Trump Announces 5,000% Increase In All Numbers
Trump Announces 5,000% Increase In All Numbers
WASHINGTON—Touting his latest executive order as a historic win for the U.S. economy, President Donald Trump announced Friday that he was mandating a 5,000% increase in all numbers nationwide.The Onion Staff (The Onion)
Waymo Just Reprogrammed Its Robotaxis to Drive Less Safely
Besides convenience, one of the main benefits of self-driving cars is supposed to be safety.Yet in a bizarre move, Waymo — whose self-driving cabs had been enjoying extraordinary safety metrics — has just taken steps to make its robotaxis more human-like, eroding the safety narrative that’s been central to the autonomous vehicle narrative.
Recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal observed a startling change in Waymos’ road etiquette, a new aggressive streak that would make a BMW driver blush. These include illegal U-turns, aggressive lane switching, rolling through cross walks, and running red lights.
Waymo Just Reprogrammed Its Robotaxis to Drive Less Safely
Waymo has been experimenting with programming to make its typically-cautious robotaxis "confidently assertive."Joe Wilkins (Futurism)
It's so bad, it's become a gut reaction at this point.
1. person says something anti communist
2. checks instance
3. huh .world again
But seriously if we want liberals to actually become socialists making fun of them is the worst way to do this.
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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
You're right that mockery is a terrible way to convert anyone. I think the real issue is that you're not going to reach everyone, and that means we have to be strategic about where we put our energy. When someone is genuinely asking questions or wrestling with ideas in good faith, that's where patient, respectful dialogue is essential.
But a huge amount of online discourse isn't that. It's just bad faith concern trolling, sealioning, or just repeating liberal pieties. Engaging with that on its own terms is a trap because it wastes time and gives legitimacy to arguments designed to waste our time.
A sharp dismissal or ridicule draws a clear line, shows others they don't have to entertain every bad argument, and prevents the conversation from being derailed. The target is the audience, not the provocateur. So while it's useless for persuasion, I'd argue that it has a role in defining the boundaries of the discussion.
The only way to reach westerners is on the other side of a crisis that affects them personally. Anyone who can see the malicious cruelty of everyday life in America as well as the huge misery they export everywhere else and either pretend they don't know or shrug it off ain't gonna be converted by morality or reason, they're gonna be reached once it happens to them or the handful of people they might actually care about.
I personally try to be helpful and nicer when somebody's shown genuine curiosity or naive misguidedness. We've all been there at one point. But there's far too many who are just parroting the US line as if it were gospel and I don't think ridiculing them is even the worst option.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mao really said that, where the quote is taken out of context. en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:…
Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, "Show me where it's written in the book." When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from "a higher organ of leadership" but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalist attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.The method of studying the social sciences exclusively from the book is likewise extremely dangerous and may even lead one onto the road of counter-revolution. Clear proof of this is provided by the fact that whole batches of Chinese Communists who confined themselves to books in their study of the social sciences have turned into counter-revolutionaries. When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a "prophet" but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalization of mystical notion as that of "prophecy" ever enters our minds. Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well. Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with our country's actual conditions. We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.
How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.
If only Maoists would take Mao’s own advice…
"We will wage our revolution by teaching gay in schools and taxing small business owners"
-Ho Chi Minh
nope, one of his most famous quotes (that this is a corruption of) is:
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."
from here
The most credible source I find credits it to an article by German satirist and journalist, Kurt tucholsky who was supposedly quoting a French diplomat in 1925
Neat, now to learn German, find this book and find who he was supposedly quoting 😂
I love that the reference includes "see Stalin" without any further context. We've come full circle 😶
That fake Stalin quote isn't wrong tbh.
When the 6 people in the titan sub went missing, western govts moved heaven and earth to mount an extensive rescue operation despite knowing full well they most likely imploded.
Meanwhile, thousands die each year crossing the Mediterranean, and the same governments show nothing but contempt for them.
Keir Starmer Machine Ran a Secret Campaign to Demonetize Breitbart News and Other Opposition Outlets
From our vantage point looking across the pond at the United Kingdom, it truly does seem like the country decided to put an end to itself rather than allow public anger to be channeled by the one-time Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. With hindsight, and thanks to a new book by investigative journalist Paul Holden, author of today’s article below, we can now see clearly that the destruction of the Labour Party at the hands of a corporate, pro-Israel faction within the party was quite calculated and deliberate.
One piece of that strategy involved destroying the journalistic outlets that had organized themselves around the Corbynist energy, and to do so, the faction created astroturf organizations that claimed to be objectively rooting out “fake news.”
That faction eventually succeeded in electing Sir Keir Starmer prime minister, but doing so required political deception on a historic scale, resulting inevitably in his historic unpopularity. The right-wing takeover is not a matter of if, but when, and Starmer may wind up being the last Labour prime minister ever.
Along the way, Starmer’s faction also waged a secret war on conservative news outlets, as well. The censorship campaign targeting political opponents has morphed into an alarming attack on speech rights in the UK, focused on critics of Israel but broadly encompassing a wide range of expression.
Keir Starmer Machine Ran a Secret Campaign to Demonetize Breitbart News and Other Opposition Outlets
Starmer’s current chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, served as the head of a machine that targeted media outlets on the left and right, foreshadowing the UK’s crackdown on dissent.Ryan Grim (Drop Site News)
The man who broke the BBC
I saw how Robbie Gibb’s behind-the-scenes influence helped drive the BBC into crisis.Ben de Pear (Al Jazeera)
Keir Starmer Machine Ran a Secret Campaign to Demonetize Breitbart News and Other Opposition Outlets
From our vantage point looking across the pond at the United Kingdom, it truly does seem like the country decided to put an end to itself rather than allow public anger to be channeled by the one-time Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. With hindsight, and thanks to a new book by investigative journalist Paul Holden, author of today’s article below, we can now see clearly that the destruction of the Labour Party at the hands of a corporate, pro-Israel faction within the party was quite calculated and deliberate.
One piece of that strategy involved destroying the journalistic outlets that had organized themselves around the Corbynist energy, and to do so, the faction created astroturf organizations that claimed to be objectively rooting out “fake news.”
That faction eventually succeeded in electing Sir Keir Starmer prime minister, but doing so required political deception on a historic scale, resulting inevitably in his historic unpopularity. The right-wing takeover is not a matter of if, but when, and Starmer may wind up being the last Labour prime minister ever.
Along the way, Starmer’s faction also waged a secret war on conservative news outlets, as well. The censorship campaign targeting political opponents has morphed into an alarming attack on speech rights in the UK, focused on critics of Israel but broadly encompassing a wide range of expression.
Keir Starmer Machine Ran a Secret Campaign to Demonetize Breitbart News and Other Opposition Outlets
Starmer’s current chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, served as the head of a machine that targeted media outlets on the left and right, foreshadowing the UK’s crackdown on dissent.Ryan Grim (Drop Site News)
Hind Rajab Foundation and human rights groups call for arrest of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni
The Hind Rajab Foundation, the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have called on Canadian authorities to arrest former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for war crimes ahead of a planned visit to Toronto, Canada.
The three organisations filed a complaint with the Canadian Department of Justice on Wednesday, detailing Olmert and Livni’s participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 2008–2009 Gaza War.
The complaint urges an open investigation into their roles and a warrant for their arrest pursuant to Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act and in compliance with the country's obligation under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to “seek out and prosecute” those reasonably suspected of grave breaches who set foot in Canada.
Who like me? T_T
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"I use signal. If you care about our friendship, you'll install it too."
I have friends that got it just for me. I also lost some so-called "friends"
I'm all for getting off anything meta, but come on. Someone not wanting to move to a chat service that's probably less convenient for them does not make them a "so called 'friend'" lmao.
If you're actually losing friends over this, that's quite sad.
Gradually. You don't have to get all your friends off Meta right now. Maybe some of them will, and they might push their friends to ditch meta as well.
Just keep trying. But totally alienating your friends also won't do much good for the whole perception of the movement. Becomes a lot easier to just think of that weird guy who won't talk to us anymore because of some app, rather than what it's actually about.
I feel like I worded that really badly, but I hope my point comes across.
yeah still plinking away at it i guess, but they can always invest their money again in stealing back all of those users for a platform that will enshittify asap.
reminds me of that time people were gradually going to mastodon and then bluesky came around and stole all that thunder because of mostly superior marketing and being very similar to twitter.
Exactly. Maybe one of your less close friends turns out to be a serial killer. Unbeknownst to you now you've made some jokes and had brunch with them. Now a team of cops is going through everything you've ever texted anyone because it's unencrypted, correlating things to make you look horrible. Suddenly you're getting your life ruined.
There are cases of innocent people riding their bikes past an unknown crime scene getting arrested for murder because their phone was reporting their location to Google. Try explaining to your boss that you're missing work today because you're in jail for a murder charge. Privacy is important even when you think it's not and perhaps especially when you think it's not
Hey look, there's normie's here on lemmy now! Your post is the type of naive stuff that gets a ton of traction on reddit.
Its usually more like, "I've got nothing to hide, let them look!", or whatever, but I like your version too.
in my country, it's pretty much mandatory. everybody and their parrots use it universally.
work comms, company services. even the state uses it for their services (of course they have other means too but still).
and i don't trust it at all. been meaning to sandbox it better than just denying permissions.
I made the jump to signal, and those that refused to come with got relegated to SMS.
But it's not always that easy. Sorry that you have to deal with that BS.
Oh wow nice idea, I'm gonna do it ASAP, thanks!
EDIT: after few research Ive seen that also : github.com/meinto/whatsapp-sig…
GitHub - meinto/whatsapp-signal-bridge: Forward your Whatsapp messages to a separate Signal chat and reply to Whatsapp by quoting received messages.
Forward your Whatsapp messages to a separate Signal chat and reply to Whatsapp by quoting received messages. - meinto/whatsapp-signal-bridgeGitHub
Its not 100% open source, haven't fixed a hole that breaks encryption for a while and the CEO is a jew who worked at facebook
So I have Whatsapp for regular people (most). My family switched to Telegram years ago. My GFs family uses only Signal.
My brother refuses such things and made us download SimpleX.
Meanwhile I don't even want to receive messages.
May be worth having a read up aboutsignal.com/blog/how-to-sw…
Also there is watomatic.app which can automatically respond to a message saying you are on Signal.
How to switch from WhatsApp to Signal - AboutSignal.com
Switching from WhatsApp to the privacy-friendly Signal? Good idea! But where do you start? How do you let your friends know you’ve switched? With these tips, we’re happy to help you switch to Signal.Michel (AboutSignal.com)
Yay, let's build my new Linux-powered PC! – Journey to EndeavourOS #2
Yay, let's build my new Linux-powered PC! – Journey to EndeavourOS #2
It’s time to finally build the ticket to my freedom from Windows! Join me as I desperately try to make this Linux PC work, and who knows, it might end up amazing!The Blisscast Journal
"You are in emergency mode. (...) Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked."
