Thanks for the comments.  Is BNL still part of the HEP collaborations?  
If so, would you not have access to the internal CERN-Fermilab EL8 
"distro", with the internal "support"?

The Zoom client in use is NOT from Ubuntu -- it is supplied by the 
university IT unit, and we are both at the same university.  It is 
required that we use this Zoom through the university Blackboard system.

The fact that major release upgrades can be done in place is an 
attractive one for Ubuntu LTS -- this is nothing like the major endeavor 
to move from EL-N to EL-N+1 .  I still will backup user files and any 
special applications (not required university downloads).

One "gotcha" with Ubuntu LTS on a Dell.  The box was certified by 
Canonical but using a modified installation from Dell.  In the USA, the 
Ubuntu LTS Dell "factory configured" unit does not appear to be for sale 
-- the order had to be made by authorized university staff, not by any 
Faculty member nor any research staff person.  All that could be 
obtained was a MS Win configured unit. I installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 
MATE, as well as the Nvidia proprietary Xwindows backend.  With a bit of 
digging, everything worked *EXCEPT* for the built-in microphone system.  
An external USB microphone works fine.  From reading "developer" lists, 
it appears that the microphone system is not supported by the standard 
distro (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__bugzilla.kernel.org_show-5Fbug.cgi-3Fid-3D201251&d=DwIDaQ&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=wfrLb9YUyIZw9qkCFoJPcYDJoe8tKLhNOA1KCknWpGo&s=D25aIqITvV1tubz__3slAPvgGYI8puiSNYi-z9lW_3A&e= ).  Dell has 
installed a proprietary driver but will not release the driver. The 
nominal head of the Dell Linux "group" is Barton George, but there is no 
contact information for him (he has a subscribe-to blog, but no real 
information there).  When I called Dell EMC technical support, because 
the service tag number on the unit specifies MS Win, and I requested 
even licensing for fee the Dell Ubuntu 18.04 distro, the Dell support 
person simply rang off without a word.  I did not bother to try again.

As for your use of an admin cover account for root -- I do the same for 
any machine to which an arbitrary person could have access, or that is a 
server on the Internet.  In fact, I usually put a honey-pot trap for 
those who attempt to get to root. However, this is my wife's personal 
machine that will be on her person and is not a server -- just a 
portable workstation.  I prefer the Mozilla installs of Firefox and 
Thunderbird, not any that are ported by a distro or other third party.   
Mozilla prevents these from being updated in place by an enduser as far 
as I can tell; I keep these updated not only for bug fixes, but for 
security patches as well.  As root, the update within both Firefox and 
Thunderbird goes to the Mozilla server(s), not any distro, and updates.

We were going to get the HP equivalent of the Dell, but the cost 
differential was $1k and the university would not consider it. 
Evidently, everything does work on the HP, and HP will (in the past when 
I needed it) supply proprietary drivers (that is, Linux ports of the 
driver from the proprietary specifications supplied to Microsoft).

Stay safe -- stay isolated.

Yasha Karant


On 4/6/20 10:56 AM, Brett Viren wrote:
> Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>> Zoom
> Ignoring the recent news items and that the Zoom client for Ubuntu
> hasn't been updated in forever and that the whole thing is
> proprietary...
>
> ...Zoom works fine on Ubuntu 18.04 for me.
>
> You might consider to try out Jitsi Meet.  It works rather well in the
> tests I've done so far.  Being free software I expect it to improve
> further and keep getting updated.  That said, my tests have been
> relatively small scale so I can't speak to how well it works on the
> scale you and your wife need.
>
>> giving root a real login and GUI access (not just sudo from a terminal
>> application),
> A root console (non-GUI) login can be warranted.  I'd strongly suggest
> not running X11 sessions as root but, of course, you are free to do
> whatever you like.
>
> I typically will add my public SSH keys to /root/.ssh/ to gain direct
> remote access to root.  I set "PermitRootLogin prohibit-password" in
> /etc/ssh/sshd_config so remote brute forcing a root password is
> impossible.  I'll also use that or use "sudo -s" to gain local root
> shell.
>
> In cases where I need to walk up to a box to do some admin stuff in a
> GUI session I make a special user account with "administrator" rights
> (ie, it can "sudo").  This account is only used for this purpose and is
> kept free of any "user cruft".
>
>> Note also that there is no equivalent to this list for Ubuntu LTS that
>> I can find, necessitating "digging" on the web to find solutions to
>> issues.
> There are various Ubuntu web forums and a stack overflow sub-site.  One
> benefit of using Ubuntu is that a google search typically find answers
> quickly and without the delay inherent to a query to a forum or mailing
> list.
>
>> Ubuntu claims that the migration from one major production release to
>> the successor for LTS can be done in place without disruption -- I
>> shall see if that is true.
> This has been true in my experience with Ubuntu for the last ~decade and
> with Debian for more than two.  I've not yet moved to 20.04 yet (it's
> April already!) but I expect it will again be a very normal upgrade.
> Famous last words....
>
> Cheers,
> -Brett.