An eight dollar USB drive and you can make a computer come to life.  The performance over a dvd drive is 100xs better.  The wonderful tool molecule, which is available in entropy, can help you make a custom Sabayon for your needs.  So if you are interested, check out the Sabayon wiki for a molecule howto.

I’m gonna continue to let this run an and see what happens.

The first release of the Sabayon Forensics XFCE edition is available on the mirrors for download.  I am dropping the Gnome 3 desktop and KDE for a much lighter desktop environment that will work better across the computer land. This edition is built off the Sabayon Daily XFCE edition and is released weekly, so every Monday you can get an updated version.  I highly recommend to learn and use rsync to keep your iso updated instead of downloading a new iso each time.  As easily as something like:

rsync -avP rsync://ftp.SURFnet.nl/sabayonlinux/iso/daily/Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_amd64_ForensicsXfce.iso /home/wolfden/isos/amd64/

There is a x86 and a x86_64 version of this edition.  Before I only had the x86 versions available, so now the best of both worlds.  I have all the information where to get the isos on the website and even added another page of Other Tools, which is information on some basic commandline stuff.

There is an issue with the current theme and the OSD notification as it ends up being black on black, argh!  I have fixed this so this coming Monday it will get implemented.  There is other themes you can simply change to also.

Another issue and I forgot to look into this, but Autopsy is failing to start.  I’ll work on getting that sorted.  I’m not even sure when it broke.

So what is Sabayon Forensics you ask?  I shall point you to the About page where you can learn more.  What about a package list you ask?  I shall point you to the FAQ page and at the bottom you can get the package list. Can I install it you may ask, yes you can install and use it as a rolling system with entropy just like any normal Sabayon release.

Ophcrack was dropped and I filed a bug with gentoo about ophcracktables being a dependent of ophcrack.  It would be nice to include ophcrack and the users download and store the tables on USB or DVD discs.  The ophcracktables package doesn’t even include all the tables nor has any effect on ophcrack running.  Ophcracktables is 1GB in size and with people on slow internet, it’s a pain.  Of course gentoo closed the bug and won’t fix it.  So you can install ophcrack program on the live system by doing equo install ophcrack –nodeps and than you can load the tables from a usb or disc.  I don’t get gentoo devs at times, it would be like making flash a dependent of every browser.

I’m open to forensic tools too add to it, just give me a holler.  I don’t want to increase the file size too badly tho, but if a program is worth while, than yes.  Screenshots and usage can be found on the Using Sabayon Forensic page.  I do not help people with hacking and cracking, that is not what it’s about so don’t even ask.

I’m sure I probably forgot to mention something, but if you look it over you’ll see it’s pretty self explanatory.

As the average FLOSS developer does, one morning a few months ago I woke up and decided that I needed to break stuff. Three months later, it turned out I fully achieved this goal, for your great joy.

Eit is going to ease your life as Entropy repository maintainer (and packages cook!) in a very dramatic way. Largely inspired to the “Git-way of doing things” and to its awesomeness, it represents a complete rewrite of the “Community Repositories/Entropy Server” functionalities exposes by “equo community”, “reagent” and “activator”.

It will be available starting from Entropy 1.0_rc60 and will completely replace the old tools and their syntax carrying out a lot of minor improvements as well.
Please note that Community Repositories maintainers, shall need to set “community-mode = enable” inside /etc/entropy/server.conf (see server.conf.example for more info) in order to make Entropy Server behave correctly.

How the syntax changed actually? Just a few examples below.

eit status [<repository>], shows repository status, unstaged packages, packages ready to push, etc.
eit commit [<repository>], commits unstaged packages to given repository (or the current one).
eit checkout <repository>, switches to the given Entropy repository.
eit add [--to <repository>] <package> [<package> ...], add the given unstaged packages to repository (current repository if none given).
eit push [<repository>] push staged changes to the remote repository.

This is just a subset of all the commands available, but they’re enough to start using Eit. “Top-level commands” are implemented as plugins to allow maximum modularity and 3rd-party extensions. Just subclass eit.commands.command.EitCommand and implement the respective methods.