My disk is encrypted with LUKS and I wanted to make it auto-unlock using TPM.
I can't enter UEFI as I have fastboot enabled.
Could anyone help me please? 🫡
Do you have GRUB? If yes you can edit your kernel command line and append "init=/bin/bash", see if at least this gives you a prompt, this has saved me a couple of time in the past. Else booting on a USB and mounting your boot partition may help to fix it.
BTW I also have LUKS and I'm using TPM, using tpm2-initramfs-tool, first, it failed because I forgot the tpm modules in initrd, but I always have 2 kernels installed and only modify one initrd at a time to have a safe boot if I have a problem, like I had!
I tested tpm2-initramfs-tool with proper tpm2 modules and it worked.
I also tested with clevis-initramfs and clevis-tpm2 and it's even easier, no messing with crypttab.
Also, as long as you can break GRUB and append "init=/bin/bash" it is not secure of course, you can then prevent grub editing or not using grub at all.
I had this same error a few months ago when a drive was failing to mount because (unbeknownst to me) it was overheating. I turned the system off for a few hours before troubleshooting (I had errands to run). When I came back, the system booted without issue.
If you're looking for an easy troubleshooting step, have you tried turning off the system for several minutes (and unplugging it) and then powering it back on?
I had this issue and it was because I told grub to support dual booting from two different disk drives (one of them USB) and then I removed the USB drive. Linux-boi still tried to enforce booting from the now not-connected drive.
I can't remember exactly what I did, but there may be something about a systemd unit which can be removed/disabled - or maybe I did some fishing around in fstab to remove the drive it thought should exist but wouldn't always (and then probably did an update-initramfs -u or similar.
Assuming this is an ATX or ITX PC, there's likely a way to reset UEFI so you can disable fastboot and change your settings, or at least boot from a recovery USB.
There's usually something like a button or 2 pins you can short on your motherboard to reset the settings. If your machine has dual BIOS, there will be a switch you can flip, though you'll probably need to update the UEFI again once you do that.
In the worst case (and this should work on almost any device), remove the CMOS battery, let the device sit for a few minutes, then put that battery in. That should clear all settings, including fastboot, and allow you to do recovery stuff - just make sure you fix the time before going on the internet.
cannot get nut to load on reboot
I set up NUT on my server to monitor the status of 2 UPS's connected via USB, an eaton and a cyberpower. Nut fires up fine when I tell systemd to run all the pieces, but when I reboot, they are active but dead. they dont wake up and work until I manually load them again.
Theres no error anywhere. it just wont load itself on boot. why?
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Auster likes this.
sean@hooty:~$ systemctl status nut-driver@printerUPS.service
○ nut-driver@printerUPS.service - Network UPS Tools - device driver for NUT device 'printerUPS'
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nut-driver@.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
└─10-timeout-abort.conf
/etc/systemd/system/nut-driver@printerUPS.service.d
└─nut-driver-enumerator-generated-checksum.conf, nut-driver-enumerator-generated-devicename.conf, nut-driver-enumerator-genera>
/etc/systemd/system/nut-driver@.service.d
└─override.conf
Active: inactive (dead)
Docs: man:upsdrvsvcctl(8)
https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/docs/man/upsdrvsvcctl.html
man:ups.conf(5)
https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/docs/man/ups.conf.html
man:nut.conf(5)
https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/docs/man/nut.conf.html
man:usbhid-ups(8)
https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/docs/man/usbhid-ups.html
2) Run
systemctl --failed and see if you get anything there3) Make sure you run the journal back all the way through boot and see if anything during boot time is obvious
4) Post your systems units here
discussion.fedoraproject.org/t…
NUT Server Documentation
As of Fedora 42, at least, bootstrapping nut is a little different. For starters, the service template, /usr/lib/systemd/system/nut-driver@.service is broken.Fedora Discussion
Its common, it's called the refractory period. Younger men can sometimes go a couple minutes after a "reboot" but as you get older it takes longer and longer.
ETA: maybe I should read past the topic...
You get big electricity bill. They get free data to sell.
What's the downside for them?
Nice! I was thinking about jmp before but read about issues with 2fa texts. My credit card still relies on 2fa texts so I am not sure if jmp would work for me.
Do you have any issues with texts from short numbers (5digit) and 2fa texts in general?
Depends on both what the adblocker responds and how a given program handles failures.
Pi-Hole and similar adblockers can pretend that the domain is on the device itself (A 127.0.0.1), is an invalid IP (A 0.0.0.0) or that the domain doesn't exist at all (NXDOMAIN). Each one has its own implications, with the latter (usually the default afaik) being the most likely to have software generate a hard error and give up.
Is WordPress really trusteable?
This is probably not an easy question to answer, since, as another comment pointed out, WordPress is both an open source software option to selfhost your website, and also a non-free managed hosting option that you can use to host your website.
For the former, you fully control what plugins are installed, and if you don't want social media tracking pixels on your site then don't install one.
For the latter, you also mostly control what gets installed on your hosted website, but not entirely. It's running on their servers so in theory they could be injecting tracking. I believe they do have some plugins like Jetpack that are always installed on managed websites, with some anti-features included that can be turned on (but don't have to be).
I always recommend going the self hosted route with WordPress, if you are even the tiniest bit technical minded. It's very easy to deploy on something like DigitalOcean or your own home server, and then you don't need to worry about tracking from WordPress.com.
If you are trying to get the Wordpress software and install it on a server you own or web hosting account you pay for, yes.
If you're trying to do something else, like sign up for blog hosting from a privacy-respecting service provider without having to administer software yourself, then no. If you want recommendations for services like that, you should probably make a separate post asking for that, with as much detail about what you want to do and whether you're willing to pay for it as possible.
Edit: I see you did make such a post. If you're "not tech savvy" as your post says, I don't recommend administering Wordpress yourself. While it's something nearly anyone can learn if sufficiently motivated, it's much more effort for someone without a technical background.
BBC's Gaza Double Standard and Western Liberalism's Crisis of Legitimacy (Podcast 44mins)
In this News Brief, we interview journalist Daniel Trilling and discuss his investigation into the BBC's systemic anti-Palestinian bias.
Do people with newer pcs prefer rolling release?
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- I like having the upstream versions of software instead of it being patched by package maintainers.
- I like having up to date software. It means that issue trackers for software I use are relevant
- Doing distro upgrades when they end support never works gracefully and i have to completely reinstall. I'd rather just use a rolling release which in practice works and is supported indefinitely
- I do like bleeding edge updates. For wine for instance
Yeah, Point 1 here is exactly why I moved from Ubuntu to Arch ~10 years ago.
I was trying to get something working and found that the bug / feature had been fixed ~1 year earlier, but that version wasn't in the repos... I couldn't move forwards.
With Arch, all is well. And, I'm either reporting new bugs and helping to get things fixed, or I'm updating the wiki with any changes I notice.
With a rolling release distro you get the most recent upstream stable releases of all your software packages. There is really no blood involved. If you want the risk of blood, you need to install the bloody versions of upstream, i.e. newest git master.
Ubuntu et all on the other hand give you months to years old software. If you're fine with that 🤷. And on big upgrade, they break install different software and tend to break stuff.
Idk what role hardware age has here.
- my hardware is pretty new, support for it is shaky on slower distros
- i prefer to do small, generally reliable updates frequently rather than large, failure prone updates infrequently
- although rare, i have run into the wall once or twice on slow release distros, where a program i want to use needs a newer version of a package than my distro supported
- i like pacman, it's a nice package manager
This...is not accurate. Not being pedantic, just correcting the misunderstanding so you know the difference.
LTS releases are built to be stable on pinned versions of point release kernel and packages. This ensures that a team can expect to not have to worry about major changes or updates for X years.
Rolling Releases are simply updating new packages to whatever versions become available when released. Pretty much the opposite of an expected stable release for any period of time.
Doesn't have anything to with "forced reinstall" of anything. If you've been having to fully reinstall your OS every time a new LTS is released, you are kind of doing extra unnecessary work.
What exactly is the point of stable release? I don't need everything pinned to specific versions—I'm not running a major corporate web service that needs a 99.9999% uptime guarantee—and Internet security is a moving target that requires constant updates.
Security and bug fixes—especially bug fixes, in my experience—are a good enough reason to go rolling-release even if you don't usually need bleeding-edge features in your software.
That's a very odd example to choose given how trivially interchangable kernels are.
At NixOS, we ship the same set of kernels on stable and rolling; the only potential difference being the default choice.
I'm pretty sure most other stable distros optionally ship newer kernels too. There isn't really a technical reason why they couldn't.
Most “stable” distros offer kernel version that update more frequently to accommodate new hardware.
Most “rolling” distros offer LTS kernels that remain essentially unchanged for long periods.
The kernel is one of the smallest differences between the two models.
To be able to predict when something you depend on breaks.
This "something" could be as "insignificant" as a UI change that breaks your workflow.
For instance, GNOME desktop threw out X11 session support with the latest release (good riddance!) but you might for example depend on GNOME's X11 session for a workflow you've used for many years.
With rolling, those breaking changes happen unpredictably at any time.
It is absolutely possible for that update to come out while you're in a stressful phase of the year where you need to finish some work to hit a deadline. Needing to re-adjust your workflow during that time would be awful and could potentially have you miss the deadline. You could simply not update but that would also make you miss out on security/bug fixes.
With stable, you accumulate all those breaking changes and have them applied at a pre-determined time, while still receiving security/bug fixes in the mean time.
In our example that could mean that the update might even be in a newer point release immediately but, because your point release is still supported for some time, you can hold on on changing any workflows and focus on hitting your deadline.
You need to adjust your workflow in either case (change is inevitable) but with stable/point releases, you have more options to choose when you need to do that and not every point in time is equally convenient as any other.
So far I've encountered the smoothest OS experience with Arch-based EndeavourOS. Perhaps twice a year something breaks for which the forum or Arch Wiki usually provided the fix within a day. The other 363 days I simply update in the morning/evening and all is well—sudo pacman -Syu --noconfirm and yay --noconfirm.
Conversely, on Debian, it drives me nuts that one is prevented from updating even if one public key from one unimportant repository is missing or something. This troubleshooting is way harder for beginners than most things I've needed to do to fix my EndeavourOS install.
I've got a complete Linux beginner to start off with EndeavourOS without problems. She's even troubleshooting and fixing suddenly non-working Steam games by herself.
In any case, any Linux is better than Windoze. Try different distributions if you've got a spare PC to test with and see what fits you. For the greatest peace of mind, always have two or more hard drives or have a directory that instantly syncs to a cloud to separate the OS from crucial data one cannot lose in case something goes awry.
