Despite boycott threats: Spain buys Israeli tech
The Spanish government authorizes the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems with an initial funding of 350 million euros.
Recent developments show the Spanish government backing away from its previous statements and authorizing the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems.
The procurement involves tactical radio communication systems (SCRT), with initial funding of 350 million euros ($393 million) allocated in the 2025 defense budget. The comprehensive deal includes subsequent phases and additional acquisitions totaling 768 million euros ($862 million).
Despite boycott threats: Spain buys Israeli tech
The Spanish government authorizes the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems with an initial funding of 350 million euros.
Recent developments show the Spanish government backing away from its previous statements and authorizing the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems.
The procurement involves tactical radio communication systems (SCRT), with initial funding of 350 million euros ($393 million) allocated in the 2025 defense budget. The comprehensive deal includes subsequent phases and additional acquisitions totaling 768 million euros ($862 million).
Despite boycott threats: Spain buys Israeli tech
The Spanish government authorizes the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems with an initial funding of 350 million euros.
Recent developments show the Spanish government backing away from its previous statements and authorizing the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems.
The procurement involves tactical radio communication systems (SCRT), with initial funding of 350 million euros ($393 million) allocated in the 2025 defense budget. The comprehensive deal includes subsequent phases and additional acquisitions totaling 768 million euros ($862 million).
Egypt confirms acquisition of Chinese HQ-9B long-range air defence system
Egypt has officially confirmed its deployment of the Chinese HQ-9B long-range air defence system, a move that marks a notable enhancement of its military capabilities and reflects a growing partnership with Beijing. This confirmation came from retired Major General Samir Farag, a former high-ranking official in the Egyptian Armed Forces, during an interview on Sada El-Balad TV.
Farag revealed that Egypt’s arsenal includes various modern defence systems, with the HQ-9B—a system comparable to Russia’s S-400—being a key component. This disclosure, reported by Israeli media outlet nziv, reveals Egypt’s strategic shift toward diversifying its arms suppliers and strengthening its air defence network. The HQ-9B’s advanced capabilities, including its ability to engage a wide array of aerial threats, position Egypt to better address regional security challenges while navigating complex geopolitical dynamics.
The HQ-9B, developed by China’s Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, is a long-range surface-to-air missile system designed to counter fighter jets, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles. With an operational range of up to 200 kilometres and an altitude ceiling of 27 kilometres, it offers robust protection against modern threats. The system’s radar, believed to be a variant of the HT-233 model, employs active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology, enabling it to detect low-observable targets like stealth aircraft at extended ranges. This radar also allows the HQ-9B to track multiple threats simultaneously, enhancing its effectiveness in high-intensity scenarios. Each launcher can carry up to eight missiles, double the capacity of earlier versions, and its command-and-control architecture supports integration with other air defence assets, creating a layered defence network.
Egypt confirms acquisition of Chinese HQ-9B long-range air defence system
Egypt has officially confirmed its deployment of the Chinese HQ-9B long-range air defence system, a move that marks a notable enhancement of its military capabilities and reflects a growing partner…Darek Liam (Military Africa)
Any ideas for transporting variables in chroot bash script?
Hello, iam in the making of artix install script. I start with setting variables in dialog like bootloader="refind" and etc. but when i do artix-chroot into chroot.sh script variables are gone.
right now i have something like this:
cp ${pwd}execution/chroot.sh /mnt/mnt &&
USER="$USER" USER_PASSWORD1="$USER_PASSWORD1" USER_PASSWORD2="$USER_PASSWORD2"\
ROOT_PASSWORD1="$ROOT_PASSWORD1" ROOT_PASSWORD2="$ROOT_PASSWORD2"\
BOOTLOADER="$BOOTLOADER" SUPERUSER="$SUPERUSER" HOSTNAME="$HOSTNAME"\
LOCALE="$LOCALE" ENCRYPTION="$ENCRYPTION" ROOT="$ROOT" ESP="$ESP"\
KERNEL="$KERNEL" UCODE="$UCODE"
artix-chroot /mnt bash -c '/mnt/chroot.sh && execute_root' But it does not really work, tried also some things like:
# create array of variables to pass to part 2
var_export=($formfactor $threadsminusone $gpu $boot $disk0 $username $userpassword $timezone $swap $intel_vaapi_driver $res_x $res_y_half)
# initiate part 2
mount --bind /root/artix-install-script /mnt/mnt
artix-chroot /mnt /mnt/chrootInstall.sh "${var_export[@]}"and then in chroot.sh
# Importing Variables
args=("$@")
formfactor=${args[0]}
threadsminusone=${args[1]}
gpu=${args[2]}
boot=${args[3]}
disk=${args[4]}
username=${args[5]}
userpassword=${args[6]}
timezone=${args[7]}
swap=${args[8]}
intel_vaapi_driver=${args[9]}
res_x=${args[10]}
res_y_half=${args[11]}still not they best way, kinda messy and buggy.
THANKS FOR HELP!
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Pack it into a json or CSV oneline string and shove it in a CLI password manager you can access in a scriptable way from both users. (I use the linux tool, 'pass' for this).
Alternatively, save it to a dropfile that only both users can access.
Careful there. You are only a half dozen abstraction layers away from reinventing NixOS.
As for your question, the best way is to put it in a file that is then read by the chroot script and delete later.
mktemp) and bind-mount that file somewhere into the chroot directory, so you can source it from within that environment.That way the critical information, like the passwords, at least only gets to live in volatile memory and won't stick around on the host system after the reboot. That limits the exposure somewhat.
Careful there. You are only a half dozen abstraction layers away from reinventing NixOS.
Introducing Operese(demo)
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Jon Stewart Tears Apart Dems’ ‘Idiotic’ Project 2029 Plan
Jon Stewart Tears Apart Dems’ ‘Idiotic’ Project 2029 Plan
Stewart predicted the plan will likely be “a rehash” of “careful nonsense.”Eboni Boykin-Patterson (The Daily Beast)
Blender 4.5 RC1 Released With Much Better Vulkan Support
Blender 4.5 RC1 Released With Much Better Vulkan Support
The release candidate of the Blender 4.5 3D modeling software is now available for testingwww.phoronix.com
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If only Cycles would ever work on AMD Polaris…
Though honestly, I’ll probably get around to a GPU upgrade eventually.
Rocm packaging looks to be pretty much done on Debian, although they still seem to need time on the problem of keeping it reasonably up to date in Testing and Sid - momentum will probably pick up after Trixie leaves hard freeze and goes stable.
Honestly, it’d be kind of nice to have a project with a repo that does nothing most of the time except during the Testing freeze, in which it would deliver package updates and keep Testing as a rolling release during that time.
I get why Debian doesn’t do this themselves - they tried and found it hell to both prepare a stable release and package new versions.
Call for Support: Bottles Team Needs Funding to Sustain Development
Call for Support: Bottles Team Needs Funding to Sustain Development
Despite massive adoption, Bottles faces funding shortages. The team shares its reality and asks users to help shape the project’s future.Bobby Borisov (Linuxiac)
I see the advantages that.
- Libadwaita Themed (good for Gnome bad for other Desktops)
- Sandboxed (Only flatpak)
Lutris is for managing games, and can use multiple different engines. Proton is one, but also Linux native games, dos, ScummVM, etc. Lutris also interfaces with popular stores like Steam, Epic, GOG etc. It's a game and gaming library tool.
Bottles is a general purpose wrapper for Wine. You can run games but also any wine software. It's a general purpose wine tool.
Lutris makes running games in proton easy. Bottles makes running apps in wine easy.
You can do lots of things with both, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should.
People have used Lutris for other apps because it was a more convenient wrapper for Wine than the defaults offered but it's not primarily designed for it and support will be limited. Lutris is designed to be a games library and that's it's focus.
I personally wouldn't recommend wine newbies to be using Lutris to run everything because if nothing else it would be annoying for the Lutris dev team to be dealing with "I can't get Microsoft Word working".
I also personally wouldn't recommend Bottles for games because of all the other features Lutris offers. I have a huge library of games and I wouldn't want to manage that in the Bottles interface. But I'm aware people use it for that and Lutris is one of its supported runners.
Bottles and Lutris complement each other and work together well. But lutris is designed to be a games libaray while Bottles is designed to be for everything.
I personally use Lutris for games (most of my wine use) and Bottles for a few other windows apps.
But the real star of the show is under the hood - it's wine and Proton doing the heavy lifting. Lutris and Bottles are tools to get the most out of them and it's choice which you use and how.
It's not a catch-all game launcher.
It's a wine environment manager. And it is becoming increasingly good at simplying the complexity of setting up wine bottles for different things.
It's basically winetricks on steroids, with a really nice GUI to boot.
Running windows games is just one use-case.
Obviously. It too does wine environment management. But it's meant for games, and for wine specifically, Bottles is just nicer.
Lutris is massive overkill if you just want run the windows version of python in order to compile python code to windows binaries. Not to mention it just isn't as slick in terms of UX as a wine manager.
WINEPREFIX environment variable?
Calibre 8.6 released
New features
- Content server: Add a checkbox in content server user preferences to prevent a user account from changing its own password via the web interface
- Restoring database: Improve performance by an order of magnitude
- Add a tweak to Preferences->Tweaks to permit displaying the sort value for series in the Tag browser
- Welcome wizard: Change default output format to AZW3 for Kindle as MOBI is obsolete and all Kindles released within the last decade plus support AZW3
- Add 'Search "not in"' and 'Filter "not in'" buttons to Manage authors and Manage Items
Bug fixes
- Windows: Fix a regression in the previous release that caused terminal windows to popup momentarily when adding PDF files or converting them
Closes tickets: 2115246- E-book viewer: Fix a regression in 8.4 that broke fading of the background image
Closes tickets: 2115057 - Tag browser: Fix clicking on categories to search for books by first letter of series not working correctly for non-English language books
Closes tickets: 2116006 - Edit metadata individually: Ensure Next/Previous buttons work even if something re-orders the books in the book list. They will now iterate over the books as they were at the time the dialog is created
Closes tickets: 2115111 - Windows: Generate catalog: Workaround for systems where a broken antivirus or similar holds open files in the catalog library causing a permission denied error
Closes tickets: 2115084
- E-book viewer: Fix a regression in 8.4 that broke fading of the background image
New news sources
- La Presse by quatorze
Improved news sources
- Economist
- 1843
- Financial Times
- PC World
- Muy Interesante Mexico
- Hindu Business Line
- Business Standard
- Hindustan Times
- The Week
- Times of India
- Hindustan
- Financial Times
- Reason
calibre - What's new
calibre: The one stop solution for all your e-book needs. Comprehensive e-book software.calibre-ebook.com
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Calibre is one of the great pieces of FOSS software, and demonstrates everything good about FOSS: it has regular updates; it's been around for simply ages; it works really, really well; it gets updates and new features and yet has never in my memory had a breaking, non-backwards-compatible release... it's stable; and it resists - in its way - the attempt by publishers to steal our rights and ownerships of our media.
I ~~contribute~~ donate to Calibre. I hope that Goyal has a successor lined up to take the helm who can continue such an outstanding contribution when he finally retires from the project.
Edit: clarification
Canvas 2025 in 24 hours!!
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Canvas is a collaborative pixel canvas that includes everyone apart of the Fediverse! Any fediverse platform that supports direct messages is able to login and participate for this 48 hour live event
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[2025] Canvas Support
having issues or don't know where to post a short question? you've found the post for that!post your questions below or in our Matrix or our Discord
Matrix - Decentralised and secure communication
You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversationmatrix.to
Bash v5.3 Released! New features and syntax in the latest version of the Bash Shell. by You Suck at Programming on YouTube [17:10min]
Watch on SkipVid platform, alternative to YouTube client watching YouTube videos indirectly, but without ads: skipvids.com/?v=-cTsFt-j7rk
I just found this creator who is super excited about the new Bash version. He goes through some aspects of the new changes and features. There is something funny about a guy getting so excited about a new Bash version, that I wanted to share it because of that. 😁
Also its nice to see the changes in action and have an explanation from someone who (seemingly) knows what he is doing.
Video (partial) description:
Source Code: github.com/bahamas10/bash-changes
$ whoami
Yo what's up everyone my name's dave and you suck at programming! Connect with me on my socials below and if you're reading this you're legally required to subscribe to my channel.
$ cat source-code
The source code for my YSAP series (or related videos) is available for free under the MIT License on GitHub:
Source Code → github.com/bahamas10/ysap
Bash v5.3 Released! New features and syntax in the latest version of the Bash Shell. - SkipVids
You Suck at Programming: Bash v5.3 Released! New features and syntax in the latest version of the Bash Shell. - https://SkipVids.comSkipVids
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Honestly this made me really sad that we're stuck with this archaic, awful language as a primary way of programmatically interacting with our computers. And I don't mean to say anybody has done anything wrong here - sh and bash were revolutionary and amazing for their respective times, and maintainers who are keeping bash alive now are heroes who deserve praise. However, many decisions made when sh was originally developed turned out to be footguns, still creating bugs today (despite shellcheck et al).
nushell is somewhat promising but flawed (because it has to be built on the same system interfaces as sh, after all). The most annoying is that there's no facilities for setting any metadata on data streams (in particular there's no way to set the format of the data) so everything has to be marshalled manually, which would be OK for a proper programming language but really annoying for a shell. At least it fixes most of the quoting, escaping, interpolation, substition etc awfulness, and allows for manipulating data in a more structured way.
I really don't know if it's even possible to make a language that would be a good convenient shell and at the same time not prone to bugs which are easily noticeable in other languages. I hope that something like this becomes a reality at some point.
If you want to do a Bash like management and programming, that is not dramatically different but fixes some irritations, then Fish is an alternative. Obviously it will not fix all issues, but there is no paradigm shift in handling streams. nushell is dramatically different and at that point, I would rather use a programming language to do the stuff. Speaking of programming language, there is also Xonsh (basically Python+Bash like combination as a system shell).
All these alternatives have a singular big flaw to me: they are not the standard tools on the system, which defeats the purpose of a system shell to me. In the end, without changing the core system that these shells are built on, I don't think its possible to make a really well made language that interoperates on system level like a shell does at the moment.
That's the reason why I got a bit more into Bash to understand some flaws, to understand how to use regexes inside Bash and variable substitutions and a few other concepts that are very useful to know. But man... there are so many traps... like looping over a wildcard for files (such as for file in *.txt) and if the wildcard does not match, then the loop consists of the wildcard as a literal word as if "*.txt" was a filename. What a stupid idea. There is an option to change that, but that's the issue. The language is filled with traps and optional options and you have to know all of them.
Edit: Added example code why default behavior sucks:
$ for file in *.ABCD; do echo "${file}"; done
*.ABCD
shopt -s nullglob
$ for file in *.ABCD; do echo "${file}"; done
shellcheck is pretty cool. I have written my fair share of bash and yet still get caught off-guard by its warnings - and it's right most of the time!
Yes, I use shellcheck in the editor. Its pretty useful. But running (a little bit more complex commands) in the terminal directly won't help with shellcheck. That's why I also have a functionality to directly load and edit the current command in the terminal in (Neo)vim and edit and when closing Vim the command gets executed. The benefit doing this is getting checked by shellcheck in the editor and also it makes it easier to one-off complex commands.
Thanks to shellcheck I got in the habbit to always enclose variables in ${var}. And recently learned from a community member that using [[ expr ]] style has basically no downsides against using [ expr ] directly.
[SOLVED] How come I've got my NVIDIA GPU to work for every game except Hogwarts Legacy? (More details in post body)
cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/41923801
So, I have this new laptop I got which has an NVIDIA RTX 4090M GPU, and also an integrated Intel GPU. Obviously, I only want to use the Intel GPU for less intensive apps, and to use the NVIDIA GPU for games or other intensive applications, such as AI.Through trial, error, and lucky searches on the internet, I figured out some things that do and don't work.
- Plugging in the laptop makes the NVIDIA GPU run much faster
- The default Fedora NVIDIA drivers work fine, I don't need to install any alternatives
- To make a normal app use the GPU, all I have to do is right click the icon and click 'Launch with discrete GPU' (on GNOME), or to make it open with discrete GPU by default (and launching with the integrated GPU would be an option in the context menu), I have to copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications, and edit the .desktop file so it contains the line PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true
- For Steam apps, the previous method doesn't work (for some reason - maybe it uses a custom launch process?), but after trying many different ways, I was able to get most Steam apps to use the correct GPU (GPU 0) by adding the custom launch option PROTON_USE_WINED3D=0 %command%
- For some reason, this doesn't work for Hogwarts Legacy. It, of all games, really wants to use the Intel graphics - even with the custom launch command, PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true, and in game setting the preferred GPU to my NVIDIA one - yes, it is listed and recognised in game - I can tell both from the Resources app and the abysmal performance that my NVIDIA GPU is not being used and my Intel GPU is
- Other apps like Portal RTX, The Witcher 3, ComfyUI (running through Krita AI Diffusion), Blender, and Civilisation 6 are running great with the NVIDIA GPU
- I do not have prime-run installed and do not need it
My laptop model is MEDION Beast X40.
