Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark!

    Ubuntu 17.10, code named Artful Aardvark; I guess you already know that Artful means full of art or skill. And Aardvark is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. Colloquially, it is called African Ant Eater.

Nowadays Ubuntu become the world’s most popular desktop Linux operating system, and with its latest short-term support release, it’s clear Canonical want to keep a firm grip on the title.

‘Artful Aardvark’ (Ubuntu 17.10)

As release with Artful Aardvark (Ubuntu 17.10) in October 19, 2017 Canonical continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technology into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark marks an all-new chapter in Ubuntu’s already rich history. As always, the team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

Ubuntu 17.10 Debuts with An All-New Desktop

This is the first version of Ubuntu to use GNOME Shell as the default desktop. ‘The HUD, global menu, and other Unity features are no longer included’. By choosing to drop Unity most of Ubuntu’s home-grown usability efforts also fall by the wayside.

Ubuntu 17.10 Desktop

In Unity’s place comes a bespoke version of GNOME Shell that is ‘customized’ to resemble something that’s superficially close to the Unity desktop layout. The Ubuntu 17.10 desktop uses a two-panel layout: a full-height vertical dock sits on the left-hand side of the screen, while a ‘top bar’ is stripped across the top.

The top bar plays host a new type of app menu, a calendar applet/message tray, app indicators, and a unified status menu for managing network, volume, Bluetooth and user sessions.

Ubuntu Dock

The new Ubuntu Dock is both a task manager and an application launcher. It shows icons for open and running software windows as well as ‘pinned’ launchers for user’s favorite apps.

Ubuntu Dock

The dock is also global; it displays icons/applications from all workspaces regardless of which one user is actually viewing.

Both the Ubuntu Dock and the top bar are semi-transparent, which adds nice visual presence. When a window touches either element the “dynamic transparency” feature kicks in to render both dock and top bar darker, making panel label contents more legible in the foreground.

Activities & Workspaces

The main “desktop” area remains a usable space on which user can place icons, folders and files.

Though there’s no longer a true global app menu, but the majority of apps place a small menu in the top bar bearing the name of the app in focus. These app menus contain a solitary ‘quit’ button at the least, or a full complement of options at most.

Activities & Workspaces

Workspaces are a common feature found on most modern desktop operating systems including Windows 10, so it’s a good thing that Ubuntu hasn’t ditched them. User can easily move windows between workspaces by clicking on a window and moving it on over the workspace.

Applications Overview

In Ubuntu 17.10 Applications are listed alphabetically, ordered into scrollable pages. User can launch an application by clicking on it, selecting it with keyboard arrow keys and pressing enter, or by touching it.

Applications Overview

After years of ‘footnote’ releases that brought only minor tweaks, the ‘Artful Aardvark’ brings all-out with change, ready to usher in the new era. Under the hood, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 4.13-based kernel, glibc 2.26, gcc 7.2, and much more in Ubuntu Desktop. Let’s have a brief list view on some of those updates.

• On supported systems, Wayland is now the default display server. The older display server is still available: just choose Ubuntu on Xorg from the cog on the log in screen.
• GDM has replaced LightDM as the default display manager. The login screen now uses virtual terminal 1 instead of virtual terminal 7.
• Printer configuration is now done in the Settings app: Choose Devices and then Printers. The tool uses the same algorithms for identifying printers and choosing drivers as the formerly used system-config-printer, and makes full use of driverless printing to support as many printers as possible.
• The default on screen keyboard is GNOME’s Caribou instead of Onboard.
• Calendar now supports recurring events.
• LibreOffice has been updated to 5.4.
• Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to 3.6.
• The ‘Rhythm box’ music player now uses the alternate user interface created by Ubuntu Budgie developer David Mohamed.
• The Ubuntu GNOME flavor has been discontinued. If a user is using Ubuntu GNOME, he will be upgraded to Ubuntu.

Note: Install gnome-session and choose GNOME from the cog on the login screen if user would like to try a more upstream version of GNOME. If any user’ d like to also install more core apps, he’d install the vanilla-gnome-desktop met package.