Sabayon rolling release concept works like this.  You install your favorite version of Sabayon and learn the package manager via the wonderful Sabayon Wiki.  You use the package manager to do your updates daily, weekly, monthly or whenever you choose to do updates.  The updates carry you forward and keep you current through the entire lifetime of your Sabayon original installation.  As long as you are alive and able to run the updates, your Sabayon is current.  You installed Sabayon 6 and kept up with the updates to make you current.  Sabayon 7 comes along, are you now running Sabayon 7?  Not really, you are running Current.  A release just helps those that are new to Sabayon get an installation in without having to do 3 trillion updates and doing manual fixes.  Can you imagine trying to take Sabayon 1 and trying to update it today?  It would be impossible cause so much has changed.  A release is for new people, hence a version is given to a release.

So if you are doing your equo update && equo upgrade you are without a version as you are Current.  So next time you wonder what version you have, ask yourself, did I run equo update && equo upgrade today, if the answer is yes, than you are Current.  If the answer is no, than equo update && equo upgrade so that you are Current.  Now you can stop laying awake at nights and making silly forum posts the next day wondering if you are running Sabayon 7.  You are running Current, it’s just that simple.

Thanks Angelbird!

Geany on Sabayon Forensics XFCE

How about that for timing on the screenshot, looks like I have an update from entropy to install.  So Sabayon Forensics amd64 is pretty much a go now.  It successfully installs and works great. I’m building the x86 shortly to test and once Sabayon 7 is out the door, will work on availability to the public.

Packages added:

        sys-apps/mlocate,
	media-fonts/droid,
	app-misc/screen,
	app-forensics/cmospwd,
	app-forensics/rkhunter,
	app-forensics/sleuthkit,
	app-antivirus/clamav,
	app-antivirus/clamtk,
	app-forensics/autopsy,
	app-forensics/mac-robber,
	app-forensics/aide,
	app-forensics/rdd,
	app-crypt/chntpw,
	media-video/vlc,
	x11-wm/awesome,
	net-libs/libnet,
	net-libs/netwib,
	net-analyzer/traceroute,
	media-gfx/picasa,
	app-admin/testdisk,
	app-crypt/fcrackzip,
	app-crypt/johntheripper,
	sys-fs/extundelete,
	app-forensics/magicrescue,
	net-analyzer/nmap,
	net-analyzer/netcat6,
	net-irc/irssi,
	net-analyzer/wireshark,
	net-analyzer/tcpdump,
        gnome-extra/nm-applet,
	net-misc/knock,
        www-client/chromium,
        x11-terms/terminator,
        xfce-extra/tumbler,
        app-crypt/gifshuffle,
        app-crypt/pdfcrack,
        dev-util/geany,
        dev-util/geany-plugins,
        x11-misc/pcmanfm

Packages Removed:

        app-dicts/aspell-de,
        app-dicts/aspell-fr,
        app-dicts/aspell-it,
        app-dicts/aspell-nl,
        app-dicts/aspell-pl,
        app-dicts/myspell-de,
        app-dicts/myspell-es,
        app-dicts/myspell-fr,
        app-dicts/myspell-it,
        app-dicts/myspell-nl,
        app-misc/sabayon-music,
        mail-client/mailx,
        mail-client/mailx-support,
        net-p2p/transmission-base,
        net-p2p/transmission-gtk+,
        www-client/midori,
        x11-wm/fluxbox,
        x11-terms/xterm,
        media-gfx/shotwell,
        net-firewall/ufw,
        net-firewall/ufw-frontends,
        games-misc/cowsay,
        app-editors/gedit

Custom skel files of course.  Someone asked about Stegnography stuff, but I’m not seeing a lot of programs on this, especially in entropy.  I’m open to suggestions for programs on this, but they need to be at least in portage for a package request.  I’ve left ophcrack off in this edition.  It keeps the file size down so I suggest to those that do want it, you can still have it.  You can install ophcrack from entropy to the live session with the command equo install ophcrack –nodeps and than I would keep the ophcrack tables on disk or usb device and than just point ophcrack to those files.  I have more luck with chntpw than ophcrack so that is another reason I don’t want to include it.  I’m open to suggestions for packages, leave me a message here or email me at wolfden@sabayon.org.  Oh yea, remember on the wireshark to add your username to the wireshark group with command like gpasswd -a myawesomenamehere wireshark and you will need to restart your session.