As for desktop environments (DE), I started off with Xfce about ten years ago, used that most of the time. Then fell for the KDE Plasma hype for about year—they're doing great stuff, but a bit too bloated and buggy for my liking, as well as trying to have a KDE app for everything instead of acknowledging some other software is simply better. One can't be the best at everything. Anyway, then I tested multiple DEs because all of them have exclusively useful features, and the perfect mix between the most prominent ones (Xfce, Plasma, Gnome) I've found to be Cinnamon, the default on Linux Mint. For me that's the perfect beginner friendly DE that also remains highly configurable/extensible to suit experienced users, without being overwhelming/bloated to anyone.
Have fun and build whatever you want in your new awesome sandbox. Screw M$ without restraint nor compassion.
Minimal delay between a program releasing new features or bugfixes and you getting to use them. Even as an avid Debian user, sometimes I get bummed out when they freeze a package for release right before a feature I would have really liked makes it in.
As for security, there's not a huge difference I'm aware of. On Debian, features stay where they are, but maintainers will backport just the security fixes of each package to the current stable release.
This is admittedly anecdotal, but my experience with point releases is that things still break, and when they do, you're often stuck with the broken thing until a new release comes out. For this reason, among others, dist-upgrades tend to be extremely nervewracking.
With a rolling release, not only are fixes for broken things likely to release faster - if something does break, you can pin that package, and only that package, to an older version in the meantime. Then again, I've been using Arch almost exclusively on my desktop for about 7 years and I've never had to do this. I don't doubt that things have broken for people, but as far as I'm concerned, Arch just works.
As far as security goes, I don't think there's much, if any, advantage. Debian, the stablest of them all, still gets security updates in a timely fashion.
I used arch a lot, and I do like the idea of rolling releases, but at this point for the couple programs I need new features in, I just build them from source.
Rolling vs. point release is not about whether a breaking change happens or not but when.
With rolling, breaking changes could happen at any time (even when inconvenient) but are smaller and spread out.
With point release, you get a big chunk of breaking changes all at once but at predictable points in time, usually with migration windows.
I use a rolling release for mainly 3 reasons.
- Faster access to new (shiny) software/applications. Flatpak and the like could solve this for LTS distros.
- Security updates come faster and smoother.
- Less chance of an update breaking things. Lots of small and frequent updates, instead of rare and large update packs/stacks.
Less chance of an update breaking things. Lots of small and frequent updates, instead of rare and large update packs/stacks.
I would say a rolling distro update has a higher chance of it breaking something. Each one might bring in a new major version of something that has breaking changes in it. But that breakage is typically easier to fix and less of a problem.
Point release distros tend to bundle up all their breakages between major versions so breaks loads of things at once. And that IMO can be more of a hassle then dealing with them one at a time as they come out.
I tended to find I needed to reinstall point release distros instead of upgrading them as it was less hassle. Which is still more disruptive then fixing small issues over time as the crop up.
Although, the years I've run my rolling release system, I've had it break maybe one of two times. Easily fixed. Both of those was because there was a change that needed a manual intervention, which I did not read about until after, so those were my own fault.
I would say
Is this based on experience? Or are you guessing?
I ask because my lived experience is that rolling releases break less in practice
Before I used rolling releases, I spent more time dealing with bugs in old versions than I do fixing breakages in my rolling disto.
And non-rolling “upgrades” were always fraught with peril whereas I update my rolling release without any concern at all.
Upgrades is any security or big fix as well. Those tend to be quite safe in point release distros. Upgrading to a new point release version is has all the same problems the rolling release had over the same period all bundle in one messy upgrade (which makes them a huge pain to deal with as they often compound). But between those, the patch upgrades tend to be quite smooth.
I would say the over a longer time period rolling release break in bigger way less often. But they tend to have more but smaller breakages that are easy to trivial to fix.
You'll need to update to a point release sooner or later.
Are you the kind of person who lives to peel off the band-aid or pull it off in one go?
I prefer to peel mine. I've learned from pulling stitches by ripping it off.
On a more serious note: btrfs and timeshift are 👌. If there ever is a botched package, I'll just roll back to this morning and keep working. It'll probably be fixed by tomorrow.
They are cool cos you get to say "btw I use ".
Also, one big advantage is the end of big disruptive updates - e.g. the one from Win10 to Win11.
You don't have to live on the edge either. Arch for example has an LTS version.
For me its security patches. I frequently lock app versions manually.
I do have an old laptop that uses a fixed release, because it sees infrequent use.
One needs to adjust whats needed per usecase. For me that means daily drivers get semi-rolling or rolling. Where stability is neede/older systems, fixed releases.
I have a relatively new PC and eventually I decided at Debian Stable.
Granted, I was already somewhat familiar with APT and Debian based systems, but I also was thinking to choose something different or even a rolling release distribution...
...but at the end of the day, I wanted a stable, useable, tested and functional system that I can't easily fuck up or can restore if needed, because, well, it won't be a first time I bork a Linux system with misconfiguring stuff or doing something straight out stupid. But this is irrelevant this case.
I ain't that super familiar with Linux world, so I deliberately chose the safe way. My hardwares are working fine, I have the drivers that work for everything, games running amazingly well... in the past 2 years I use Linux as main OS, I had no problems not being bleeding edge. I kinda had some minor FOMO when Plasma 6 came out and I was "stuck" on 5 with Debian 12, but didn't had to wait too much for Debian 13 that has Plasma 6 by default. Though, I reinstalled everything when 13 came out - but only because I wanted some changes on my partition table, I added a new disk and... I wasn't quite happy how I managed some things with it so I wanted a fresh start - so wasn't upgrading to 13, but I assume it wouldn't be a problem either, not too long ago I upgraded my server from Debian 10 to 12, without issues. (From 10 to 11 and to 12. First I tried from 10 to 12, that was a disaster though. However, the documentation explicitly said not to do such thing, so it was on me.)
I was tinkering with my tech stuff all my life, I now really just want a stable, working OS. But it's just personal preference, I have nothing against rolling release and I can imagine that there are scenarios where rolling release is the better choice.
It is funny. You and I landed in different places but for almost the same reasons.
I use a rolling release because I want my system to work. “Tinkering with my tech stuff” is an activity I want to do when I want and not something I want thrust upon me.
On “stable” distros, I was always working around gaps in the repo or dealing with issues that others had already fixed. And everything I did myself was something I had to maintain and, since I did not really, my systems became less and less stable and more bloated over time.
With a rolling distro, I leave everything to the package manager. When I run my software, most of the issues I read other people complaining about have already been fixed.
And updates on “stable” distros are stressful because they are fragile. On my rolling distro, I can update every day and never have to tinker with anything beyond the update command itself. On the rare occasion that something additional needs to be done, it is localized to a few packages at most and easy to understand.
Anyway, there is no right or wrong as long as it works for you.
What exactly is the point of rolling release?
Newer features. At the cost of a higher risk of stuff breaking.
Or is it for security?
No, point release OSs do have security updates. It's feature updates that they avoid.
I use ancient hardware (as old as 2008 iMacs) and I greatly prefer rolling releases.
Open Source software is always improving and I like to have the best available as it makes my life easier.
In my experience, things just work better. I have spent years now reading complaints online about how Wayland does not work, the bugs in certain software, and features that are missing. Almost always I wonder what versions they are running because I have none of those problems. Lots of Wayland complaints from people using systems that freeze software versions for years. They have no idea what they are missing. This is just an example of software that is rapidly evolving. There are many more.
Next is performance. Performance improvements can really be felt on old hardware. Improvements in scheduling, network, and memory handling really stand out. It is surprising how often improvements appear for even very old hardware. Old Intel GPUs get updates for example. Webcams get better support, etc.
Some kinds of software see dramatic improvements. I work with the AV1 video codec. New releases can bring 20% speed improvements that translate to saving many minutes or even hours on certain jobs. I want those on the next job I run.
I work on my computer every day and, on any given day, I may want or enjoy a feature that was just added. This has happened to me many times with software like GIMP where a job is dramatically easier (for example text improvements tag appeared in GIMP 3).
If you do software development, it is common to need or want some recently developed component. It is common for these to require support from fairly recent libraries. Doing dev on distros like Debian or RHEL was always a nightmare of the installed versions being too old.
And that brings me to stability.
On systems that update infrequently, I find myself working against the software repos. I may install third-party repos. I may build things myself. I may use Flatpak or AppImage. And all of that makes my system a house of cards that is LESS stable. Over time, stuff my distro does not maintain gets strewn everywhere. Eventually, it makes sense to just wipe it all and start fresh. From what I see online, a lot of people have this experience.
On of the biggest reasons I prefer rolling releases with large repos is because, in my experience, they result in much more stable systems in practice. And if everything comes from the repo, everything stays much more manageable and sustainable.
I use Debian Stable on servers and in containers all the time. But, to single it out, I find that actually using it as a desktop is a disaster for all of the above reasons but especially that it becomes an unstable mess of software cobbled together from dozens of sources. Rolling releases are easier to manage. This is the opposite of what some others say, I realize.
In fact, if I do have to use a “more stable” distro, I usually install an Arch Linux Distrobox and use that to get access to a larger repo of more frequently updated packages.
Where did the idea come from that rolling releases are about hardware?
Hardware support is almost entirely about the kernel.
Many distros, even non-rolling ones like Mint and Ubuntu, offer alternative kernels with support for newer hardware. These are often updated frequently. Even incredibly “stable” distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux regularly release kernels with updated hardware support.
And you can compile the kernel yourself to whatever version you want or even use a kernel from a different distro.
Rolling releases are more about the other 80,000 packages that are not the kernel.
For software developers, it is better to have frequent tiny changes that can break things, than a big mess of breakage.
Do you hate distractions? Do you love steady improvements? This will affect your preference and judgement about rolling release.
The same can be true for desktop users. It also depends on how stable your software is. If you use mainly vim, dwm, and LaTeX, very few changes will break your flow.
Sam Altman’s Dirty DRAM Deal
TLDR:
OpenAI made a deal to secure 40% of the global supply of wafers from both SK Hynix and Samsung (2 of the 3 large providers of RAM) ostensibly for project Stargate server farms. But it gets so much worse, they made both deals on the same day without advising the other company, and have not provisioned any way to actually use (make chips from) the wafers. It looks more like they’re just trying to keep RAM out of the hands of their competitors.
From there the laws of supply and demand and panic buying by everyone else took over, RAM prices are going to the moon, and Micron (the third big provider) dropped out of the consumer market because they’re gonna make bank in the server market as the only unencumbered company. Consumer general purpose computer customers are royally boned. This will flow through into the SSD market as well.
In short, Fsck the AI industry in general and Fsck ‘OpenAI’ and Sam Altman in particular. If you pray, pray that this deal gets a legal injunction in South Korea, coz you know the US will just applaud this fsckery.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewal…
It resulted in the liberation and elevation of an entire segment of society from the darkness of repression.