    Not only the Ubuntu 17.10 Desktop but also, there are significant changes into the Ubuntu 17.10 Server version too. For the Ubuntu Server 17.10, the OS Version for the printing server has been increased to announce Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 ID mapping checks added to the testparm(1) tool. There are some ID mapping backends too, which are not allowed to be used for the default backend. Winbind will no longer start if an invalid backend is configured as the default backend. The others are as follows,

Ubuntu 17.10 Server

Qemu 2.10

Qemu has been updated to the 2.10 release. Since the last version was 2.8.

Among many other changes there is one that might need follow on activity by the user/admin: Image locking is added and enabled by default. This generally makes execution much safer, but can break some old use cases that now explicitly have to opt-in to ignore/share the locks by tools and subcommands using the –force-share option or the share-rw dqev property.

Libvirt 3.6

Libvirt has been updated to version 3.6.

LXD 2.18

LXD was updated to version 2.18. Some of the top new features of LXD 2.18 are:

• Native Ceph RBD support.
• Support for cloud instance types.
• Pre-seeding of the “lxd init” questions through yaml.
• New client library.
• Improved storage handling (volume resize, auto re-mapping on attach, …).
• A lot of small improvements to the client tool.

DPDK 17.05.2

Ubuntu 17.10 includes the latest release of DPDK that has stable updates: 17.05.2. This made it possible to integrate Open vSwitch 2.8.

Open vSwitch 2.8

Open vSwitch has been updated to 2.8. Though user need to specify dpdk devices via dpdk-devargs.

New BIND9 KSK

The DNS server BIND9 was updated to include the new Key Signing Key (KSK) that was published on July 11, 2017. Starting on October 11, 2017, that key will sign the root zone key, which in turn is used to sign the actual root zones.

Cloud-Init

The cloud-init version was updated to 17.1. Notable new features for cloud-init are as follows,

• Python 3.6 support.
• Ec2 support for IPv6 instance configuration.
• Expedited boot time through cloud-id optimization.
• Support for netplan yaml in cloud-init.
• Add cloud-init subcommands collect-logs, analyze and schema for developers.
• Apport integration from cloud-init via ‘ubuntu-bug cloud-init’.
• Significant unit test and integration test coverage improvements.

Curtin

The Curtin version is updated to ‘0.1.0~bzr519-0ubuntu1’. New features are:

• Network configuration passthrough for ubuntu and centos.
• More resilient UEFI/grub interaction.
• Better support for mdadm arrays.
• Ubuntu Core 16 Support.
• Improved bcache support.

Samba

Samba is updated to version 4.6.7. Important changes in the 4.6.x series are:

• Multi-process Net logon support.
• New options for controlling TCP ports used for RPC services.
• AD LDAP and replication performance improvements.
• DNS improvements.

    There are many other changes too. We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth Release Notes.

    Users of Ubuntu 17.04 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 17.10. As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.

Remember, here at eRacks, we offer pre-installed Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark with our new systems either directly from the OS dropdown, or by custom quote.

Asif Raihan October 25th, 2017

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Yakkety Yak!

When a person who smokes decides to quit, it is called smoking cessation. Often, this decision is associated with a desire to lead a healthier life by eliminating the risks that are associated with smoking. Freeing oneself from the habit of smoking, however, is not an easy task, as tobacco products contain the addictive chemical known as nicotine. Because of its addictive nature and problems that are associated with nicotine withdrawal, there is a significant risk of relapse. But the vast majority of smokers want to quit, and up to half make the attempt to do so every year. For more information about healthy supplements visit riverfronttimes.com.

Smoking Cessation Methods

Fortunately, there are a variety of ways for smokers to quit, although no one method is universally successful. The most common method falls under the umbrella of do-it-yourself smoking cessation. One of the most common and well-known examples of unassisted cessation is an immediate and abrupt attempt to stop smoking altogether. This method is popularly known as the “cold turkey” approach, and it does not include the use of any therapy or medication. Another example of a self-help tactic is to taper off, or gradually reduce one’s habits until they can abandon tobacco smoking entirely. Typically, this technique also involves setting a date for when tobacco smoking will cease completely. Check out these nutrisystem reviews.

Doctors from This Site ensure that Smokers may also resort to methods that involve nicotine replacement products such as nicotine gum, which provides the body with nicotine in order to deter the user from smoking to satisfy their craving. There are also nicotine patches and inhalers that deliver a dose of the drug to reduce the impact of withdrawal symptoms. Nicotine replacement products contain less nicotine than cigarettes and enable the person to gradually reduce their intake of the drug until they no longer need any at all. In addition, they do not contain all of the harmful chemicals in cigarettes, such as arsenic, tar, carbon monoxide, or formaldehyde.

