Archaeologists Discovered an Unprecedented Ancient Monument That Could Rewrite History
Archaeologists Discovered an Unprecedented Ancient Monument That Could Rewrite History
An archaeological find revealed in eastern France offers a never-seen-before mix of enclosures. They could rewrite history.Tim Newcomb (Popular Mechanics)
The Great Armenian Sell Out and Turkish/NATO Dreams of a Turan Corridor Stretching to China
Chaos in the Caucasus: The Great Armenian Sell Out and Turkish/NATO Dreams of a Turan Corridor Stretching to China | naked capitalism
The great question is how Russia and Iran will respond if Turkiye and friends attempt to muscle their way across the Southern Caucasus.Conor Gallagher (naked capitalism)
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China, Russia, and Iran have hypersonic missiles. And that changes everything.
Bullets:
- China is the world leader in the development and deployment of hypersonic missile systems.
- Russia and Iran also have successfully built and recently used hypersonic platforms in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
- The United States is racing to close the gap, and hopes to build systems for some Army units next year.
- But the problem is that no air defense platforms can intercept inbound hypersonic munitions.
- This is the reality that confronts career politicians and military officers in Western countries: an armed conflict against any country with hypersonic missiles invites catastrophic losses to ground bases and naval fleet assets.
- Those risks will be deemed unacceptably high, and in the event of potential conflict in the Western Pacific or Persian Gulf will likely result in disengagement and withdrawal of American naval forces.
China, Russia, and Iran have hypersonic missiles. And that changes everything.
This is a transcript, for the video found here:Kevin Walmsley (Inside China / Business)
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changes everything?
does it though? War is profit. So it’ll “change” the ROI before it changes anything else.
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Five-Year-Old Boy Injured in Ukraine UAV Strike on Kursk Beach Dies of Wounds
Five-Year-Old Boy Injured in Ukraine UAV Strike on Kursk Beach Dies of Wounds
A five-year-old boy who was injured in Ukraine's drone attack on Kursk beach died during transportation to Moscow, acting Governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Wednesday.Sputnik International
China Denies Shipping Air Defenses To Iran
China Denies Shipping Air Defenses To Iran
China’s embassy in Israel on July 9 rejected a report claiming that it had transferred missile production equipment or air...Anonymous1199 (South Front)
Moscow not fazed by Trump’s harsh rhetoric – Kremlin
Moscow not fazed by Trump’s harsh rhetoric – Kremlin
Russia is well aware that it is the US president’s style, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has saidRT
[JS] Let me pay for Firefox!
Let me pay for Firefox!
Hi Mozilla community, I’m a long time Mozilla supporter, I’ve published free (as in freedom) and open-source software, and I desperately want Mozilla to charge for Firefox. If that sounds like a contradiction, please keep reading.Mozilla Discourse
Ukrainian terror plot targeting railway bridge foiled – FSB (VIDEO)
Ukrainian terror plot targeting railway bridge foiled – FSB (VIDEO)
The suspect was shot dead after he opened fire at officers during the arrest, the Russian security agency has saidRT
America is sinking, and Canada cannot go down with the ship
America is sinking, and Canada cannot go down with the ship
Donald Trump is blaming other countries for his country’s large trade deficits when the U.S. should be looking at itselfClaude Lavoie (The Globe and Mail)
Most Canadians now see US as a ‘threat,’ study reveals
Most Canadians now see US as a ‘threat,’ study reveals
Europeans are still most concerned by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Pew Research Center survey shows.Ferdinand Knapp (POLITICO)
This Aged Like Fine Milk, JD Vance Post From 2021
UK government’s deal with Google ‘dangerously naive’, say campaigners
UK government’s deal with Google ‘dangerously naive’, say campaigners
Company to provide free technology and ‘upskill’ civil servants but concerns raised over UK data being held on US serversRobert Booth (The Guardian)
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Google is paying a pittance to achieve vendor lock-in.
The training may be free but there will be other services which will not be free and the other services will integrate better with the existing 'free' Google services better than anything else.