What violence has actually sprung from leftist internet memes? You give them way too much credit.
You know that claims of a rising tide of “far-left violence” are fake news, yeah? This bullshit narrative is pumped out by the far-right and by corporate media (otherwise known as the bourgeois press) and by NGOs who get their funding from the bourgeoisie.
Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad-jack…
Bad-jacketing is a term for planting doubt on the authenticity of an individual's bona fides or identity. An example would be creating suspicion through spreading false rumors, manufacturing evidence, etc., that falsely portray someone in a community organization as an informant, or member of law enforcement, or guilty of malfeasance such as skimming organization funds.Fed-jacketing, and Snitch-jacketing are variants of bad-jacketing that specifically aim to present the target as an informer.
Edit to add: It seems you’re seeing feds at every turn.
- sh.itjust.works/comment/216783…
- sh.itjust.works/comment/201743…
- sh.itjust.works/comment/201705…
- lemmy.ml/post/33325225/1992540…
- lemmy.ml/post/32371812/1954712…
- lemmy.ml/post/32371812/1954024…
- lemmy.ml/post/32371812/1953240…
Bullshit. Show me one admin who claims Lemmy has a “troll farm” problem. Only non-admins make such claims, usually ones suffering Russiagate derangement syndrome.
The closest thing to a troll farm I’ve seen so far is these several user accounts that only post news articles disparaging the US’s enemies.
3½ years of anti-China & anti-Russia news posts by several similar Lemmy accounts
What they seem to have in common is:
- Way more posts than comments.
- Almost exclusively posting news articles.
- The vast majority of the articles are critical of Russia or China.
- Virtually always posting to the same few communities. Often there’s overlap in the communities the accounts target.
- Consistent weekly output.
Username Start End tardigrada@beehaw.org May 2022 Dec. 2024 0x815@feddit.de Apr. 2023 Jun. 2024 thelucky8@beehaw.org Apr. 2024 Jan. 2025 0x815@feddit.org Jun. 2024 Dec. 2024 Anyone@slrpnk.net Jan. 2025 Apr. 2025 @randomname@scribe.disroot.org Jan. 2025 – @Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org Jan. 2025 – @Scotty@scribe.disroot.org Aug. 2025 – @Sepia@mander.xyz Nov. 2025 – FYI, @haui@lemmygrad.ml, you had this to say back in June on !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com, before the post was removed by a mod:
OP is one of their propagandists from the looks of it. Please look at the post history and report if you see a pattern.[Edited to update links for thelucky8@beehaw.org and and the archived post]
Who threw the first brick at Stonewall? A final and definitive answer to the internet’s favourite question
Who threw the first brick at Stonewall? Depending on who you ask, the answers range from Stonewall trailblazer Marsha P Johnson to Lady Gaga's ponytail.Reiss Smith (PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news)
Man this is lemmy whiplash. One thread judging Americans for not starting a rebellion and the next saying we shouldn't throw bricks at cops.
What do you people think rebellion is?
Rebellion involves guns. Until we're ready for that, inflatable chicken suits are the meta.
The current battlefield is in the minds of the non-radicalized. Bricks only hurt us in that battle. Watching inflatable chickens being shot with rubber bullets helps us win.
Not very familiar with the lead up to the American Revolution are we?
Lots of things being thrown
I feel like in America you should be able to do better than a brick. Cars and guns everywhere.
Throw a car full of guns.
Leaders≠organization
Often counter to it. Terrible structure. Does not fix this problem.
Without leaders? Without central points of failure? Without cults of personality?
That's like saying how would you make pizza without Elmer's glue, because clearly we don't have pizza here yet.
Were Pallets of Bricks Strategically Placed at US Protest Sites?
Government officials, law enforcement, billionaires, or antifa groups nefariously placed pallets of bricks at protest sites in U.S. cities to stoke violence during June 2020 demonstrations against police brutality.Jessica Lee (Snopes.com)
Most of the claims against that are tweets by police. And the police have never been caught lying, right?
"Mostly false" should be turned into "insufficient evidence" because there doesn't seem to be convincing evidence on both arguments.
Which is more likely?
(a) The police ordered seven tons of bricks to be delivered to a location where a protest might occur sometime in the near future, in the hopes that they would be thrown at them by protestors, so that they could arrest them.
(b) Construction site brick piles are a common occurrence in urban areas.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: Inciting violence. Explicitly saying to mutilate another human being by throwing an actual brick at them
*Clutches pearls*
Inciting violence. Explicitly saying to mutilate another human being by sniping them out of their Merkava with an actual Ghoul rifle
Here in Italy they hit someone so hard he died of internal injuries. Cops aren't innocent.
Will game studios care about the Steam Machine?
Some gamers have graphics cards that cost probably two or three times as much as the whole Steam Machine.
Will studios focus on the RTX 6090 or give slower machines a chance?
Are the Steam Machine's components good enough to run PS5 ports?
Why ‘Death, Death to the IDF’ is Trending — And Who They Really Are ['Paint it Black' montage of Israeli atrocities] - originally on reddit
Why ‘Death, Death to the IDF’ is Trending — And Who They Really Are
https://www.reddit.com/r/Israeli_Violence/comments/1lpsxjz/why_death_death_to_the_idf_is_trending_and_who/TankieTube
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Short Demo: Project Wingman + Opentrack with Neuralnet Tracker
cross-posted from: discuss.tchncs.de/post/5009673…
Got a new disk and reinstalled my system (Fedora 43). Followed my own guide how to compile Opentrack with the Neuralnet tracker plugin: simpit.dev/systems/opentrack/Worked fine but needs some build dependency updates meanwhile, like qt6 instead of qt5. Still amazed how good the Neuralnet tracker with ONNX runtime is.
Short demo video: makertube.net/w/bC93YNXQ4aE4ha…
Opentrack - The Simulated Cockpit On A Linux PC For More Immersion In Space Pew Pew
Strategies to get head tracking working via Proton or Winesimpit.dev
Gentoo experience?
Hi, i am thinking of switching to gentoo, and wanted to ask if its a good idea. Anything i should look out for?
Btw im coming Form arch
Thx :3
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I loved how tailored to me was Gentoo. But as time passes and your hardware gets older, the compilation times get longer and longer. That's what made me to do the hop
I've heard some time ago that now Gentoo is offering more pre-compiled packages. But I don't know the extent. libstd, gcc and libreoffice were the worst offenders in my time
If you're going to be compiling your own kernel (or now Gentoo ships with pre-compiled ones too?) my word of advice would be "don't forget to compile in the filesystem support"
if you have the time for it, then go for it.
Keep in mind and i'm sure you already know this but you have to compile everything yourself so it WILL take time. I have it on a sort of hobby machine and I remember just getting Firefox to compile/install took awhile. The benefit of this is you get an extremely custom tailored system for yourself. But like I said it's going to take you awhile to get to that point. If you want something immediate to daily drive and want more of a custom system as opposed to Arch then maybe give NixOS a shot. I switched from Arch to NixOS on my main machine and I love it, won't use anything else. But if you're patient and have the time to dedicate to Gentoo then go for it, it's fun to play around with on a Saturday afternoon.
If you want something immediate to daily drive and want more of a custom system as opposed to Arch then maybe give NixOS a shot
IMO the main customization part of Gentoo is that you can compile the world without the libs you don't want to have. With NixOS (AFAIK) being also package-based, how can it offer more custom system than Arch?
Im not, arch is a nightmare for me. I try to installiert something over pacman: ERROR. I try to fix the error, doesnt work because it needs certain shared library files... That i can not find.
But thats not the only thing, somehow the Servers are allways down and its not a nice little challange anymore. More like a piece of code designed to make me miserable.
I hope thats different in gentoo 😀
Well, to be honest, you're choosing the two most difficult distros to manage.
It sounds like you're kind of new to the area...why not just use Fedora?
That's...an opinion that is not backed by any facts at all. What in the world are you talking about with "bloat" 🤣
So you're a newbie, and making lots of wild claims and taking awfully opinionated positions in this thread all over the place. I don't think you want help, so just be on your way 👍
Why do i need bluetooth compatibility if i dont usw it, why wifi?
If i dont want help, why would i ask?
Because they occupy so small disk size that they don't matter and it's easier to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I wouldn't call hardware support bloat ware.
Also, just so you know, Arch has Bluetooth and wifi compatibility even if you don't install the packages, Gentoo does not. You would need to recompile your kernel with the correct configuration to enable those for your specific card.
Arch is just as bloated as Fedora, Mint or Bazzite. Hell, my Arch is a lot more bloated than any of those. This is Linux, the system is as bloated as you want it to be, but also having stuff installed doesn't necessarily causes your computer to be slow, programs only execute when you tell them to.
Bluetooth is a fucking security risk, wifi too.
I dont care how bloated your os is. Also BLAOT IS WHY IM SWITCHING
Do you know about limited disk space? Cuz that doesnt seem to be a problem for you, maybe it is for tho? Who knows?
Bluetooth is a fucking security risk, wifi too.
Sure pal, big security risks. You should learn about cyber security before regurgitating information. Having the chip is not a security risk, having the open source driver isn't either, the security risk is 99% between the screen and the chair.
I dont care how bloated your os is. Also BLAOT IS WHY IM SWITCHING
My point is that Arch is not inherently unbloated, any distro can be bloated, any distro can be unbloated, you decide what's bloat and what's not.
Do you know about limited disk space? Cuz that doesnt seem to be a problem for you, maybe it is for tho? Who knows?
We're talking less than 100MB here, if your disk space is that limited you should really consider upgrading. Especially if you're going to try Gentoo, because not only it requires more disk space but if you can't afford a cheap 1TB drive chances are your CPU will take a week to install Gentoo since you need to compile everything.
I'm sorry for being blunt, but Arch is very easy and plug-and-play like, if you're having these sorts of issues my guess is that you're not familiar with Linux and are doing stuff "wrong" (e.g. installing drivers from a website). Gentoo is a LOT more complicated and will hold your hand a lot less than Arch, I recommend you try something more beginning friendly like Mint, Fedora or Bazzite, learn the basics, learn the "Linux way" of doing stuff, then try Arch again, then, when you have a better reason than because I broke it, you can try Gentoo.
This is not a "you're too dumb to do it" answer, but imagine someone who's having issues driving a shift stick car asking how it's like to rebuild the engine. You're capable of rebuilding the engine yourself, you're able to use Gentoo, just not now, learn to walk before you try to bungee jump.
Why do you think Mint/Ubuntu/Fedora/Bazzite are not that though? It seems you don't know how to ask your system to do stuff because otherwise your Arch install wouldn't break. Plus I bet that the default installation of any of those distros occupies around the same disk space than what you have now.
