linux-server-setup/exercises/h1.md

Linux servers - Exercice 1

Disclaimer:

This exercise is a part of Linux Server Administration (ICT4TN021, spring 2018) // Linux-palvelimet (ICT4TN021, kevät 2018) school course organized as a part of Information Technology studies in Haaga-Helia university of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland. Course lecturer Tero Karvinen has defined the original assignment descriptions in Finnish presented in this document in English. Answers and translations have been written by Pekka Helenius (me, ~ Fincer).

Table of contents:

• a) Linux LiveUSB Create your own Linux USB live stick. Try it out on a non-school computer. This section does not require installation of Linux. However, if you decided to install Linux, you should take proper backups first.

  • Alternative 1 - Rufus (Windows, GUI-based)

  • Comparing checksums

  • Alternative 2 - dd command (Linux, CLI-based)

• b) Hardware components List hardware components of your new Linux computer (sudo lshw -short -sanitize).

• c) Program installation Install three new programs which are new to you. Try them out in their main target environment and primary use.

  • Thunar

  • Gedit

  • GParted

• Installation via official package repositories

• Installation via local packages or from source code

• Uninstallation of packages

• Differences between Linux distributions

• d) Licenses Which licenses have been used in the programs of your choice? Explain briefly which kind of rights and duties these licenses have.

• e) Alternative open source programs List programs you use (MS Word, for instance), purpose of these programs (for instance, text editing) and introduce equivalent open source Linux program (for instance, LibreOffice Writer). List closed source programs even if they do not have open source equivalent for Linux.

• f) File backups Optional extra task: backup your files (you can use an external USB storage, for instance)

  • fstransform - convert existing file system to another format

---

a) Create your own Linux USB live stick. Try it out on a non-school computer. This section does not require installation of Linux. However, if you decided to install Linux, you should take proper backups first.

Answer: I did this with Rufus Windows application on Microsoft Windows 7 which was run inside Oracle VirtualBox as a virtual machine. Alternative methods include UNetbootin, ISO Image Writer or dd command (default location on Linux: /usr/bin/dd) which is a part of Coreutils. Rufus allows you to create a live USB stick using either ISO or DD method which differ from each other, as the developer has explained on his GitHub site.

Let's take a detailed look for two of these approaches: Rufus on Windows 7 and dd command on Linux (any Linux distribution applies here).

Alternative 1 - Rufus (Windows, GUI-based)

You can use either Windows 7 or 10 (any student/enterprise/server subversion applies here). You can run Windows either in a virtual machine or as physically installed in your mass media storage (SSD/HDD). Whichever method you choose to run Windows, it doesn't really matter. The most important part is that you have a working operating system.

1. Launch Microsoft Windows

2. Download Rufus application from here, under the title "Download"

3. You can use either portable or installable version of Rufus. In the following example, we use portable version v. 2.18.

4. Download any Linux distribution you prefer. In further parts, Debian-based Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS is used.

What comes to alternative download methods, you can choose either ISO image file (downloaded directly from servers) or distributed torrent method. Torrent method usually requires a client application (such as Transmission) to work correctly.

The Linux distribution of choice can be anything you prefer in your working environment and which requirements you have set up for your Linux server environment.

Let's download a widely used Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (x86_64 processor architecture), which is based on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS but uses XFCE desktop environment instead of Unity. In Ubuntu version syntax, 16 refers to release year (2016), 04 refers to release month (April), 3 is subversion and LTS stands for Long-Term Support (preferred in server environments).

Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS - Torrent download Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS - ISO image file directly from a server - 1.2G

Comparing checksums

If you wanted to make sure the ISO image you just downloaded is valid, you should check its checksum (mainly for security reasons). In this way you make sure that no malicious party has altered the image you trust and the download process has succeeded.

You should take a closer look on sha256sum and md5sum values of your ISO image file. The value must match the one which is published on the Ubuntu download site (sha256sum, md5sum).