Houthi attack on cargo ship kills 3 mariners, European naval force says
Houthis killed and kidnapped cargo ship crew following attack in Red Sea, U.S. Embassy in Yemen says
Yemen's Houthi rebels killed 3 mariners with an attack on a ship in the Red Sea, a European naval force says, fueling concern over a possible new wave of attacks by the Iran-backed group.CBS News
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SUSE launches new European digital sovereignty support service to meet surging demand
SUSE launches new European digital sovereignty support service to meet surging demand
With SUSE's help, European companies and governments can ensure their IT support, software, and data assets are safe.Steven Vaughan-Nichols (ZDNET)
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Neat
In practice, SUSE's Sovereign Premium Support is tailored for enterprises and public sector organizations that require strict data residency, privacy, and operational control within the EU. The service ensures that:
- All support personnel and data are based in the EU, with named premium support engineers and service delivery managers assigned to each customer.
- Customer support data is stored exclusively on EU-located networks and servers, addressing both regulatory and geopolitical concerns.
- Access to sensitive data is strictly limited to EU-based staff, with a commitment to encrypting all data required for troubleshooting.
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Look, folks, I’ve been hearing a lot, a lot, about this thing called Linux. Ever heard of it? Sounds European, doesn’t it? Probably invented in Brussels, or Sweden, maybe Russia, I don't know. Total disaster. I call it Socialist Windows, because that’s what it is! It’s chaotic, no one’s in charge. Total mess. Bernie Sanders running an IT department, terrible.
Meanwhile, Windows, great American company, by the way, very successful, very strong.
IMO, If you really want independance dont use things from corporations.
Many people complains about overstaffing in administrations, so why not have them work on a distro from scratch ?
Donald Trump threatened Putin and Xi he would bomb Moscow, Beijing: audio
Donald Trump said he had separately warned both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would bomb their respective capitals if either of them invaded their neighbors, newly released audio broadcast by CNN shows.
The U.S. president was recorded speaking at a private fundraiser in 2024 about his conversations with Putin and Xi.
"With Putin I said, 'If you go into Ukraine, I'm gonna bomb the s*** out of Moscow,'" Trump is heard saying, recounting his version of their conversation. He also said with Xi he also threatened to "bomb the s*** out of Beijing" if it invaded Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own.
Donald Trump Threatened Putin and Xi He Would Bomb Moscow, Beijing: Audio
The newly released audio captured Trump talking about his conversations with Putin and Xi.Brendan Cole (Newsweek)
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US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings
The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.
Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.
The decision could result in hundreds of thousands of job losses at the departments of agriculture, commerce, health and human services, state, treasury, veterans affairs and other agencies.
US supreme court clears way for Trump officials to resume mass government firings
Justices lift lower court order that froze ‘reductions in force’ federal layoffs while litigation in case proceededDavid Smith (The Guardian)
Okay why is your distro the best?
I made the unfortunate post about asking why people liked Arch so much (RIP my inbox I'm learning a lot from the comments) But, what is the best distro for each reason?
RIP my inbox again. I appreciate this knowledge a lot. Thank you everyone for responding. You all make this such a great community.
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My Arch is the best for my private laptop
My Asahi is the best so that I don't have to deal with f*cling macos crap
Why my distro (pop!_os) is the best? Well it's probably not, but here's why I went with it:
- ubuntu based, so lots of applicable tech support online
- looks nice out of the box (imo)
- comes with nvidia drivers. Not a major point cause they aren't hard to get, but it was one of the things I considered when I unintentionally ended up with with nvidia
- tiling (the big one imo)
Aand that's kinda it :3.. at the moment it's kinda behind all the other stuff cause they're working on the new COSMIC DE, which im hoping is gonna be an upgrade to the GNOME with extensions the current version has
Aeon desktop is the best indeed:
- Crazy fast install.
- System configuration is done on the first boot.
- Supports ignition and combustion.
- The install USB can become a $HOME backup if you re-install.
- Full disk encryption by default and mandatory.
- Latest GNOME, looks clean and pretty.
- Rolling.
- Immutable, with Distrobox by default.
As far as desktop Linux goes, I don't see why I would use anything else atm. Give it a try!
Or, if you want all the same features without immutability, just go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed!
(Aeon is an OpenSUSE project, too)
Are all the distros having the same GNU/Linux kernel
Yes. Different distros have different versions, patches and so on, but the underlying kernel is the same.
if I replace all the Arch userland files into Debian’s, the system will become Debian?
