UnlockMe App for Linux Lite

[ralphy]

Hi everyone,


I'd like to share a collection of scripts I've put together to extend Lite's goodness; UnlockMe@github.


Brave souls willing to take it for a spin in Linux Lite are welcome to provide feedback, request 3rd party application additions to the Application Software section, add your own fixes or code improvements, etc.


UnlockMe app functionality will be certainly familiar to Linux Lite users.


What's included:


- An array of tweaks to further improve your system or simply provide an easy UI to tune core system settings and additional cleanup options.





- Additional checks are in place to prevent installation/uninstallation failures while other Package Managers are executing tasks in your system.
  UnlockMe won't blindly kill a Package Manager process; it will ask the user for confirmation instead. That includes terminal processes (such as apt-get update or apt-get upgrade).





- Applications are removed from the system leaving as little leftovers behind as possible.
  3rd party PPAs are removed during uninstallation
  3rd party repos and keys  are removed during uninstallation
  Desktop shortcuts for All Users are removed when uninstalling applications whenever possible. (with plans to also remove Plank launchers on removal)
  In the case of Web browsers, cache is also cleaned out during uninstall.
- Customization - options to download and install themes, icon themes and cursors themes.





- Options to remove browser's profile
- Overall code optimizations for faster executions - The Application Software section can read and display the list of installed and available applications at least twice as fast as Lite Software and it won't tax your system's resources as much as the list grows larger.





... and much more!


You can install or update UnlockMe, simply by running the following command from Terminal (all in one line):

Code:

cd /tmp && wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ralphys/unlockme/master/install.sh && chmod +x install.sh && ./install.sh

To uninstall UnlockMe, from Terminal:

Code:

/usr/share/unlockme/tools/uninstall.sh

Find it at github: https://github.com/ralphys/unlockme


Your feedback is appreciated 


Cheers!

[Artim]

I have been testing this for weeks, and in just the last couple of days even more super-cool stuff has been added and improved.  It's like a neatly organized, all-in-one tool box.  I'm honored that [member=6629]ralphy[/member] has actually added some of the apps I requested, fixed a little YAD bug I discovered (in a matter of hours!), and made a few other little changes I suggested.  It's so cool to have input on what is sure to become a standard treasure chest of awesomeness for Ubuntu-based distros.

[Oobuntus]

[member=6629]ralphy[/member] Kudos for UnlockMe. It's an impressive toolbox.

Regarding the Blacklist Generator:
As I understand it, the benefit of the dnsmasq.d blacklist method over the hosts file method of blocking is that it allows for a shorter and theoretically more effective block list to be used.

However, the performance improvement of a UnlockMe blacklist with 68000+ lines over my rather large hosts file with 30000+ lines may not be a positive one.

Most likely, you could count on one hand the number of folks like myself who have large hosts files. Certainly, that's not many who may suffer parsing 98000, often redundant, lines of site blockage after using the Blacklist Generator.

Perhaps your blockhosts script could easily be made to query the user's hosts file, and if it exceeds a reasonable size, then
1. offer to defer to the user's hosts file and exit, or
2. advise the user that he should restore to a generic hosts file after he has utilized your feature-rich utility.

[ralphy]

[member=6811]Oobuntus[/member] interesting recommendation. Indeed! I was in fact working directly on a hosts file substitution with this based on the fact that TLDs do matter for dnsmasq (DNS) - while the hosts file doesn't care for TLDs at all - and I never thought even once about implementing additional checks for cases as the one you have just described. Kudos to you!

But yeah, to also address part of your initial comment... the difference between the hosts file approach and dnsmasq is that we are dealing with TLDs in dnsmasq, which is more effective for blocking in my opinion. For example, you could tell the hosts file to block domain.tld and it will not care about any other subdomain - *.domain.tld would still be accessible... while with dnsmasq blocking domain.tld effectively blocks all *.domain.tld  subdomains.

Also, just so you know, I was trying to "hit two birds in one shot" with the Blacklist Generator... The generated list can be used on security appliances such as pfsense; which offers dnsmasq and unbound DNS Server services. Blacklist Generator can actually generate lists for either service for later use on pfsense appliances - unbound list cleanup needs more work but I'll get to that at some point, besides I'm getting off-topic there.

Back to your suggestion... perhaps hint users with hosts files with more than 100 lines? Would that be a reasonable threshold? That's assuming users blocking via hosts file blacklists will easily exceed the 100 lines threshold.

 

[ralphy]

[member=6925]RandomBoy[/member] you deserve much more credit than that

You actually spotted bugs and reported them (which is the only way they got addressed in the first place) - but to hit a bug you have to actually test it and then test it some more. You also made eye opening recommendations in more than one occasion. The yad bug, the waterfox uninstall issue, the do not kill update manager issue, the kernel dialog issue... should I continue?

Thank you so much for all the feedback you provided and for having taken the time to test and report your findings. You rock!

[bitsnpcs]

Will this or any of its code be replacing Lite Software or parts of it and which versions of Linux Lite ?

[kabonkel]

Thanks Ralphy, works fine. Thanks.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn WAS-LX1A met Tapatalk

[ralphy]

Will this or any of its code be replacing Lite Software or parts of it and which versions of Linux Lite ?

This is not a Lite Software replacement. Linux Lite offers a set of commonly used apps for its users in Lite Software. UnlockMe app simply adds some of those that didn't make it to Lite's list.

[ralphy]

Thanks Ralphy, works fine. Thanks.

You're welcome!

[Oobuntus]

[member=6629]ralphy[/member] Regarding the Blacklist Generator, Thank you for elaborating. One learns a little more every day.

I agree that 100 lines would be a reasonable threshold. Now I ruminate on how I ought respond to the 'hint' when it came.

For a very long time I have used the hblock script by Hector Fernandez, https://github.com/zant95/hBlock/blob/master/hblock, to periodically update my 'enhanced' hosts file. Would you mind offering a critique of this script?