I'm honestly at my wits end.
Any suggestions?
VPNs for UK users?
So the UK is going to start requiring IDs to view adult content. I'm in the US, but I've got a friend in the UK who obviously doesn't want to deal with this.
I suggested he use a VPN, but he's apparently heard they sell your personal data. Can anyone recommend a reliable VPN that collects as little data as possible?
ETA: thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I'm gonna research em and pass the info along. 😀
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PIA is run by a sketchy company with ties to zionists. Please do not support them.
If you need a cheap VPN go with AirVPN or even Nord over PIA.
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Mullvad VPN if you're prepared to pay; ProtonVPN or Windscribe if you aren't.
None of the services keep logs or require any personal info.
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Pricing
Free the internet from mass surveillance and censorship. Fight for privacy with Mullvad VPN and Mullvad Browser.Mullvad VPN
It's not just UK, but Europe-wide soon. I imagine that the various (other) -eyes countries will be joining with similar legislation.
And then The law of unintended consequences will strike.
Mullvad and Proton!
But not these:
‘Cause these VPNs may have ties to…
These free VPNs may have ties to China’s military – and they are still hidden in Apple and Google app stores
New research reveals 17 VPN apps with undisclosed Chinese ownership, and big tech may be making a profitChiara Castro (TechRadar)
Okay... And what's China going to do with your encrypted data running through their VPN servers?
Maybe that's all the more incentive to use them, since they deffo won't tattle on you to the UK or Canadian govt.
That being said, they did just send an unrequested marketing notification to my phone out of the blue... So might have to look elsewhere tbh 🤷♂️
Laggy performance on fedora linux
Hello all. I've recently installed Fedora 42 on my laptop, it's a microsoft surface laptop studio so it's running with the custom surface kernel. The feature matrix on their github page says that everything should be supported for my laptop and that's pretty much been my experience so far but I've been having issues when testing out games.
The laptop has a 3050TI and is more than capable of running most of the games that I usually play on windows, and I've almost gotten it working on Fedora. They'll launch and run just fine, everything even looks pretty decent graphically, but it just has really bad stuttery input lag, even in more lightweight games that I've tested such as balatro and stardew valley.
I'm not sure what would be causing this, as far as I'm aware I'm running the right gpu driver, I've double checked that they're using the dedicated gpu rather than the integrated one with nvidia-smi, but honestly that's about the extent of my knowledge. Does anyone have any thoughts / suggestions? It would be much appreciated.
GitHub - linux-surface/linux-surface: Linux Kernel for Surface Devices
Linux Kernel for Surface Devices. Contribute to linux-surface/linux-surface development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
Get resource usage under utilization and nvidia-smi output and post here.
Also, are you sure it's input lag, or is the entire machine pausing and hiccuping?
This kind of problem is going to require some deep debugging of the surface kernel drivers. This isn't going to be a simple or quick fix. Somebody is going to need to do some extensive debugging and analysis to chase down an issue like this. A solution to this problem could take a few hours, or it could take a few months of meticulous trial and error to narrow down the problem space and gather enough data to enable somebody to zero in on the problem.
If you want to dive into tracking down the problem yourself, I suggest starting with the kernel's own docs on the driver architecture and debugging tools, etc.
Two things:
- What input device(s) are you using? Are you using the built-in laptop keyboard, or a gamepad of sorts. (By Balatro, I'd assume it might even be happening with mouse.)
- Are you running these games on a platform like Steam, or are you running another way? (I'm assuming the answer is yes to Steam, by Balatro and Stardew.)
For Steam, try messing around with Steam input settings and see what happens.
I realized something was "off" when I found out that they counted my donations and sent me a letter saying that I was behind.
K through 8th grade and then I dipped.
Laika at 60: What happens to all the dogs, monkeys and mice sent into space? | The Independent
Stray dog sent into space in 1957 was first living creature to orbit EarthTom Batchelor (The Independent)
ICBMs are spaceflight rockets, imo it's best to count them. The US hasn't had such large accidents with ICBMs, mostly minor ones.
Even if we exclude those it's not true. The US has sent significantly more people into space than the Soviets did, so NASAs accident rate was lower (hence safer), even if the absolute number of deaths was higher.
Spaceflight rockets are ICBMs, if we are being pedantic. The space program was the civilian-facing part of the broader rocketry programs.
Either way, if we exclude them, it is still true, but you can also measure by ratio. It just goes to show that you can manipulate real data to be presented in any way you want, and add or subtract context as needed for your angle.
Laika at 60: What happens to all the dogs, monkeys and mice sent into space? | The Independent
Stray dog sent into space in 1957 was first living creature to orbit EarthTom Batchelor (The Independent)
I know this. NASA’s animal fatalities were fewer and less often.
Sources:
* en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet…
* smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian…
* nasa.gov/history/a-brief-histo…
* mygreenworld.org/blog/animals-…
* rbth.com/science_and_tech/2014…
* explore.britannica.com/explore…
* sciencenews.org/blog/wild-thin…
Laika and Her "Children"---Animals in the Space Race | Saving Earth | Encyclopedia Britannica
Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007, marked the 50th anniversary of the flight of the first animal to be sent into Earth orbit.LMurray (Saving Earth | Encyclopedia Britannica)
That what? That the US sent animals into space?
American and Russian scientists utilized animals—mainly monkeys, chimps and dogs—in order to test each country’s ability to launch a living organism into space and bring it back alive and unharmed.
Per NASA.
A Brief History of Animals in Space - NASA
Before humans actually went into space, one of the prevailing theories of the perils of space flight was that humans might not be able to survive long periodsMichele Ostovar (NASA)
I'm a Marxist, sure, very openly so. I don't really think anyone cares about who you've sniffed out to be a commie or not, especially considering I have it plastered all over my profile and frequently outright state it. I wouldn't say "pro-Russian," either, the Russian Federation is deeply flawed and has tragically fallen from their far more progressive Soviet heritage.
I'm very anti-NATO, like the vast majority of Marxists, and I don't fall for the hysteria around the Russian Federation as some ultimate evil, though, so if that's all it takes to be "pro-Russian" for you then that's funny.
Maybe it's because it's because I just finished reading this section in Range, but I think it's more than the engineers knew.
When sociologist Diane Vaughan interviewed NASA and Thiokol engineers who had worked on the rocket boosters, she found that NASA’s own famous can-do culture manifested as a belief that everything would be fine because “we followed every procedure”; because “the [flight readiness review] process is aggressive and adversarial”; because “we went by the book.” NASA’s tools were its familiar procedures. The rules had always worked before. But with Challenger they were outside their usual bounds, where “can do” should have been swapped for what Weick calls a “make do” culture. They needed to improvise rather than throw out information that did not fit the established rubric.Roger Boisjoly’s unquantifiable argument that the cold weather was “away from goodness” was considered an emotional argument in NASA culture. It was based on interpretation of a photograph. It did not conform to the usual quantitative standards, so it was deemed inadmissible evidence and disregarded. The can-do attitude among the rocket-booster group, Vaughan observed, “was grounded in conformity.” After the tragedy, it emerged that other engineers on the teleconference agreed with Boisjoly, but knew they could not muster quantitative arguments, so they remained silent. Their silence was taken as consent. As one engineer who was on the Challenger conference call later said, “If I feel like I don’t have data to back me up, the boss’s opinion is better than mine.”
I think most of us believe decisions should be data driven, but in some edge cases gut instinct is valuable.
It is easy to say in retrospect. A group of managers accustomed to dispositive technical information did not have any; engineers felt like they should not speak up without it. Decades later, an astronaut who flew on the space shuttle, both before and after Challenger, and then became NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance, recounted what the “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data” plaque had meant to him: “Between the lines it suggested that, ‘We’re not interested in your opinion on things. If you have data, we’ll listen, but your opinion is not requested here.’”
I think most of us believe decisions should be data driven, but in some edge cases gut instinct is valuable.
What you call gut instinct, I call the output of an immensely complex yet efficient organic neural network that has been trained on years to decades of relevant experience.
If business leaders think AI is so great, they need to get in on this shit while they can still afford it!
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
no one makes the wheels not capitalism stop rolling! ~~profit~~ progress at all costs!
I am honestly not sure what you're trying to say here but I'm curious what NASA is selling that you threw capitalism in there.
The crew didn't blow up(src).
The flight, and the astronauts’ lives, did not end at that point, 73 seconds after launch. After Challenger was torn apart, the pieces continued upward from their own momentum, reaching a peak altitude of 65,000 feet before arching back down into the water. The cabin hit the surface 2 minutes and 45 seconds after breakup, and all investigations indicate the crew was still alive until then.
We were led out of our classrooms to watch it since we lived in FL. When the launch went pear-shaped, nobody really understood what had happened, we just thought it was part of the fuel tanks dropping away. We went back in, sat down and continued our day. I don't think the teachers ever told us something went wrong and I found out about it that night at home.
7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster
A quarter-century after the Challenger shuttle tragedy, the disaster is often remembered in ways that owe more to myth and misconception than to the truth.James Oberg (NBC News)
Um, actually!
The crew didn't blow up instantly at all, at that exact moment! They spent another three minutes falling back to Earth, where they blew up instantly upon hitting the surface!
I mean, it would be pretty undeniable. When Henson died, he died in a hospital room, not while performing Kermit or Rowlf or any of his beloved characters.
If Caroll Spinney had been on Challenger, in character as Big Bird, on live TV, in front of a nation of schoolchildren, it would be crass to pretend it had never happened.
I watched it in person, sort of.
I was living on the Florida Gulf Coast at the time. From the Gulf Coast, a shuttle launch was just a bright bead drawing a thin line up from the horizon, so it wasn't any sort of spectacle, but it was something interesting to watch if you happened to be outside, which I was.
And it was obvious even from there what had likely happened, since the bright bead suddenly flashed, then went out, and the line went off sideways.
Could have been worse. They wanted to send Big Bird.
Also, I wasn’t in kindergarten yet or I’d have seen it. I think this is a core Gen X memory that Millennials don’t have.
There's speculation that Reagan was the impetus behind the "go fever" that caused the Challenger disaster. The idea is that he wanted to have a live uplink to Challenger during his State of the Union, and that his desire to use them as props was why NASA was in such an all-fired hurry to launch no matter the consequences.
No idea how grounded in reality the speculation is, but it tracks for Reagan.
I was only 4 years and 4 months old, I can barely remember anything of that time.
But when Columbia was en route to enter the atmosphere, I was outside on the front lawn watching, since it was re-entering over my area of Texas at a pretty favorable viewing angle.
I was so fucking happy to see such a momentous occasion...until it started breaking up. I knew something was wrong, but my brain couldn't piece it together, until the ship started breaking apart into visibly distinct fireballs. It passed over the horizon, and I was stunned. I ran back into my friend's living room, and continued watching the coverage, now very sombre.
It was 17 years and 4 days after Challenger. I was 21. That shit is burned into my memory. Especially since 9/11 was less than 18 months prior, which I also watched live.
always.
I mean… not really.
🛰️ Space Race Fatalities Comparison: Soviet Union vs United States
| Aspect | 🇺🇸 United States | 🇷🇺 Soviet Union |
|---|---|---|
| Total astronaut/cosmonaut deaths | 9–10 (incl. test/training accidents) | 8 (official) |
| On-mission fatalities | 3 (Apollo 1, ground test) | 4 (Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11) |
| Training/test deaths (astronauts) | 6+ (e.g. Theodore Freeman, C.C. Williams) | 4+ (e.g. Valentin Bondarenko, others possibly unacknowledged) |
| Deaths among ground personnel | <10 | 100+ (notably the Nedelin disaster) |
| Transparency | High (accidents publicized and investigated) | Low (many incidents hidden until after 1989) |
| Major catalyst event | Apollo 1 fire | Soyuz 1, Nedelin disaster |
Key Takeaways
- 🇺🇸 U.S. suffered more astronaut fatalities, including test pilots and training accidents.
- 🇷🇺 Soviets had higher total human losses, especially among engineers and soldiers during explosive launch and fuel testing incidents.
- 🔥 The Apollo 1 fire led to sweeping design and safety reforms in NASA.
- 🚨 The Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 tragedies were fatal in-flight accidents; Soyuz 11 remains the only in-space human fatality.
- 🕵️ The Nedelin disaster, one of the worst rocket catastrophes in history, killed over 100 but was kept secret for decades.
- 🧾 Transparency and institutional accountability were key differences: NASA publicly investigated accidents; the USSR often concealed failures.
It's true that all deaths on both sides were caused by people with JEWISH names. Coincidence? Not likley. Hitler killed less people. Elon is god. Sieg. Sieg!1!!!1
Grok, probably
I'm very anti-NATO, like the vast majority of Marxists, and I don't fall for the hysteria around the Russian Federation as some ultimate evil, though,
You in another comment. The Russian federation is currently occupying multiple neighbouring countries, bombing civilians, and generally having a war crime of a time. And you're saying they're not evil?
You're off the deep end, my friend.
Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region, is very pro-Russia and very anti-Ukraine. Western Ukraine was shelling them for a decade, post-2014 coup, due to the hard shift from being aligned with Russia to being aligned with NATO. For these citizens, Russian presence is a good thing. Western Ukraine certainly hates that Russia has invaded, but the "hysteria" I am referring to is the kind that thinks even Eastern Ukraine opposes the Russian Federation.
So no, this isn't a "pro-Russian" stance, in my opinion. Recognizing western-Ukraine's shelling of civilians in eastern-ukraine for a decade, and the overwhelming support for Russian annexation of the Donbass region among Donbass residents in Donetsk and Luhansk, is something that even pro-NATO people need to recognize in order to figure out how to best deal with that underlying fact.
I can't believe you've fallen for the "dey dombed bombas" story, you really are that brainwashed. All of Ukraine voted to leave Russia, most of it quite overwhelmingly.
And there was no coup, that was entirely orchestrated by Russia.
You really need to read some media from outside your bubble.
New York Times, reporting on Kiev using cluster bombs in the Donbass region in 2014
According to wikipedia, the vast majority of the donbass region voted for independence from Ukraine.
Wikipedia article, going over the Euromaidan coup from a pro-western perspective
Vice news, 9 years ago,
All of these are pro-Western sources that do a better job of acknowledging the reality of the situation better than you do. You seem to not only only accept pro-western news, but exclusively pro-western news that goes against the western consensus on the Donbass Region.
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Pro-Russia separatists in Donetsk were found with 100,000 pre-marked ‘Yes’ ballots the day before the vote.[35][36][37]
From the Wikipedia article you clearly didn't read.
I'm embarrassed for you.
Oh don't worry, I read it. Pro-western outlets like Kyiv Post reported that story, while at the same time failing to produce evidence that the referendums were unpopular after all.
- The Donbass region is largely pro-Russian, and is ethnically Russian.
- The Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics have been fighting Kyiv for a decade
- Kyiv has been shelling Donetsk and Luhansk for a decade.
All of these are not only widely reported in non-western media, but also acknowledged by western media as well. It's something the west and non-west can agree on, which means you rejecting it is akin to conspiracy theory.
My entire school was gathered in the cafeteria for the event, televised live.
We were all sent home for the day (some took the week) in the ensuing chaos.
You know who could have been on that shuttle instead of a teacher? A Muppet.
redlib.catsarch.com/r/Historic…
What if Big Bird was on the Challenger space shuttle that exploded on January 28th, 1986? - r/HistoricalWhatIf
View on Redlib, an alternative private front-end to Reddit.redlib.catsarch.com
Which could have been the weirdest tangent on a Wikipedia page. Jim Henson, Muppets, Sesame Street, retired characters, Big Bird, oh was that an early version of Abelardo?, Challenger shuttle dis-- what. What? What the fuck?!
When the guy who played Mr. Hooper died, they worked that into the show. The cast, sincerely grieving, had to explain to a seven-foot-tall canary that he wasn't coming back. That's not really he same kind of intrusion from reality, as acknowledging the same giant fowl fucking exploded on national television.
The only possible comparison would be if some show had a gimmicky live episode that happened to be scheduled for 9 AM, on a Tuesday, in September of 2001.
Even Boeing, a private company that with all their failures and criminal behavior should definitely be bankrupt, gets massive help bcs they're a military contractor.
By then shuttle flights were so routine I didn't even get up to watch the liftoff. My mom called me before work and told me it blew up.
Christa McAuliffe trivia: she was the only one in her training group who didn't throw up on the "Vomit Comet".
Turns out risky business has risks.