If by "userland" you mean files which your normal non-root user can touch, then no. There's differences on how distributions build directory trees, file locations, binaries, versions and so on. You can of course replace all the files on the system and change distribution that way, a convenient way to do that is to use distros installer but technically speaking you can also replace them manually by hand (which I don't recommend).
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I recently needed to build newer versions of some packages for Debian. Now, they're go based so the official packaging is super complicated and eventually I decided to try and make my own from scratch. After a few more hours of messing with the official tooling I start thinking "there must be a better way."
And sure enough, after a bit of searching I found makedeb which allows you to make debs from (almost) regular PKGFILEs. Made the task a million times simpler.
makedeb - A simplicity-focused packaging tool for Debian archives
A simplicity-focused packaging tool for Debian archives.www.makedeb.org
EndeavourOS Bcause:
It’s Arch with an easy installer, with all of the most common administration tools already installed
With the Arch repo, AUR, and flatpak I have a wide breadth of software to choose from
I can easily install it without a desktop environment to install and set up Hyprland without the clutter of another DE
Not to mention it’s active and friendly community and excellent documentation
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Arch.
I'm vegan, german and into fitness. There really was no other choice. /s?
Also, it's lightweight, you always get the most recent software, pacman is superb and it's super stable. In about 10 years on multiple systems, I never had anything break. The worst of it are simple problems during updates, which are always explained on their website.
Lastly, there is the wiki. The single best source of Linux information out there. Might as well be using the distro that's directly explained there, albeit a lot of information can be used on other ones as well.
With arch-install, you don't even need to learn much, but learning is never a bad idea and will be great if something does break. Every system can break. Arch prepares you for that.
pacman is the best i've used, packages are very up to date, and it's pretty easy to troubleshoot with the enormous amount of info on the wiki and elsewhere
Also it taught me about Nix (the package manager, which also runs on any distro and macOS independent of NixOS) which I now use to set up perfect development environments for each of my projects... if I set up dependencies once (as a flake.nix shell), it'll work forever and anywhere.
Same for me. I distro-hopped for about 20 years with OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch and Fedora being the most memorable desktop setups for me. While all that was a valuable experience, NixOS feels like graduation.
For the Nix-curious: I wish someone would have told me not to bother with the classic config and build a flake-based system immediately. They're "experimental" in name only, very stable and super useful in practice.
git add any new files before building!) but absolutely makes up for it by its features.
Same for me, I stopped distro-hoping 2 years ago when I moved to NixOS.
It was tough at first, setting it up took a while and i genuinely felt stupid like i haven't felt for a while; but now I love having the same config on my two laptops. I have one that stays at work and another one for traveling. With one word/line added into my config I can as a software, configure the VPN, change the wallpaper on both my laptop, or not. Some stuff like gaming goes only on the traveling laptop.
Also, another big thing for me is the feeling of having a cleanly built system all the time. I haven't felt the urge to do a clean reinstall since I started with NixOS.
- It's a fast way to get to a specific setup, like a particular DE or Vulkan gaming support, thanks to abstraction that NixOS modules provide
- There are tons of packages
- Because packages are installed by adding a config entry you don't accumulate random software you forgot you installed
- Immutable updates and rollbacks - this is similar to benefits of atomic ostree distros, but the nix solutions are more general, so you have one system that does more things with a consistent interface
- in addition to updating the base system, rollbacks also roll back user-installed packages, and configurations if those are managed via Nix
- devshells provide per-directory packages and configuration using the same package repos as the host system, without needing to manage docker images
- Nix is portable - much of what it does on NixOS can also be used in other distros, or even on Macos or Windows with the Linux subsystem
- Configurations often combine NixOS and Home Manager parts. The Home Manager part can be used à la carte on other OSes is a way that is fully isolated from the host OS package management. For example on Macos this is a much nicer alternative to Homebrew.
- devshells also work on other OSes
- similar to Guix - but NixOS uses systemd, and is (from what I understand) more tolerant of non-free software (whether these are pros or cons is up to individual interpretation)
Is a huge plus for me. I love to f up things to learn from them but I don’t like broken things and oh boy. Nix keeps me in the clean, safe.