On Linux: check checksums with commands sha256sum xubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso and/or md5sum xubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso

On Windows: Use Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier or check a CertUtil-based solution given on superuser.com

NOTE: Checking checksums is highly recommended. For instance, Linux Mint network servers were hacked due to outdated server software in 2016, resulting to maliciously injected ISO images uploaded by hostile attackers.

In addition, the Linux Mint forum software was affected, as well (user credentials leaked). More about the incident is explained on Linux Mint blog.

5. Plug in an empty and large enough USB stick into your computer (4GiB should be sufficient). It is highly recommended that you have formatted the stick in advance because Rufus overwrites any existing files existing in the USB stick in order to place required Linux files in the stick. If your stick contained any important files, they should be moved from the stick to somewhere safe location before proceeding here.

6. Once the stick is emptied (and probably formatted), launch Rufus application. Select the USB stick as a target device in Device menu. All other settings can be left in their default values. Choose downloaded Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS ISO image file from the dropdown menu located at the right of Create a bootable disk using part. The dropdown menu is presented as a disc icon without any texts.

7. Click Start, choose ISO method as a writing method once asked. Read the warnings. If all steps have been successfully accomplished so far, proceed with the writing operation.

8. Wait until the ISO image file has been written into the USB stick. Once done, reboot your computer with the USB stick attached.

Immediately after the computer has rebooted, press a button which you can access your BIOS/UEFI/Boot options menu with. Choose the Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS USB stick (which should appear in the boot list). Start the operating system boot-up process bt selecting Try without installing option (this step varies between Linux distribution. More generally, you can also choose Install 'whateverdistro' option and select installation on the live USB Linux desktop environment). Wait until the operating system has been booted up. Start installation and follow the instructions.

The installation process is not defined in detail here because installation steps varies from Linux distribution to distribution. However, basic principle is to install the operating system with good and strong passwords. Encrypted home folder or HDD/SSD partition options should also be considered.

After you have successfully installed Linux, detach the live USB stick and reboot your computer. You should be able to access the installed Linux distribution without the USB stick.

When writing and applying passwords, please pay attention to correct keyboard layouts. In my case, I use a Swedish (Finnish) keyboard layout which differs from the default en_US layout. Therefore, mistyping characters can easily happen. Many Linux distributions allow you to change the keyboard layout during the installation process. Unless you're not able to do it in installation window, you can change the keyboard layout temporarily by executing setxkbmap fi (fi = finnish layout, adapt this parameter to your language preferences) in a local shell environment (NOTE: graphical environment is required for setxkbmap command since it's a part of graphical X11 environment!).

You can open up a local shell by opening a terminal emulator while running Linux from your USB stick. NOTE: changing passwords must be done before writing them in the installation steps!

Alternative 2 - dd command (Linux, CLI-based)

In case you use any Unix-based operating system (Linux, GNU/Linux, Apple MacOS, FreeBSD), you can create a USB live stick by using shell-based dd command. This method does not require a graphical desktop environment.

NOTE: Commands on Apple MacOS may not be exactly equal to Linux ones if you use extra parameters in the following commands.

The following instructions assume that you have only a command line environment and you have a working network connection.

1. At first, you need to download an ISO image of your Linux distribution of choice. There are usually two options:

• download ISO image from a centralized server or

• download ISO image using torrent protocol.

In the following steps, we download Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (x86_64).

Alternative a. Centralized server:

• requires that wget command exists in the system
• download the ISO image with the command:

wget --directory-prefix=$HOME --show-progress http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/16.04.3/release/xubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso

Alternative b. Torrent download:

• requires that transmission-cli command exists in the system
• download the ISO image with the command:

transmission-cli -w $HOME http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/16.04.3/release/xubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent

2. Plug in an empty and large enough USB stick into your computer (4GiB should be sufficient). It is highly recommended that you have formatted the stick in advance but you can format the stick with fdisk command, as well (util-linux).