The interesting thing isn't how many fatalities NASA has had but rather how few they have had. Exploration has always gotten people killed.
The issue was that they knew there were issues with the shuttle and had been warned by several engineers about launching in the cold weather they were having at the time, but NASA ignored them and sent the Challenger on its way anyways. It's been awhile so I forget the details of exactly what it was that was wrong, but I think it ~~was the metal in some screws~~ that wasn't able to deal with the differences in temperatures and the engineers said shit would go wrong if they didn't replace them and nobody listened. It was a very preventable disaster that only happened due to laziness and impatience on NASA's part.
- it was the rubber in the O-ring seals that couldn't handle the differences in temperature.
From Wikipedia:
Cecil Houston, the manager of the KSC office of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, set up a three-way conference call with Morton Thiokol in Utah and the KSC in Florida on the evening of January 27 to discuss the safety of the launch.Morton Thiokol engineers expressed their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings. As the colder temperatures lowered the elasticity of the rubber O-rings, the engineers feared that the O-rings would not be extruded to form a seal at the time of launch. The engineers argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the O-rings would seal at temperatures colder than 53 °F (12 °C), the coldest launch of the Space Shuttle to date. During this discussion, Lawrence Mulloy, the NASA SRB project manager, said that he did not accept the analysis behind this decision, and demanded to know if Morton Thiokol expected him to wait until April for warmer temperatures. Morton Thiokol employees Robert Lund, the Vice President of Engineering, and Joe Kilminster, the Vice President of the Space Booster Programs, recommended against launching until the temperature was above 53 °F (12 °C).
When the teleconference prepared to hold a recess to allow for private discussion amongst Morton Thiokol management, Allan J. McDonald, Morton Thiokol's Director of the Space Shuttle SRM Project who was sitting at the KSC end of the call, reminded his colleagues in Utah to examine the interaction between delays in the primary O-rings sealing relative to the ability of the secondary O-rings to provide redundant backup, believing this would add enough to the engineering analysis to get Mulloy to stop accusing the engineers of using inconclusive evidence to try and delay the launch. When the call resumed, Morton Thiokol leadership had changed their opinion and stated that the evidence presented on the failure of the O-rings was inconclusive and that there was a substantial margin in the event of a failure or erosion. They stated that their decision was to proceed with the launch.
When McDonald told Mulloy that, as the onsite representative at KSC he would not sign off on the decision, Mulloy demanded that Morton Thiokol provide a signed recommendation to launch; Kilminster confirmed that he would sign it and fax it from Utah immediately, and the teleconference ended. Mulloy called Arnold Aldrich, the NASA Mission Management Team Leader, to discuss the launch decision and weather concerns, but did not mention the O-ring discussion; the two agreed to proceed with the launch.
Dunno about you, but it sounds a lot like NASA, especially Lawrence Mulloy, practically twisted Morton Thiokol's arms until one of them (Joe Kilminster) relented and signed off on the launch. Mulloy even lied by omission at the end there to get his way. I wonder how he could sleep at night after this stunt.
Not only did they broadcast the explosion they also caused it. Haha(not funny)
Richard Feynman was the one who let slip innocently what the cause was during an international press conference and made a lot of people in Washington very very mad.
Basically, the Whitehouse pushed NASA to launch despite the weather being too cold and that caused an expansion joint of an SRB to fail.
Feynman showed the world what happens to the expansion joint material by putting it in some ice water for five minutes during the press conference and showed it crumbled after he took it out of the glass.
That man was an international treasure and I miss him very much.
Arizona study finds car dependency reduces life satisfaction
Depending on a car could be impacting your life satisfaction | ASU News
A viral research study led by Rababe Saadaoui, a PhD planning student in Arizona State University's School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, has uncovered a link between car dependency and life satisfaction in the United States.news.asu.edu
Rozaŭtuno likes this.
Could someone help me setup local file sharing? [Fixed]
So I have things working for me at this point. I was never able to get Samba worling properly. My initial issue was not having a / at the end of my folder path in the Samba config file. After fixing that issue I was able to see the shared folder but was prompted to log in each time, which was an issue in my use case. I ended up abandoning Samba and setting up Jellyfin which has been a much smoother experience, but also is providing many more features. So, if you are looking to share media on your local network, my recommendation would be Jellyfin!
Thank you so much to everyone that commented and helped me a long. I hope I get to return the favor in some way.
Hello, I've been working towards fully migrating to linux, but this is one issue I'm having a hard time with. I have a couple of folders on a storage drive that I share on my local network to stream movies and TV, but I can't figure out how to do it in my Linux install. I'm running Linux Mint 22, have installed Samba, and have tried a few different walkthroughs with no success. Can anyone point me in the right direction to get this set up?
Thanks for your time!
Well I tried the UI approach of right clicking the folder and going to share options, which is when I was prompted to install Samba, but there is warning that states "The permission for prevent othersl users from accessing this share". I did some digging on that error, and everything I came across basically said that wouldn't work. My next attempt was modifying the Samba config file, I added
[FolderName]path = (file directory path I see in properties, /media/username/lettersandnumbersfordrive?/FolderName)browseable = yes
read only = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask =0775
As instructed by a tutorial I found. When running testpram I don't get any errors, but I'm not seeing the folder in VLC like I do when sharing from Win10. That's as far as I have gotten. If there's anything else that I can provide please let me know, and on that note, the drive I'm sharing from is NTFS if that has any impact.
Thanks again!
Similar issue: serverfault.com/questions/5753…
Adding
[global]
map to guest = bad userto smb.conf and restart the service.
If that doesn't work there are a few other suggestions in the thread.
This is actually what I did. I never could get Samba working, so I setup Jellyfin and it's been a breeze ever since. What an amazing piece of software! I just wanted to access my files, but having them categorized with images, cast and crew, ratings, and even recommended is just fantastic. The Xbox app works fine but it's basically just a web wrapper, and the cursor never goes away which is mildly annoying, but it's still a way better experience than the VLC Xbox app.
Thanks for the help!
path = /home/user/Public
but I had to change it to
path = /home/user/Public/
You're path in your reply looks like it's missing that / at the end. After you update, don't forget to restart the service.
[theoretical] What would the real impacts of FOSS software becoming more prevalent in all segments of society?
Thumbing through the feed, the news on how this or that organization letting go of commercial options for day to day operations are mounting.
This led me to wonder what would be the impact if FOSS, be it on the OS front, productivity front or whatever, was to become truly a relevant option.
I'm painfully aware of the difficulties I've faced trying to take a few online courses to be faced with borderline desdain for not using Windows/Office/Etc and opting for FOSS solutions.
Paying/supporting a FOSS solution does not offend me. I'm happier when giving money directly to a developer or project than to an opaque company. But I'm just one.
But what could happen if the ones became millions, actively contributing with a few coins per year to projects we use daily?
What could/would happen in the short term (under a year), medium-long (one to three years) and the long term (over ten years)?
From enduser perspective the most visible change would be that all software wouldn't be hostile to users because with propreitary you have to be very picky to get that.
In the long term we would see that companies could not build walled gardens to block off competition. Contrast Windows & MacOS vs Linux with its different distros, DEs, toolkits etc.
The least difference would be for enterprise because support is expensive either way.
The scalability problem with FOSS is monetary and motivation.
The successful products need longterm financial security in order to plan and support their peoduct(s) - so, do we start seeing more subscriptions as corp. sponsorship fades away?
And, just like XKCD 2347, FOSS needs to step up and support the components they rely on
That's going to need some more maturity from the developers too: it's a great feeling doing something new and interesting, but - like having a pet - you can't just abandon something when you're bored of it, or too busy, without rehoming your project(s)...
That's where I see the industry needs to improve before they're really ready for the big time.
One huge impact mass FOSS adoption would have is that there would be a lot less software and hardware churn. Commercial nature of proprietary technology is the main driver for constant upgrade cycles we see. Companies need to constantly sell products to stay in business, and this means you have to deprecate old software and hardware in order to sell new versions of the product.
Windows 11 roll out is a perfect example. Vast majority of Windows 10 users are perfectly happy with the way their computer works currently, they're not demanding any new features, they just want their computer to continue to work the way it does currently. However, Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 and now they're forced to buy a new computer to keep doing what they've been doing.
This problem goes away entirely with open source because there is no commercial incentive at play. If a piece of software works, and there is a community of users using it, then it can keep working the way it does indefinitely. Furthermore, in cases where a software project goes in a directions some users don't like, such as the case with Gnome, then software can be forked by users who want to go in a different direction or preserve original functionality. This is how Cinnamon and Mate projects came about.
Another aspect of the open source dynamic is that there's an incentive to optimize software. So, you can get continuous performance improvements without having to constantly upgrade your hardware. For most commercial software, there's little incentive to do that since that costs company money. It's easier to just expect users to upgrade their hardware if they want better performance.
I would argue that non technical software users would be far better off if they had the option to fund open source software instead of buying commercial versions. Even having to pay equal amounts, the availability of the source puts more power in the hands of the users. For example, building on the example of Gnome, users of an existing software project could also pull funds together to pay developers to add features to the software or change functionality in a particular way.
This is precisely what makes licenses like GPL so valuable in my opinion. It's a license that ensure the source stays open, and in this way inherently gives more power to the users.
Northern Arizona resident dies from plague
A resident of northern Arizona has died from pneumonic plague, health officials said Friday.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/12/health/plague-death-arizona
'Unforgivable': FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors
FEMA missed two-thirds of calls from Texas flood victims after DHS Sec. Kristi Noem allowed hundreds of call center employees to be fired. "They are intentionally breaking government," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
'Unforgivable': FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors
"They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis," said Sen. Chris Murphy.stephen-prager (Common Dreams)
[Opinion] Firefox is fine. The people running it are not
Opinion: Mozilla's management is a bug, not a feature
Europe is slowly ditching Microsoft: why it's happening & why it could fail.
Europe is slowly ditching Microsoft: why it's happening & why it could fail.
Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https:/...AbnormalBeingsTube
I wouldn't be so sure this time around.
The world is a big uncertainly and the force in Europe for digital sovereignty is something I never seen before.
The initiative to protect Europes boarders and data information is justified.
like this
geneva_convenience likes this.
It's different this time around.
The previous attempts were about freeing themselves from an abusive unprincipled data-hungry big data monopoly,
This attempt is about freeing themselves from an abusive unprincipled data-hungry big data monopoly operating in a fascist country and in cahoots with the regime.
I reckon it's serious this time.
Life long windows user. I switched to Arch
Fuck. That's like going straight from English breakfast tea to hash oil.
I've been using Linux almost exclusively both in my personal and professional life for a decade and a half. I only installed Arch a month or two ago.
The digital dependence on the US is much like the energy dependence on Russia.
Europe is ditching Russian energy. They may ditch US tech.
I don't know about the whole Europe but Spain is buying more energy from Russia than before the war and sanctions.
Don't get me wrong, I hope that would be the case but Europe is also Corporativist.
The European Union regulates the market so much it's hard to call it capitalism, the biggest european companies are basically EU projects like Airbus (every government funds it) or too big too fail like Siemens and/or they would use: "strategic industry" and be done with it.
Edit oh and I almost forgot it, or they are like Inditex, basically not European it's just an European getting rich while exploiting poor people all around the world, but I think this is actually capitalism and that guy isn't exactly appreciated by ruling dictator, I mean party, in Spain.
murciatoday.com/spain_is_now_t…
As they article points out it's all maskerading by the fact that they heavily increased the import in 2023 and now is "reduced"
Spain is now the second-largest importer of Russian gas in Europe
Spain Is Now The Second-largest Importer Of Russian Gas In Europe Keep up with the Latest News In English Murcia Costa Calida Spainmurciatoday.com
Thank you for the article. It brought up something quite interesting that i wasn't aware off before:
But why does Spain rely so heavily on Russia despite the almost global disapproval? The answer lies in this country’s extensive regasification capacity, which stands at 67.1 bcm - the largest in all of Europe. This enables Spain to receive LNG shipments on behalf of other countries that lack the necessary infrastructure, making it a critical hub for European energy trade.
looking a bit into it i found this article:
rbac.com/spains-role-as-a-natu…
So it seems that Spain is also taking the flak here for other EU countries that want to profit from Russian gas but not be directly associated with it.
Spain's Role as a Natural Gas Importer and Re-Exporter - RBAC Inc.
How Spain Uses Natural Gas Europe is one of the most important markets in terms of natural gas and is home to some of the largest consumers of the fuel in the world.Bradley Churchman (RBAC Inc.)
Sure but they are in Spanish. Murcia today is for the local brit community.
elmundo.es/economia/2023/12/01…
The same stuff over 200% increase in 2023 so others can say we dont buy stuff to Russia we buy it to Spain (who bought it to Russia). This source even points out the liquid gas that arrived by boat from Russia wasn't sanctioned.
As we say in Spain "hecha la ley, hecha la trampa"
larazon.es/economia/espana-com…
Says it decrease 25%, but it's 25% from that almost 200% in 2023.
España compra más gas ruso que americano en los últimos 12 meses
Tras Argelia, es el segundo proveedor desde enero de hace un año por el desplome del 32% de las compras a EE UUH. Montero (La Razón)
And now "La Sinrazón"🤦
You do know Marhuenda was the press chief of Rajoy, don't you?
Attacking the source instead of disproving the article.
You have hands, you can sources of your favorite side of the political spectrum, or ask an LLM.
But here are morejust because it's Saturday and I like the apple I am eating for breakfast and I am trying to make lemmy a better place than reddit: 20minutos.es/noticia/5168224/0…
theobjective.com/economia/ener…
20minutos.es/lainformacion/mer…
20minutos.es/noticia/5682026/0…
España ha pagado 8.900 millones de euros a Rusia por su gas desde que comenzó la guerra
El próximo 26 de febrero se cumplirán tres años de la invasión rusa de Ucrania. En medio de ese escenario, el Centro de Investigación sobre EnergíaJavier Leal (The Objective)
Bruselas defiende la legalidad del veto al gas ruso ante dudas de importadores como Naturgy y Repsol
It looks like the problem are the contracts. They could go faster breaking the contracts? Yes. But it's Naturgy and Repsol, both private, not the government. Or are you suggesting that the government has to do a take over of the energy enterprises? 😉
Bruselas defiende la legalidad del veto al gas ruso ante dudas de importadores como Naturgy y Repsol - Forbes España
Prohibirá importaciones en virtud de nuevos contratos desde el 1 de enero de 2026 y cortará por completo en 2027 BRUSELAS, 17 (EUROPA PRESS) La ComisiónForbes / EP (Forbes)
First you doubt the claim. Then you attack the source, now you find excuses.
Did they or didn't they increase almost 200% the acquisition of energy from Russia in 2023? Is the Russian Federation a major provider of gas and oil for Spain (and other European countries) or not?
If you notice I am here only to point the hypocrisy of Europe, which they undoubtedly are and Spain is no different.
I don't know if you work for a company with business in Russia, I did when this whole thing started and contracts didn't matter much when sanctions came but I guess we weren't big enough to make excuses.
You gave your sources and I gave you mine. And sadly I'm not working.
About the hypocrisy of the Union and the Spanish government, I know both have a truckload of it. But to each its own. The main problem are Naturgy and Repsol. And yes, the Spanish government should grow some balls and tell them to stop at one. But there aren't balls enough in this government to do the right thing.
Hell, I'm in Silicon Valley here in California, and some of my friends are also jumping off the proprietary ship because those large firms are willing to work hand in hand with federal agencies.
If you've read the NSA document disclosures by Edward Snowden, it's apparent that there is an open door for data requests. The current administration isn't a huge fan of California's diversity, so we might as well minimize our chances of being targetted...
Actually, most of them already do have deals for a limited time. Skype is still available; they needed a new contract since teams does not work without communicating with Microsoft.
OTOH most things they do is via webclient.
If Microsoft was to release a mandatory update that has a single thing that required it to communicate with the organization, by law the whole governmental EU would not be able to use it.
And at the same time we have the Jugendmedienstaatsvertrag in Germany (and with Germany as a strong force in the EU most likely everywhere in the EU soon) that will make all operating systems without fully integrated age restrictions illegal
heise.de/en/news/Minors-protec…
Manufacturers of operating systems must then
ensure that "only apps that correspond to the
age specification or that have been individually
and securely activated can be used". The
installation of programs should only be possible
via distribution platforms such as app stores
that take the age rating into account and have
an automated rating system recognized by the
Commission for the Protection of Minors in the
Media (KJM).
This part of the law alone is impossible to implement on a open platform like Linux.
Minors' protection: State leaders mandate filters for operating systems
According to the revised Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media, operating systems must soon ensure they include a "youth protection device".Stefan Krempl (heise online)
This part of the law alone is impossible to implement on a open platform like Linux.
What makes you think they won't simply make it illegal to use linux?
