Analog Stereo Output with LMDE 2 Cinnamon

A new LMDE 2 Cinnamon install on a new motherboard left me with only a Digital Stereo audio profile and no sound to the analog jack.

I installed the pavucontrol utility and was able to configure the Analog Stereo profile.

How to stop Firefox from making automatic connections

Some people are concerned about the connections Firefox makes to the Internet, especially when those connections are made for no apparent reason (see Mozilla's Firefox Browser Privacy Notice for additional information). This article explains various reasons why Firefox may make a connection to the Internet and how you can stop it from doing so, if you wish.

 

Table of Contents

• Automatic updates and Security
  • Auto-update checking
  • Blocklist updating
  • Anti-phishing list updating
  • Anti-malware list updating
  • Secure website certificates
• Prefetching
  • Link prefetching
  • DNS prefetching
  • Speculative pre-connections
  • Add-on list prefetching
• User-invoked content
  • Home page loading
  • Extensions
  • Live Bookmarks updating
  • Downloads restarted
  • Search plugin icon loading
  • Firefox Sync
  • Firefox Hello
• Mozilla content
  • Tiles
  • Snippets
  • Geolocation for default search engine
  • "What's new" page
  • Add-on metadata updating
• Diagnostics
• Media capabilities
  • OpenH264 codec
  • WebRTC
  • Send Video To Device
• Malware
• Loopback connection

LibreOffice vs. the Liberty to Open the Application You Want

Occasionally LibreOffice seems determined to open PDF files with a web browser instead of the pertinent preferred application. Nosing around I learned that Libre/OpenOffice appears to be opening files thru /usr/bin/x-www-browser which links to /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser - a web browser startup script.

I instead linked /usr/bin/x-www-browser to /usr/bin/gnome-open which properly selects the gnome preferred application.

Device not managed

Problem: NetworkManager indicates 'device not managed' for eth0.

Edit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf:

[ifupdown]
managed=true

Restart:

# sudo service network-manager restart

Sticky Firefox User Agent

From the User Agent Switcher Help page:

Why does the user agent reset when the browser closes? 

Due to a bug in Sun's Java plug-in the extension automatically resets the user agent when the browser closes in order to stop the browser crashing on the next start-up.

If you are unable to start the browser find the file 'prefs.js' in your profile and delete the line containing 'general.useragent.override' to fix the issue.

If you understand this issue and want to disable the auto-reset functionality create a new preference 'useragentswitcher.reset.onclose' and set it to false.

No support is provided for this configuration.

Of course, nobody is using a Java plugin these days. Correct?

Bash'rc stuff

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

# development tool paths
xc8ver="v1.12"
xc16ver="v1.11"
xc32ver="v1.20"

xc8path="/opt/microchip/xc8/$xc8ver/bin"
xc16path="/opt/microchip/xc16/$xc16ver/bin/bin:/opt/microchip/xc16/$xc16ver/bin"
xc32path="/opt/microchip/xc32/$xc32ver/bin"

# Note: the xc8 tools duplicate some gnu names, e.g.'cpp'. Expect some problems.
PATH=$PATH:$xc8path:$xc16path:$xc32path

echo "(bash) "`whoami`": "`pwd`
PS1='.'

REPO="file:///home/project/svn/repo"
export REPO

CCRRBASE="$HOME/project/ccrr"
export CCRRBASE

MPASMPATH="$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microchip/MPASM Suite"
export MPASMPATH

#XC8_INCLUDE="/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.12/include"
#export XC8_INCLUDE

XC8_LIB="/opt/microchip/xc8/v1.12/lib"
export XC8_LIB

alias ls='ls --color=never'

Not quite full disk encryption with LVM and LUKS

Andreas Haerter has a step-by-step guide on how to install an Ubuntu Linux system with full disk encryption. However it does not encrypt the GRUB2 or /boot partition.

The purpose of using LVM is that multiple encrypted volumes can be opened with one pass-phrase at boot because they all reside on one encrypted disk partition with a LUKS header.

Here is a summary.

In the following examples:

• boot partition is sda2
• encrypted partition is sda5
• opened encrypted partition is sda5-secure
• encrypted VG is SecureVG
• Root LV is secure-root

From the live install disk install LVM2 and cryptsetup.

# apt-get install LVM2
# apt-get install cryptsetup 
# modprobe dm-crypt

Create the LUKS header for the encrypted partition, e.g.

# cryptsetup --cipher aes-xts-plain --key-size 512 --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sda5

Open the encrypted partition, e.g.

# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5 sda5-secure

This maps to /dev/mapper/sda5-secure

Create the LVM volumns:

# pvcreate /dev/mapper/sda5-secure
# vgcreate SecureVG /dev/mapper/sda5-secure
# lvcreate ...

Install the system.

Chroot to the new system root mounted at /mnt/secure-root.

# mkdir /mnt/secure-root
# mount /dev/mapper/SecureVG-secure--root--01 /mnt/secure-root
# mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/secure-root/boot
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/secure-root/dev
# mount -t proc proc /mnt/secure-root/proc
# mount -t sysfs sys /mnt/secure-root/sys
# cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/secure-root/etc/resolv.conf
# chroot /mnt/secure-root /bin/bash

Install LVM2 and cryptsetup on the new system. 

# apt-get update
# apt-get install cryptsetup lvm2

Add an entry in /etc/crypttab. Generate the line with:

# echo "secure-sda5 UUID=$(ls -la /dev/disk/by-uuid | grep $(basename /dev/sda5) | cut -d ' ' -f 10) none luks"

E.g. "secure-sda5 UUID=6e61c215-b930-41bf-b33a-cfb52cc5b969 none luks"

Add GRUB2 modules for preload to /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES="lvm cryptodisk luks"

Update the GUB2 menu:

# update-grub

Regenerate the initrd:

# update-initramfs -u -k all

Do you feel lucky?

# exit
# reboot

Things I Can Live Without

Regarding Ubuntu/Mint Linux:

• whoopsie - sends a crash log to ubuntu.
• zeitgeist - a service which logs the user's activities and events (files opened, websites visited, conversations held with other people, etc.) and makes the relevant information available to other applications. It serves as a comprehensive activity log and also makes it possible to determine relationships between items based on usage patterns. 
• Firefox Testpilot  
• Firefox Health Report -  So what exactly will FHR share with its creator? Mozilla says these four types:
  
  1. Configuration data (such as device hardware, operating system, and Firefox version).
  2. Customizations data (such as add-ons, count, and type).
  3. Performance data (such as timing of browser events, rendering, and session restores).
  4. Wear and Tear data (such as length of session, how old a profile is, and count of crashes).