Honestly you read like an angsty teen who read Arch is advanced and wants to be 1337 by using it, a few years back you would have been using Kali. Let me tell you a secret, Arch is not advanced, it's a very easy straightforward distro, it just starts from a mostly clean slate, but if you're using gnome/kde/cinnamon or any DE that distros come prepacked with its just as bloated with extra steps.
I know, that arch isnt hard, its too easy. I installed Linux to challenge myself. Arch WAS a callange. Now i want something New. And harder.
Btw. You can choose what bloat you want to have in your system (only DE vor goodies too)
It's easy but at the same time your system is always broke? Either you were lying there or are now.
Btw. You can choose what bloat you want to have in your system (only DE vor goodies too)
Precisely my point, you keep mentioning Arch as being Bloat free and complaining that Fedora or others are bloated.
I used Gentoo for a few years. I don't recommend it at all!
first off, there are no tangible advantages. it's not faster. it is more customizable (by use flags), but the only tangible advantage of those is bragging rights saying you kept a certain library off your system and saved 100kb. just enabling all features is more practical.
there are tangible disadvantages. a big system upgrade can take days. and often fails. and, the manual time you spend merging config files with dispatch-config is large.
I switched from Gentoo to debian after 3y of using Gentoo. i switched from debian to arch after about 10y later. been on arch for about 6y now. would not recommend Gentoo
I mean, you can cross-compile to generate a Gentoo rootfs for the embedded system.
I worked on embedded systems for audio devices. I of course endorsed Alpine as well, but with musl as the C library I got weird bugs of stuttering audio output.
With Gentoo I get the option to build my entire system with musl as well, but I would rather have that bug not in my system. That's what Gentoo offers: options.
By "LFS", I think you mean Buildroot, practically. Buildroot is also highly customisable, but Buildroot isn't a distro. Like LFS, there is no way yo update a system, only rebuilding with latest packages. It also does not have flags for the whole system, so you're on your own if you want to disable, say IPv6, in the whole system.
Only if you need fine tuning compilation flags.
But if think it's easier to do with Arch's custom PKGBUILDs.
Otherwise too much work to keep it stable, waiting for a compilation to finish.
All Gentoo users remember the pain of compiling QtWebEngine ;)
I used to run Gentoo on my old computer. Installing it was quite the experience. That was where I learnt about most of how Linux works thanks to the wiki.
I heard compiling your own packages with use flags can improve performance, but honestly it was not worth it for the compile time.
When I switched to my new PC, the Nvidia GPU doesn't work and I could not figure out why. I also don't have the time at that moment so I installed Endeavour instead, which I'm still using.
Its fun to learn how the system works, but after the 4-5th time trying to install something real quick, and there's an error in your package.use or something, it gets a lot less fun.
If you have the time and patience, its really cool. But I just want a web browser without having to edit 3+ text files to allow it to work.
Comments complaining how everything takes time to compile in Gentoo are kind of funny, do you really need everything to be installed asap?
That being said, Gentoo indeed is not for everyone. I've been using it for +15 years and am really happy with it - almost zero maintenance and it's super stable. The crux is the time it takes to be installed and people hold a weird grudge against it just for that.
But at the same time there are more distros oferring pretty much the same, i.e. your own arch.
It's thanks to Gentoo that I've been a Linux sysadmin for over 20 years.
That being said, I've since moved to Arch and then Debian.
Some points:
On modern systems you won't really notice any speed improvements from custom compiling the packages. Apart from maybe some numbers in articial benchmarks.
On old systems with very limited resources, you can eke out a bit of more performance.
Back when I was still using Gentoo, my proudest moment was getting a Pentium 1 with 96MB Ram (Yes, MB!), which was a gift of a colleague to his broke brother, into quite a useable little machine. Browsing, listening to MP3s, email, some simple games.
I also noticed a noticable improvment in performance in a 400mhz Athlon I had setup for my mom.
That being said, I was only able to do this, because I was using distCC to distribute compiling across several machines to keep compile times to a somewhat sane level. Also, I was doing a unpaid internship at the time, so I basically had all the time in the world, so compile times didn't really bother me.
I had tried to use linux before. After Windows XP crashed one too many times. I decided to see how things work on Linux. I initially chose a "easy to use" desktop distro. (Mandrake Linux). Got everything setup. Even 3D Accelaration worked. Everything was really nice and fun. Then I tried to tinker under the hood and I broke something that I couldn't figure out how to fix. So I thought, maybe I need to find something even easier, so I chose Suse Linux.
Same story. Set everything up. Desktop working, 3D working, etc... start to tinker, break something, back to square zero.
Then I decided to change my approach and choose the hardest distro. The choice was between Linux from Scratch and Gentoo. Linux from Scratch sounded waay to painful, so I chose Gentoo.
It took me 3 days until I had a somewhat working system without a desktop. Then another 3 days until I had a desktop running Fluxbox.
But the learning experience was invaluable. Being forced to use the CLI and not only that, but more or less configure everything by hand. It takes aways the fear of the CLI and you get a feel for where everything is located in the filesystem, which config files do what, etc... It demystifies the whole thing substantially.
You suddenly realize that nothing is hidden from you. You are not prevented from accessing anything or tinkering with it.
The downside is that Gentoo takes a lot of time and effort to maintain. But the learning potential is invaluable. Especially if you use it to also start doing little projects in linux. e.g. File server, router, firewall, etc...
Me knowing Gentoo, got my first real job as Linux Sysadmin and before long I was training rookie Admins. And the first thing I always did with them was to run them through the Gentoo bootcamp.
Once they go to grips with that, everything else wasn't that difficult.
Take your time with the install process. It's possible that you may breeze through it. It's also possible that you may discover that, say, there's something wrong with the EFI implementation of the system you're installing to that you need to do some research to resolve. I've had both experiences.
Once installed, Gentoo is pretty much rock-solid, and almost any issue you have can be fixed if you're willing to put the effort in. Portage is a remarkably capable piece of software and it's worth learning about its more esoteric abilities, like automatic user patch application.
Do take the time to set up a binary package host. This will allow you to install precompiled versions of packages where you've kept the default USE flags. Do everything you possibly can to avoid changing the flags on webkit-gtk, because it is quite possibly the worst monster compile in the tree at the moment and will take hours even on a capable eight-core processor. (Seriously, it takes an order of magnitude more time than compiling the kernel does.)
Install the gentoolkit package—equery is a very useful command. If you find config file management with etc-update difficult to deal with, install and configure cfg-update—it's more friendly.
If you're not gung-ho about Free Software, setting ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" (which used to be the default up until a few years ago) in make.conf may make your life easier. Currently, the default is to accept only explicitly certified Free Software licenses (@FREE); the version I've given accepts everything except corporate EULAs. It's really a matter of taste and convenience.
Lastly, it's often worthwhile to run major system upgrades overnight (make sure you --pretend first to sort out any potential issues). If you do want to run updates while you're at the computer, reduce the value of -j and other relevant compiler and linker options to leave a core free—it'll slow down the compile a bit, but it'll also vastly improve your experience in using the computer.
(I've been a happy Gentoo user for ~20 years.)
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Gentoo is very much like an manual transmission. If you ask anybody that drives manual they will say 1 of 2 things "i like it because it gives me control" or "i use manual because i always have"
I love gentoo as playing around and trying stuff out. My personal recommendation is use ZFS or btrfs for a file system and have subvolumes. So if you get so lost in the rabbit hole you can climb back up.
If your philosophy is" stable and mine!"
Gentoo is for you.
You can build a distro, with all the packages you want and once your done if you decide to update every month and dont care a whole lot about bleeding edge. It will work really well, it you want bleeding edge, you can have portage use ustable packages with a stable system. But you really must know what your doing or you WILL BREAK STUFF.
I ran gentoo for 6 months then went to debian, its a great learning tool for understanding how linux works under the hood. I would also recommended systemd over openrc.
Its not that openrc is bad, its just alot of extra work for simple things to work.
Gentoo to me is more a messing around on a spare computer distro, than a production computer. Not that it cant be production, but im personally very lazy when i just want to use my personal pc.
Gentoo user since forever.
The most consistent and long time solid distro, IMHO.
I use it everywhere I can, from servers to laptops. It's so flexible and predictable that I simply love it.
Nowadays emerging stuff is so fast that I wonder why bother with binary packages at all. Once, when compiling Firefox took DAYS well.... But in today's hardware, meh.
;)
If I could give only one reason to use Gentoo, it would be the community.
Anyway, if you choose this route, read the handbook through like a book first. Get an idea what you want your endpoint to be, then start.
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/etc/portage/make.conf, setup /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf with sync-type = git, and use /etc/portage/package.{use,mask,unmask,accept_keywords} as directories for individual packages. I tend to keep a /etc/portage/package.mask/failed file for upgrade blockages fer me to unfuck after a emerge -avuDUN @world succeeds.
Sanctioned spyware maker Intellexa had direct access to government espionage victims, researchers say
Based on a leaked video, security researchers alleged that Intellexa staffers have remote live access to their customers' surveillance systems, allowing them to see hacking targets’ personal data.
Total War: Medieval III announced as "the rebirth of historical Total War"
Creative Assembly is celebrating 25 years of Total War by bringing the series back to its roots. Total War: Medieval III is being built on a freshly upgraded engine as well.
https://www.neowin.net/news/total-war-medieval-iii-announced-as-the-rebirth-of-historical-total-war/
German broadcaster backs Israel in Eurovision debate
Berlin (AFP) – The public broadcaster organising Germany's entry for Eurovision said Thursday that Israel was entitled to compete in the contest, as European broadcasters debate whether to exclude the country over its conduct in Gaza.The broadcaster SWR said in a statement sent to AFP that "the Israeli broadcaster KAN fulfils all the requirements for participation" in the contest.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a strong supporter of Israel, said in October that the prospect of Israel being excluded was "scandalous" and that he would advocate Germany boycotting the contest in that case.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is currently holding a two-day meeting in Geneva to discuss the issue, with several countries threatening to pull out if Israel is allowed to take part.
SWR said that the Eurovision Song Contest has for decades been "connecting people in Europe and beyond -- through diversity, respect and openness, regardless of origin, religion or worldview.
"It is a competition organised by EBU broadcasters, not by governments."
It added that "we are confident a solution can be found in keeping with the principles of the EBU the competition".
"There can be no Eurovision without Israel," Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said Wednesday in comments sent to AFP on Thursday, adding that the EBU should reflect "European values" in its decision.
Germany has traditionally been a steadfast supporter of Israel although Merz has criticised its campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 70,000 people, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the UN considers reliable.
Past editions of the competition have also become embroiled in politics.
Russia was excluded after its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Belarus was shut out a year earlier after the contested re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko.
At the time of Russia's exclusion, Germany's public broadcasters ARD and ZDF welcomed the move.