To make something illegal by law it is needed to have a valid reason for that law to exist.
This is the case at least in every jurisdiction that has a somewhat functional separation of powers.
Due to this can't just make it illegal to use Linux, but with a Law like the Jugendmedienstaatsvertrag it comes as a free bonus.
Since it is impossible to implement on Linux, it may just be flagged as adult-only software.
But, there is still hope. What if Snaps and Flatpaks get properly flagged, allowing Ubuntu and/or Fedora to be legal?
So it is already possible in Windows.
I mean it's impossible on all computers.
Windows should ensure you can only use app-store and make it impossible to install an exe from online as example
MacOS even funnier. If I save a bash script I found online mac is supposed to refuse, unless I am using a vpn that is!
I don't think they will prohibit side loading. This will cause serious issues to developers, and other professionals.
Like, I cannot use the X tool from Github, just because the Y developer refuses to publish it in an organized store?
Since it is impossible to implement on Linux, it
may just be flagged as adult-only software.
This would render Linux unfit for use in Schools, Public Libraries, Youth Centers and other places where Children and Teenagers have access to PCs.
It is, in addition to that, possible that internal regulation of government offices prohibit the use of adult software. Not sure about it, but it would IMHO fit the mindset of bureaucrats
It is in ratification, and will (most likely) become binding law by 1st of December 2025 in Germany
German link:
rundfunkkommission.rlp.de/rund…
I think that if Linux is to be more widely adopted a more easily used distro needs to become mainstream. Let's face it, the average computer user barely knows how to use Windows, just because you find Linux easy doesn't mean they will.
Do you think you could teach Linux to your grandmother?
Do you think you could teach Linux to your grandmother?
Yes. Set automatic package updates, Install firefox with ublock and put it on the taskbar, and bookmark Facebook and Youtube for her. It is the same thing as under Windows.
I would argue that for the most "tech illiterate" users the Linux experience can be made even easier than the windows experience, because you have to set up everything for them anyways.
Completely "tech illiterate" broser-only users are fine. It gets difficult once they happen to actually want to do something.
I have an older relative in that boat, and she was doing fine until she wanted to install some VPN to access foreign Netflix libraries. That was more difficult. Especially because she already paid for the service and that service didn't support her distro, thus there was no guide on how to use it.
Do you think you could teach Linux to your grandmother?
My 50+ yo mother uses Linux Mint daily with fewer problems that when she used Windows. Her crowning achievement in IT is learning how to use email.
I helped my 93 yo friend switch from Windows 10 to Linux 2 years ago. He called me 3 times in the first 2 weeks to ask how to do something, but hasn't had a single problem since that's related to the OS.
Linux Mint, Bazzite, Fedora, and several other Linux distros are already easier to use than Windows. The only thing holding most people back is fear of change.
There are some people who have specific setups in Windows or a large number of "Windows only" apps, but these people are in the minority. The average person can't even tell you which operating system they're currently using, and wouldn't notice the difference if you swapped the OS but kept the same web browser.
Actually, my mother knew how to use Debian before she could use Windows. Her first pc came with Windows XP, switched that for Debian as its been my main OS since 2000.
Yes, you can teach your grandmother to use Linux.
My mother, 80 years old, uses Linux Mint.
It is a myth that Windows is easier to use than Windows. It is just what you know and it came with your computer.
We already have those. Arguably Windows is much more of a hassle to use than your average "works out of the box" distro. And don't start talking about the terminal, that's comparing apples and organges. A more apt comparison to the need of using the terminal on Linux is the need to apply registry tweaks or use powershell on Windows. As if "average users" would need to do that. They install software via the "app store", change settings via the GUI and run updates when prompted, all of which are seamless on most of these distros. If something breaks, they can't fix it themselves, but then they just go to someone else to help them, just like on Windows, which they also can't fix by themselves. Maybe they manage to reinstall, which isn't any harder than on Windows, if not easier these days.
The group you're actually talking about (and likely belong to) are the Windows power-users that would need to rethink things, and would be capable of rethinking things, if they wanted, which they don't. I know some of these people myself, complaining all day about Microsoft and the privacy nightmare that they put in huge effort to mitigate, but sadly they absolutely need to rely on this one "critical" piece of freeware from the 2000s that they are sure won't run on wine (not that they've tried) or a cracked copy of Photoshop they use for cropping and changing the brightness of desktop backgrounds, but it's the industry leader, so they obviously won't use "inferior" software for that, face the facts Linux users. They think package managers are much harder than downloading and clicking through Setup.exe for the 100th time in a row, and they've had this one bad experience with "rm -rf /" 10 years ago which is why they don't "trust" the terminal, yet routinely double-click on downloaded .bat files without thought. 🤷
Are they democracies? No. Do they respect human rights? Also no.
I don't care as much about them as I care about pointing out the hypocrisy of my people. I have a thing against islam but that has nothing to do with this conversation.
What's wrong with going back to pen and (e-)paper for office? My point is, if you are going to post something in the community, the word "linux" shall at least be in the title.
Good title example: Europe is slowly ditching Microsoft for Linux
It's nobody's fucking business when someone ditching Microsoft, then adopt BSD, Solaris whatnot. What matters to this community is someone adopting or ditching Linux, or they do something remotely related to it.
I don't. This is how it looks like on my Voyager.
Point is (again), it takes zero effort to cross post a video or article here. Windows is historically having a high market share ratio, and people are migrating to Linux nowadays. That's good news to the Linux world. Even someone merely mentioning ditching Windows has an implication of adopting Linux instead.
But what if more and more posts implying this by only mentioning how bad Windows is? Is this a community for Windows circlejerk, or do we share informative stuff that's directly related to Linux? How about we share more article about how great Linux is (or can be), instead of how bad the competitors are becoming?
I can't wait until Lemmy's Peertube integration is released ^[1]^. Then, iiuc, this comment section should be able to happen directly on The Linux Experiment's videos within Lemmy.
::: spoiler References
1. Type: Comment. Author: "Nutomic". Publisher: [Type: Post. Title: "Better federation for Peertube content". Author: "Kalcifer" ("K4LCIFER"). Publisher: ["GitHub". "LemmyNet/lemmy".]. Published: 2023-08-06T21:41:29.000Z. URI: github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issu….]. Published: 2025-03-27T08:28:52.000Z. Accessed: 2025-07-11T00:59Z. URI: github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issu….
:::
Better federation for Peertube content
Requirements Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support Did you check to see if this issue already exists? Is this only a feature request? Do not p...K4LCIFER (GitHub)
[…] I hope it’s really coming🤞
A change regarding Peertube federation with Lemmy certainly does appear to be coming in Lemmy 1.0 ^[1]^, but it's currently unknown to me if it does actually fix the issue.
::: spoiler References
1. Type: Comment. Author: "Nutomic". Publisher: [Type: Post. Title: "Better federation for Peertube content". Author: "Kalcifer" ("K4LCIFER"). Publisher: ["GitHub". "LemmyNet/lemmy".]. Published: 2023-08-06T21:41:29.000Z. URI: github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issu….]. Published: 2025-03-27T08:28:52.000Z. Accessed: 2025-07-14T06:03Z. URI: github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issu….
- > #5509 fixes this, it will be released as part of Lemmy 1.0
- This is referring to code that was pushed to the repository that allegedly fixes the issue with Peertube federation.
:::
Better federation for Peertube content
Requirements Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support Did you check to see if this issue already exists? Is this only a feature request? Do not p...K4LCIFER (GitHub)
I will believe it when I see it for China. They will probably just keep pirating Windows.
India is at something like 15% Linux though and probably going up.
Kylin Linux to replace WIndows in China - news
Homegrown OS Kylin Linux is gaining prominence in China as the final 20% of Windows used by Chinese government is retired.Dashveenjit Kaur (TechHQ)
Agree on the Linux. You do not need the GNU though.
Chimera Linux is based in Spain. Maybe use that.
Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E May Have Been Found Under The Waters Of This Uninhabited Island
The university where Amelia Earhart taught is going to find out if her legendary plane is sitting at the bottom of the ocean near her likely final resting place.
[Question] Is it possible or has it been done, can a Honeypot be created with bash aliases that would use a very common command someone would run if they were in your system but it aliases to some
Sort of command that would pull a download that is self executed to the host machine?
That's worded a bit fucky, if I need to elaborate, please chime in.
Not quite, PC gets hacked, on hacked machine someone does something like cd, but on that PC cd has been set up as an alias for some sort of command that downloads a malicious executable to the hackers machine and executed it.
That executable very well could be a keylogger, but doesn't necessarily have to be. It could be be rm -rf --no-preserve-root / or a reverse shell or whatever really.
I imagine cd would be a terrible choice to alias given how much it's used, but maybe something else more obscure could be used that is frequently used when bots/attackers are rummaging through files for stuff to steal.
Something like this?
alias ls="who am i >> /var/log/intruder.log && logout"
alias l="/usr/bin/ls"
Partially for sure. Other part of this would be somehow executing a command on the attackers machine that originated as their own input, but they wouldn't be privy to that due to the alias.
I've seen some videos where people will willingly let scammers into their machine, and Honeypot them with a file that they execute, typically named like credit card info or bank info or something. But they knowingly click that and open it, I don't know what needs to be done on the "make this code execute on the attackers machine" part.
If someone is ssh'd into your machine, are there any escalated privileges you'd already have back to their machine because they've willingly come to yours?
I kind of figured it would be a shot in the dark, some scripting could definitely be done to assess that, and even run code per major OS depending on some automated recon.
Let's say you've got that figured out, and the user is running putty on windows as an administrator. Is there anything that could take advantage of that fact?
I feel like this would be way easier/more feasible to run a script on your own machine as a defensive measure like OC mentioned early, but just more asking our of curiosity. I'm not skilled enough to even imagine what to do with this or write it, but I am fascinated by security stuff.
I've þought about how to do ðis myself. Ðe best idea I've had is to build a virus, or simply someþing destructive, or a program ðat downloads CP and emails it to the FBI; and use Justine's APE to build an executable and call it "bitcoin_wallet.exe". Entice ðe hacker to download a malicious program and execute it on ðeir computer.
Ðen I lose interest and spend the time instead doing someþing to furðer tighten security on my VMs.
SUSE launches new European digital sovereignty support service to meet surging demand
SUSE launches new European digital sovereignty support service to meet surging demand
With SUSE's help, European companies and governments can ensure their IT support, software, and data assets are safe.Steven Vaughan-Nichols (ZDNET)
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Neat
In practice, SUSE's Sovereign Premium Support is tailored for enterprises and public sector organizations that require strict data residency, privacy, and operational control within the EU. The service ensures that:
- All support personnel and data are based in the EU, with named premium support engineers and service delivery managers assigned to each customer.
- Customer support data is stored exclusively on EU-located networks and servers, addressing both regulatory and geopolitical concerns.
- Access to sensitive data is strictly limited to EU-based staff, with a commitment to encrypting all data required for troubleshooting.
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Look, folks, I’ve been hearing a lot, a lot, about this thing called Linux. Ever heard of it? Sounds European, doesn’t it? Probably invented in Brussels, or Sweden, maybe Russia, I don't know. Total disaster. I call it Socialist Windows, because that’s what it is! It’s chaotic, no one’s in charge. Total mess. Bernie Sanders running an IT department, terrible.
Meanwhile, Windows, great American company, by the way, very successful, very strong.
IMO, If you really want independance dont use things from corporations.
Many people complains about overstaffing in administrations, so why not have them work on a distro from scratch ?
Okay why is your distro the best?
I made the unfortunate post about asking why people liked Arch so much (RIP my inbox I'm learning a lot from the comments) But, what is the best distro for each reason?
RIP my inbox again. I appreciate this knowledge a lot. Thank you everyone for responding. You all make this such a great community.
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My Arch is the best for my private laptop
My Asahi is the best so that I don't have to deal with f*cling macos crap
Why my distro (pop!_os) is the best? Well it's probably not, but here's why I went with it:
- ubuntu based, so lots of applicable tech support online
- looks nice out of the box (imo)
- comes with nvidia drivers. Not a major point cause they aren't hard to get, but it was one of the things I considered when I unintentionally ended up with with nvidia
- tiling (the big one imo)
Aand that's kinda it :3.. at the moment it's kinda behind all the other stuff cause they're working on the new COSMIC DE, which im hoping is gonna be an upgrade to the GNOME with extensions the current version has
Aeon desktop is the best indeed:
- Crazy fast install.
- System configuration is done on the first boot.
- Supports ignition and combustion.
- The install USB can become a $HOME backup if you re-install.
- Full disk encryption by default and mandatory.
- Latest GNOME, looks clean and pretty.
- Rolling.
- Immutable, with Distrobox by default.
As far as desktop Linux goes, I don't see why I would use anything else atm. Give it a try!
Or, if you want all the same features without immutability, just go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed!
(Aeon is an OpenSUSE project, too)
Are all the distros having the same GNU/Linux kernel
Yes. Different distros have different versions, patches and so on, but the underlying kernel is the same.
if I replace all the Arch userland files into Debian’s, the system will become Debian?
If by "userland" you mean files which your normal non-root user can touch, then no. There's differences on how distributions build directory trees, file locations, binaries, versions and so on. You can of course replace all the files on the system and change distribution that way, a convenient way to do that is to use distros installer but technically speaking you can also replace them manually by hand (which I don't recommend).
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I recently needed to build newer versions of some packages for Debian. Now, they're go based so the official packaging is super complicated and eventually I decided to try and make my own from scratch. After a few more hours of messing with the official tooling I start thinking "there must be a better way."
And sure enough, after a bit of searching I found makedeb which allows you to make debs from (almost) regular PKGFILEs. Made the task a million times simpler.
makedeb - A simplicity-focused packaging tool for Debian archives
A simplicity-focused packaging tool for Debian archives.www.makedeb.org
EndeavourOS Bcause:
It’s Arch with an easy installer, with all of the most common administration tools already installed
With the Arch repo, AUR, and flatpak I have a wide breadth of software to choose from
I can easily install it without a desktop environment to install and set up Hyprland without the clutter of another DE
Not to mention it’s active and friendly community and excellent documentation
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Arch.
I'm vegan, german and into fitness. There really was no other choice. /s?
Also, it's lightweight, you always get the most recent software, pacman is superb and it's super stable. In about 10 years on multiple systems, I never had anything break. The worst of it are simple problems during updates, which are always explained on their website.
Lastly, there is the wiki. The single best source of Linux information out there. Might as well be using the distro that's directly explained there, albeit a lot of information can be used on other ones as well.
With arch-install, you don't even need to learn much, but learning is never a bad idea and will be great if something does break. Every system can break. Arch prepares you for that.
pacman is the best i've used, packages are very up to date, and it's pretty easy to troubleshoot with the enormous amount of info on the wiki and elsewhere
Also it taught me about Nix (the package manager, which also runs on any distro and macOS independent of NixOS) which I now use to set up perfect development environments for each of my projects... if I set up dependencies once (as a flake.nix shell), it'll work forever and anywhere.
Same for me. I distro-hopped for about 20 years with OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Fedora being the most memorable desktop setups for me. While all that was a valuable experience, NixOS feels like graduation.
For the Nix-curious: I wish someone would have told me not to bother with the classic config and build a flake-based system immediately. They're "experimental" in name only, very stable and super useful in practice.
git add any new files before building!) but absolutely makes up for it by its features.
Same for me, I stopped distro-hoping 2 years ago when I moved to NixOS.
It was tough at first, setting it up took a while and i genuinely felt stupid like i haven't felt for a while; but now I love having the same config on my two laptops. I have one that stays at work and another one for traveling. With one word/line added into my config I can as a software, configure the VPN, change the wallpaper on both my laptop, or not. Some stuff like gaming goes only on the traveling laptop.
Also, another big thing for me is the feeling of having a cleanly built system all the time. I haven't felt the urge to do a clean reinstall since I started with NixOS.
- It's a fast way to get to a specific setup, like a particular DE or Vulkan gaming support, thanks to abstraction that NixOS modules provide
- There are tons of packages
- Because packages are installed by adding a config entry you don't accumulate random software you forgot you installed
- Immutable updates and rollbacks - this is similar to benefits of atomic ostree distros, but the nix solutions are more general, so you have one system that does more things with a consistent interface
- in addition to updating the base system, rollbacks also roll back user-installed packages, and configurations if those are managed via Nix
- devshells provide per-directory packages and configuration using the same package repos as the host system, without needing to manage docker images
- Nix is portable - much of what it does on NixOS can also be used in other distros, or even on Macos or Windows with the Linux subsystem
- Configurations often combine NixOS and Home Manager parts. The Home Manager part can be used à la carte on other OSes is a way that is fully isolated from the host OS package management. For example on Macos this is a much nicer alternative to Homebrew.
