Ubuntu Easy Setup Project / Blog: Recent posts

Seems like bash does not like having the cat option finish on an EOF with a tab before it, I just fixed this.

I have officially resumed work on this project, updates will happen at least once a month from now on.

I just found out that the dns server for swiss privacy foundation is going offline so I replaced it with the one suggested by this server. In the next update I will try to give the user choices on which dns servers are used by default but that will have to wait until I am not so busy.

The menu for quickfixes had half of its choices pointing to the wrong options, i do not know how I managed this but I just fixed it so all options should work as normal.... read more

My life has been a crazy whirlwind of life changing WTF which kept me away from my laptop over the past month and as such I had to take a hiatus in order to deal with it. Things have settled down now and I will be resuming this project but updates will take some time because I plan on completing what i started for the other project i was working on. For now i still intend to work on the security aspect for awhile before getting back to making adjustments to get stuff that no longer works due to updates to Linux working again.

The freakinmonsters wallpapers were no longer being downloaded correctly (perhaps they changed something on their site) so I removed those from wallpapers.

I have corrected multiple bugs and removed 2 things which require more than standard knowledge in order to use properly (TOR Browser Bundle installation, Encrypt Swap Space).

From here I will be correcting some issues in the wallpaper installation and then testing the program in Ubuntu version 14.10. After that the next actual release candidate will be released.

I just fixed any bugs I found preventing remaining installations from working under Ubuntu 14.04.

I still have to do the following before considering this version to be bug free: run the program again to check for error messages and scan everything it does carefully (may have to do this a few times), reinstall Ubuntu 14.04 and run every feature in my program to see if there are any failures.

I just corrected the repository 404 bug in Ubuntu 14.04. I changed things around to use standard if statements instead of a loop with a function call for adding repositories, now the repositories should be added correctly.

Note that I posted a working way to remove 404'd repositories in my last post. Be sure to follow those instructions and only remove the ones generating errors if you need to do so.... read more

I was able to replicate the 404 repository error in Lubuntu 14.04. I did not see this in other versions of Ubuntu so far but now that I have confirmed this errir I will make correcting it my top priority. Do not download my program until I have this issue fixed.

The solution for removing the 404'd repositories is to open the software centre application, then select settings > Software Properties >Other Software, and then selecting and removing the items that generate 404 errors. The solution posted in forums did not work but removing them in this manner worked perfectly.... read more

This project is still in a beta state. That means it is still under development and not yet mature. This project functions in its current state but please report any errors if you encounter them, it will help me to create a fully stable version sooner.

I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my laptop in order to start testing for current errors.

I added a dialogue that tells the user a distribution upgrade is required when using anything that has reached its end of life date so far. Since this project does not support Ubuntu versions that have reached their end of life dates it will not work on those versions. Besides, there is not much point in using an Ubuntu version that does not have access to its main repositories.... read more

tl,dr: Ubuntu versions 12.04 and 14.04 are here to stay. 14.10 ends beginning this summer. As such, 12.04 and 14.04 are the versions i will be developing for.

The long version:

Versions 12.10, 13.04 and 13.10 have reached their end of life date meaning the main repositories for them are not available and there is no longer any support for them. This means supporting them in my project is a futile effort at best.... read more

I had the version number retrieval happening in the wrong place causing it to be done after the menu instead of before, I just fixed this issue.

I just installed Ubuntu 12.10 so I may continue testing backwards compatibility (I am literally starting at 12.04 and working my way up to the current version instead of the other way around so only 12.04 has backwards compatibility changes, the rest will soon follow if necessary). If you do not have the latest stable vesion or 12.04, my program should work properly in about a week if I managed to find all of the bugs in it already while testing in 12.04.

I have managed to cover all possible backward compatibility issues with version 12.04, I will be proceeding to install 12.10 tomorrow and see if anything fails to install and then proceed with the other versions.

I just fixed a few errors, mostly typos. Wallpapers and changing the default browser should work properly now. I will be doing som adjustments so the program does not try to install wallpapers not available in older distros and then continue testing.