"If a participant country of the ESC is attacked by another, we stand in solidarity within the European ESC family," they said then.
"Therefore, the decision against Russia's participation... is correct."
"There can be no Eurovision without Israel," Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said Wednesday in comments sent to AFP on Thursday, adding that the EBU should reflect "European values" in its decision.
Per this moron anything apart from exclusion would mean "European values" are support for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
In 1995, a Netscape employee wrote a hack in 10 days that now runs the Internet
Thirty years later, JavaScript is the glue that holds the interactive web together, warts and all.
US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps
US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps
Major win for Trump as majority rejects lower-court ruling that found maps had been racially gerrymanderedSam Levine (The Guardian)
offline magic earth requires now a 15€ subscription
I liked using it but 15€/year for navigation is too much for me. I'm going to stick to osmand now. At least osmand is open source. It has roughly the same features. It's just not that beautiful. I paid for osmand btw. What's your alternative?
Edit: And I like paying for osmand because it is open source.
I like Organic Maps. UI is clear and simple-ish to use.
However, it lacks quite a lot compared to the (cluttered UI of) OSMand.
Edit: great mentality there. You could at least tell me the pros of your favorite solution and the cons of organic map before Downvoting me.
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OrganicMaps refused to rule out selling to venture capitalists in the future. They expect volunteers to contribute while keeping the option of capitalizing on free work later.
That's why it has been forked to what is called CoMaps. So CoMaps is the true, reliable FOSS project now.
Sure, here are a number of sources that explain what happened and why:
- ITSFOSS: Organic Maps Forked Over Governance Concerns
- Wikibooks: MAPS.ME to Organic Maps/OM Crisis
- Openletter: Open Letter to Organic Maps Shareholders
Organic Maps Forked Over Governance Concerns: CoMaps is Born
An Organic Maps fork has emerged due to broken trust.Sourav Rudra (It's FOSS)
menafn.com/1109612598/Organic-…
Organic Maps Fork Spurs Governance Debate
(MENAFN - The Arabian Post) A schism within the Organic Maps community has led to the creation of CoMaps, a forked project driven by govMiddle East North Africa Financial Network
Ah, thank you for this article !
Indeed, not a good project governance and not an project I should recommend.
Uninstalled Organic Maps, and I will try CoMaps (or default back to OSMand)
Everyone, make sure to reply to this person instead of just downvoting their comments.
It’s your responsibility to manage their feelings, not their responsibility to use an instance without downvotes, or even turn off downvotes in their own control panel.
I switched to organic maps too.
Also, until comaps have bike layer I am not switching
I did move last week and it's such a difference. A clean refreshing interface without all the clutter,
also much snappier, maps don't take time to refresh.
You can download maps while having WiFi connection and, for a start, focus on the maps of the country you are staying in at the moment.
CoMaps has optional 3D view of buildings and surprised me with how few features it has, yet exactly the features one needs. That way the interface is clean while I'm not missing anything.
It even has quick access to Wikipedia articles built in so you get directly information of points you click on.
Object information is down to what you need, like floor level, pbone number, opening times.
Import/Export for all location data.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I think I used an apk from way before and now after updating it I see their new beautiful UI. Pretty nice.
I'm also all for OSS, but in this case, for me, there's no OSS alternative for navigation. Both CoMaps and OsmAnd can be used for it, but not tailored to do it.
As a frequent and satisfied user, I'm happy to contribute to their development. 15 EUR annually doesn't seem far fetched, but you can actually get the Premium package on their site for 6 EUR (link to the pricing page). That's like 3-4 can of beers kind of money.
Thanks!
6€ per year would be reasonable for me. I'm just a casual user. I may need it only once every other month.
Also happy to read you'd like to contribute, sometimes I get mixed feedback when it's about giving back somehow to these devs.
In case anyone else out there is unaware, the "paid" tier for Osmand is unlockable for free to OSM contributors, meaning if you make a habit of contributing edits to OSM, then all you'd have to do is link to your OSM account within Osmand settings. Not to dissuade anyone from contributing financially, just sayin' b/c I think that is a nice little perk for editors from the Osmand team.
I personally prefer CoMaps (forked from Organic Maps), the UI is a little more intuitive to me than Osmand.
Pretty much the entire OSM sphere is developed and populated by volunteers. And they you come along and say they should take their heads out of their ass. Yes, the burden is on the users, because the developers are users themselves. No, not everyone has programming skills, but even nontechnical people can still contribute to the dataset with bus station locations and bus routes.
It's completely okay to not use a piece of software, and if you have some feedback to give that might sway you, great! But don't insult the developers because they have limited time and resources.
Recommendations for after installing Linux (Mint) coming from Windows for best practices for a casual user ?
I finally bit the bullet and I'm giving Linux a second try, installed with dual boot a few days ago and making Linux Mint my default from now on.
There are a lot of guides and tips about the before and during the transition but not for after, so I was hoping to find some here.
Some example questions but I would like to hear any other things that come to mind:
I read that with Mint if you have a decent computer you don't need to do a swap partition? So I skipped that, but I'm not sure if I'd want to modify that swap file to make it bigger, is that just for giving extra ram if my hardware one is full? Because I have 48GB of ram and if I look into my System Monitor it says Swap is not available.
Was looking at this other post, and the article shared (about Linux security) seems so daunting, it's a lot. How much of it do I have to learn as a casual user that's not interested in meddling with the system much? Is the default firewall good enough to protect me from my own self to at least some degree? I was fine with just Windows Defender and not being too stupid about what I download and what links I click.
I was also reading about how where you install your programs or save your data matters, like in particular partitions or folders, is that just like hardcore min-maxing that's unnecessary for the average user that doesn't care to wait half a second extra or is it actually relevant? I'm just putting stuff in my Home folder.
Connected to the last two points: in that Linux Hardening Guide lemmy post I shared the TL;DR includes "Move as much activity outside the core maximum privilege OS as possible"... how do I do that? is that why people have separate partitions?
Downloaded the App Center (Snap Store) and I was surprised there was even a file saying to not allow it... why is that? Is it not recommended? Is it better to download stuff directly from their websites instead?
What I suggest. Dont look at hardening yet. Only do so if you feel like your ready to touch the Internal workings of the OS. I do suggest using full disk encryption if this is a laptop.
Saving your files in your home folder just like how you did on windows is fine. Nothing wrong their.
Personally I would familiar your self with the terminal. It is not scary at all. sudo apt install program is how I would install software on mint (or any Debian based system).
Oh and above all. Use the system and try to do your normal task. See what you run in to and ask help where needed. We are here to help you along the way if needed.
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@kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com
I've got a desktop but I think I ticked on the drive encryption while installing anyway
With "files" you also mean programs, right? The ones that I download and don't install with the terminal or an app store?
I'm not scared of the terminal myself, I'm scared of accidentally overwriting stuff or downloading something I didn't intend to because of a typo, etc... I'm careful but there's only so much one can fight the adhd. Plus I just really prefer visual interfaces
Thank you! 😀
you can always add eg. a swap file later if needed - apparently not as good as a swap partition, but it is more flexible. With 48 GB of ram I hardly think you're going to have issues, but that depends entirely on what do you do with the system.
Firewall isn't really helping the system against you, it's to block ousiders getting in - more or less.
install locations: if you just use what's in mint's repositories, you don't really need to think about it. Out-of-repository stuff like steam games etc generally live in ~/.steam or so. Or in some dedicated path you configure in steam/whatever.
As for snap/flatpaks/whatever, haven't used a single one. But in general: I'd favor the distribution's repos, if at all possible for installs. If the app isn't there, but is in snap... fine, I guess? As long as it's managed by some kind of package manager for easy install/update/uninstall. But having to manually download and install from a website? Rather not, that's when the maintenance becomes manual.
And of course, opinions are opionated. Your system, your rules. 😛
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oh with the firewall saving me from myself I meant if I download something thinking it's safe but isn't
Thank you! 😀 @Malix@sopuli.xyz
oh with the firewall saving me from myself I meant if I download something thinking it's safe but isn't
A firewall would not save you from that.
A firewall stops random incoming connections. But if you download and run something bad, that'd be an outgoing connection, since the malicious program is then already on your system.
Defender is antimalware/antivirus. There at least used to be a separate firewall in windows, but not sure if it's a part of defender or not.
Either way, "firewall" is traffic control, antimalware/virus is the execution guardian.
The only things I download online are things I can't find in that store, things made by individuals and individually published... like Material Maker for example.
Well, not really po-tay-toh/po-tah-toh. They’re 2 different utilities that do 2 different things. If you ask the wrong question, you’re not going to get the answer you’re looking for.
What you’re asking about is an antivirus. It’s been awhile since I messed with this on my Linux systems, but last I looked, ClamAV was most commonly recommended. You can probably search for “Linux antivirus” and find some recommendations.
Generally speaking, the earlier recommendations to stick with official repos is excellent. When you venture outside of that, you increase your administrative overhead because those manually installed apps won’t stay patched with a simple “apt upgrade.” That said, a well written cron job could keep them up to date for you.
As for where to install things, it’s personal preference. I prefer using my home directory. If that doesn’t work, my fallback in /usr/local, which is either its own partition or symlinked to the /home partition). I mention the partitions because having separate /home and possibly /usr/local makes it easy for these customizations you install to survive a reinstall. Backups will also help with this.
You have to ask yourself what this system will be used for. If it’s a daily driver that you want to “just work” I would stick to official repos, and minimize customizations. Windows makes a lot of choices for you. Linux expects you to know what you want to do.
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Yeah but it seems like some people (not you) take it personal geez...
Of course a "casual" will mix firewall with anti-virus, like...? I am literally saying I don't know shit.
Thank you for actually explaining things in a helpful and chill manner without getting so stuck about one word I use wrong while still being an understandable question.
And I'm telling you a firewall won't do that.
It won't have anything to say at all about something you download and run.
It's a completely different security feature. It handles potentially malicious network activity. Not software on your computer.
and I'm telling you I didn't mean just firewall... I wasn't trying to be accurate or right, I was just asking a broad general question with a term that would get other people understand what it is that I want to know, not that I know exactly what a firewall does or does not do...
You understood what the question was about, did you not? That was my whole goal
Yes. But you didn't.
Knowing what something does is important.
If you install a piece of software expecting it to do something it actually doesn't, that can leave a security gap.
I wasn't just correcting you. I was making sure you knew that if you install a "firewall" it won't do the thing you're looking for.
As for an actual answer, most distros will already ask you to confirm if you try to run a random appimage you downloaded.
But you shouldn't need to do that in the first place. On linux, there's not really any need to go running random programs downloaded using your web browser, since you can just download software from trusted reposotories that aren't going to host malware to begin with.
Unlike on windows... You don't need to risk it in the first place.
