Since support for Lubuntu 13.10 is running out in July allready, does it make sense to 'apt-get dist-upgrade' to 14.04 LTS? I currently am in an area with good internet, so it's now or in about a year, what are your thoughts? Would I break too much of the 3rd party programs?

The current Navigatrix is 0.5. While it uses many of the same tools as Ubuntu it doesn't follow the same marketing structure Canonical set up for its corporate customers.

I don't know what would break if you switched distributions on a blanket upgrade...probably the desktop. Most likely you will not get any improved functionality.

I think 'apt-get dist-upgrade' would not be a good idea....but try it. See what breaks. You only can loose time and sanity.

Hm, I guess I would probaly skip the upgrade for now (call me a coward, I know....).

BTW, how do you provide security updates for the base system components after the support for lubuntu 13.10 ends in July?

While I write here, I'd like to congratulate you on your awesome job you did with navigatrix. A couple of years back I tried something similar with a puppy linux base, but I had a propper job back then and .... well, life happened. Anyways, your effort with Navigatrix is way more polished than what I did back then. I particularly love the comports script.

I understand that the Navigatrix team is based in Panama. Man I wish I would have known that when I made the canal transit about two years back. Would have loved to knock back a couple of cervezas with you guys.

Ha, just rechecked the download page. Nx 0.5 came out in March 2014- it seems I run an outdated version allready. Is Nx 0.5 still based on Lubuntu 13.10? Or on the 14.04 beta? If it is still based on 13.10 what would I gain from updating to Nx 0.5?

Thanks again for your great distro,
Zenfunk

Tor, the onion router, found and patched a security leak. In certain situations of a server being under attach and moon in waxing gibbous phase your anonymity could be revealed if someone was looking....so they fixed it.

Some guy wanted to know when the Tor package in Navigatrix was going to be updated.

It wasn't. The upgrade broke the integration with the browser. It wasn't a bull in a china shop but it broke some stuff; that stuff, when fixed, was less 'fitted for purpose'.

Tor, in Navigatrix is to allow access to distance information blocked be local filters/firewalls/business/politics, not to provide 100% anonymity.

The guy, either not understanding the unlikely nature of the risk; or not understanding the consequences of being a victim of this attack was a security equivalent to doing a search on Google...or less....stated he refused to use an insecure OS.

It makes no sense. The only way to give the guy some credit and make sense out of that is that he does know the risks and consequences and is a white-slaver who uses Navigatrix.... He just doesn't know he might be better off with a different distribution.

Tor has since been upgraded because the Tor network was going to eventually require it and the browser, for example, needed to be updated to prevent a cascade of other things breaking....and so goes the dance.

A week after you download any distribution you could possibly upgrade a couple hundred megabytes of data. I do it all the time....most is unnecessary....occasionally it's important.

If the focus is function based and not herd focused or money driven, you will tend to have different models in the soft/hardware life cycles.

Navigatrix 0.5 (May 2014) will have a ubuntu 14.04 core. It will be available for download very soon ! Navigatrix 0.5 (March 2014) has a Ubuntu 13.04 core with the latest updates from March 2014.

Functionality is almost the same, thats why there is no version change. Update is only neccessary if you expirienced problems with the last version or if you got one of the newer computers which wont work with the "older" version.

OK, I guess I understood that now. The reason why I asked is, because I am no security expert- I cannot review a single line of code, even bash scripting is a challenge for me- so I got to trust people at Debian or Cannonical (and of course you guys) to do the heavy lifting for me. This is why I update my system as often as possible (bandwidth permitting of course).

I just wonder how people get security updates like for stuff like the heartbleed bug when they run systems that are outdated in the sense that they are not updated by the maintainers. Like how would someone still running Debian Lenny get an updated OpenSSL for the heartbleed stuff.

I know that most of the time, if you use common sense while browsing the web you will be OK, even on "insecure" systems (Millions of Windows users proof that every single day ). But when you do your online banking (how else would a cruiser manage his finances on remote islands?), I have a much better feeling about it if I know that my base system is updated regularly.

Nevertheless, you adress this issue allready by using 14.04 as a base for your next release. So you keep up to date with the Ubuntu releases. The good news is, it is a LTS version so a Navigatrix user doesn't have to switch to the next version for security reasons, only for functionality reasons. Again, is there a way to update to the May version of Navigatrix or do I have to do a reinstall?

All the best, and keep up the good work,
Christian

There's a slightly tongue in cheek saying that the first rule is "never touch a working system." When in actuality the first rule should be "don't panic."

In regards to Heartbleed, as it is all the buzz; yes, clients (wget, curl, git, and openssl, etc. ) can bleed if attacked, but what are the chances anyone client will be attacked by the NSA, or some other nefarious group, accessing a now-fixed OpenSSL server? I don't think the updated openssl client (1.0.1e-3ubuntu1.2) in Ubuntu's repository has even been patched. There is security in insignificance, particularly when it's against the flow and the easy targets are secured.