There was an issue with one of the items installed that was somehow causing issues with any installations after it when installing usb connectivity software for phones and other stuff. This was the software packager's fault, not mine. As such, I isolated which item was the cause nd moved it to the end of the program in order to allow everything else to install. I will be investigating why it was causing issues and whther or not it can be remedied after doing some more testing but it should no longer cause any problems. And yeah, now that I fixed that issue I have to test the stuff that failed to install before in order to sort out bugs in it before getting back to backwards compatibility testing.

I just uploaded a version of the program that had many bugs removed. Repositories are now added properly (thanks go out to Andyfied for providing information that helped me to find the problem), I added a script to the program that will install/update TOR separately from everything else by choosing to install it again (since TOR updates erase all settings and saved content in the browser and the webupd8 repository may update it at any time without warning during any normal updates). I removed nvpy and set the 32 bit architecture to not be an option in Ubuntu 12.04 because it was not implemented in dpkg until version 12.10. I am still testing in Ubuntu 12.04 but will soon be done that. The only bugs remaining that I found were a few failed updates. These updates consist of 2 codecs, pidgin plugins and thunderbird plugins. Since I am testing in older versions of Ubuntu now I would appreciate if somebody would let me know if the failed installs still happen in the current version of Ubuntu, I will be back to testing in the current version in about a week but letting me know will allow me to fix them sooner. I also removed a repository that definitely does not work and is not even required. I went through the script in this program that hardens security by editing system files and added a few checks for determining if certain files exist before trying to copy and/or edit them in order to get rid of error messages in earlier Ubuntu versions.

I was added as a future developer to the Linux Efficiency Scripts project. I plan to at least get a stable version of my own project before helping out with this new project but have started collaborating and sharing information. I look forward to working with this project's developers as soon as I have removed all errors in my work so far.

I am testing this program under Ubuntu 12.04 now.

I have fixed various bugs I came across, 2 of them were my fault, the rest were not but were fixed anyway.

Since each time TOR Browser Bundle is updated to the latest version it deletes the settings and bookmarks and stuff I have created a script that will install it but not have it linked to repositories where it would be automatically updated or have it updated by the program in the normal ways. To update it you just need to reinstall it, the latest stable version will be downloaded each time you do so.... read more

Since somebody was having issues with the release candidate I will consider this project still beta until I test it out on the older operating systems and resolve issues found there.

An option to upgrade the Ubuntu distro can now be toggled in th menu and is disabled by default. This should resolve any future potential issues with the distro being updated to the latest version when that is not desired. Besides, waiting awhile before upgrading to the latest distro is usually a good idea since there may be bugs that need to be worked out after a major scheduled update.

The method used to prevent having to re-enter the sudo password through a recursive function call failed so I created a function call with a loop that runs in the background set to keep sudo going for an hour 15 minutes which is a generous amount of time to download or install anything or run Tiger or Winetricks on slow computers. Of course, I also added a function call to reset a variable wich in turn kills the loop when it is no longer needed and had both function calls called at any time when there is a possibility of things taking too long due to a delay. The loop should also stop after awhile if the program terminates and is terminated when the program starts doing stuff again after it was stopped using ctrl-c.... read more

I made a mistake in the part that i supposed to add stuff to the ignore file for Tiger so I resolved that issue.

As for the issue regarding the background in the login screen, after doing research i worked out that it was due to an update on GDM's end. I found a couple of ways to change the background in GDM and posted them in the troubleshooting forum under a separate topic.

Please use the Tickets feature For bug reporting. I find it much easier to manage.

I have been busy dealing with life for awhile but have been working on this project over the last week.

At any rate, i have been working mainly on the security portion of this project. I added to the part that alters system files to harden security (don't worry, it's perfectly safe and tested).

Iadded an option to set Ubuntu to use DNS servers that are less censored and more private than the ones provided by ISPs (again, not to worry, tested and appears to be safe). I also added an option to encrypt swap space in order to improve security. The two added functions, since they may affect use of the computer, must be manually selected instead of pressing E to install everything, but don't worry, they are harmless.... read more

Seems like an older version was uploaded by mistake. I just fixed that issue. Current version is live.

The old beta versions are less stable than the current version and contained less features so I decided to take them down. I suggest anybody who downloaded the betas try the release candidate instead.

I am taking a hiatus for a couple of weeks to deal with daily life, will likely resume Friday next week.