Yeah the problem is that I understood the first time it was explained, no need to keep circling it over without answering the actual question I was asking about.. what you quoted from my comment was just me clarifying what I was asking about, not clarifying my (lack of) knowledge about firewalls.
Thank you for the actual answer!
I do have occasional need to download random programs from random websites because of my hobbies and profession, the first case being Material Maker from itch.io - that one is clearly safe with all those reviews and the public git, but it is a random program from the internet nevertheless, and the reason why I was asking about the placing of programs that I download manually.
Material Maker is on Flathub, the AUR, and on Snapcraft (not up to date, but you shouldn't use snap anyway).
No need for a manual install.
You'll find a lot of software is available via package managers. Linux people don't like installing anything without it being managed by a package manager so the installation and subsequent updates are automatic and occur alongside system updates. So when people find software they like, they'll go out of their way to package and distribute it for others as well
Install Material Maker on Linux | Flathub
Procedural texture generation and mesh painting toolFlathub
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oh... I hadn't heard about any of those, thank you! Installing Flathub
Why would Flathub not be included with Mint?
And how did you find it was in those three places? Did you look for it manually on each or is there a place that tells you where it's distributed? Because on their website the only thing I found was the Download link that takes you to itch.io or their github page that doesn't give any linux alternatives
edit: reviews in flathub say that there are some features that don't work and it's better to download from their itch.io page haha - it's not the first review I see saying that about flatpaks, so there are valid reasons to just download them manually like one would in windows anyway
Flathub and the AUR are by far the most comprehensive, and flatpaks works on a lot of distros. So I checked those.
They've also been getting their kinks worked out over the last few years and work much better than they used to.
That review you found is two years old and was for version 1.1. Current version is 1.4. Try it out today, if it's been fixed leave another review letting people know. It seems to work just fine for me, but I haven't used it before.
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Best practices?
Don't copy paste commands into the terminal you don't understand.
RTFM
Use the computer like a computer. Linux is not a lifestyle; it's a tool you use to shitpost, watch videos, play games, etc.
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TFM is best found in the form of the man (manual) files, which you can see for any given program by running:
$ man program_name
Archwiki is good too, even of you don't run Arch
You can use "extreme" distros but as long as there'y no need, stick to a "normal" distro first. You can switch whenever you want.
One of the forums regulars, Pjotr, made this website exactly for questions like that: easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.…
--> see "B. Right after the installation of Linux Mint"
Home Page
Easy tips, tweaks and tricks for Linux Mint and Ubuntu, both for beginners and for advanced users. Complete starter's guide with simple how-to's.easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com
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Almost everything you do on desktop linux is already "outside the core os".
This is mostly relevant for server software configuration, where you should run services with as few system privileges as possible. Preferably you isolate them entirely with a separate user with access to only the bare minimum it needs.
This way, if a service is compromised, it can't be used to access the core system, because it never had such access in the first place. Only what it needed to do its own thing.
By default, nothing you run (web browser, steam, spotify, whatever) should be "running as admin".
The only time you'll do that on desktop linux, is when doing stuff that requires it. Such as installing a new app, or updating the system. Stuff that modifies the core os and hence needs access.
Basically, unless you needed to enter you password to run something, then it's already "outside" the core os.
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EDIT:
Just saw that Malik already did mention this more succinctly. Please feel free to ignore me.
ORIGINAL COMMENT:
The comments here already cover a good bit, esp. with the link to Piotr's blog post.
However I don't see anyone reacting to your mention of the snap store.
If you want some details about that, you can read here: linuxmint-user-guide.readthedo…
But in a few words, distributing software is kinda of a mess in Linux at first glance, for various technical reasons.
To caricature, you used to only install the packages from your distribution (mint for you) repositories, and if a program wasn't in it, you had to either compile it or jump through other hoops.
Then came other formats which made distributing software across Linux distros easier, with some caveats. Two notable ones are Snap and Flatpak.
Snap was made by the guys behind Ubuntu and mint is an offshoot of Ubuntu that made the willful decision to not do snaps by default after a number of fiascos.
My advice would be: try installing software through the normal mint repositories, ideally the non Flatpak version. If it does not exist there or is buggy or whatever, consider the Flatpak. Only failing that should you look into snap IMO.
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I would say Flatpak is a good choice if you want or need features in the latest version of a package that isn't in the version Mint runs, which is typically based on the current Ubuntu LTS version (or whichever one was current for the Mint version you're on).
The main drawbacks are size on disk and the ability to work with other apps and the system, but neither issue is as bad as they're typically made out to be... If you're only installing one or two Flatpaks, they'll seem massive compared to installing the version from apt repos, but that's because they need to bring in supporting packages which are used by other Flatpaks, so if you use several of them, the space for each is a lot closer to the apt/direct installed version.
And the permissions, which can be annoying if you run into an issue with them, are typically defaulted to something that works correctly for each package, so you likely won't need to worry about that hardly ever.
But otherwise... Yeah, if you don't know why you'd want the Flatpak version and it's in the Mint apt repos/system install, go with system install. Switch to Flatpak if you're finding features you want missing that are in newer versions.
But they're shouldn't really be any reason to use Snaps on Mint.
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There are plenty of reasons why one would use Snaps on Mint... I've been using it for like 2 days and so far I got: Blender, Godot, and Signal. Blender has an older version, Godot has a super old version, and Signal isn't included in Software Manager. Outside of snap I manually downloaded Material Maker.
People keep telling me snaps are not needed and that I should find everything in the official repo and whatnot but that's just wrong generalized assumptions from what I see, neither of those 3 programs are too niche either. There are plenty of people out there that do things outside of web browsing and file management in their computers, I'm so confused why Linux out of all communities would ignore hobbies with specialized software exist, game dev even
For signal, you can add their PPA As explained here
For Godot, their website has an AppImage. This is a case where I'd say it makes sense not to have it being automatically updated, because if you work on a video game for the kind of time frame that they usually require, you want to decide when to upgrade your game engine (or not to at all) as it may break your current project. But you know your needs, just thought I'd explain the rationale for that particular one.
For Blender... Yeah if the version is outdated and you want automatic upgrades then Snap works. Maybe someone could chime in with another recommendation but that sounds sensible to me.
Download Signal for Linux
To use the Signal desktop app, Signal must first be installed on your phone.Signal Messenger
I mean to be fair, I am making a conscious effort to stay open minded when I give advice to people, but I also personally would avoid snaps (and Flatpak, but for different reasons) altogether.
But this is more me being opinionated and strongly disagreeing with canonical practices. I don't mind sacrificing some of the convenience because of that, but wouldn't push it on anyone.
All this to say, I don't know the reasons why people tell you to avoid snaps, but I can imagine at least a dozen that would be valid opinions from technically minded open source people, so I would not jump to conclusions.
The snap thing has spanned a whole drama since the beginning so there's a heavy context behind you might not be aware of. Or maybe you are and don't care that's totally fine too.
Signal is included as Flatpak. You have to enable "untrusted Flatpaks" (or whatever the wording is) in the Software Manager settings.
It was a controversial thing Mint added not long ago. Discussing this in detail would derail the post though.
For the swap space, yes that's for when you run out of RAM. 48GiB is plenty of RAM, so you should be fine without it. I have 32GiB of RAM on my system and have been running without swap for ages without issue.
Hardening guides like that are mostly designed for things like web servers which are connected to the public internet and need higher scrutiny. The default configuration for distros like Mint should be secure enough for the average user.
However, don't feel invincible and run random code from random sites. Both Windows and Linux can't protect you against malicious code you run yourself.
Having organised partitions is the kind of thing that people obsessed with organisation do. For most people, the default partitioning scheme is fine. However, as always, remember to keep backups of important data.
For installing software, Mint has a Software Centre (which is distinct from the Snap Store). I'd recommend installing software using that for the average user.
In Mint, there are three main types of packages:
* Debian/APT packages, which are provided by Mint (well, technically by the Debian distro and they trickle down to Mint, but technicalities). Not all software is available from Mint's repos and they may be out of date.
* Flatpak packages, which are provided either by developers themselves or dedicated fans. They are usually more up to date and have a degree of sandboxing.
* Snap packages, which are controlled by a company named Canonical. As of late, Canonical has been a bit "ehhhh", so there's pushback against Snap. Mint has it disabled and has their reasoning explained here: linuxmint-user-guide.readthedo…
Mint's software centre is able to install both Debian and Flatpak packages. I'd recommend using it where possible since it allows automatic upgrades and easier installation/uninstallation.
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I would also add that the more you modify the system (PPAs, packages not installed via the package manager, nonstandard partition layouts) decreases the stability of your system and makes it harder to get back to your current system state if something goes wrong. I like to think about it like balancing a tower of blocks as a kid. Mint is the first block, and is very stable, but each additional block makes the system less and less stable. Mint itself is really stable, but if you do weird stuff the Mint devs can't do anything about it, which puts you in a bad position until you really know what you're doing.
The Snap store is intentionally left out by Mint, because they don't like how Ubuntu manages it. This means that even though the Ubuntu version Mint is based on supports Snap, there's no guarantee that snaps will work with the same stability which .deb/apt and flatpak packages will, because it hasn't been tested in Mint. I would advise against using it.
I tried installing a windows software with wine and it didn't work. Shrug.
Have also dualbooted for ages with no problem. The one thing I had to do was set windows to the UTC timezone so it would stop fucking up the Linux clock.
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Dual boot for sure, with the caveat that you will have to deal with the complexity and problems this may give you.
For me the only perennial problem is the system clock but ymmv
Yeah that is the reverse for me. VMs and wine have been nothing but trouble and dual booting just works.
It is annoying to have two OSes but it is literally the lowest-stress option for me lol.
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Who says I'm not a professional that needs windows for specific tasks? haha
There are many reasons why one would benefit from dual-boot, regardless of being a professional or not. You're assuming a lot of things by saying "you don't need dual boot".
But I appreciate the warning of win updates being capable of breaking my linux partition, I'll keep it in mind. I don't intend to keep the dual-boot forever but for now I'll keep it.
Thanks for asking this question, it's really amazing and helpful for us old Linux people to see the experience of somebody who's coming over fresh. I think you are asking the right kinds of questions and I wish you the best of luck.
Specifically about Windows Defender, I haven't seen any tool like that on Linux, but I am curious to see what you find out.
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Thank you, I just wish people weren't so critical about how I word my questions when it's still clear what the core question is anyway, man it's like being a casual is not welcome or something x_x
Some people are really welcoming and some others are so.... unnecessarily strict? Condescending? Harsh?
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Don’t worry about swap, you’ll be fine unless you’re usually working with huge chunks of data like big 4k video files or something.
The firewall built into mint is the kernels included nftables the same one built into Debian and Ubuntu (I think, I don’t fw Ubuntu). It’s fine. Don’t touch it. When you need to mess with it you can figure out how to open ports or split routes or whatever really easy because there’s lots of documentation out there.
