Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

[Chewy509]

As meany of you have most likely read Ubuntu 14.04 LTS has been released and is available for download. (most derivatives are also available as well).

I've been testing it (specifically GNOME Ubuntu 14.04) at work for deployment, and have come across a major snag in deploying in a corporate environment, especially ones that use Active Directory (AD).

Quick background/history. There are a number of ways to join a GNU/Linux desktop to an AD based domain, so that users in AD can log into the Linux box :
1. Use OpenLikewise services.
2. Use CentrifyDC services.
3. Use Winbind/Samba.

With either of the above methods, any user in AD can login locally onto the Linux box. (CentifyDC also brings in some GPO support as well).

The problem with 14.04LTS, is that OpenLikewise, nor CentrifyDC are available in the main repos (yet), so these company backed/supported solutions are not available, leaving only the samba/winbind method. Interesting to note: OpenLikewise is an opensource GPL product, so I wonder why OpenLikewise isn't available?...

While Winbind/Samba seems to work for external users connecting to shares on the Linux box, there doesn't appear to be accurate documentation on getting PAM configured correctly to allow both AD users and Linux local users to login, nor to allow GDM to validate AD user names correctly... (I've only managed to get PAM to either auth AD users OR linux local users, but not be able to do both at the same time). Also the PAM auto config files are missing for winbind/kerberos authentication as well, so PAM needs to be setup manually to use winbind or kerberos...

Otherwise there are a few other minor issues with 14.04 LTS as tested, but these only need a few workarounds/updates to scripts to get working... (note: the default smb.conf and krb5.conf need some work to specify the correct kerberos realm - no issue with you understand kerberos well, but expect to google for info if your kerberos knowledge is stale).

So for those that look after Ubuntu desktops at worked, hopefully this gives some thought if 14.04 is ready for you or not.

 

[Handruin]

As meany of you have most likely read Ubuntu 14.04 LTS has been released and is available for download. (most derivatives are also available as well).

I've been testing it (specifically GNOME Ubuntu 14.04) at work for deployment, and have come across a major snag in deploying in a corporate environment, especially ones that use Active Directory (AD).

Quick background/history. There are a number of ways to join a GNU/Linux desktop to an AD based domain, so that users in AD can log into the Linux box :
1. Use OpenLikewise services.
2. Use CentrifyDC services.
3. Use Winbind/Samba.

With either of the above methods, any user in AD can login locally onto the Linux box. (CentifyDC also brings in some GPO support as well).

The problem with 14.04LTS, is that OpenLikewise, nor CentrifyDC are available in the main repos (yet), so these company backed/supported solutions are not available, leaving only the samba/winbind method. Interesting to note: OpenLikewise is an opensource GPL product, so I wonder why OpenLikewise isn't available?...

While Winbind/Samba seems to work for external users connecting to shares on the Linux box, there doesn't appear to be accurate documentation on getting PAM configured correctly to allow both AD users and Linux local users to login, nor to allow GDM to validate AD user names correctly... (I've only managed to get PAM to either auth AD users OR linux local users, but not be able to do both at the same time). Also the PAM auto config files are missing for winbind/kerberos authentication as well, so PAM needs to be setup manually to use winbind or kerberos...

Otherwise there are a few other minor issues with 14.04 LTS as tested, but these only need a few workarounds/updates to scripts to get working... (note: the default smb.conf and krb5.conf need some work to specify the correct kerberos realm - no issue with you understand kerberos well, but expect to google for info if your kerberos knowledge is stale).

So for those that look after Ubuntu desktops at worked, hopefully this gives some thought if 14.04 is ready for you or not.

Thanks Chewy. I've been gravitating more towards Ubuntu Server 13.10 in the past few months for various deployments. I don't need a GUI for the deployments I'm managing so is it worth considering updating to 14.04? These components are database and web servers and soon to be a samba fileshare server. I was actually looking to integrate this fileshare samba server into our corp AD server so your information certainly makes that decision easier.

 

[timwhit]

I think it makes sense to update to 14.04, mainly because it will be supported much further into the future than 13.10.

 

[Chewy509]

so is it worth considering updating to 14.04? These components are database and web servers and soon to be a samba fileshare server. I was actually looking to integrate this fileshare samba server into our corp AD server so your information certainly makes that decision easier.

I haven't seen anything in 14.04 that is a must have upgrade over previous versions... If it was me, I would test it throughly in all required configurations, especially anything to do with samba and AD.

 

[Chewy509]

Arstechnica review of 14.04LTS: http://arstechnica.com/information-...14-04-review-missing-the-boat-on-big-changes/

Done mainly from a stand alone desktop perspective. It's not the review that interesting, but the comments... Some have noted issues with Samba (specifically libsmb-pass) being broken in some key areas... There also appears to be issues with some hardware (AMD/nVidia) as well... Also TRIM support is only enabled for Intel/Samsung SSDs by default as well...

 

[sedrosken]

I just got Xubuntu 14.04 and I am quite impressed with some of the changes. Gone is the hide-away dock, replaced with a much better "start menu." Though I will say that the repos don't seem to be fully populated yet. There's quite a fair bit of software that I could get on 13.10 but not 14.04.

 

[timwhit]

I attempted to upgrade one of my Xubuntu systems to 14.04 today. It didn't go very well at all. After the installation was complete the system would lock up after a minute or two on the desktop. I'm pretty sure it was because of a problem with the version of nouveau. I attempted to install the proprietary driver, but the system locked up during the installation (from tty1 no less). After restarting /var/lib/dpkg/status was corrupted and apt-get wouldn't run at all. I tried to manually modify the file, but that didn't get me anywhere.

Finally, I was able to backup everything in recovery mode and did a clean install of 14.04. The lockup problem persisted after the clean install. I finally got the proprietary Nvidia driver installed, but instead of the screen hard locking the screen would distort and then finally show me blurry inverted colors.

I gave up and reinstalled 13.10, which is working perfectly fine. Thanks to Ubuntu for wasting about 5 hours of my time.