Don’t get me wrong im doing stupid stuff all the time but just cus i have a few configs written down i can learn a lot. Or a little that amazes me lol
1. Arch based
a. Pacman package manager
b. AUR
c. Rolling release distro
2. Graphical installer
3. Extensive software repo. Things that I used to only be able to get as a flatpak are available in the repo, such as SurfShark VPN as an example
4. Super fast.
5. Updates are tested before they are made available and the delay is only a few days.
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Debian (testing) is most suitable for me. If there were a universally best distro, all the others would cease to exist...
It isn't made by a for-profit company and thus doesn't have "features" I don't want.
It pays attention to software freedom, though it isn't so restrictive about it that it doesn't work with my hardware.
It was very easy to install only the things I wanted and needed.
Mint. It just works and Cinnamon is a good DE (ui design peaked in the Windows XP days). Plus you also get all the software built and tested for Ubuntu without the bullshit of using Ubuntu.
For my server I use NixOS, because having one unified configuration is so nice.
99% of screenshot is just wallpaper lol
But it's a good one! Mind sharing original file?
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My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste.
Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all.
I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch by default is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system to behave that way.
Linux is so great, because there is a distribution for nearly everyone out there (unless you are blind, then things are not that great apparently, but it seems to get better).
I switched from pop os to Fedora a while back. I did like pop, but it gave me problems regularly and I think it just needs to cook for a few more years probably. Fedora fixed every issue I was having 👍
Seeing all the arch praise here is definitely giving me distro fomo though. Lol
As someone who used both Arch and Fedora: no need to fomo, Fedora is great and delivers everything you may ever need from Arch without the headache.
The only strong side of Arch here is AUR, but then again, I've never found anything I would need that wouldn't be available in Fedora.
So, you're golden.
With Guix you have reproducibility, freedom, good docs and peace of mind, also when configuring things more deeply. You also have a powerful programming language (Scheme / Lisp) with which to define your system config as well as your dotfiles. This is my insight after years of GNU/Linux usage. I run Guix on laptops, desktops and servers, and I never have configuration drift, as well as the benefit that I have a self documenting system.
Isn't GUIX based on Linux-libre?
This must complicate installing nonfree software, including nonfree drivers if your computer needs any.
Thanks for this! I guess the point is, people don't want to dig deep into the system built with different approach as a base.
But you made me interested
Arch. I tried other distros and always came back to Arch. Other distros are very bloated and honestly I can't be bothered with removing them manually. I also love the AUR and the wiki.
Another interesting distro was NixOS, but that is a bit of a pain in the ass to learn.
For newbies, Fedora KDE Plasma edition or Mint Cinnamon is my recommendation. Kinoite is Fedora KDE Plasma edition but immutable for the ones that keep breaking the system because they keep following some absurd guide online for whatever.
Debian.
With x11 gnome it can run the Rustdesk client and pass all the keys properly to the Windows host. And it doesn't boot to a black screen like many other distros on my Asus laptop.
Was on Fedora with similar results but it started taking ages to boot looking for a non existent tpm chip.
I use fedora silverblue for a couple reasons. After jumping from elementary to Ubuntu to Manjaro to Artix I got tired of dealing with distro specific modifications and weird issues. With the Ubuntu based distro I never enjoyed how out of date some packages were. I’d hear about a cool new update for a program I use and realize it would be a while till that would be in my repos.
I really liked artix and Arch’s rolling release nature and I would probably enjoy arch if I still used my computer daily like I used to but now I can be away from it for a couple months at a time and I need updates to be stable.
I’ve found Fedora (silverblue in particular) to be a perfect middle ground between rolling release and having a more regular update schedule. I use silverblue because I never wanted to have to worry about an update breaking my install ever again.
I will admit that because silverblue uses flatpaks almost exclusively, my appreciation for software being up to date could be achieved on almost any other distro, but the vanilla style of fedora is what keeps me now. I’m a big fan of vanilla gnome and not too many distros ship it like that.
Honestly, having tried both atomic and regular Fedora, I ended up with regular, as it allows you to do all the same things without limiting you to them.
Install flatpak? Sure. Use Distrobox? Of course. But if you have to use native package, you can simply install it without jumping through the hoops with rpm-ostree (which doesn't even always work properly).
Fedora itself is great, though - a healthy release cycle, high stability, and mature base.