Putting everything in your home folder is fine. Programs will install automatically to /bin or /usr/bin or something like that and if you want them in your home directory you could make a ~/.bin/ directory and add it to your path and have your private programs there, but:
Stop using flatpaks or snaps unless it’s your only choice! You have a built in package manager with decades of testing and development behind it and a very capable team of maintainers who watch over the packages, use that instead! That’s why they say not to use the snap store, it’s a vector for using Joes Weird Program that no one has tried before and requires Joes Special Version of a normal system library.
Use your package manager.
You’re not at the point where you understand enough to do the stuff in the linux hardening guide without making decisions that unexpectedly cause you pain somehow. That’s not an insult, sometimes you just don’t recognize the “universal” symbols for engine oil as opposed to coolant and ruin your car by the side of the road because you just don’t know. You can learn that stuff later, but it’s best not to mess with it yet. Speaking of:
If you don’t have a backup solution setup and you haven’t recovered using it and aren’t periodically checking to make sure it’s still running right, turn off disk encryption. It’s much harder, sometimes impossible, to recover data off an encrypted disk. If you don’t have a backup and you don’t know how you’d access the files on the disk without booting the computer then turn disk encryption off.
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If you have 48GB you don't need a swapfile. To min-max you could lower the "swappiness" so it uses swapfiles way less. It's just bonus memory that lives on the SSD. Swap files and swap partitions behave the same unless you run out of SSD space.
Linux system has better architecture than Windows so your system is safe unless you install a virus (of which there are way fewer).
Where you install programs? Just use the app store or terminal, the location doesn't matter.
The "hardening" is interesting though, you can go really far into security if you want. If things are installed in user-space it can't fuck with your computer on a fundamental level so it's preferred. You don't have to worry about it though unless your installing some niche programs from someone you know nothing about.
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Don't. Not yet at least, since you've picked a distro.
Remember when you first started using Windows? All that new learning?
Remember that this is new learning again. Take your time to understand things, and like another poster said, d don't blindly copy and paste.
Since you've picked Mint, utilize their community as there may be "Mint specific" solutions to many problems.
Good hunting!
Downloaded the App Center (Snap Store) and I was surprised there was even a file saying to not allow it... why is that? Is it not recommended?
Use the inbuilt Flatpack '"store". Install what you jeed from there. occasionally you wont and you'll need to dable with the comand line. Installingng .Signal springs to mind
Dual booting with W ? W will fuck up GRUB (your dual booting sysyem) eventually. Run a Windows VM inside Mint instead
I swapped 2 years ago (moved to LMDE eventually from Mint though), and luckly i have no idea wtf I am doing.
Half a dozen people said so already but I'll repeat :
backup your stuff.
You are like a tightrope walker on a high line without security. Sure the view is amazing, yes you feel free... but a misstep and that's it.
How? Well depends what your data is but start simple, copy your most important files, e.g. family photos, personal notes, etc (NOT HD movies from the Internet... not anything you can get elsewhere) on a USB stick you go stuffed in a drawer.
Once you DO have your stuff saved though, please, pretty please DO go crazy! Have fun, try weird stuff, bork your installation... and restart from a neat safe place. It's honestly amazing to learn, so deeply empowering for yourself and those around you. Just make sure your data don't suffer from it.
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A Small Act Can Save a Life 💔🙏
Dear friends,
We are going through unimaginably difficult days, with very limited support and resources nearly gone. After God, all we have left is your kindness and compassion. Our lives truly depend on your help, and any contribution—no matter how small—can become a lifeline and restore hope where there is none.
A single donation can change our fate. Even sharing this message could reach someone who is able to help. Please don’t leave us alone in this painful time.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who stands with us
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Radar revelation stokes fears Caribbean could be drawn into US-Venezuela crisis
After being pressed by reporters, Persad-Bissessar admitted on Friday that at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar, believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, which the US defence company Northrop Grumman said was used for air surveillance, defence and counter-fire.The prime minister claimed the radar installation in the country, which is only seven miles away from Venezuela at its closest point, is part of a counter-drug trafficking strategy, and that she had withheld details in the interest of national security and to avoid alerting drug traffickers.
Radar revelation stokes fears Caribbean could be drawn into US-Venezuela crisis
Trinidad PM rejects claims installation is in support of US campaign but opposition says ‘they have sold soul of nation’Natricia Duncan (The Guardian)
My cat won't talk to the police.
My dog won't shut up about how he's a free canine on the land and the postman refused to make joinder.
If Cats Could Talk to Cops Sticker
These "If Cats Could Talk to Cops They Wouldn't" stickers, featuring original artwork by Teev, are so popular we just keep reprinting them. They measure 4.25" wide by 2.75" tall and are available in different color options.Burning Books
Does it make sense to use --show-error by itself in curl
I was trying to read up on it and just based off of the manual it seems not to make sense if I'm not using --silent alongside it, but I found this one article stating otherwise: nrogap.medium.com/show-error-r…
I can't figure out if it's just AI slop or badly researched since it doesn't even show a real URL to test the commands against.
::: spoiler Manual entry:
>
<br /> -S, --show-error
When used with -s, --silent, it
makes curl show an error message
if it fails.
This option is global and does not
need to be specified for each use
of -:, --next.
Providing -S, --show-error multi‐
ple times has no extra effect.
Disable it again with --no-show-
error.
Example:
curl --show-error --silent https://
example.com
See also --no-progress-meter.:::
I've had to use that flag.
--silent is useful when you don't want the progress bar or you're piping curl into something else. I like to do curl | tar -zxv to download and decompress at the same time, I've even tar -zc | curl to upload a backup taking no disk space to do so.
The problem however is it's really silent: if it fails, it exits with a non-zero code and that's it. Great when you don't want debug info to interfere, annoying when you need to debug it.
So you can opt-in to print some errors when in silent mode, but otherwise be silent.
They're just examples of things you could pipe curl into, but no not really. If the download fails you end up with an incomplete file in your tmpfs anyway, and have to retry. Another use I have is curl | mysql to restore a database backup.
If the server supports resuming, I guess that can be better than the pipe, but that still needs temporary disk space, and downloads rarely fail. You can't corrupt downloads over HTTPS either as the encryption layer would notice it and kill the connection, so it's safe to assume if it downloaded in full, it's correct.
With downloads being IO bound these days, it's nice to not have to read it all back and write the extracted files to disk afterwards. Only writes the final files once.
That's far from the weirdest thing I've done with pipes though, I've installed Windows 11 on a friend's PC across the ocean with a curl | zstd | pv | dd, and it worked. We tried like 5 different USBs and different ISOs and I gave up, I just installed it in a VM and shipped the image.
Just learned that you can pipe tar into any compression tool, if that is not natively supported.
It has less integrity checks but huge performance benefits for sure
A compulsory mandated app installed on every Indian citizen's new phone
‘If you don’t want…' Jyotiraditya Scindia says Sanchar Saathi app is optional amid strong Opposition protests | Today News
Following backlash on the government directive to pre-install the Sanchar Saathi app on all phones within 90 days, Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia claimed that users can delete the app if they do not want it.Livemint (mint)
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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆, Carlos Solís e eierschaukeln like this.
Only permanent solution is to stop using smartphones altogether
Even if you can't, minimizing smartphone use, uptime and carrying mitigates some of the risk
This doesn't make sense to me.
Why do they even need it to be that way?
Compartmentalisations was one of the basic points in system design methodology that I thought (because I read it somewhere) smartphones would also be built upon. So why compromise the whole thing to a supply chain attack?
That part, I already understand.
But you needed to have some sort of excuse for such things back when smartphones were new.
I think the compartmentalisation concepts were there from the feature-phone era.
Only permanent solution is to stop using smartphones altogether.
Just make sure your pagers are not backdoored with Semtex either.
Crazy this is a thing actually being rolled out and it hasn't hit world headlines.
Europe, USA and other countries are not far behind this initiative once they (governments) see how even more successful it is for collecting and sorting data to control citizens.
Time to go to GrapheneOS folks.
Withdrawing cash is going to be taxed.
If you have a smartphone, you get to use UPI (United Payments Interface).
If you don't, you are basically limited to a certain amount of free withdrawal per month, which is set to prevent getting an outcry from BPL (below poverty line) people, which would otherwise be bad for elections.
I was considering pushing for open source UPI apps for Linux devices (and providing my services for development), to reduce India's reliance on Google and Android but considering recent events, I believe that is not really going to align with the Government's plans.
Though that's probably connected to the debit/credit card and not really a separate interface.
They will randomly send dacoits in uniform to beat you up and jail you and make it harder for you to earn a living until they get their ~~birthright~~ bribes.
Time to go to GrapheneOS folks
I mean, it has been, for a long time, but this is not why. According to the article you can simply uninstall the app.
Yes I watched a few videos about the NSA’s hacker group, TAO, and how they exploited backdoors and zero day exploits like crazy but without our knowledge. Went unknown for some 15 years til Snowden blew the whistle.
Scary stuff man.
Currently unavailable.
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
Reuters cited sources to report that US tech giant Apple plans not to comply with the mandate and will convey the same to New Delhi
Reuters cited sources to report that US tech giant Apple plans not to comply with the mandate and will convey the same to New Delhi.
Cool..how can I get it?
They too should suffer my endless search history for obscurities.
I want them to download all of my USB storage of virus infected malware. I will sit idly and tap my fingertips against each other while my SMS messages corrupt their society from within.
The caste system ended in 1947.
We know the laws there.
The only thing holding their people back is the Reservation system.
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geneva_convenience likes this.
That’s the face of someone with the instincts to be ingratiating and the dementia required to forget who he’s supposed to hate.
The man who said Chuck Schumer came to meet him and brought “a very nice man,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a man he meets with regularly but whom he had completely forgotten.
Ok but remember the pic could have been taken at any micro second. Maybe someone made a joke, maybe it was something funny...
These out of context pictures are a bit silly. And now the internet is reading all sorts of things into what happened without being in the room.
They used to do this with paparazi celebrity pictures also, just write articles based on some photo taken without any context.
pineapple
in reply to Spectre • • •eldavi
in reply to pineapple • • •they pat themselves on the back for accepting that the system is riggable and rigging it without realizing that the oligarchy built the system to be riggable to the detriment of humanity.
then you point this out to them and you become the oddball somehow.
RiverRock
in reply to pineapple • • •Inevitable Waffles [Ohio]
in reply to Spectre • • •Even my jackass friends with a light head start due to their parental fiances say this. No self-awareness.
Edit: clarity and spelling
Saymaz
in reply to Inevitable Waffles [Ohio] • • •Semperverus
in reply to Spectre • • •Spectre
in reply to Semperverus • • •Semperverus
in reply to Spectre • • •