- devshells also work on other OSes
- similar to Guix - but NixOS uses systemd, and is (from what I understand) more tolerant of non-free software (whether these are pros or cons is up to individual interpretation)
Is a huge plus for me. I love to f up things to learn from them but I don’t like broken things and oh boy. Nix keeps me in the clean, safe.
Don’t get me wrong im doing stupid stuff all the time but just cus i have a few configs written down i can learn a lot. Or a little that amazes me lol
1. Arch based
a. Pacman package manager
b. AUR
c. Rolling release distro
2. Graphical installer
3. Extensive software repo. Things that I used to only be able to get as a flatpak are available in the repo, such as SurfShark VPN as an example
4. Super fast.
5. Updates are tested before they are made available and the delay is only a few days.
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Debian (testing) is most suitable for me. If there were a universally best distro, all the others would cease to exist...
It isn't made by a for-profit company and thus doesn't have "features" I don't want.
It pays attention to software freedom, though it isn't so restrictive about it that it doesn't work with my hardware.
It was very easy to install only the things I wanted and needed.
Mint. It just works and Cinnamon is a good DE (ui design peaked in the Windows XP days). Plus you also get all the software built and tested for Ubuntu without the bullshit of using Ubuntu.
For my server I use NixOS, because having one unified configuration is so nice.
99% of screenshot is just wallpaper lol
But it's a good one! Mind sharing original file?
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My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste.
Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all.
I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch by default is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system to behave that way.
Linux is so great, because there is a distribution for nearly everyone out there (unless you are blind, then things are not that great apparently, but it seems to get better).
I switched from pop os to Fedora a while back. I did like pop, but it gave me problems regularly and I think it just needs to cook for a few more years probably. Fedora fixed every issue I was having 👍
Seeing all the arch praise here is definitely giving me distro fomo though. Lol
As someone who used both Arch and Fedora: no need to fomo, Fedora is great and delivers everything you may ever need from Arch without the headache.
The only strong side of Arch here is AUR, but then again, I've never found anything I would need that wouldn't be available in Fedora.
So, you're golden.
With Guix you have reproducibility, freedom, good docs and peace of mind, also when configuring things more deeply. You also have a powerful programming language (Scheme / Lisp) with which to define your system config as well as your dotfiles. This is my insight after years of GNU/Linux usage. I run Guix on laptops, desktops and servers, and I never have configuration drift, as well as the benefit that I have a self documenting system.
Isn't GUIX based on Linux-libre?
This must complicate installing nonfree software, including nonfree drivers if your computer needs any.
Thanks for this! I guess the point is, people don't want to dig deep into the system built with different approach as a base.
But you made me interested
Arch. I tried other distros and always came back to Arch. Other distros are very bloated and honestly I can't be bothered with removing them manually. I also love the AUR and the wiki.
Another interesting distro was NixOS, but that is a bit of a pain in the ass to learn.
For newbies, Fedora KDE Plasma edition or Mint Cinnamon is my recommendation. Kinoite is Fedora KDE Plasma edition but immutable for the ones that keep breaking the system because they keep following some absurd guide online for whatever.
Debian.
With x11 gnome it can run the Rustdesk client and pass all the keys properly to the Windows host. And it doesn't boot to a black screen like many other distros on my Asus laptop.
Was on Fedora with similar results but it started taking ages to boot looking for a non existent tpm chip.
I use fedora silverblue for a couple reasons. After jumping from elementary to Ubuntu to Manjaro to Artix I got tired of dealing with distro specific modifications and weird issues. With the Ubuntu based distro I never enjoyed how out of date some packages were. I’d hear about a cool new update for a program I use and realize it would be a while till that would be in my repos.
I really liked artix and Arch’s rolling release nature and I would probably enjoy arch if I still used my computer daily like I used to but now I can be away from it for a couple months at a time and I need updates to be stable.
I’ve found Fedora (silverblue in particular) to be a perfect middle ground between rolling release and having a more regular update schedule. I use silverblue because I never wanted to have to worry about an update breaking my install ever again.
I will admit that because silverblue uses flatpaks almost exclusively, my appreciation for software being up to date could be achieved on almost any other distro, but the vanilla style of fedora is what keeps me now. I’m a big fan of vanilla gnome and not too many distros ship it like that.
Honestly, having tried both atomic and regular Fedora, I ended up with regular, as it allows you to do all the same things without limiting you to them.
Install flatpak? Sure. Use Distrobox? Of course. But if you have to use native package, you can simply install it without jumping through the hoops with rpm-ostree (which doesn't even always work properly).
Fedora itself is great, though - a healthy release cycle, high stability, and mature base.
Gentoo works best for me because I'm a control freak. It lets me tune my system in any way I want, and I don't mind leaving my computer on while I'm asleep so that it can compile its way through libreoffice, webkit, and a couple of browsers. Plus, based on complaints I hear from people using other distros, Portage beats other package managers in every way except speed.
This doesn't mean that it's best for everyone, mind you, just that it's best for me.
Gentoo is the best, if you have a beefy CPU with enough RAM, it's not even that slow. (Yes still slower, though dnf may be on par).
But it's just the best thing for having control over your hardware and software.
USE flags are divine, I can't imagine a life without them anymore.
I agree with Gentoo.
I had installed Arch for my wife, to get fast install times and more normal user friendly upgrades, but it kept breaking all the time.
It really opened my eyes to how incredibly stable Gentoo is while still allowing living on the bloodiest of edges at the same time.
Fedora
Any RPM-based system has exemplary validation and, as long as we don't throw it out with flatsnappimages, it presents a very clean and maintainable install.
Extra points for PCLinuxOS which has avoided lennart's cancer.
No points for SuSE as they continue to exist as the over engineered bastard child of slackware and RPM, like slackware met 73deJeff on a trip and let the tequila do the talking. Mamma mia!
OpenSUSE because rolling release and no IBM. Never used it though.
Currently I use Mint. It works but it's not the best.
Fedora Atomic because I don't fucking care what package manager and whatnot sits underneath.
I just wanna relax in my free time and not worry about all this fucking nerd stuff.
Touching grass > Troubleshooting a broken system
Arch. I think when people say "bloat" they don't mean it in the traditional sense of the word. Most people are installing plasma or gnome and pulling all the "bloat" that comes with them. To me at least it's more that no one is deciding what they think you're likely to need/do, and overall that makes the system feel much more "predictable". Less likely to work against what I'm trying to do.
Ignore all the comments about Arch being hard to install or "not for beginners". That view is outdated. When I first installed Arch when you had to follow the wiki and install via the chroot method. Now it's dead simple to install with the script and running it isn't any more difficult than any other distro.
Mainly though it's because of the AUR.
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OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll
Tumbleweed is the only bleeding-edge rolling release distribution that just works and never fails and is super easy to install and manage without any expertise. And it is massively underrated and forgotten for no good reason.
All Tumbleweed packages go through extensive and to this day unrivaled automatic system testing that ensures no package is ever gonna bork itself or your system.
If you're still worried about stability, there is Slowroll - currently testing, but in my experience very stable distribution. It makes rolling release updates...a bit slower, so that they're only pushed after Tumbleweed users absolutely ensure everything is great and stable (not that it's ever otherwise). It does the same job as Manjaro, but this time around it actually works without a hitch.
Both deliver great experience and will suit novice users.
Ubuntu.
Why? - I guess I'm too lazy for distro hopping now 🙁
Besides, this was the 1st Linux distro I tried back in 2005. After the usual ditro hopping phase was over, I settled on it; somehow (irrespective of snap and other controversies) I feel at home.
I agree. I tried Fedora first, then Pop!OS, and then settled on Kubuntu.
Kubuntu has been the most stable so far, no big issues. I chose it for that and its Wayland support. Snaps can be disabled or even have auto update turned off which is what I did and I had no real issues with Ubuntu past that so overall a good distro.
Widely supported, plenty of tutorials, has my favorite DE as a spin, it just does what I need it to.
Debian stable.
Everybody think they are a special snowflake who needs bleeding edge, or a specific package manager or DE or whatever. Truth is 99.99% do not. They just like to believe they do, claim they do, try it, inflict self pain for longer than they need, convince themselves that truly they are, because of the pain, special.
Chill, just go with stable, it's actually fine.
Edit: posted from Arch, not even sarcasm.
As someone who ran Debian Stable for a while, this is not a distro for "99.99%".
First, Debian, while very stable in its core, commonly has same random issues within DE's and even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
Second, a release cycle of 2 years is actually a giant and incredibly noticeable lag. You may love your system when it just releases, but over time, you will realize your system is old, like, very damn old. It will look old, it will act old, and the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they'd be up to date.
This isn't just programs. It is your desktop environment. It is Wine (gamers, you're gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks like Bottles, which will feel like insane workaround you wouldn't have to have with a better fitting distro).
It is the damn kernel, so you may not even be able to install Debian on newest hardware without unsupported and potentially unstable backporting tricks.
Don't get me wrong, Debian is absolutely great in what it does, and that is providing a rock solid environment where nothing changes. But recommending it for everyone? Nope.
I feel like a lot of your points were true at one point, but are becoming lest relevant.
For one, at least with XFCE, I found myself not really running into DE bugs.
Also, I don't think two years is as obnoxious anymore. During the era of the GTK 4 transition a couple, it drove me nuts, but now that a lot of APIs like that have stabilized, I really don't notice much of a difference between Debian Testing and Stable. I installed and daily drove Bookworm late in its lifecycle on my laptop, and in terms of DE and applications, I haven't noticed anything. I get the feeling Debian's gotten better at maintenance in the past few years - I especially see this with Firefox ESR. There was a time where the version was several months behind the latest major release of ESR, but usually it now only takes a month or two for a new ESR Firefox to come to Debian Stable, well within the support window of the older release.
Also, I don't think Flatpaks are a huge dealbreaker anyway - no matter what distro you're using, you're probably going to end up with some of them at some point because there's some application that is the best at what it does and is only distributed as a Flatpak.
Frankly, I probably am a terrible reference for gaming, as I'm a very casual gamer, but I've found Steam usually eliminates most of these issues, even on Debian.
Also, the official backports repository has gotten really easy. My laptop had an unsupported Wi-Fi chipset (it was brand new), so I just installed over ethernet, added the repo, and the install went smoothly. There were a few bugs, but none of these were specific to Debian. Stability has been great as ever.
In conclusion, I think right around Bookworm, Debian went from being the stable savant to just being an all-around good distro. I'll elaborate more on why I actually like Debian in a comment directly replying to the main post.
I might disagree with 99.999% like you - maybe I'd put it in the 50-75% range.
As a KDE fan, I had some bugs on some devices (like on one of the laptops, wallpapers did not install correctly and the setting to always show battery charge didn't work) even on Debian 12.
XFCE is well-known for stability, but seems to be increasingly irrelevant for the average/newbie user because the interface looks outdated and configuring is relatively complicated.
Interesting you mentioned Firefox ESR - iirc, even at release the version shipped with Debian 12 was considered very old, prompting many to install Firefox as a flatpak. Two years later, it's two years older.
Flatpaks are good and suitable options for many tasks - no argument here! But some things are just better installed natively, and there Debian just...shows.
Steam is a godsend, but there are many non-Steam games and, importantly, programs out there, and launching them through Steam often feels like yet another bloated and slow workaround; besides, you cannot choose Wine over Proton, and sometimes (granted: rarely) you may want to use Wine specifically.
To conclude - it's alright to choose Debian anyway, it is good! But I just feel like newbies and casual users could save a lot of trouble and frustration simply going with something that doesn't require all that - say, Fedora (non-atomic), or OpenSUSE, and then go from there to whatever they like. There are plenty of distributions that are stable, reliable, but without the tradeoffs Debian sets.
If you feel like stability is your absolutely biggest priority ever, and you have experience managing Linux systems - by all means, go Debian. But by that point you'll already know what you want.
Debian Stable actually updates Firefox ESR through the typically on by default security channel.
The current ESR version in there is 128, which is about a year old, which replaced the 115 that came with Debian 12 by default.
The newest ESR, 140 just came out 2 weeks ago. 128 still has 2 months of security updates, and 140 has already been packaged for sid. I have no doubts 140 will come before those 2 months are up.
Now the KDE thing actually sounds like it sucks.
even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
... the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they’d be up to date.
... Wine (gamers, you’re gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks
I already posted on this a while ago but that's is a recurring misconception. No distribution, literally 0, provides all software to the latest version or to the version one expects. Consequently IMHO it is perfectly acceptable to go beyond what the official package manager of the distribution offers. It can be flatpaks, am, build from source, etc but the point precisely is that the distribution is about a shared practical common ground to build on top of. A distribution is how to efficiently get to a good place. I also run Debian stable on my desktop and for gaming, I use Steam. It allows me to get Wine, yes, but also Proton and even ProtonFix so that I basically point and click to run games. I do NOT tinker to play Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Clair Obscur, etc and my hardware is well supported.
So... sure if you consider a distribution as something you must accept as-is and NOT rely on any of the available tools to get the latest software you actually need, can be games but can be tools e.g. Blender, Cura, etc, then you WILL have a tough time but that's the case for all distributions anyway.
TL;DR: a distribution is the base layer to build on. Its package manager, on Debian and elsewhere, is not the mandatory and sole way to get the software you need.
Debian. Truly the universal operating system. Runs on all of my laptops, desktops, servers, and NAS with no fuss and no need to keep track of distro-specific differences. If something has a Linux version, it probably works on Debian.
Granted, I am a bit biased. All of my hardware is at least 5 years old. Also came from Windows, where I kept only the OS and browser up to date, couldn't be bothered with shiny new features. A package manager is already a huge luxury.
- I have access to more packages than with any other package manager.
- everything to get my setup in the exact state I want is in my config, which is 90% useable on any other distro thanks to home manager
- My config is all in one place and easy to share
- If I ever break something, I can always roll back
- I don't need Docker
NixOS makes me feel so safe making low-level changes to Linux and making sure that my work laptop, gaming desktop, and personal laptop all have the exact same shit on them and I'm gonna use them the exact same way.
I wish that nixlang was decoupled from the concept of a build system bc it's such a great DAG config DSL and I can think of so many cooler uses for it but I just don't have time to focus on it.
Because it uses the best desktop environment (GNOME) and im the most familiar with
(I wonder how many downvotes i will get)
I can't speak for anyone else but I can tell you what I personally love about Gnome.
I like that it's Spartan. I like that it looks good without me having to customize a thousand different settings.
I like that It has client side decorations, so every window doesn't have to have an obscene, chunky, mostly useless title bar.
I don't miss every single application having 100 different options packed into a menu bar. Once you get used to it, you realize that it was mostly getting in the way the whole time.
It's just a really streamlined workflow for 98% of what you do. The problem is that 2% where it's too spartan and God do you wish you had some options.
But I also think KDE is a great desktop environment. If I were more of a gamer I'd be using KDE. I think XFCE is an excellent desktop environment for aging hardware and Windows converts. It is very much a matter of taste, Use cases, and your preferred workflow.
While I still care somewhat of distro differences for functional reasons, I completely agree that DE's are the most important part in terms of user experience.
Both my machines use KDE, and while they run two different distros, they look and feel pretty much the same since I use a very similar layout on both of them. This, along with file sync through my NAS and similar apps, makes switching from one computer to the other a breeze (pun not intended), despite some differences under the hood.
My distro isn't the best, but it's at least a good starting point: Debian + XFCE.
Was using Ubuntu from about 12.04 through 20.04, but it is getting too snappy and support contract happy for me these days.
Mint Cinnamon.
It's easy, stable and gets out of my way.
I haven't seen the need to dostro hop for years.
I am a debian person but when I tried EndeavourOS i relegated debian to my homeservers only.
Almost 1 year in EndeavourOS, I fucked it up once and was very easy to recover.
Bazzite.
Super easy install and setup. Ready to start installing games at first boot. Just a wonderful OS to use.
Devuan + Trinity Desktop
Moved over there since Debian switched to Sytemd. It is boring, dusty... but it works and stays out of my way.
As with others, I love Debian Stable.
Most packages have sane defaults, and it's so stable. It's true that it sometimes means older software versions, but there's also something to be said for behavior staying the same for two years at a time.
If hardware support is an issue, using the backports repo is really easy - I've been using it on my laptop for almost a year with no problems that don't exist on other distros. If you really need the shiniest new application, Flatpak isn't that bad.
It also feels in a nice position - not so corporate as to not give a darn about its community, but with enough funding and backing the important stuff gets maintained.
I just moved to Debian trixie (soon to be stable) because I needed an upgrade after ~15 years of Gentoo.
I was a proud Gentoo user. I learned a lot about systemd and kernel configuration. Many advances in portage made it possible to find the time to maintain my Gentoo setup. On my laptop I gave up Gentoo even earlier, because updating my system was just too time consuming. I actually learned less and less about the software I was using, because I was trapped in dependency conflict management. The new binary repos did save some compile time, but the actual time sinks are decision for your systems, use flags and the forementioned dependencies.