When using fdisk, please follow these instructions, for instance. In case you have important files to be copied from your USB stick, copy the files with the following command sequence. We assume that the stick is not yet mounted on the system. Command sequence is expected to be executed with the default user (UID = 1000) which belongs to the default user group (GID = 1000).

Correct USB stick device name and partition number (/dev/XdYZ) must be find out in advance by executing command sudo fdisk -l.

• Y stands for the device's alphabetical ID, Z stands for partition number (/dev/sda1, for instance). X can have value h (IDE-based HDD/SSD's) or s (SATA-based HDD/SSD's). Newer NVMe-based storage solutions such as Samsung EVO series 860/960 use syntax /dev/nvme0n1p1 in which 1 stands for the device number and p1 stands for the partition number.

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/livestick && \
mkdir $HOME/livestick-backup && \
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/livestick && \
sudo mv /mnt/livestick/* $HOME/livestick-backup/ && \
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 $HOME/livestick-backup

NOTE: If you have any USB stick partitions mounted already on the system, you should not use /mnt/livestick location in above commands. Instead, use the path you can extract for the correct USB stick partition with mount command.

3. When you have backed up your important files earlier stored in the USB stick, you have confirmed the USB stick is empty and you have successfully downloaded your Linux distribution ISO image, you can start proceeding with the writing operations.

NOTE: You must be extra careful with dd command. If misused, the command can destroy any data you have in your HDD/SSD or in any storage device. Recovering files is a headache and you really don't want to end up having one! One key principle is to triple check all locations given for the dd command and check that used locations are in correct places (so that input and output operations are being executed for correct devices and the devices don't mix up).

4. Let's begin with Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS USB writing operations. In this section we assume that you have successfully downloaded the ISO image and you definitely know the correct path for your USB stick device (syntax: /dev/sda).

NOTE: I don't refer to USB stick partition path (syntax: /dev/sda1). The device path syntax is as stated: /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc. dd command is executed as the root user (Linux main user/super user).

dd command doesn't confirm the command syntax is correct so you must write it correctly in the beginning. If you are not sure about the correct syntax, please contant an expert.

The command syntax (NOTE: not likely the exact command in your environment!) is as follows:

sudo dd status=progress if=$HOME/xubuntu-16.04-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb

where /dev/sdb is your USB stick as seen on Linux system. Use correct, your exact device identifier instead of the one shown above.

If you want more instructions how to use the dd command, it is recommended to read the following wiki, for instance: Wikipedia - dd (Unix)

5. Wait until the ISO image file has been written into the USB stick. Once done, reboot your computer with the USB stick attached. Immediately the computer has rebooted, press a button which you can access your BIOS/UEFI/Boot options menu with. Choose the Xubuntu 16.04.3 LTS USB stick (which should appear in the boot list). Start the operating system boot-up process bt selecting Try without installing option (this step varies between Linux distribution. More generally, you can also choose Install 'whateverdistro' option and select installation on the live USB Linux desktop environment). Wait until the operating system has been booted up. Start installation and follow the instructions.

The installation process is not defined in detail here because installation steps varies from Linux distribution to distribution. However, basic principle is to install the operating system with good and strong passwords. Encrypted home folder or HDD/SSD partition options should also be considered.

After you have successfully installed Linux, detach the live USB stick and reboot your computer. You should be able to access the installed Linux distribution without the USB stick.

When writing and applying passwords, please pay attention to correct keyboard layouts. In my case, I use a Swedish (Finnish) keyboard layout which differs from the default en_US layout. Therefore, mistyping characters can easily happen. Many Linux distributions allow you to change the keyboard layout during the installation process. Unless you're not able to do it in installation window, you can change the keyboard layout temporarily by executing setxkbmap fi (fi = finnish layout, adapt this parameter to your language preferences) in a local shell environment (NOTE: graphical environment is required for setxkbmap command since it's a part of graphical X11 environment!).

b) List hardware components of your new Linux computer (sudo lshw -short -sanitize).