Another means of quitting smoking involves seeking assistance to quit one’s tobacco habit. Community help is available in many forms, including local support groups, treatment centers, and turning to doctors for prescription medication. Prescription medication used to help tobacco smokers quit includes bupropion or varenicline, marketed as Zyban or Chantix, respectively. Family and friends are also reliable resources when it comes to quitting smoking. The Internet also offers support groups that smokers may turn to for help. More uncommon methods for trying to quit include acupuncture, aromatherapy, hypnosis, and herbal remedies.

Immediate Health Benefits of Quitting

There are significant benefits that tobacco smokers can appreciate right away when they decide to stop smoking, some of which begin just 20 minutes after the last cigarette. For example, the body’s blood pressure and pulse rate will begin to decline toward normal levels. Within a day, oxygen levels will increase, while the amount of nicotine and carbon monoxide within the body will start to subside, along with the odds of a heart attack. After two days without smoking tobacco, a person will notice that their sense of smell and taste have improved. The lungs will also start to improve in function after two to 12 weeks, as will blood circulation. Another immediate and important benefit of quitting smoking is the financial benefit. Smoking is a very expensive habit, and thus, quitting smoking will immediately add money to a person’s budget.

Long-Term Benefits of Quitting

Over the long term, ex-smokers will enjoy more physical energy to exercise and do general tasks like walking up stairs. Sexual function will improve due to the improvements in blood flow throughout the body. It will also improve a woman’s ability to get pregnant and eliminate smoking-related damage to a man’s sperm. The improvement in oxygen flow in an ex-smoker’s body will result in slowing the aging of the skin and delaying the onset of wrinkles. Quitting smoking will also reduce the risk of damage to the eyes, such as cataracts. The most important benefits of quitting smoking are the reduction in the odds of heart attack, stroke, and various cancers, and as a result, quitting can add years to one’s life.

joe November 1st, 2016

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Mint 18 is here!

Linux Mint 18 is now available!

Based on Ubuntu 16.04, which was made available in April, this release of Mint is based on the LTS release of Ubuntu, rather than following the twice-yearly updates – and will have only incremental changes and updates over the next 2 years – thus being more stable and predictable, and avoiding any potential instabilities introduced by the biannual Ubuntu upgrades.

So Mint 18 should now be available in all the eRacks product dropdowns – if you don’t see it on the model you want, please contact us and we’ll fix it or give you a custom quote with Mint 18.

As always, contact us at info@eracks.com for any inquiries or questions regarding the Mint 18 release, or any of our products, and what release we recommend for you and your unique needs.

j

admin August 3rd, 2016

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Linux Mint 17.3

With the recent release of Mint 17.3, eRacks now offers this new operating system on servers, desktops, and laptops. Just select it from the drop-down menu when customizing your computer.

Aaron January 5th, 2016

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Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf now available

Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf is now available on all eRacks systems.

Ubuntu 14.04 is also still available, as it is a Long Term Release (LTS) with a longer support window.

As always, if you want a different release, or even a beta, alpha or “Daily build” release, we’ll be happy to accommodate – just place it in the “Notes” field when you place your order or request a quote.

j

joe November 2nd, 2015

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5 tips for a healthy diet

1. Eat breakfast
   Start your day with a healthy breakfast that includes lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Make a breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, low-fat cheese, salsa and a whole wheat tortilla. Read more about alpilean benefits.
2. Make half your plate fruits and vegetables
   Fruits and veggies add color, flavor and texture plus vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Make 2 cups of fruit and 2½ cups of vegetables your daily goal. These are the Best testosterone booster supplements.
3. Watch portion sizes
   Use the other half of your plate for grains and lean proteins. Complete the meal with fat-free or low-fat milk or yogurt. Measuring cups can help you compare your portions to the recommended serving size. Check these
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4. Be active
   Regular physical activity has many health benefits. Start by doing what exercise you can. Children and teens should get at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day, and adults at least two hours and 30 minutes per week. You don’t have to hit the gym — take a walk after dinner or put on music and dance at home.
5. Get to know food labels
   Reading nutrition information panels can help you choose foods and drinks to meet your nutrient needs.
6. Oral Health     A good supplement to support oral health is a multivitamin containing vitamins A and C, . Additionally, probiotics may help to reduce plaque and gum disease. Incorporating other supplements like Oral Balance, which contains natural antimicrobial and antifungal agents, can help to reduce the growth of bacteria responsible for cavities and bad breath. You can find more information on https://www.outlookindia.com/outlook-spotlight/prodentim-reviews-fake-or-real-our-investigation-into-prodentim-formula-will-surprise-you-news-267845