So, I installed Debian on my main workstation (two days ago). I am already using Debian on on my Raspberry Pis. I did choose a more challenging way using debootstrap, because I want to use systemd-boot, encrypted btrfs and have working hibernation. I am still busy with configuring everything.
One could argue, that I could've used the time on Gentoo to solve my current python_targets_python3_13 issues and do a proper world update. No, this is a future investment. I want the time to configure new stuff, not wait for dependency resolution or waste time solving blocking packages.
The main reason to switch from Gentoo to Debian is being able to install security updates fast without blocking packages in the same slot.
secureblue: Hardened Fedora Atomic and Fedora CoreOS images
Hardened operating system images based on Fedora Atomic Desktop and Fedora CoreOSsecureblue
I love Pop OS because it got me back into Linux after ditching it for windows for the last 10 years, partly to do .net development and partly because I hated the state of Ubuntu/Unity.
As soon as cosmic is stable and easy to install on Nix I'll switch to it.
It's actually quite good so far, been struggling a bit with external monitors, but I don't miss windows
I use Kubuntu. It is defintly not the best Distro. I am just used to it and too lazy to get used to another distro. My days as a distro jumper lie 15 years back...
Tbh though, I might switch to Debian stable whenever Trixie comes out.
It isn't. I'm on PopOS 24.04 Alpha 7 (soon to be Beta 1), because of COSMIC (and because I was having some bugs with Fedora a few months back).
I recently wanted to tinker with a piece of software that wasn't packaged, and I couldn't compile it because of outdated libraries. I could return to Fedora specifically to tinker with it but as an ex-distrohopper, I know it isn't worth the effort.
Even though Fedora or some version of it will likely be my forever distro, I will stick to PopOS for now because I can't be bothered to distrohop and back up months' worth of files, including game saves and a ton of stuff in my Downloads directory.
I use debian cause it just works.
I was a Nix user (more specifically, nix-darwin user) but after being away from the computer for like one year (to study for the university entrance exam), I completely forgot how to use it and resulted in erasing the computer. Nix/NixOS is fun, but it was too complicated for me.
I use Nobara with KDE for my gaming computer, Mint with Cinnamon for pretty much everything else.
Mint is the closest to a "Just Works" experience for me. Cinnamon is rock stable, especially on Mint Debian Edition. I don't remember the last time Cinnamon crashed or had any major bugs for me.
I use Debian for most of my servers, stable and simple. Arch on a junker Thinkpad to test and mess around with new programs and window managers.
Mint Cinnamon is also great
EndeavourOS is the best because.
It's currently on my system and said system hasn't burst into flames yet, so I'm too lazy to change it.
Tumbleweed. Rolling release with automated testing (openQA), snapper properly setup out of the box.
Honestly the entire openSUSE ecosystem. Tumbleweed on my main PC that often has some of the latest hardware, Slowroll on my (Framework) laptop because it's rolling but slower (monthly feature updates, only fixes in-between), and Leap for servers where stability (as in version/compatibility stability, not "it doesn't crash" stability) is appreciated.
openSUSE also comes in atomic flavors for those interested. And it's European should you care.
With all that being said, I don't really care much about what distro I'm using. What I do with it could be replicated with pretty much any distro. For me it's mostly just a means to an end.
- The fricking AUR
- Nothing I don't _actually_ need
- Pacman
- Everything is the latest version available–ALWAYS.
- ArchWiki
Gentoo because it is as stable as Debian, less bloated than Arch, has more packages than Ubuntu, is rolling release, can mix and match stable, testing and unstable on a whim.
Even its one downside, compile times, is now gone if you just choose to use binary packages.
And less stable than Arch, and more bloated than Ubuntu... If that is something you want for whatever reason! It is the most versatile distro in existance because it's literally anything you want it to be - clean and nice, or total chaos. What is there not to love?
Gentoo ❤
Since I mostly use computers for entertainment these days I keep coming back to Bazzite. It’s fast, stable, kept up to date, reliable, and “just works”. I’ve created custom rpm-ostree layers to faff around, but it’s not actually necessary for anything I need.
I used to keep a second Kubuntu Minimal partition around but I realized I just don’t need it. If I wasn’t so happy with Bazzite, I would probably go with openSUSE or Endeavor.
I've been using (X)Ubuntu for ages. I just wanted something that "just works". Tired of too much tinkering and there's plenty of (non commercial) support. Mixing it with i3 as my window manager.
Roast me ;)
For me it's openSUSE Tumbleweed on my Desktops/Laptops and openSuse Leap on my Servers. The killing Feature for me was the propper BTRFS integration with Snapper for seamless rollbacks in case I borked the system in some way.
One "downside" for me is the mix of Gnome Settings and Yast on my Desktop. But I like yast on my servers for managing everything (enabling ports in firewall, network config, enable autoamtic isntall of security updates, etc.).
Also openSuse is not that common, so sometimes it is hard to find a solution if you have a distribution specific question.
Personally never looked to closely into openSuse Build Services (OBS). But I know some people who really like it.
I am using Bluefin, based on Fedora Silverblue. I realized that I was already exclusively using flatpaks for everything except one random app, so I thought why not go all-in?
Haven't had to worry about updates or system breakages since, and it's been great so far.
I used to use Debian Stable, but since doing SysAdmin work I've just become used to the way Fedora / RHEL does things.
I think linux distros are a coinflip on if they like your hardware or not, sometimes it feels like they just don't like you individually as a person.
When I use fedora for example, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. It's in theory not any more complicated than debian, but I've never had good luck keeping a fedora system healthy.
With Debian, usually the best troubleshooting tip I can give people is try installing testing instead of stable. Sometimes the kernel in stable is just too damn old for the hardware you want to install on.
Which Kubernetes is the Smallest? Examining Talos Linux, K3s, K0s, and More - Sidero Labs
Which Kubernetes is the Smallest? Examining Talos Linux, K3s, K0s, and More - Sidero Labs
Lots of projects claim to be the “smallest” or “simplest” Kubernetes, but they never provide data to back it up. Let’s look at how these distributions compare to Talos Linux.Justin Garrison (Sidero Labs)
And obviously their option is the "best". From the conclusion:
Talos Linux is unique. It’s the only option that includes OS management in a purpose-built distribution for running Kubernetes. There’s no compromise for scaling up or down. In terms of small-scale numbers, it “wins” in several of the examined categories, including memory usage, disk r/w, and installation size. But all of these metrics are side effects of Talos Linux’s defining characteristic: It’s simple.
You could try mine, SimpleK8s (kubeadm, containerd, systemd, buildroot), ~50Mb single file (kernel+initramfs).
simplek8s.org/
The current footprint is lower than every alternatives commented on this article.
I find this comparison unfair becuase k3s is a much more batteries included distro than the others, coming with an ingress controller (traefik) and a few other services not in talos or k0s.
But I do think Talos will end up the lighest overall because Talos is not just a k8s distro, but also a extremely stripped down linux distro. They don’t use systemd to start k8s, they have their own tiny init system.
It should be noted that Sidero Labs is the creator of Talos Linux, which another commenter pointed out.
I've been looking at K3s deployed on FCOS, but I have no clue how I'm supposed to use Terraform to deploy FCOS.
My understanding is that FCOS is supposed to be ephemeral and re-deployed every so often, which would imply the use of a hypervisor like Proxmox on the host, but Proxmox does not play well with Terraform.
I also considered OpenStack, but it's way over my head. I have a very simple single-node Kubernetes setup to deploy using GitOps, and nothing seems to fit the bill.
How can you make stock Android as private as possible?
I know that stock Android itself is spyware.
What tips about setting up my stock Android phone would you give me?
It's not factory unlocked so I'm sticking with Google Android.
Things I've done:
- Stopped and disabled all apps that I don't use or need.
- Replaced all apps that I can with FOSS alternatives from github using Obtainium.
- Not installed things that I can just check on my laptop like email.
Is there anything else that I can do?
Thanks in advance
Edit
I've also:
- Changed my DNS to Mullvad DNS
- Restricted app permissions to only what they need
- Not signed into the phone. I don't even have Gmail account.
So one of the gotchas about stopped/disabled apps is that other apps can still call and launch them. I frequently saw my apps pop back up even after being disabled, since I used SuperFreezZ to monitor them. f-droid.org/packages/superfree…
The alternative to that would be an ADB disable. IIRC it takes the app away from userspace completely. It doesn't touch the system-level though, so a factory reset will bring it back.
If you can't handle setting up ADB and it's hoops, there is an app combo that can set up a bridge and run the ADB disable for you: f-droid.org/en/packages/io.git…
SuperFreezZ App stopper | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
Entirely freeze all background activities of apps.f-droid.org
NetGuard | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
A simple way to block access to the internet per applicationf-droid.org
GitHub - TrackerControl/tracker-control-android: TrackerControl Android: monitor and control trackers and ads.
TrackerControl Android: monitor and control trackers and ads. - TrackerControl/tracker-control-androidGitHub
Rethink DNS is both a firewall app, and you can run a VPN at the same time using a wireguard configuration.
I use a VPN system wide, and for some apps like Fennec or a Torrent app (yes I torrent on my phone lol), I use a different wireguard config for each one of these apps. For the systemwide VPN, its using a server in my country, for individual apps, it goes to switzerland or iceland (So the IP used to check for system updates isn't correlated to the IP used for everyday browsing, watch youtube videos, or torrenting). I block everything from internet access unless it needs internet to function, like a phone app for example (for VoLTE). Enable "block connections without VPN".
Mullvad has the cheapest VPN at €5 Euro per month, and ProtonVPN have some free servers, but free servers have slower speeds.
a VPN doesn’t protect your privacy
Does from your ISP unless they do deep packet inspection and related techniques.
As I said, it doesn't protect, it changes who can see the data.
Your ISP might not be able to see it, but your VPN provider will instead. VPN providers are hardly ever under any kind of regulation, except those run by secret services, of which there are many.
And there are more than enough VPNs that sell customer data while claiming to be amazing for your privacy.
I''d argue changing who can see your data from either a large group to a smaller one or one you do trust vs one you do not trust precisely is protecting your privacy.
Also FWIW you can host your VPN, you do not have to rely on a commercial VPN provider.
I’'d argue changing who can see your data from either a large group to a smaller one or one you do trust vs one you do not trust precisely is protecting your privacy.
It's always astounding to me that people put more trust in an intangible rando from the internet than into organizations governed by law. Like those people who don't accept mainstream medicine but eat random supplements they imported from India by the kilogram.
Also FWIW you can host your VPN, you do not have to rely on a commercial VPN provider.
Sure you can. And where does that traffic go?
If you e.g. host a VPN in your home network and you connect to it from your phone, and then you use this connection to access the internet, then your traffic will just be visible to your home network's ISP instead of your phone's ISP.
No idea what your analogy about non conventional medicine is about. Feel free to explain.
just be visible to your home network’s ISP instead of your phone’s ISP.
Indeed, which is already what I mentioned, namely another group. It's about the threat model namely if you trust one ISP more than another. I believe your understood that but chose not to acknowledge it and I'm not sure why but maybe it related to your analogy that I didn't get.
Edit: if you and others are interested in the topic I recommend splintercon.net/ plenty of resources on the topic.
PS: FWIW I didn't suggest VPN is the solution to all problems but they do alleviate some. The point is one must understand both how they work and their OWN threat model rather than an idealized one.
SplinterCon- communications with and within isolated networks
A conference dedicated to technology for reaching isolated networks and solutions for users stuck inside national intranets.eQualitie
The analogy is that on the one hand you have a corporation where you know who they are, where you know which laws they are governed by, where you know how to file a privacy complaint, where you know who to sue in case something goes wrong. And you don't trust them.
Instead you choose to trust some rando from the internet. Where anyone with a sane mind knows they will get screwed over.
Mullvad, they have a feature called DAITA
Thanks, for reference mullvad.net/en/vpn/daita but as it's an arm race I wouldn't assume it's the perfect solution.
DAITA: Defense Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis
Even if you have encrypted your traffic with a VPN, advanced traffic analysis is a growing threat against your privacy. Therefore, we have developed DAITA – a feature available in our VPN app.Mullvad VPN
I guess you mean whatever factory OS is installed on your phone. Nobody uses stock OS.
What phone do you use?
Things I have done:
-install adguard and route all my traffic through it
- enable always on VPN and block connections without
-firewall all apps to block internet connection
-only allow apps the apps i want to use internet on
-replace everything I possibly can with FOSS software
-disable everything google and use helioboard as keyboard
-install shizuku and canta to debloat as much as I can
-route all traffic through orbot (except apps that require me to login)
This is probably overkill but that's the best I could do on stock android 🤭
To the extent that you still need to use standard apps, consider disabling your advertising ID. EFF has a guide to this at eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-…
This won't stop google of course. You should probably also install a firewall, like other people here have suggested. And keep in mind, disabling features entirely is different from not using them. For example, if location services is turned off, then even google maps doesn't know your location (in theory anyway), whereas if it is merely unused then google will still check periodically.
How to Disable Ad ID Tracking on iOS and Android, and Why You Should Do It Now
The ad identifier - aka “IDFA” on iOS, or “AAID” on Android - is the key that enables most third-party tracking on mobile devices.Electronic Frontier Foundation
China's ultimatum to Myanmar rebels threatens global supply of heavy rare earths
YouTube Forces Dubs Now
Saw this video on another platform and I thought let me go to YouTube so I can share it, only to hear AI voices. I'm like WTF? I investigate and find out that it's auto dubbed and that there's no option to disable it. Huh?
youtube.com/shorts/9V90gOkOJBc
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.youtube.com
Record escape attempt: 19-year-old Lviv resident tried to illegally cross the border 13 times
Record escape attempt: 19-year-old Lviv resident tried to illegally cross the border 13 times
A 19-year-old Lviv resident was detained in Zakarpattia for the thirteenth time attempting to illegally cross the border. He was trying to get to Hungary, seeking better living conditions.Olga Rozgon (UNN)
Don't forget to thank our Lord and Saviour Mr. Zelensky (and the brave heroes protecting Ukraine's borders!) that this criminal was caught!
Just imagine what would happen if he actually managed to escape, and god-forbid lived a happy life instead of being kidnapped in a few years (or earlier..) off the streets and sent into meat grinder to die? That would be terrible!
God bless western democracy.
And some people are really surprised how can people say that Russia is liberating Ukraine... Yeah, those must be tankies. Obviously freedom is slavery.
right?!
imagine the pandimonium taking place if all of these criminals got away scott free to live the rest of their lives instead of patriotically dying in the war that the united states fooled the country into starting with russia.
and just like the american ice agents, the border guards don't want the public to know what their faces look like.
Even if the US had a hand in it, starting war can never be the correct awnser.
In the end the regular people suffer for the rich oligarchs power games.
How checklists lie with facts, and are bad for figuring out privacy of apps etc.
cross-posted from: beehaw.org/post/20989376
Where Soatok goes over why checklists are meaningless when trying to figure out if something is private or just for comparisons in general.
How checklists lie with facts, and are bad for figuring out privacy of apps etc.
Where Soatok goes over why checklists are meaningless when trying to figure out if something is private or just for comparisons in general.Checklists Are The Thief Of Joy - Dhole Moments
I have never seen security and privacy checklists used for any other purpose but deception. After pondering this observation, I’m left seriously doubting if comparison checklists have any val…Dhole Moments
Interesting article, and I feel that it's pretty fair. At first, I thought they were talking about this checklist, but I see they're different. The version I followed doesn't seem to have the same issues (lists jurisdiction but doesn't give it a rating, doesn't list or rate encryption methods at all, no summary at the beginning, etc.).
I think checklists/matrices still have their place, as listing all the branches/options might get too cluttered for a diagram, but I do understand why flowcharts (or the neat venn diagrams that get posted here often) can express information better. I don't think checklists are inherently biased, I just think you need a good decision maker behind the list.
I think the article was an interesting read. From a laymen's perspective it felt like it got to side tracked by the examples mentioned in the intro (the initial list example and signal vs mls).
When I initially started reading I had thought there would be more information for how someone that is new to a subject could spot and differentiate these lists from the ones the author says the article isn't about without being an expert.
Instead it feels like the title of the article ends up being more of a sub header and the sub header "How Do You Compare Signal to MLS?" was actually a more appropriate title.
Why does Arch seem to have a cult like following?
like this
Mordikan likes this.
The shortest answer -
Arch has really good documentation and a release style that works for a lot of people.
Ubuntu is coorporitized and less reliable Debian with features that many people dont need or want.
I think so. I lost count of the little things, it really was death by a thousand paper cuts.
I was a pretty rabid fan of Ubuntu, still have an x86 and ppc CD of 5.04 somewhere.