Answer:

sudo lshw -short -sanitize gives the following information (assuming that you have package lshw installed and commands sudo and lshw are available on the system):

Detailed comments about the listed devices have been included after each terminal output line (therefore, the output is not exactly as written by the command to stdout/output).

Hardware component	Description / Short analysis
system N56JR (ASUS-NotebookSKU) /0 busN56JR	Computer manufacturer & model identifier
/0/0,memory 64KiB BIOS	Memory size of motherboard's BIOS firmware, 64 kibibytes
/0/8,processor,Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700HQ CPU @ 2.40GHz	Processor manufacturer, model and clock rate
/0/8/9 memory 1MiB L2 cache	Level 2 cache of the processor, size of 1 mebibytes
/0/8/a memory 256KiB L1 cache	Level 1 cache of the processor, size of 256 kibibytes
/0/8/b memory 6MiB L3 cache	Level 3 cache of the processor, size of 6 mebibytes
/0/c,memory 16GiB System Memory	Installed computer RAM memory size in gibibytes
/0/c/0 memory 8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)	Information of RAM module 0. DIMM (dual in-line memory module), DDR3 (Double Data Rate 3), clock rate 1600 megahertz, latency 0.6 nano seconds
/0/c/1 memory DIMM [empty]	Information of RAM module 1. Empty
/0/c/2 memory 8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)	Same than RAM module 0 desribed above
/0/c/3 memory DIMM [empty]	Information of RAM module 3. Empty
/0/100 bridge Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller	PCIe x16 bus controller
/0/100/1/0 displayGK106M [GeForce GTX 760M]	Discrete graphics card Gerforce GTX 760M, belonging to PCIe x16 bus
/0/100/2,display4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller	Secondary graphics adapter (integrated).
/0/100/3,multimedia Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller	Audio controller belonging to Intel Xeon E3-1200 family
/0/100/16,communication,8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1	Intel Management Engine Interface controller
/0/100/1a,bus8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2	Enhanced Host Controller Interface of Intel C220 chipset family number 2 for USB gateways
/0/100/1a/1usb1busEHCI Host Controller	Host controller for the above mentioned device
/0/100/1a/1/1,busUSB hub	USB extension hub splitted to multiple gates
/0/100/1a/1/1/1communication,Bluetooth USB Host Controller	Bluetooth controller
/0/100/1a/1/1/3multimedia ASUS USB2.0 Webcam	ASUS USB-based web camera
/0/100/1b,multimedia 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller	Audio controller of C220 chipset
/0/100/1c,bridge 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1	Port which operates at motherboard's North Bridge, making it possible to use PCIe devices, to track their hierarchy and opening up communication channels between them (source)
/0/100/1c.2bridge 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3	Equal to the previous device
/0/100/1c.2/0,wlan0,networkAR9485 Wireless Network Adapter	WLAN network adapter Atheros AR9485. Interface identifier wlan0 which is seen by the OS commands (can be altered via changing Linux kernel boot parameters in grub/syslinux configuration files)
/0/100/1c.3bridge 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 /0/100/1c.3/0,eth0networkRTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller	Ethernet controller RealTek 8111/8168/8411. Interface identifier eth0, which can be checked by using ifconfig command, for instance
/0/100/1c.4bridge 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 /0/100/1c.4/0,genericRTS5227 PCI Express Card Reader	RealTek RTS5227 PCIe card reader
/0/100/1d,bus8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1	Enhanced Host Controller Interface of Intel C220 chipset family number 1 for USB gateways
/0/100/1d/1usb2busEHCI Host Controller	Host controller for the above mentioned device
/0/100/1d/1/1,busUSB hub	USB extension bus splitted to multiple gates
/0/100/1d/1/1/2busHighSpeed Hub	Centralization of high speed bus
/0/100/1d/1/1/2/3,input,USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse	Optical HID mouse device attached to USB bus
/0/100/1d/1/1/2/4,input,Logitech Illuminated Keyboard	HID keyboard device attached to USB bus
/0/100/1f,bridge HM86 Express LPC Controller	Low Pin Count controller which attaches all low-level legacy devices to the motherboard
/0/100/1f.2storage8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode]	SATA controller of C220 chipset family for SATA-based mass media storage inputs
/0/100/1f.3bus8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller	Power management System Management Bus controller