Gentoo works best for me because I'm a control freak. It lets me tune my system in any way I want, and I don't mind leaving my computer on while I'm asleep so that it can compile its way through libreoffice, webkit, and a couple of browsers. Plus, based on complaints I hear from people using other distros, Portage beats other package managers in every way except speed.
This doesn't mean that it's best for everyone, mind you, just that it's best for me.
Gentoo is the best, if you have a beefy CPU with enough RAM, it's not even that slow. (Yes still slower, though dnf may be on par).
But it's just the best thing for having control over your hardware and software.
USE flags are divine, I can't imagine a life without them anymore.
I agree with Gentoo.
I had installed Arch for my wife, to get fast install times and more normal user friendly upgrades, but it kept breaking all the time.
It really opened my eyes to how incredibly stable Gentoo is while still allowing living on the bloodiest of edges at the same time.
Fedora
Any RPM-based system has exemplary validation and, as long as we don't throw it out with flatsnappimages, it presents a very clean and maintainable install.
Extra points for PCLinuxOS which has avoided lennart's cancer.
No points for SuSE as they continue to exist as the over engineered bastard child of slackware and RPM, like slackware met 73deJeff on a trip and let the tequila do the talking. Mamma mia!
OpenSUSE because rolling release and no IBM. Never used it though.
Currently I use Mint. It works but it's not the best.
Fedora Atomic because I don't fucking care what package manager and whatnot sits underneath.
I just wanna relax in my free time and not worry about all this fucking nerd stuff.
Touching grass > Troubleshooting a broken system
Arch. I think when people say "bloat" they don't mean it in the traditional sense of the word. Most people are installing plasma or gnome and pulling all the "bloat" that comes with them. To me at least it's more that no one is deciding what they think you're likely to need/do, and overall that makes the system feel much more "predictable". Less likely to work against what I'm trying to do.
Ignore all the comments about Arch being hard to install or "not for beginners". That view is outdated. When I first installed Arch when you had to follow the wiki and install via the chroot method. Now it's dead simple to install with the script and running it isn't any more difficult than any other distro.
Mainly though it's because of the AUR.
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OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll
Tumbleweed is the only bleeding-edge rolling release distribution that just works and never fails and is super easy to install and manage without any expertise. And it is massively underrated and forgotten for no good reason.
All Tumbleweed packages go through extensive and to this day unrivaled automatic system testing that ensures no package is ever gonna bork itself or your system.
If you're still worried about stability, there is Slowroll - currently testing, but in my experience very stable distribution. It makes rolling release updates...a bit slower, so that they're only pushed after Tumbleweed users absolutely ensure everything is great and stable (not that it's ever otherwise). It does the same job as Manjaro, but this time around it actually works without a hitch.
Both deliver great experience and will suit novice users.
Ubuntu.
Why? - I guess I'm too lazy for distro hopping now 🙁
Besides, this was the 1st Linux distro I tried back in 2005. After the usual ditro hopping phase was over, I settled on it; somehow (irrespective of snap and other controversies) I feel at home.
I agree. I tried Fedora first, then Pop!OS, and then settled on Kubuntu.
Kubuntu has been the most stable so far, no big issues. I chose it for that and its Wayland support. Snaps can be disabled or even have auto update turned off which is what I did and I had no real issues with Ubuntu past that so overall a good distro.
Widely supported, plenty of tutorials, has my favorite DE as a spin, it just does what I need it to.
Debian stable.
Everybody think they are a special snowflake who needs bleeding edge, or a specific package manager or DE or whatever. Truth is 99.99% do not. They just like to believe they do, claim they do, try it, inflict self pain for longer than they need, convince themselves that truly they are, because of the pain, special.
Chill, just go with stable, it's actually fine.
Edit: posted from Arch, not even sarcasm.
As someone who ran Debian Stable for a while, this is not a distro for "99.99%".
First, Debian, while very stable in its core, commonly has same random issues within DE's and even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
Second, a release cycle of 2 years is actually a giant and incredibly noticeable lag. You may love your system when it just releases, but over time, you will realize your system is old, like, very damn old. It will look old, it will act old, and the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they'd be up to date.
This isn't just programs. It is your desktop environment. It is Wine (gamers, you're gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks like Bottles, which will feel like insane workaround you wouldn't have to have with a better fitting distro).
It is the damn kernel, so you may not even be able to install Debian on newest hardware without unsupported and potentially unstable backporting tricks.