But by the time snaps started appearing, and then Ubuntu pro, Ubuntu decided to revert some of my customized configs in /etc after an upgrade, I had had enough. When snaps were reinstalled after an upgrade in 2021, I just flipped over to Debian, which has come a long way in being usable out of the box.
It's true, and it was a huge pain in the ass:
answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+…
Question #223855 “Why is ffmpeg obsolete?” : Questions : Ubuntu
I have been using ffmpeg to convert audio files to MP3 format for my commercial web service and have found out that ffmpeg is no longer available in my version (12.Launchpad
At the time, canonical was throwing its weight around and essentially bullying Debian upstream repos. Around this time, there was a mass exodus of the Debian leadership over this kind of thing.
The old guard of Debian wasn't as... enthusiastic about systemd either, but look what they use now.
The biggest one: Snaps.
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian, and it's basically the same thing, just faster since it uses native packages instead of Snaps. Ubuntu might as well run all it's apps in Docker containers.
You could rebrand Debian to Ubuntu and most users wouldn't even notice.
Arch requires reading the manual to install it, so installing it successfully is an accomplishment.
It's rolling release with a large repo which fits perfectly for regularly used systems which require up-to-date drivers. In that sense it's quite unique as e.g. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has less packages.
It has basically any desktop available without any preference or customisations by default.
They have a great short name and solid logo.
Arch is community-based and is quite pragmatic when it comes to packaging. E.g. they don't remove proprietary codecs like e.g. Fedora.
Ubuntu is made by a company and Canonical wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best. This makes them develop things like snap to work for them (as it's their project) instead of using e.g. flatpak (which is only an alternative for a subset of snaps features). This corporate mindset clashes with the terminally online Linux desktop community.
Also, they seem to focus more on their enterprise server experience, as that is where their income stream comes from.
But like always, people with strong opinions are those voicing them loudly. Most Linux users don't care and use what works best for them. For that crowd Ubuntu is a good default without any major downsides.
Edit: A major advantage of Ubuntu are their extended security updates not found on any other distro (others simply do not patch them). Those are locked behind a subscription for companies and a free account for a few devices for personal use.
installing it successfully is an accomplishment
Not really with archiinstall, but indeed as you say reading the manual is an expectation. Their philosophy is "creating an environment that is straightforward and relatively easy for the user to understand directly, rather than providing polished point-and-click style management tools", as well-summarized by Wikipedia.
wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best
tbh that goes for every distro. It's just that Canonical is more hands-on with its approach. The major complaint with Snap besides performance issues is Canonical making it so that only the Snap versions of popular apps (most famously, the bundled Firefox) are available by default.
I don't know about everyone else, but the last couple of years has had the most unstable Ubuntu releases, with the most unrecoverable releases when issues happen.
I've since moved to Fedora for desktop and straight Debian for server.
I used it a little way back in 2005-2006ish, and decided to give it a try again after a third reinstall of ubuntu within a year last year.
though, I'm about to get a "new" laptop and may toy around with Arch on the old one. I had previously tried setting up Arch in a VM but that's not supported and ended poorly.
I can't speak to Arch but I use Ubuntu every day. I hate on Ubuntu because I use it every day. They make terrible choices. They've got common, serious issues people have reported at least as far back as 2009 with no acknowledgement or plan to address. I'm on LTS and they push through multiple reboot requiring sets of updates a week, heedless of the impacts.
I don't feel like learning a totally new environment so I'll be switching my main computer to Mint whenever I get the time. So I can deal with someone else's annoying decisions for a while.
- it is rolling release and I like having up to date software and not having to deal with distro upgrades breaking things
- it is community run and not beholden to a company
- packages are mostly unmodified from their upstream
- the wiki and forums are the best of any distro
:: Searching AUR for notes...
-> Missing AUR Packages: SideNote
there is nothing to read
the wiki ~~and forums~~ are the best of any distro
If you don't participate in it that is.
If you veer only a little off of their strict rules,
then Arch forum will ban you and they won't allow you to even read the forum.
I don't really have a concise answer, but allow me to ramble from personal experience for a bit:
I'm a sysadmin that was VERY heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It was all I worked with professionally and really all I had ever used personally as well. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and just kept on from there, although I did mess with Linux from time to time.
Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows in many well-documented ways. From small things like not letting you customize the Start menu and task bar, to things like microstuttering from all the data it's trying to load over the web, to the ads it keeps trying to shove into various corners. A million little splinters that add up over time. Still, I considered myself a power user, someone able to make registry tweaks and PowerShell scripts to suit my needs.
Arch isn't particularly difficult for anyone who is comfortable with OSes and has excellent documentation. After installation it is extremely minimal, coming with a relatively bare set of applications to keep it functioning. Using the documentation to make small decisions for yourself like which photo viewer or paint app to install feels empowering. Having all those splinters from Windows disappear at once and be replaced with a system that feels both personal and trustworthy does, in a weird way, kind of border on an almost religious experience. You can laugh, but these are the tools that a lot of us live our daily lives on, for both work and play. Removing a bloated corporation from that chain of trust does feel liberating.
As to why particularly Arch? I think it's just that level of control. I admit it's not for everyone, but again, if you're at least somewhat technically inclined, I absolutely believe it can be a great first distro, especially for learning. Ubuntu has made some bad decisions recently, but even before that, I always found myself tinkering with every install until it became some sort of Franken-Debian monster. And I like pacman way better than apt, fight me, nerds.
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Is it really? I've always understood the cult around it as a joke.
But seriously, RTFM.
Arch has a very in-depth wiki that's the go-to resource for a lot of Linux users, and it offers a community-driven way to have access to literally anything that's ever landed on Linux ever through the AUR. It's also nice to have an OS that you never have to reinstall (assuming all things go well).
Why that turned into such a cult-meme is anyone's guess though.
About 10 years ago it was The Distro for first time linux users to prove they were a True Linux Enjoyer. Think a bunch of channers bragging about how they are the true linux master race because they edited a grub config.
Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo. Since then that role has transitioned to NixOS who aren't nearly as toxic but still culty. "Way of the future" etc.
All three of have high bars of entry so everyone has to take pride in the effort they put in to learn how to install their distro. Like getting hazed into a frat except you actually learn something.
The Ubuntu hatred is completely unrelated. That has to do with them being a corporate distro that keep making bad design decisions. And their ubiquity means everyone has to deal with their bad decisions. (snap bad)
archinstall with LVM on LUKS is sufficient.
BTRFS with LUKS (OpenSUSE gets close), but using rEFInd as bootloader. Snapper snapshots, Zram.
I'm actually thinking about switching to systemd-boot with Secure Boot, TPM2 and stuff, so even further from mainstream installers.
Last time I used EndeavourOS, I managed to get the graphical installer to install BTRFS on LUKS, it did require custom partitioning in the graphical installer, snapper just worked after that.
Zram (or was it Zswap?) was pretty easy to enable after installatiok
The bootloader might be beyond what the graphical installer can do though... I never really bothered switching...
Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo.
To add, before the change the Gentoo wiki was a top resource when it came to Linux questions. Even if you didn't use Gentoo you could find detailed information on how various parts of Linux worked.
One day the Gentoo wiki died. It got temporary mirrors quickly, but it took a long time to get up and working again. This left a huge opening for another wiki, the Arch wiki, to become the new top resource.
I suspect, for a number of reasons, Arch was always going to replace Gentoo as the "True Linux Explorer", but the wiki outage accelerated it.
I just think its good.
The way I see it, you can have an OS that breaks less often and is hard to fix, or an OS that breaks a little more often that is easy to fix. I choose the latter. 99/100 times, when something breaks with an update, it's on the front page of archlinux.org with a fix.
The problems I've faced with other distros or windows is the solution is often "reinstall, lol", which is like a 3 hour session of nails on a chalkboard for me.
But arch is less work, not more
Ubuntu = breaking update every 2 years
Arch = breaking update never
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I use Ubuntu professionally and Arch at home
Anything that's not Windows is my preference.
I love arch because I know what's in it and how to fix it and what to expect, the community is mostly very nice and open to help
AUR is great and using pacman feels lovely
I also care about learning and understanding the system I'm using beyond just using a GUI that does everything for me
Ubuntu is not bad it's probably one of the most used distros by far
Linux motto is: Use what you like and customize it how you like because there is no company forcing you to do things their way
there is no company forcing you to do things their way
IBM would like to do have a few words.
It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.
I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.
Funnily enough, I feel the opposite. Manjaro never worked reliably for me, but Fedora works great for my use case. Is it perfect? Fuck if I know. But it's a good, no-nonsense, extremely low maintenance, super reliable distro that I use daily with zero issues.
Also, they pioneered the atomic distro concept that has amazing use cases, and some fantastic projects are based on this technology. My gaming PC runs Bazzite for a zero-maintenance, immediate gaming experience. My dads laptop runs Bluefin and he hasn't broken it yet, and he's capable of breaking every single OS.
Same.
That said, never heard of fedora being a cult at all. Hell I feel it gets far less recognition than it should honestly for being cutting edge and stable.
But you're still getting updates every day, just two weeks later than Arch. The "testing" is just two other branches somewhat closer to the Arch package releases.
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Arch is amazing for what it is, hence the love. It’s what you make of it; by default there’s nothing and you design your own system from scratch. This leads to a very passionate and enthusiastic community who do great work for one another, for everybody’s benefit. Anything under the sun can be found in the AUR, the distro repos are fresh and reliable, and every issue that arises has a hundred people documenting the fix before it’s patched.
Ubuntu has a bad reputation for inconsistency, privacy invasive choices, etc. I don’t think all the hate is deserved, as they corrected course after the Amazon search fiasco, but I still won’t use it because of Snaps. They have a proprietary backend, so even if I wanted to put up with their other strange design decisions I can’t unless I wanted closed source repos. That goes against my whole philosophy and reasoning for being on Linux to begin with, and many feel the same.
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Normal people who use Arch don't bring it up much, because they're all sick of the memes and are really, REALLY tired of immediately being called rude elitist neckbeard cultists every time they mention it.
The Ubuntu hate is because Canonical has a long history of making weird, controversial decisions that split the Linux community for no good reason.
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Unity would be the first example, and although Unity was actually a good DE,
it was too bloated and almost non-modifiable.
People jumped ship to Linux Mint that had its priorities straight.
Mir and Snap were bigger issues though
as Wayland and Flatpak were great replacements for
X11 and AppImage and did not need another competitor.
But the privacy issues were the straw that broke the camel's back.
People left windows for linux so they wouldn't have to deal with this
kind of nonsense.
I actually jumped when Ubuntu jumped to Gnome 3.
Gnome 3 was too bloated for me and it looked ugly.
I decided to see what Arch Linux was about
and eventually settled for Manjaro Linux.
Arch + Xfce for the win.
I tried Ubuntu on a laptop, and when i saw the Amazon logo, I did a double take. I actually got a bit dizzy, and had to evaluate what I had just done.
Shame on me though, because I installed Ubuntu on a vps, and got spam in my ssh session. "Get Ubuntu pro now!"
Sigh.
I'm quite experienced in Linux but I wouldn't use either. Arch is great if you like to tinker, Ubuntu sucks for the not so libre approach , corporate ties, telemetry etc. I distrohopped before but today I just install my debian based distro and shit works.. Ubuntu I've installed twice before when I was new to Linux, and have had a major issues every time due to official updates that broke internet drivers and other things, that's a fun one when you only have one PC . Not to mention its so bloated that shitty computers that I like to thinker with it have a hard time catching up. The arch thing is also mostly a kind of meme, targeting the more unbearable nerds. People I hated when I was a noob (they will let you know you are) But they are found everywhere and in general I don't think there's more of those people in arch community than anywhere else. It's more of a stab at elitism than arch specifically.
I see a point in arch but zero in ubuntu.
Arch Hits the great spot
It has:
- a great wiki
- many packages, enough for anything you want to do
- its the only distros that is beetween everything done for you and gentoo-like fuck you.
- and the Memes.
because they used to be special. "I run linux", matrix text on boot, typing shit in the terminal, "I'm in", awe-inspiring shit to an onlooker...
but nowadays, anyone can run ubuntu or mint or whatevs and our hero ain't special no more. so here comes the ultimate delimiter.
Arch is better because...
- pacman, seriously, I don't hear enough of how great pacman is.
Being able to search easily for files within a package is a godsend when some app refuses to work giving you an error message
"lib_obscure.so.1 cannot be found".
I haven't had such issues in a long time, but when I do, I don't have to worry about doing a ten hour search, if I'm lucky, for where this obscure library file is supposed to be located and in what package it should be part of. - rolling release. Non-rolling Ubuntu half-year releases have broken my OS in the past around 33% of the time. And lots of apps in the past had essential updates I needed, but required me to wait 5 months for the OS to catch up.
- AUR. Some apps can't be found anywhere but AUR.
- Their wiki is the best of all Linuxes
The "cult" is mostly gushing over AUR.
"I run Arch btw" became a meme because until install scripts became commonplace you had to have a reasonable understanding of the terminal and ability to read and follow instructions to install Arch Linux to a usable state. "Look at my l33t skills."
Dislike of Ubuntu comes from Canonical...well...petting the cat backwards. They go against the grain a lot. They're increasingly corporate, they did a sketchy sponsorship thing with Amazon at one point, around ten years ago they were in the midst of this whole "Not Invented Here" thing; all tech had to be invented in-house, instead of systemd they made and abandoned Upstart, instead of working on Wayland they pissed away time on Mir, instead of Gnome or KDE they made Unity, and instead of APT they decided to build Snap. Which is the one they're still clinging to.
For desktop users there are a lot better distros than Ubuntu these days.
I left Ubuntu for Arch because I got sick of Arch having everything I wanted and Ubuntu taking ages to finally get it. I was tired of compiling shit all the time just to keep up to date.
Honestly glad I made the change, too. Arch has been so much better all around. Less bloat and far fewer problems.
I installed arch before there was the official install script. It's not that is was THAT difficult, but it does provide a great sense of accomplishment, you learn a lot, customize everything, and you literally only install things you know you want. (Fun story: I had to start over twice: the first time I forgot to install sudo, the second I forgot to install the package needed to have an internet connection)
All of this combined mean that the users have a sense of pride for being an arch user so they talk about it more that the rest. There is no pride in clicking your way though an installer that makes all the choices for you
The problem there is that stable vs unstable distro uses a slightly different meaning of the word stable than you would use to talk about a stable vs unstable system.
In distro speak, a stable distro is one that changes very little over time, and an unstable one is one that changes constantly. That's sort of tangentially related to reliability, in that if your system is reliable and doesn't change then it's likely to stay that way, but it's not the same thing as reliability.
I think Arch is so popular because its considered a middle of the road distro. Even if not exactly true, Ubuntu is seen as more of a pre-packaged distro. Arch would be more al a carte with what you are actually running. I started with Slackware back in the day when everything was a lot more complicated to get setup, and there was even then this notation that ease of access and customization were separate and you can't have both. Either the OS controls everything and its easy or you control everything and its hard. To some extent that's always going to be true, but there's no reason you can't or shouldn't try to strike a balance between the two. I think Arch fits nicely into that space.
I also wouldn't use the term "cultists" as much as "aholes". If you've ever been on the Arch forums you know what I'm talking about. There is a certain kind of dickish behavior that occurs there, but it somewhat is understandable. A lot of problems are vaguely posted (several times over) with no backing logs or info to determine anything. Just "Something just happened. Tell me how to fix it?". And on top of that, those asking for help refuse to read the wiki or participate in the problem solving. They just want an online PC repair shop basically.
I'm not sure either. I think arch used to be one of the less popular distros (because of the more involved install process, solved now by the arch-based distros with friendly installers), despite having some of the best features, so it required more "evangelism", that's unecessary now. Arch-based distros are now some of the most popular ones, so its not necessary.
Others have commented on why its so great, but the AUR + Rolling releases + stability means that arch is one of the "stable end states". You might hop around a lot, but its one of the ones you end up landing on, and have no reason to change from.
There are a lot of different reasons that people hate Ubuntu. Most of them Not great reasons.
Ubuntu became popular by making desktop Linux approachable to normal people. Some of the abnormal people already using Linux hated this.
In November 2010, Ubuntu switched from GNOME as their default desktop to Unity. This made many users furious.
Then in 2017, Ubuntu switched from Unity to Gnome. This made many users furious.
There's also a graveyard of products and services that infuriated users when canonical started them, then infuriated users when they discontinued them.
And the Amazon "scandal".
And then there's the telemetry stuff.
Meanwhile. Arch has always been the bad boy that dares you to love him... unapproachable and edgy.
If there was a simple Debian based distro that I could declaratively manage via a single config file, I think I'd try it. I.e. not using Puppet or Chef that can only bootstrap a system state, but something to truly manage a system's entire life cycle, including removing packages and anything littering the system file tree. But since there isn't, I'm using NixOS instead.
