to go for a USB in the end - fucking computer wouldn't even create a bootable SD, it just kept ejecting/corrupting the SD everytime I ran the setup.bak!  >:(

Point taken about a live CD, but TBH my laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive and I can't be fucked to keep getting out the external drive. Might take that into consideration when I replace my laptop... maybe go for liveCD + encrypted SD drive for files.... ???

One odd thing I found - my bios seems to have the ability to boot from about twice as many devices as my laptop actually has?! Very strange, but guessing some are to do with redundancy/the docking-station I don't have... Not important or even pertinent, but I just felt like sharing  ::)
Title: Re: Liberte Linux - WTF!
Post by: jorgecassio on May 05, 2013, 05:24 pm
running from cd is even better. then you know that it's impossible for a remote attacker to alter the live image at all once it's restarted it's the same as before. sd cards have write protect tabs but readers don't always respect them and there can even be ways to hack through the write protect. so, yes, running of cd is even better. just make sure the live image isn't setting up or using a swap on the hard drive because (while unlikely) it is possible sensitive information could get into the swap (virtual memory) file/partition. you can find out by opening up a console window (terminal) and type in 'swapon -s' which will show you what swap partitions are activated. there should be none.

I'll check that swap command, thanks.