P.S. If you frequently listed your hardware on a Linux computer, you should consider creating a bash alias command for this purpose (assuming your default shell environment is bash). Basic idea is to simplify commands you need to type each time you want to do something. For listing hardware, write a the following in your $HOME/.bashrc file (it's a hidden dotfile):

alias listhw='sudo lshw -short -sanitize'

Next time you launch a bash shell session, you should be able to list your hardware by simply executing listhw command, defined now in your $HOME/.bashrc file.

If you want to create this command globally accessible for all users, you can write the above code in /etc/bash.bashrc file as root (or with sudo). Alternatively, create a file /usr/bin/local/listhw as root (or with sudo) with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash
sudo lshw -short -sanitize

Use command sudo nano /usr/bin/local/listhw for that. The file is not executable by default. In order to make it executable, apply the following command:

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/local/listhw

Alternative and additional commands to list hardware are lspci (list PCI devices), hwinfo (defailed output), lsusb (list USB devices). Availability of these commands vary and you may need to install extra packages in your Linux distribution. On Ubuntu, execute the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install hwinfo pciutils usbutils

c) Install three new programs which are new to you. Try them out in their main target environment and primary use.

Answer:

Let's install three new programs: Thunar (file manager), Gedit (text editor), GParted (mass storage partition editor, alternative GitHub link )

Thunar

Thunar is a user-friendly and easily understandable GTK+-based file manager. It's not as customizable as Qt-based Dolphin but sufficient for daily basic usage. Thunar is the default file manager for XFCE desktop environment.

Gedit

Gedit is a simple GTK+-based text editor, targeted to GNOME desktop environment. Alternative text editors are, for instance, Mousepad, Kate, KWrite and Geany.

GParted

GParted is a popular GTK+-based graphical front-end for CLI-based, GPL3-licensed GNU Parted back-end. Similar programs include a Qt-based KDE Partition Manager, targeted mainly to KDE and LXQt desktop environments.

Installation of Thunar, Gedit and GParted on Debian-based distributions

Installation via official package repositories

On Debian-based distributions (like Xubuntu), you can install the selected three programs with a single command, like:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y thunar gedit gparted

where sudo apt-get update stands for "Update and synchronize package database list to correspond with newer available program versions", && stands for "If the previous command was successful, proceed with the following command", sudo apt-get install -y stands for "Install the following packages without confirming (-y parameter)", and finally, thunar gedit gparted stands for "Application names found in the available repositories listed in /etc/apt/sources.list file and in files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory and which are parameters for apt-get command".

sudo part before the forementioned commands stands for "Grant me temporary root privileges to execute the following commands as root". It is essential that the current user is in sudo group and all members of sudo group are allowed to gain temporary root privileges (uncomment line %sudo ALL=(ALL) ALL in file /etc/sudoers as root using visudo command).

By executing the above command, we assume that the system has established internet connection, Dpkg works as intended (it has not already locked file /var/lib/dpkg/lock, for instance) and no other installation process is being executed on.