Having a DSL to declare my entire system install, that I can revision control like any other software project, has been convenient for self documenting my setup and changes/fixes over time. Modularizing that config has been great for managing multiple host machines synchronously, so both my laptop and desktop feel the same without extra admin work.
Nixpkgs also bolsters a lot of bleeding edge releases for the majority of FOSS packages I use, which I'm still getting used to. And because of how the packaging works, it's also trivial to config the packages to build from customer sources or with custom features. E.g. enabling load monitoring for Nvidia GPUs from btop that many distros don't ship by default.
I've started with ubuntu/mint and it was always a matter of time before something broke then i tried everything from then all the major distros and found that I loved being on a rolling release with openSUSE Tubleweed (gaming and most new software works better) and BTRFS on Fedora (BTRFS let's you have boot time snapshots you can go back to if anything breaks).
After some research I found I can get both with arch so installed arch as a learning process via the outstanding wiki and have never looked back.
Nowadays I just install endevourOS because it's just an arch distro with easy BTRFS setup and easy gui installer was almost exactly like my custom arch cofigs and it uses official arch repos so you update just like arch (unlike manjaro). It's been more stable than windows 10 for me.
Tldr: arch let's you pick exactly what you want in a distro and is updated with the latest software something important if you game with nvidia GPU for example.
I had moved from Slackware to Debian but by 2004 the long release cycles of Debian were making it very hard to use any Debian with current hardware or desktop environments. I was using Sid and dealing with the breakages. Ubuntu promised a reskinned Debian with 6 month release cycles synced to Gnome. Then they over delivered with a live cd and easy installation and it was a deserved phenomenon. I very enthusiastically installed Warty Warthog. Even bought some merch.
When Ubuntu launched it was promoted as a community distro, "humanity towards others" etc despite being privately funded. Naked people holding hands. Lots of very good community outreach etc.
The problem for Ubuntu was it wasn't really a community distro at all. It was Canonical building on the hard work of Debian volunteers. Unlike Redhat, Canonical had a bad case of not invented here projects that never got adopted elsewhere like upstart, unity, mir, snaps and leaving their users with half-arsed experiments that then got dropped. Also Mint exists so you can have the Ubuntu usability enhancements of Debian run by a community like Debian. I guess there is a perception now that Ubuntu is a mid corpo-linux stuck between two great community deb-based systems so from the perspective of others in the Linux community a lot of us don't get why people would use it.
Arch would be just another community distro but for a lot of people they got the formula right. Great documentation, reasonably painless rolling release, and very little deviation from upstream. Debian maintainers have a very nasty habit of adding lots of patches even to gold standard security projects from openbsd . They broke ssh key generation. Then they linked ssh with systemd libs making vulnerable to a state actor via the xz backdoor. Arch maintainers don't do this bullshit.
Everything else is stereotypes. Always feeling like you have to justify using arch, which is a very nice stable, pure linux experience, just because it doesn't have a super friendly installer. Or having to justify Ubuntu which just works for a lot of people despite it not really being all that popular with the rest of the linux community.
Ok, I think I can provide some insight into this that I think it's missed on other replies.
I switched to Arch back when Arch had an installer, yup, that's right, Arch used to have an installer, then they removed it and you had to do most of the process manually (yes, I know pacstrap is technically an installer, but I'm talking about the original ncurses installer here).
After Arch removed its installer it began to attract more purists, and with that the meme was born, people online would be discussing stuff and someone would explain something simple and the other would reply with "I use arch BTW", which meant you didn't need to explain trivial stuff because the person had a good idea on how their system works.
Then Arch started to suffer from being too good of a distro, see those of us that were using it consistently saw posts with people complaining about issues on their distros that never affected us, so a sort of "it doesn't happen on my distro" effect started to grow, putting that together with the excellent wiki that people were linking left and right (even for non Arch users) and lots of people became interested.
This new wave of users was relatively new to Linux, they thought that by following a tutorial and running a couple of command lines when installing arch they had become complete experts in Linux, and they saw the "I use Arch btw" replies and thought they meant "I know more than you because I use Arch", so they started to repeat that. And it became common to see posts with people being L337 H4ck3r5 with no clue whatsoever using "I use Arch btw".
That's when the sort of cult mentality formed, you had experienced people who liked Arch because it was a good distro that didn't break on its own with good documentation to help when you screw up, these people suffered a bit from this and told newbies that they should use Arch. Together with that you had the other group who thought because they installed Arch they were hackers telling people Arch was waaaay too hard, and that only true Linux experts should use it. From the outside this must have felt that we were hiding something, you had several people telling you to come to our side or they couldn't help you, or pointing at documentation that looked specific for their distro, and others saying you weren't cool enough for it probably felt like a cult recruiting.
At the end of the day Arch is a very cool distro, I've tried lots of them but prefer Arch because it's a breeze to maintain in the long run. And the installation process is not something you want to throw at a person who just wants to install Linux to check it out, but it's also not complicated at all. There are experts using Ubuntu or other "noob" distros because at the end of the day it's all the same under the hood, using Arch will not make you better at Linux, it will just force you to learn basic concepts to finish the installation that if you had been using Linux for a while you probably already know them (e.g. fstab or locale).
As for Ubuntu, part of it stems from the same "I use Arch btw" guys dumping on Ubuntu for being "noob", other part is because Canonical has a history of not adoption community stuff and instead try to develop their own thing, also they sent your search queries to Amazon at some point which obviously went very badly for their image in the community.
I used Ubuntu as my first distro out of curiosity sometime around 2006. I've tried others (Mint, Pop OS, Debian, Fedora) but mostly settled with Ubuntu because it was just kind of ok for me and as another user said, there was a lot of articles that helped with getting things working because it became popular.
I had heard of Arch and to your point the it's complicated thing very much kept me away from it even though I have been using computers for around 30 years and was comfortable using a terminal.
The other thing is gaming, I consistently had problems with the nvidia cards that I've had over the years and never really cared to dig into trying to get things to work so Linux was kind of my testing ground for other things and just general learning about how things work.
Then I finally just had enough of Windows a couple of years ago, and with gaming support getting better I went back to Ubuntu and it just didn't feel good, I wanted something different that was setup how I wanted it so I looked into Arch.
I tried a couple of times to manually install it but my attention span (ADHD) kept me from focusing on the documentation enough to actually learn what I was doing. In comes the archinstall script, it was basic enough for me to follow and understand to get my system up and running.
I went through roughly 3-4 installs using it and testing stuff after I had it running and breaking stuff and just doing a fresh install since the script made it very easy. Since then I have learned a good bit more, and honestly don't think I will ever use another distro for my desktop. Just the ability to make it exactly what you want and things just work. Not to mention the documentation is massive and the AUR is awesome.
I do use Pop OS on my wife's laptop since it decided to automatically upgrade to W11 which crippled it and I just wanted something that I could just drop on there that would work with no real configuration since the only thing it needs is Citrix which works ootb and she can use all her office tools through that and has libre office if she wants to do something locally.
I do have a separate drive with W11 on my desktop, its used for one thing, SolidWorks. Which I use enough to merit having windows.
Arch was and still kind of is seen as the "I use Arch BTW" crowd, but it really shouldn't be that way. The install script isn't fancy, but it works. I think that would be one of the biggest barriers to break that mindset and open it to more people that are still fresh to Linux. I think that having even the most basic "GUI" for installing Arch would do wonders.
My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste.
Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all.
I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system do behave that way.
Ubuntu? Its a can't make up its mind what it is trying to be while always becoming a crashy mess. When it first came out I remember trying it and immediately broke it.
The last time I installed it recently it had issues out of the box.
So I love Debian but it prides itself on stability so packages tend to be older. I think this is good for a server but probably not great for a desktop. Ubuntu came along and was like we'll be like Debian but newer packages. Everything was cool for a while but then they started doing shitty things. The first that I can think of was ads in the terminal. This was not great for an open source app. Then when you did apt install firefox it installed Firefox as a snap. WTF?!?!? (apt should install .deb files, not snaps). Because of this, lately I've decided to avoid Ubuntu.
I used Gentoo for a while and it was great but configuring and compiling everything took forever. I'm getting too old for that. Arch seems like a good alternative for people who want to mess with their system. So it's become a way for people to claim they know what they are doing without having to recompile everything. (Note: I haven't used Arch, this is just my perception)
Recently I got a new laptop and I had decided to put Linux on it and had to decide what distro. Arch was in consideration but I ended up going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's got the latest but I don't really have to configure anything. If I had more time, I might go with something like Arch but I don't really want to do that much fiddling right now.
I wonder if it's just me or if other people who were around before Ubuntu feel the same way but the reason I hate Ubuntu is that it seemed to take over the Linux world.
A lot of the information about how to do something in Linux was drowned out by how to do it in Ubuntu. When searching for information you have to scroll down in the search results for something that sounds unrelated to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu material was often titled "how to do it in Linux" and you thought you had a good long tutorial until you read a few paragraphs in and realized it was for Ubuntu and wouldn't work for you for whatever reason.
Even some software that says it's available on Windows and Linux just means they have a Ubuntu package and if you're really good there's a chance you might be able to figure out how to use it on a non Ubuntu system.
It's like when Ubuntu came out, people just assumed that Linux was Ubuntu. I've never used Ubuntu so a lot of the information I've came across regarding it has just been in the way of me finding useful information.
Arch has a cult like following because it emphasizes simplicity and customizability. If you have the time to fully administer your own system, there is no better choice.
Ubuntu is corporate, frequently out of date, and sometimes incompetent. They got big a long time ago when they were a significantly easier option than their competitors, but I really don't think there's compelling reason for a new user to install Ubuntu today.
Maybe it's masochism, but I like Arch because it forces me to make mistakes and learn. No default DE, several network management choices, lots of configuration for non-defaults. These are all decisions I have to make, and if I try to cut corners I usually get punished for it.
However, I think the real reason I stick with arch is because this paradigm means that I always feel capable of fixing issues. As people solve the issues they face, forum posts and wiki articles (and sometimes big fixes) get pushed out, and knowledge is shared. That sense of community and building on something I feel like Arch promotes.
The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.
Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.
It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.
Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.
I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.
Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS "must" take, they won't get much support from the wide user community.
Rust introduces novel features and makes notable changes from its ancestors.
Arch was just blue Gentoo.
Arch was just blue Gentoo
I don't know if that ever was true but I definitely disagree with that nowadays because Arch is in my opinion significantly more approachable and easier to daily-drive than Gentoo.
How to make Zoom more private
Spread software freedom ideas to your classmates.
Don't say privacy. Say scam, abuse and control. You got to say it simple, so even a retard can see Zoom is fucked. You got to make it blatant.
File group complaints.
Zoom Redirector – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)
Download Zoom Redirector for Firefox. Zoom Redirector transparently redirects any meeting links to use Zoom's browser based web client.addons.mozilla.org
Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ project with BCG
Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ project with BCG
Former UK prime minister’s institute participated in meetings on plan to turn shattered enclave into trading hubStephen Foley (Financial Times)
Canon PIXMA G550 Linux compatibility?
I think network printer made by big manufacturer recent years should be fine with IPP driverless. They found Printer Working Group of IEEE, this organization maintains IPP standard and IPP Everywhere™ Certification. AirPrint can be treated as Apple version of IPP Everywhere, the difference between them is AirPrint requires Apple Raster but IPP Everywhere requires PWG Raster (and JPEG JFIF file format if color printer).
Ah, so they are actually differences between IPP Everywhere and AirPrint (apart from AirPrint including the whole autodiscovery stuff)? Good to know. The latter is usually more prominently advertised though which is why that’s the one I mentioned.
But yeah, it should be very common for these to be supported with anything remotely recent.
- IPP Everywhere also include full autodiscovery stuff (mDNS and DNS-SD, of course, Apple call this combination as Bonjour). So I said raster is the only difference.
- Raster is unimportant in Linux situation because CUPS support both PWG Raster (It's actually a subset of original CUPS Raster) and Apple Raster. Whichever one your device supports, CUPS will work fine.
When you say proprietary drivers, I assume that means they are only available for x86_64 platform... leaving ARM64/aarch64 devices, like Pi's and such, out of luck?
Something I've experienced with similar printer drivers. Hence the ask.
'Autofocus' specs promise sharp vision, near or far - BBC News
'Autofocus' specs promise sharp vision, near or far
Start-up firms and researchers are working on lenses that can change their focus.Chris Baraniuk (BBC News)
Trincapinones
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •From ElMundo:
El Gobierno reconoce que "la industria no dispone de capacidad" para fabricar material cuyo proveedor es Israel
Marina Pina (El Mundo)geneva_convenience
in reply to Trincapinones • • •Trincapinones
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •geneva_convenience
in reply to Trincapinones • • •edel
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •To help understand what is happening in Spain:
1) This government is a a very precarious situation, even before the ongoing genocide. It is form by a delicate coalition. Now, Spain has traditionally been very sympathetic for the Palestinian cause, and the majority of parties reflect that sentiment.
2) Spain is a NATO country so as such it needs mainly US weaponry that US, oddly, to say the least, assigns Israel to be the distributor of critical parts.
3) Spain has an army military elite and a Police force (Guardia Civil) that is very linked to the Franco dictatorship so these tend to quietly push their weight for the Israel's side of things.
4) Grande-Marlaska is the Interior minister in this coalition. He is from the ruling Socialist Party, but he is well known for years to be very right-wing on many aspects, among them, to side with Israel and working to undermine Spanish position on Gaza. He is the ultimate person to authorize purchases many of these purchases we hear about. The president should had fired him long ago, but, I presume, would severely risk the coalition and cause votes to leave to the Right.
5) Since a decade, there is a very right-wing political that, like in most on Europe, is disrupting the political panorama. Nothing bad, per se, but this political party (VOX) was very, very strangely was finance early on by the "People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran", a anti-Iranian organization... why are anti-Iranial organizations doing financing extreme-right wing parties in Europe should been raising some eyebrows but did not. What I do highly suspect is that these groups are not being financed by disgruntled Iranians but some other entity with deeper pockets and with even more eager to see a regime change in Iran.
6) Spain police forces, like in most of the world, tend to exaggerate claims of terrorism arrest. Let's not even go that most these terrorist groups have actually links to some western intelligence groups, but overwhelming majority of arrest are for " distributing terrorist links", aka to pass links of joining Al-Qaeda in Syria (oh, the irony!) or passing videos that you would have found on Twitter anyways.... it is a bit like when peer-to-peer file sharing was deemed as clear copyright violation and sent to prison but that you find exact music now in YouTube and composers still get nothing but this is now legal and YouTube lauded as a success story.
7) Now there is a case of an attempt of assassination of right-wing politician (Vidal-Quadras) that very early on was blamed on an Iranian agent... there is no proof at all that Iran is behind, probably the only intel on the individual was provided by the CIA or Mossad and happily the Guardia Civil takes it without any further question. Of course, the Cui Bono here never applies in these cases... why would Iran attack politicians of the country in Europe more sympathetic to Palestine and even Iran is never asked... same as why "Islamist" ISIS never attacks Israel but only to countries that Tel-Avid has in the bull-eye at the moment and the occasional attack to Europe to make them remember how bad Islam (ironically, to blame the countries that ISIS is actually attacking!!!).
8) In Spain, awkward things are happening since Spain position on Gaza. In spite economically performing good in an ailing Europe, nation-wide blackouts happen for first time, bullet trains cannot run because someone "steals" copper lines, private calls gets release (always in only one side, that is!), etc.
So yeah, that is why Spain says one thing, but them a contract with Israel gets signed, and Spain gets shunned for not wanted to spend more in military... Lets be frank, the overwhelming majority to purchase US weaponry... I would love to Spain dedicate that extra defense spending in diversifying its weaponry on Chinese J-35 (1/2 operating costs of F-35 anyways) and you will see if increase defense is actually Europe' s rational or the facade behind a massive Money Laundering.
geneva_convenience
in reply to edel • • •Sure but the shady political duality of the Israel is know. I don't care what makes it happen. My question is wheter it did happen.
If the political wing stopped it then good. If they didn't then not good.
When it comes to Israel I have no interest in lip service. Only in results.
edel
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •Again... if Sanchez did more (and I don't think he is such a great guy, but at least he is right here), his shaky coalition would fall and elections would be called. I think he will still win, but polls says the Right would win being Israel's beloved VOX the king maker and you will see Spain participating in the genocide like UK or Germany does... there are your "results"!
Again, Spain should do far more, I ultimately trust on Spaniards here, but I understand one may want to proceed more cautiously here.
geneva_convenience
in reply to edel • • •altkey (he\him)
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •Yeah, right, that can't get wrong.
geneva_convenience
in reply to altkey (he\him) • • •