Other clients that cruise around the net, like Firefox (for your online banking example), which use "Open Source Crypto Libraries" are not subject. (Chrome, on your phone, is.)

I liken it to shark attacks, blue bottle jellies, blue ringed octopuses, saltwater crocs (that aren't blue), spiders, and snakes which are legend in Australia. Many visitors are petrified of swimming in the ocean, or beating around the bush if...if they visit here...apparently they are afraid of having a memorable experience.

But the data indicates that you are 20 times more likely to be killed by a horse than a snake...thousands of times more likely to be injured/killed in a car wreck than a shark attack...and if that doesn't shock you the price of beer will.

This doesn't mean you can swim any time/where you want, or stick your hand into any blind hole with impunity. It just means, swim between the flags; Mr. Ed, and Flicka are not your friends; be careful driving; understand the risk and do not panic...so don't cancel plans to come to Australia just bring lots of money. You can do your banking securely online.

Running Navigatrix as a LiveCD presents challenges like your Saturday Night Fever soundtrack CD does.

Say you like "Stayin' Alive" but you would really prefer "Stayin' Alive" the extended version that came out later in the "BeeGees Greatest" album....it could happen.

With the magic of the persistence file you could overlay the original with the extended. The biggest problem is space. There comes a time that if too many modifications are made, or those modification are voluminous, it's 'better' to change the CD.

This what the folks who assemble the Navigatrix image do. As relevant security or functional updates become available they are incorporated into the image and released...as with the next pending release. This method is actually more responsive and practical than the release cycle current used by Canonical, for example, and others. It is also the reason they (Canonical) are considering switching to the 'rolling release' model that Navigatrix uses..

Users who have a hard drive installation are in another category and do not have similar challenges...just don't do a distribution upgrade for another distribution while running Navigatrix.

Moe, don't worry, I am far from panicy, I just want to understand the release model of the Distro I am using (as a hardware install BTW).

So when you speak of a so called rolling release model for Navigatrix- this means there is a way to update your installed packages to a newer version? Or does this only apply to the live usb stick version of the system?

Thanks for your great support,
Christian

You can issue the command "sudo do-release-upgrade". But it may break some things and you may miss new features. Later down the road, if resources allow it, we may include a proper upgrade script. But for now this is not available. So best way to upgrade would be to download the new ISO and install it to the harddrive. And to maintain your settings, put the /home folder on a seperate partition and tell the installer to use this without formating it. This way you keep your data and have a uptopdate system as well.
If you do not have your /home folder on a second partition, make a backup of it and then play it back after installing the new iso.

Thanks for the info, I guess I just leave the install as is and upgrade to the May version when it is out and I have good enough bandwidth available. From my early efforts to do something similar and using Puppy Linux as a base, I know how hard it is to implement a good upgrade solution. To this date there isn't anything reliable existing for Puppy Linux at all.

Thanks everyone involved for your awesome work on Navigatrix. It is by far the best distro for cruisers.

I use Archlinux for my home computer.It has a 'rolling release' cycle also.They use Pacman for package management.It works very well.I have had no major problems with it.Pacman can be set up so it will only upgrade certain packages and ignore others.It also handles dependencies very well.I love Navigatrix and how its set up.I didnt care for Debian/Ubuntus way of package management at first but since I dont need to do updates often, its fine for me.

Sorry for not responding sooner, we sailed to Komodo the last couple of days.

The longer I use Linux the more I'd like the rolling release model. I have not tried it personally, but although the LTS releases of Ubuntu are supported for five years or so, they don't really upgrade all their programs to a newer version. E. g. currently I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 on one machine and I'm stuck with qlandkarte 1.2.3 which is like lightyears behind upstream. PPAs are a mess and I try to avoid them as much as possible. So yes, a rolling release model would suit me much better, but unfortunately it is not very cruiser friendly. Most of the time our Internet is flacky at best, so a curated Distro with mayor releases every once in a while is probably the way to go as of now. I will most likely switch to arch when I'm back home though.

No worries, Navigatrix will allways be with me on when I'm on the boat.

All the best,
Christian

...just a recommendation that I've found helpful.

A separate /home partition.

It's good for fubar installations where it's just easier to start over.

or, for switching distributions...mostly. Sometimes the configuration files clash (Two clocks in the taskbar sort of thing.)

The machine I'm using now is LVM on the storage. Which is very good/cool/useful...I hate it. Easy to set up, works very well, but uses language and sorcery I don't understand, if you want to meddle with it.

I want to switch distributions, but don't know how to separate out the data from the LVM, because copying it to an external drive would be too easy. But this LVM is to dense for me.