You can execute the command without sudo in root terminal, but accessing root terminal is not highly recommended in server environments. In root terminal, the command would be (simply: the same command sequence without sudo):

apt-get update && apt-get install -y thunar gedit gparted

You can search for any packages with apt-cache search package-name command. It may not be the primary approach but you can search for packages on official Ubuntu repositories website on Linux Ubuntu distributions (Xubuntu, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Bugdie and so on). Alternatively, you can also install packages with aptitude command if you have installed package aptitude. Command syntax for installing packages with aptitude is

sudo aptitude install package-name

Installation via local packages or from source code

If you consider installing local packages, keep in mind that you need to track all required package dependencies. This can easily lead to Dependency hell situation. Therefore, installing local packages suits best for commercial, separately distributed software which are bundled with their dependencies and can be installed out-of-the-box without worrying about dependencies.

All installable packages on Debian-based Linux distributions are known as deb packages with suffix .deb. Therefore, local packages can be installed with the following command:

sudo dpkg -i my-deb-package.deb

If any unsatisfied dependencies are present, you may consider doing as usually instructed:

sudo apt-get -f install

Please note that this does not always work, can break your system and make things just too troublesome to sort out. For instance, your program may depends on a previous version of a package which is already installed or your system or/and not available on the official repositories. Installing a previous version can seriously break your system. In some rare cases, packages can be offered with two versions where the older version is known as compatibility package, usually installing older library versions to your system, co-existing with newer ones. However, keep in mind that your .deb package must be aware of this compatibility version (so that it depends exactly on that compatibility version instead of the officially named one. This is just a naming issue).

NOTE: You can force package installation on the system, ignoring package dependencies. In this case, you must know what you're doing, and this approach is really not recommended for Linux novices!

If you want to compile software directly from source, you essentially need dh_make and dpkg-buildpackage commands available on your Debian-based operating system. Usually cmake, make and gcc (GNU Compiler Collection) are required as well. Not forgetting any extra build time dependencies, usually marked with -dev suffix (development headers) on Debian-based Linux distributions. Runtime dependencies can be described in package description.

Any package dependencies (buildtime or runtime) are defined in Debian control file which can be supplied with the package or you need to create and configure it by your own.

On Ubuntu, you can install most essential and widely used build time tools with:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

if you considered installing a remotely available package directly from source, you should find out required runtime and buildtime dependencies with (assuming you have aptitude installed):

aptitude show package-name

where package-name is the package of your choice. Replace this string with the correct name.

Additionally, you can investigate required dependencies by checking any header (.h) files required in C/C++ source files, if the program is based on these programming languages. By tracking down required headers it is possible to figure out required dependencies in some extent. In addition, check out official websites of the program (GitHub, BitBucket or another homepage), possibly contant the developer and/or check out any supplied library files (suffix is .so) and their dependencies with ldd command. On Ubuntu, you can also check out packages.ubuntu.com for dependencies if the package is available on official repositories.

Please see my practical example 1 and example 2 for compiling software on Linux.

You can also apply patches directly to source code of a program by using diff and patch commands. Patches must be applied before compiling the program.

Uninstallation of packages

You can effectively remove packages on Debian-based Linux distributions with:

sudo apt-get purge --remove package1 package2 package3

In some cases, package manager suggests you to remove any orphaned packages with:

sudo apt-get autoclean

You can freely explore more apt-get commands with:

apt-get --help

and by reading command-related manual page:

man apt-get

Manual pages in any commands are highly supported in multiple Linux distributions. The command syntax is always the same: man my_command. Additionally, --help or -h parameter is widely accepted by many Unix/Linux CLI programs.

