Dapper Linux 28 Release Notes

Release Statement

Dapper Linux Limited is pleased to announce the release of weekly builds for the Dapper Linux 28 operating system. Dapper Linux 28 is the latest and greatest release, and is designed to make advanced security features available to everyone by automating and configuring these features for an easy to use out of the box experience.

Known Issues

Kernel package can not be built on Dapper Linux 28
The dapper-secure-kernel package cannot be built on Dapper Linux 28 as GCC 8 is the default compiler. Dapper Secure Kernel Patchset Stable is not quite compatible with GCC 8, and still needs to be built with GCC 7. If you want to reproduce the kernel package, use Dapper Linux 27, or a Fedora 27 chroot.

Changelog

Dapper Linux 28 is mostly a stability and bugfix release from version 27. All users of 27 are recommended to upgrade. Here is what has changed:

Dark theming has been fixed.
Dark theming in applications was mostly broken in the move to flatpak, and this has now been remedied. Dapper-dark theme is now applied to Flatpak applications and traditional applications.

Dapper Secure Kernel Stable Updates
Since the release of 4.9.74 Dapper Secure Kernel Patchset Stable was stuck due to PTI and Retpoline additions being incompatible with Dapper Secure Kernel Patchset. Development has resumed, and the kernel patchset is no longer as blocked as it used to be, and Dapper Linux 28 ships with Linux 4.9.109.dappersec.

Dapper Hardened Browser Updates
Dapper Hardened Browser has been tweaked and is now more locked down than before, and is now at version 61b.

Threat Model For Dapper Linux

Dapper Linux has been designed for environments where you would use your computer normally, for normal everyday tasks. Dapper Linux simply offers a more robust and hardened experience compared to that of a standard Linux distribution. Features such as a Grsecurity hardened kernel, Oz sandboxing, application firewalls, hard disk encryption and dual web browsers will keep you safer and make it significantly more difficult for an attacker to breach your system, but they are not meant to act as a silver bullet.

Dapper Linux is recommended for medium level Linux users who are looking for a fully featured system that has been hardened out of the box, and would otherwise replace standard Linux distributions as a primary operating system.

That being said, please do not expect Dapper Linux to provide a high level of security outside of that environment. If you are looking to get up to no good or live in an area where it is frowned upon to use the internet freely, please also note that Dapper Linux will not disguise your location or perform any kind of anonymisation. If you require these things, please use a Linux distribution which is built specifically for those tasks. There are a few excellent ones out there, and some are even meant to be used in live mode only, which prevents tampering because of the absence of state.

Making a Bootable USB Drive

For Linux Users:

Gnome-disks Method

Making a live USB of Dapper Linux only takes three steps with gnome-disks.

1. Search for gnome-disks in the shell or find it in the Utilities folder, and open it. Plug in a USB stick that is at least 4Gb in size, and make sure it contains nothing important.
2. WARNING: THE FOLLOWING STEP WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON THE USB STICK
   From the drop down menu (denoted by three horizontal bars), select "Restore Disk Image...". Click the "Image to Restore" button and navigate to your downloaded copy of Dapper Linux. From here press "Start Restoring..." and you may be required to accept a confirmation of data destruction dialog and enter your password.
3. A progress bar will appear and gnome-disks will prepare your USB stick for you.

Terminal Method with DD

Only follow this method if you know what you are doing. You can easily destroy all your data if you mistype a disk id.

1. Find your disk id using the command "sudo fdisk -l" and finding the corresponding drive letter to your USB stick, such as /dev/sdb.
2. Execute the command "su -c 'dd if=/path/to/image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M status=progress oflag=direct'", but make sure to replace /dev/sdX with the drive letter found from fdisk.
3. Wait for the copy to finish

For Macintosh Users:

Download Fedora Media Writer, and select Custom Os.

For Windows Users:

Download Fedora Media Writer, and select Custom Os.

Installing Dapper Linux

Open the shell overview, and click "Install Dapper Linux". If you have enough disk space (5gb) you will be allowed to install. Follow the steps in the installer, and make sure to tick the "Encrypt disk" checkbox on the disk screen.