Installing TrueCrypt on EEEBuntu

Short after buying the EEEPC I also bought a 320 GB external USB hard disk to be used in support to EEEPC small internal drive. I decided (mainly because of my job) to secure, using cryptography, at least one disk partition. I'm not sure the cryptography settings I did choose would work against any professional hacker but they should be enough to stop  most 'curious' people who might, in any way, gain access to my disk . I decided to install TrueCrypt mainly because it's a multi-platform application so I could possibly prepare encrypted partitions to be used from both Linux and windows computers.
 Installation

I first downloaded  truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz  (the x86 32bit ubuntu compiled version) from its site downloads page. then I extracted and executed the installation program ...

 tar -xvf truecrypt-6.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz
./truecrypt-6.1a-setup-ubuntu-x86 

The installation graphic user interface started and I simply had to click the 'Install TrueCrrypt' button and then agreed with the software license. Once installation was completed TrueCrypt icon was automatically placed in the 'other' folder.

Experimenting with Linux: MLDonkey

My little Linux server (PIII-550) works usually as Bittorrent download machine with Torrentflux running on the Apache server.  I desired to expand my little machine capabilities by installing some more download software. MLDonkey is a peer-to-peer client which let you download shared files in various network protocols.
 I did choose the easy way to install it using apt-get command:

sudo apt-get install mldonkey-server

 then I stopped the mldonkey server and edited the downloads.ini file in order to enable web acces from computers in my local network:

sudo /etc/init.d/mldonkey-server stop
cd /var/lib/mldonkey/
sudo vim downloads.ini

 I so edited the file adding my local network address range to allowed ips variable:

...
allowed_ips = [
  "127.0.0.1";
  "192.168.30.2/254";]
...

EEEBuntu: Restoring the Java development environment

After installing the operating system the second step in building up my EEEBuntu netbook is preparing a Java development environment by installing Java JDK, Netbeans and Apache Tomcat.
Java JDK installation:
EEEbuntu comes with  OpenJDK already installed, but I prefer having also Sun JDK installed. Java developer kit installation is done by terminal using apt-get command:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

then Sun jdk is selected as default jdk by typing the command:

sudo update-java-alternatives --set java-6-sun

Installed EEEBuntu (Netbook remix)

 I managed, thanks the rainy week-end, to install EEEBuntu (Netbook remix) on my EEEPC.
 My primary target was to have a dual boot system, so I first installed Windows XP (a properly reduced version) on the 4GB internal disk (sda) then I proceeded with EEEBuntu installation on the 16GB internal disc (sdb).
 Usb drive preparation:
 I did choose  the easy way to prepare my USB drive to boot with EEEBuntu. I downloaded and installed Unetbootin, Windows version, and used it to easily prepare the boot drive from the already downloaded ISO file. (this is the fourth boot-from-usb tool I install since I bought the EEEPC)
 EEEBuntu boot and Installation:
 After EEEBuntu boot I launched the installation program. At first I didn't see disk sdb as available for install, after a while I realized that the disk has to be flagged as "bootable" to be visible from install program. I used GParted to set the boot flag on disk sdb then I continued with installation. I did choose default options for installation and everything went fine. After installing I entered in BIOS set-up and selected disk sdb as first boot device in order to boot into EEEBuntu by default.
 First impressions:
  First impression EEBuntu gave me was the feeling of working with a full system, with a graphical interface well suited to the EEEPC small screen. I never felt using a limited interface like the original Xandros "easy mode". I haven't installed any application yet, apart from FBReader, so I haven't appreciated yet EEEBuntu repositories completeness, one the main advantages in passing to Ubuntu.
The main disadvantage of EEEBuntu is loading time: it takes almost two minutes to have the computer ready (Xandros was quite faster in it). One more minute of wait time is not very important if used during a train trip which lasts 30-45 minutes (during lucky days).

 

Backing-up the EEEPC with Clonezilla

I'm going to install EEEBuntu to but first I decided to back-up my current installation. I decided to use Clonezilla, the 'live' distribution, mainly because it promised to be a clean and fast tool.
I used one 1GB USB pen drive as boot device and an external 250GB USB hard drive as backup device.
I first downloaded Clonezilla, the zip format distribution, (from here) and uncompressed it to my USB pen drive. Then, following instructions from Clonezilla site,  I made my USB drive bootable using Live USB Helper.
I then started my EEEPC from the usb drive, by pressing  ESC key at boot time and choosing the pen drive from the boot menu.
I proceeced with backup operation following Clonezilla site instructions (here). No screenshots, sorry, but there is no real difference between what I did and screenshots published in Clonezilla how to pagesThe only real difference is the disk naming: on the EEEPC internal disks are usually named "sda" and "sdb" while external disk names may change (in this case it was "sdc").
Here are my selections, in the order they appeared:

• "Clonezilla Live (Default settings, VGA 800x600)" in boot menu options
• Language: "English" (Italian is also available)
• Keymap: first 'qwerty' then 'italian' and 'standard'
• "Start_Clonezilla" option
• Mode: "device-image" to backup source diskto an image fale in destination disk
• Mode: "local_dev" to select a local device (the usb external drive) as target device
• Destination device: "sdc1" this is the name given to my external drive and mounted by Clonezilla as "/home/partimag"
• Backup directory: "Top_directory_in_the_local_device"
• Mode: "savedisk" to save the whole EEEPC disk to an image
• Image name: "2009-02-05-23-img" the default name
• Source disks: "sda" and "sdb"
• Clone programs priority: "-q : ntfsclone > partimage > dd" 
• Advanced extra parameters: none changed from default
• Compression: "-z1 Use gzip compression"
• Split size: "0" EEEPC (disks are small so why to split the image?)
• Action after cloning: "true do nothing"

In conclusion I think Clonezilla is really a valuable fast and clean tool. It took only 15 minutes to backup my EEEPC disks (not very full indeed) to an image a little bigger than 3GB. Clonezilla interface may seem a little primitive but, while using it, I never felt the need of a more complex one. So I, definitely, have no escuses for not to backup my system at least before any major upgrade.