Dennis April 13th, 2015

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eRacks/NAS36 Upgraded, 216TB / 4U now available Under $30K!

eRacks Open Source Systems announces the immediate availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server, with 36 removable 6TB hard drives, which yields a maximum of 216TB (Terabytes*) of raw storage with current widely-available technology. The eRacks/NAS36 rackmount server is shipped pre-configured to the user’s custom specs, with any available open-source software, and more flavors of Linux or BSD available than any other vendor.

Fremont, CA (PRWEB) October 3, 2014

eRacks Open Source Systems is pleased to announce the latest upgrade eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.

Available immediately, it combines a rack usage of only 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of widely available 6TB drives, yields a total storage of 216TB*.

This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, nicely filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the all-front-loading 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, eRacks’ flagship storage server.

When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represents a density / price breakthrough – using the best value (lowest price/TB) 6TB drives, this enables 216TB* of raw storage in only 4U, and for less than $30,000, as configured on the eRacks website.

The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.

It’s signature service, eRacks will be happy to install any of the popular Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing fast in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSes.

eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFiler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.

Also available is OpenStack, and other OSS cloud software, such as Eucaluyptus or CloudStack, as well as best-of-breed Open Source software for BigData / Cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.

In addition, the eRacks policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or Open Source software on request – Contact eRacks today at http://eracks.com/contact to see how they can meet your needs.

Please email info@eracks.com to request a custom quote.

Note: *For the purposes of this press release, the term “Terabyte” is used to mean one trillion bytes – eRacks understands the issues about this, we are using the term as the disk drive and other industry manufacturers use it.

Dennis
eRacks

Dennis October 1st, 2014

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Mint 16 Now Available

Mint 16 is now available – “Petra”.

Fremont, CA (PRWEB) December 23, 2013

This latest Linux Mint release  is now available on most or all eRacks systems.

eRacks today announced the latest release of a new operating system-Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” which is now in the OS dropdowns on all the systems 

Either the Cinnamon or Mate editions, or KDE, XFCE, Debian (LMDE) are also available.

Most or all of our dropdown Operating System choices have been updated,  but if you don’t see what you’re looking for, please ask us by email:  http://eracks.com/contact_us and we will add it or give you a custom live quote.

Regards

Dennis
eRacks

Dennis December 24th, 2013

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easy steps towards a healthy diet

Want to eat a healthy diet? Nutritionist Susannah Lawson explains why it’s important to make the right food choices and suggest some easy ideas for healthy eating. Try out phenq.

You may have heard the phrase “you are what you eat”. But what does it mean – and is it true? Perhaps more importantly, what should you eat to feel and become healthier?

Your body is made from the nutrients you consume – proteins, carbohydrates, essential fats, vitamins, minerals and water. These nutrients help your body renew itself naturally – for example, your skin renews itself in 21 days and your bones can repair themselves in six weeks. In five years, you will be an almost completely new person!

However, if you don’t eat healthy food with the right nutrients, your cells won’t reproduce as well or as accurately. Not eating enough of these key nutrients can cause a variety of symptoms – from premature ageing and dull, dry skin, to anxiety and depression; or frequent infections and digestive issues to poor memory and low energy.

The good news is that by taking some simple steps to have a healthy diet, you can help look after your body – and feel and function better than ever. These are the best weight loss pills | firstpost.

1. Balance your nutrients

Why?

You need a mix of the following nutrients to keep everything working well:

• protein (eg meat, fish, soya, dairy products, nuts/seeds) to build and repair body tissues
• carbohydrate for energy (slow-releasing and wholegrain sources are best for sustained energy)
• vitamins and minerals (vegetables and fruit to keep everything functioning)

How?

Help to maintain an ideal balance of these important nutrients by seeing your plate made up of this simple ratio: 25% protein; 25% slow-release carbs; and 50% vegetables, salad and fruit. Try out the latest phenq pills.