I can smell the Sabayon 7 isos cooking in Italy…..

So I have decided that with my Sabayon Forensic spins, I will go with xfce instead. I’ve been up to my ears in the skel files learning the xfce ways, adding and removing packages and been testing local isos via the wonderful tool molecule.  My computer is feeling the pains tho, molecule will really give those cpus a work out.  So drop the KDE and Gnome editions and just go with XFCE to make this simpler and more universal for working with various computers.  Gnome-shell is kinda of a nightmare right now on various hardware.  KDE has it’s issues too, but works better than gnome-shell.

Fabio would like to get the final bugs in so he can fix and release in a few days. So grab a daily ISO file from sabayon mirrors and either submit issues to the dev mailing list or our bugzilla.  If you file a bug, you can block bug 2581 so Fabio will for sure see it.  The more people testing the better, so it’s not too late to test for Sabayon 7.  Gnome and KDE testing is critical as I haven’t seen much testing on those, but there is also e-17, lxde, etc.

Sneak Peek and Coming Soon:

Sabayon Forensics XFCE x86_64

I have become Gentoo developer. Which I was pretty happy about. This means of course that the Sabayon project now has two Gentoo developers in its ranks.

Lxnay as you may remember has been a Gentoo developer for a while and has been busily working on adding all the powerful Sabayon technologies to portage, such as Entropy and Molecule, he is also in the Gnome herd, so has been battling Gnome 3.2, which he loves, by the way.

I on the other hand have joined the KDE herd, so there is a nice symmetry between our responsibilities. I plan on fixing up various packages around portage and maintaining a few I use a lot and need some love, such as the Pigdin SIPE/OCS plugin.

A nice example of how this setup benefits both Sabayon and Gentoo users can been seen in Sabayon bug report #2733, where I bumped the “PlayOnLinux” package in portage, enabling both the Sabayon entropy maintainers and any Gentoo user to build the package.

I have been on an excellent trip to New York City, a fantastic place to visit and I highly recommend going if you get the chance, I also spotted this gem on the flight over.

In other Sabayon news, Sabayon 7 has been tagged, the development team are testing the final tagged release so expect it imminently.

I hope to get back into the habit of blogging over the coming months and as always please feel free to comment to ask questions etc.

You can also follow me on twitter, or add me on google+.

1.  We need to know name and version of the software that is having the issue.   An example would be gdm-3.0.4-r2 or better yet, gnome-base/gdm-3.0.4-r2

2.  We need to know about the Operating System you have installed since we offer many different versions to install. An example would be Sabayon Linux 6 amd64 G.  Along with this, we need to know if you are fully updated with the updates and which repositories are you using.

3.  We need to know how to replicate the issue you are having.  This is critical!  It could be as simple as when I click on the program to start, I get this error.  It could be while using the program and trying to use a particular feature of the software and something bad happens.  Be informative and clear with directions on how we can get the same problem.  This will help us confirm the bug.

4.  We need log files of some sort.  A log file could simply be an error report that the program itself makes or some output from a terminal window leading up to the issue.  Attach the log file to the bug report.  Do not use a pastebin site as they delete information and we can no longer access your log.  So just attach a text file with the information of the error.  If it’s a short message, just put it into the report directly.  Attaching a file of a one line error message is not necessary, just include it in the Description.

5.  Before submitting a bug, use the handy dandy search on the Bugzilla page and make sure someone hasn’t already filed the same bug.  20 people submitting the same bug just bogs the bug wranglers down.  You may just find the same bug and the fix and save everybody time.

So be assertive, informative and pay attention to help submit a bug properly so it can get fixed.  A developer may ask for more information or have you try something and you should be responsive to report back such needed information.  It’s hard and frustrating to try and solve a bug without the proper information.  Developers don’t have a magic crystal ball that will give them all the information needed.  Don’t let your bug report become INVALID.

Happy bug submitting!