Mofo Linux tears down virtual walls
Crossing Frontiers
Mofo Linux enables secure digital communications, even in places where it is politically or ideologically unwelcome.
Mofo Linux claims to help facilitate global freedom of information. It comes with the tools needed to work around politically motivated firewalls in countries such as China, Iran, Turkey, Thailand, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries with repressive regimes. The toolset includes various VPN flavors and other tools such as I2P, Cjdns, and Lantern along with Tor, Tor Browser, and Tor Messenger. The system also offers Arab and Chinese localization in addition to English.
Mofo Linux [1] was forked from Porteus, the portable distribution based on Slax and thus ultimately on Slackware, in 2011. Meanwhile, the system has matured to a fully fledged distribution and changed its underpinnings to Ubuntu 15.10. The live image with installer is available for downloading from SourceForge [2] and weighs in at about 1.6GB. You can burn the image onto an optical disk or transfer it to a USB stick using Universal Netboot Installer (Unetbootin) and the dd console tool. Alternatively, you can try it out in live mode with virtual machines like VirtualBox. The project took over the installer virtually unchanged from Ubuntu. It offers to set up Logical Volume Manager (LVM) as well as to encrypt the entire system or just the home directory.
Tor or I2P
Mofo Linux uses the well-known Unity 7 Desktop interface (Figure 1); however, there are some fairly obscure icons on the left side of the screen. This is where the project locates applications that serve the specific purpose of the distribution. At the top, below the mandatory search box, is the Tor Browser [3]. It directs outgoing requests by the browser across multiple servers of the Tor anonymization network to conceal the identity of the user.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 22.3 Now Available with New Tools
Linux Mint 22.3 has been released with a pair of new tools for system admins and some pretty cool new features.
-
New Linux Malware Targets Cloud-Based Linux Installations
VoidLink, a new Linux malware, should be of real concern because of its stealth and customization.
-
Say Goodbye to Middle-Mouse Paste
Both Gnome and Firefox have proposed getting rid of a long-time favorite Linux feature.
-
Manjaro 26.0 Primary Desktop Environments Default to Wayland
If you want to stick with X.Org, you'll be limited to the desktop environments you can choose.
-
Mozilla Plans to AI-ify Firefox
With a new CEO in control, Mozilla is doubling down on a strategy of trust, all the while leaning into AI.
-
Gnome Says No to AI-Generated Extensions
If you're a developer wanting to create a new Gnome extension, you'd best set aside that AI code generator, because the extension team will have none of that.
-
Parrot OS Switches to KDE Plasma Desktop
Yet another distro is making the move to the KDE Plasma desktop.
-
TUXEDO Announces Gemini 17
TUXEDO Computers has released the fourth generation of its Gemini laptop with plenty of updates.
-
Two New Distros Adopt Enlightenment
MX Moksha and AV Linux 25 join ranks with Bodhi Linux and embrace the Enlightenment desktop.
-
Solus Linux 4.8 Removes Python 2
Solus Linux 4.8 has been released with the latest Linux kernel, updated desktops, and a key removal.