NOTE: Although Linux distributions don't have any similar to Windows registry hell (unclean registry after software removal), keep in mind that any configuration files created afterwards by a Linux program are not handled by Linux package managers. In other words: package managers can't track files created afterwards by your program in your $HOME folder. This is mostly a case with personal configuration files in user's home directory on Linux. In addition, any backup files (file suffixes: .old, ~, .bak, .pacnew...) are not included in the package according to your package manager and, therefore, they may not be uninstalled by simply removing a program. Please see my script for tracking down those files

Differences between Linux distributions

Main differences between various Linux distributions are:

• version modeling: For instance, Arch Linux follows rolling release model whereas Ubuntu follows time based release model

• package managers: OpenSUSE uses zypper, Fedora uses dnf, Arch Linux uses pacman

• package configurations (configuration files, features available for a program by default)

• compilation methods for source codes: For instance, Arch Linux uses makepkg, Ubuntu uses dpkg-buildpackage

• package availability in official repositories: For instance, some packages available on Arch Linux are not available on Ubuntu

• package versioning syntax: For instance, Arch Linux uses version 59.0.1-1 and Ubuntu uses 59.0.1 for a same package

• package versions: For instance, Arch Linux has newer package version in the official repositories than Ubuntu does.

You can read more at Arch Linux Wiki - Arch compared to other distributions.

d) Which licenses have been used in the programs of your choice? Explain briefly which kind of rights and duties these licenses have.

Answer:

License information can be retrieved from multiple various sources. Licensing terms have usually been mentioned in source code or documentation, help manual, program website or retriavable from equivalently trusted source.

• Thunar is a part of Xfce project and licensed under GPL (GNU General Public License) and LGPL2.1 (Lesser GNU General Public License). Detailed information about the licensing policy can be found on Arch Linux package repository, for instance.

• Gedit is a part of GNOME project and licensed under GPLv2. Licensing terms are mentioned in Gedit source code.

• Gparted is a part of GNOME project and uses GPLv2+ license, according to the official website, bottom section. Exact statement is as follows: "GParted is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your option) any later version."

GPL license is targeted to distribute free sofware under several terms. The license grants permission to use, copy, modify and share a program and its source code. License is accumulating in nature so that any program initially released under GPL and developed further source code must be published and any further restrictions to usage of the program are forbidden. License allows commercial usage of a program. More about the license on GNU project homepage

LGPL license differs from GPL license so that some non-GPL licensed component of a program can be linked to otherwise GPL-licensed program. Therefore, because the program is not fully open source, it can still use LGPL license but not GPL license. LGPL licensed program has less efficient copyleft.

e) List programs you use (MS Word, for instance), purpose of these programs (for instance, text editing) and introduce equivalent open source Linux program (for instance, LibreOffice Writer). List closed source programs even if they do not have open source equivalent for Linux.

Answer:

Closed source program	Open source alternative	Purpose of the program	Additional notes
Adobe Acrobat	Evince	PDF document viewer	Deprecated Adobe Acrobat is also available for Linux, Professional version is only for Windows. Evince is not available for Windows.
Adobe Audition	Audacity	Audio editor
Adobe Lightroom	Darktable, RawTheRapee, Digikam	Photo editor	Adobe Lightroom is available only for Windows. DigiKam is a part of KDE project.
Adobe Photoshop	Krita, GIMP	Image manipulation
Adobe Premiere Pro	Kdenlive	Video editor	Kdenlive is a part of KDE project.
Autodesk 3DS Max	Blender	3D Editor
Bentley MicroStation	-	City/Urban planning oriented CAD program	Bentley Microstation is only available for Windows.
IrfanView	-	Feature-rich image previewer	IrfanView is only available for Windows.
MathWorks MATLAB	FreeMat, GNU Octave	Mathematical simulations & calculations	GNU Octave is a part of GNU project.
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge	Firefox, Palemoon, Konqueror, Falkon	Internet browser client	Konqueror and Falkon belong to KDE project.
Microsoft Office, WPS Office	LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Calligra	Set of programs to process office documents	Calligra is a part of KDE project.
Microsoft Outlook	Thunderbird, Kmail	Email client	Kmail is a part of KDE project.
Microsoft Notepad	Kate, Leafpad, Gedit	Text editor	Kate is a part of KDE project. Gedit is a part of GNOME project.
Microsoft Paint	KolourPaint	Image editor (rasterized/pixel images)	KolourPaint is a part of KDE project.
Microsoft Windows	Wine, ReactOS	Operating system	Wine is a program on the top of an existing Linux/Mac OS installation. Its purpose is to translate all Windows API calls (of a Windows program) and Unix function calls (Mac OS/Linux) back and forth so that underlying Linux/Mac OS operating system can run the program without a need of the real Microsoft Windows OS. ReactOS is an open-source project which aims to replace Microsoft Windows OS as a whole, including Windows kernel (ReactOS implements its own kernel, it doesn't rely on Linux kernel). ReactOS implements parts of the Wine project.
Pitney Bowes MapInfo Professional	-	Map and GIS planning	MapInfo Professional is available only for Windows.
Riegl RiScan Pro	CloudCompare, MeshLab	LiDAR processing software	RiScan Pro is available only for Windows, shipped with laser scanner instruments.
Skype	Ring-KDE, Pidgin Internet Messenger	Chat & video/audio calling program	Skype is available for Linux, too. However, newer version of the program is available only for Windows. Ring-KDE is a part of KDE project. It's a front-end to GNU Ring
Valve Steam	-	Game publishing platform
Windows Control Panel	KDE System Settings (systemsettings5)	General settings of an operating system	KDE System Settings is a part of KDE project, and comes usually with KDE desktop environment. Windows Control panel is a part of Windows OS.
Windows File Manager	Dolphin, Nautilus, Nemo, Thunar	File manager	Dolphin is a part of KDE project. Nautilus is a part of GNOME project. Nemo is forked from Nautilus. Thunar is a part of Xfce project.
Windows Image Viewer	Gwenview	Photo previewer	Gwenview is a part of KDE project. Windows Image Viewer is a part of Windows OS.
Windows Task Manager	KSysGuard, LXTask	Process and system statistics manager	KSysGuard is a part of KDE project. LXTask is a part of LXDE project. Windows Task Manager is a part of Windows OS.
Windows Volume Control	Alsamixer, PulseAudio Volume Control	Audio device, level & channel control	Alsamixer is a part of ALSA. PulseAudio Volume Control is an interface to control Pulseaudio on Linux. Windows Volume Control is a part of Windows OS.

f) Optional extra task: backup your files (you can use an external USB storage, for instance)

Answer: Depending on the final goal/purpose, alternative methods can be used. Creating a backup of whole HDD/SSD's is possible with a single dd command (hint: use recommended command parameter status=progress for large partitions) and with a USB live stick so that this partition/HDD/SSD is not mounted. More sophisticated tools include Clonezilla, for instance. It is recommended to backup a server with slightly different methods.

If the purpose is to copy single files from a location to another location, use cp or rsync command. Rsync example.

cp -Rp /mnt/my_hdd1/somefilefolder/* /mnt/my_hdd2/backupfolder/

where -R stands for "recursive copy" and -p stands for "preserve file & folder permissions". Asterix symbol (*) stands for "include all files" (see Bash regular expressions for more information).

Rsync:

rsync -axHAWXS --numeric-ids --info=progress2 /mnt/my_hdd1/somefilefolder/ /mnt/my_hdd2/backupfolder/

NOTE: If you copy files between ext2/3/4 and NTFS file systems, keep in mind that any permissions stored in ext2/3/4 partition are not preserved in NTFS partition. NTFS is widely used on Microsoft Windows environments whereas ext2/3/4 are widely used on Unix-based (POSIX) environments.

In addition, you must consider any symbolic links included in copy process. Keep in mind to watch out user permissions as well (does the current user have permissions to copy selected files?).

fstransform - convert existing file system to another format

NOTE: There is an experimental tool to convert your existing ext2/3/4 & FAT/NTFS file systems to another file system format. For more information, see fstransform - fedoramagazine.com (note that installation instructions using dnf command are Fedora specific only. You should use apt-get instead on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint...)