Don't get me wrong, Debian is absolutely great in what it does, and that is providing a rock solid environment where nothing changes. But recommending it for everyone? Nope.
I feel like a lot of your points were true at one point, but are becoming lest relevant.
For one, at least with XFCE, I found myself not really running into DE bugs.
Also, I don't think two years is as obnoxious anymore. During the era of the GTK 4 transition a couple, it drove me nuts, but now that a lot of APIs like that have stabilized, I really don't notice much of a difference between Debian Testing and Stable. I installed and daily drove Bookworm late in its lifecycle on my laptop, and in terms of DE and applications, I haven't noticed anything. I get the feeling Debian's gotten better at maintenance in the past few years - I especially see this with Firefox ESR. There was a time where the version was several months behind the latest major release of ESR, but usually it now only takes a month or two for a new ESR Firefox to come to Debian Stable, well within the support window of the older release.
Also, I don't think Flatpaks are a huge dealbreaker anyway - no matter what distro you're using, you're probably going to end up with some of them at some point because there's some application that is the best at what it does and is only distributed as a Flatpak.
Frankly, I probably am a terrible reference for gaming, as I'm a very casual gamer, but I've found Steam usually eliminates most of these issues, even on Debian.
Also, the official backports repository has gotten really easy. My laptop had an unsupported Wi-Fi chipset (it was brand new), so I just installed over ethernet, added the repo, and the install went smoothly. There were a few bugs, but none of these were specific to Debian. Stability has been great as ever.
In conclusion, I think right around Bookworm, Debian went from being the stable savant to just being an all-around good distro. I'll elaborate more on why I actually like Debian in a comment directly replying to the main post.
I might disagree with 99.999% like you - maybe I'd put it in the 50-75% range.
As a KDE fan, I had some bugs on some devices (like on one of the laptops, wallpapers did not install correctly and the setting to always show battery charge didn't work) even on Debian 12.
XFCE is well-known for stability, but seems to be increasingly irrelevant for the average/newbie user because the interface looks outdated and configuring is relatively complicated.
Interesting you mentioned Firefox ESR - iirc, even at release the version shipped with Debian 12 was considered very old, prompting many to install Firefox as a flatpak. Two years later, it's two years older.
Flatpaks are good and suitable options for many tasks - no argument here! But some things are just better installed natively, and there Debian just...shows.
Steam is a godsend, but there are many non-Steam games and, importantly, programs out there, and launching them through Steam often feels like yet another bloated and slow workaround; besides, you cannot choose Wine over Proton, and sometimes (granted: rarely) you may want to use Wine specifically.
To conclude - it's alright to choose Debian anyway, it is good! But I just feel like newbies and casual users could save a lot of trouble and frustration simply going with something that doesn't require all that - say, Fedora (non-atomic), or OpenSUSE, and then go from there to whatever they like. There are plenty of distributions that are stable, reliable, but without the tradeoffs Debian sets.
If you feel like stability is your absolutely biggest priority ever, and you have experience managing Linux systems - by all means, go Debian. But by that point you'll already know what you want.
Debian Stable actually updates Firefox ESR through the typically on by default security channel.
The current ESR version in there is 128, which is about a year old, which replaced the 115 that came with Debian 12 by default.
The newest ESR, 140 just came out 2 weeks ago. 128 still has 2 months of security updates, and 140 has already been packaged for sid. I have no doubts 140 will come before those 2 months are up.
Now the KDE thing actually sounds like it sucks.
even programs that may likely just sit there until the next release comes along.
... the only thing you can do is install flatpaks for your preferred programs so that they’d be up to date.
... Wine (gamers, you’re gonna cry a lot unless you work it around with flatpaks
I already posted on this a while ago but that's is a recurring misconception. No distribution, literally 0, provides all software to the latest version or to the version one expects. Consequently IMHO it is perfectly acceptable to go beyond what the official package manager of the distribution offers. It can be flatpaks, am, build from source, etc but the point precisely is that the distribution is about a shared practical common ground to build on top of. A distribution is how to efficiently get to a good place. I also run Debian stable on my desktop and for gaming, I use Steam. It allows me to get Wine, yes, but also Proton and even ProtonFix so that I basically point and click to run games. I do NOT tinker to play Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Clair Obscur, etc and my hardware is well supported.