To help you get started, here are some healthy meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner:

Breakfast

• Scrambled eggs, wholegrain toast, tomatoes, and avocado
• Cream/cottage cheese, oat cakes, watercress, and pear
• Plain yoghurt, low-sugar granola with chopped apple and berries

Lunch

• Prawn mayonnaise jacket potato and green salad
• Smoked salmon wholemeal bagel, with rocket and avocado
• Hummus pitta bread with carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks. This is the best testosterone booster.

Dinner

• Chicken breast, roast sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, and red cabbage
• Grilled steak, New potatoes, grilled mushrooms, and tomatoes
• Baked salmon and wholegrain pasta with spinach, broccoli, and pesto
• Halloumi kebab with brown rice, roast peppers, and courgettes

TOP TIP: If you’re a fan of food boxes, double check this ratio applies to the meals provided and top up the veg if necessary.

2. Refuel regularly

Why?

The meal ideas above provide a good balance of nutrients and ‘fuel’ to keep you full of energy throughout the day. Breakfast is particularly important – as the name suggests, you ‘break’ the night ‘fast’, which could mean 12 hours without food. You couldn’t drive your car without fuel in the tank, so don’t try to run your body on empty.

How?

Try to eat three balanced meals a day (see point 1). If you experience a dip in energy, have a snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon too.

Aim to choose healthier, nutrient-rich options such as an apple and chunk of cheese or a handful of unsalted nuts rather than biscuits, sweets or crisps. Check out these exipure reviews.

3. Not all fats are scary!

Why?

Believing all fat is bad or makes you fat is a myth. Yes, fried or processed fatty foods aren’t good for you. But essential fats – found in nuts, seeds and oily fish (eg salmon, mackerel, anchovies or sardines) – help to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, eczema and arthritis. So, try to eat more!

How?

As long as you are not allergic, enjoy a handful of natural unsalted nuts or seeds daily (they make a great protein-rich snack or topping for cereal or salads). And aim to eat oily fish three times a week.

4. Stay hydrated

Why?

Your body is more than 60% water, so drinking water regularly will hydrate you and help you run more efficiently. Beware of drinking too much tea or coffee because they contain caffeine, which can be dehydrating as well as addictive.

How?

If you feel tired, drinking a glass of water can give you a lift. Also try putting a glass by your bed and drink it first thing, carry a water bottle with you or put it on your desk so it’s always close at hand, dilute fruit juices 50/50 with water and opt for herbal or fruit teas. This way you can quickly build up to the recommended 6-8 glasses a day.

5. Need a top up?

Why?

Even the best diet in the world is unlikely to give you all the nutrients you need, especially when you’re busy or during periods of ill health or stress. So, think about taking some supplements.

How?

During the summer months, we can naturally absorb Vitamin D via our skin from the sun. But to help support our immune systems during the dark winter months, every adult is now recommended to top up their Vitamin D levels. Take 25mcg of the D3 variety daily, from October to April.

During periods where you feel lacklustre or low in energy, a high quality daily multivitamin and mineral can also give you a boost.

Plus, if you don’t like oily fish, consider supplementing omega 3 essential fats.

6. Limit toxins

Why?

As important as getting the nutrients you need, is reducing the substances that can harm or deplete you. These include artificial food additives, processed fats and pesticides and too much alcohol, sugar and stimulants such as caffeine.

How?

Where possible, avoid processed foods and those made with refined ‘white’ flour or sugar (the refining process removes the beneficial nutrients). Easy wins are to swap in brown rice for white rice, and wholegrain for white bread.

Aim to steam, grill, bake or steam-fry your food rather than deep fry.

To help limit your intake of alcohol, consider only drinking moderate amounts (1-2 glasses) at the weekend, and intersperse each drink with a glass of water.

joe October 20th, 2013

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eRacks beta-testing an Ubuntu based tablet

eRacks is set to begin testing a Linux Ubuntu based tablet. The 7 inch tablet would retail for around $200 and would include several key features missing from the Kindle Fire: including a micro SD slot, a built in ip cameras live 24/7 while the battery has power, HDMI out and GPS support.  If you’re in the market for a tablet, you may want to keep an eye on the eRacks website. An upcoming software update would make it possible for the tablet install and run Android apps.

Greg April 13th, 2012

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