So... sure if you consider a distribution as something you must accept as-is and NOT rely on any of the available tools to get the latest software you actually need, can be games but can be tools e.g. Blender, Cura, etc, then you WILL have a tough time but that's the case for all distributions anyway.
TL;DR: a distribution is the base layer to build on. Its package manager, on Debian and elsewhere, is not the mandatory and sole way to get the software you need.
Debian. Truly the universal operating system. Runs on all of my laptops, desktops, servers, and NAS with no fuss and no need to keep track of distro-specific differences. If something has a Linux version, it probably works on Debian.
Granted, I am a bit biased. All of my hardware is at least 5 years old. Also came from Windows, where I kept only the OS and browser up to date, couldn't be bothered with shiny new features. A package manager is already a huge luxury.
- I have access to more packages than with any other package manager.
- everything to get my setup in the exact state I want is in my config, which is 90% useable on any other distro thanks to home manager
- My config is all in one place and easy to share
- If I ever break something, I can always roll back
- I don't need Docker
NixOS makes me feel so safe making low-level changes to Linux and making sure that my work laptop, gaming desktop, and personal laptop all have the exact same shit on them and I'm gonna use them the exact same way.
I wish that nixlang was decoupled from the concept of a build system bc it's such a great DAG config DSL and I can think of so many cooler uses for it but I just don't have time to focus on it.
Because it uses the best desktop environment (GNOME) and im the most familiar with
(I wonder how many downvotes i will get)
I can't speak for anyone else but I can tell you what I personally love about Gnome.
I like that it's Spartan. I like that it looks good without me having to customize a thousand different settings.
I like that It has client side decorations, so every window doesn't have to have an obscene, chunky, mostly useless title bar.
I don't miss every single application having 100 different options packed into a menu bar. Once you get used to it, you realize that it was mostly getting in the way the whole time.
It's just a really streamlined workflow for 98% of what you do. The problem is that 2% where it's too spartan and God do you wish you had some options.
But I also think KDE is a great desktop environment. If I were more of a gamer I'd be using KDE. I think XFCE is an excellent desktop environment for aging hardware and Windows converts. It is very much a matter of taste, Use cases, and your preferred workflow.
While I still care somewhat of distro differences for functional reasons, I completely agree that DE's are the most important part in terms of user experience.
Both my machines use KDE, and while they run two different distros, they look and feel pretty much the same since I use a very similar layout on both of them. This, along with file sync through my NAS and similar apps, makes switching from one computer to the other a breeze (pun not intended), despite some differences under the hood.
My distro isn't the best, but it's at least a good starting point: Debian + XFCE.
Was using Ubuntu from about 12.04 through 20.04, but it is getting too snappy and support contract happy for me these days.
Mint Cinnamon.
It's easy, stable and gets out of my way.
I haven't seen the need to dostro hop for years.
I am a debian person but when I tried EndeavourOS i relegated debian to my homeservers only.
Almost 1 year in EndeavourOS, I fucked it up once and was very easy to recover.
Bazzite.
Super easy install and setup. Ready to start installing games at first boot. Just a wonderful OS to use.
Devuan + Trinity Desktop
Moved over there since Debian switched to Sytemd. It is boring, dusty... but it works and stays out of my way.
As with others, I love Debian Stable.
Most packages have sane defaults, and it's so stable. It's true that it sometimes means older software versions, but there's also something to be said for behavior staying the same for two years at a time.
If hardware support is an issue, using the backports repo is really easy - I've been using it on my laptop for almost a year with no problems that don't exist on other distros. If you really need the shiniest new application, Flatpak isn't that bad.
It also feels in a nice position - not so corporate as to not give a darn about its community, but with enough funding and backing the important stuff gets maintained.
I just moved to Debian trixie (soon to be stable) because I needed an upgrade after ~15 years of Gentoo.
I was a proud Gentoo user. I learned a lot about systemd and kernel configuration. Many advances in portage made it possible to find the time to maintain my Gentoo setup. On my laptop I gave up Gentoo even earlier, because updating my system was just too time consuming. I actually learned less and less about the software I was using, because I was trapped in dependency conflict management. The new binary repos did save some compile time, but the actual time sinks are decision for your systems, use flags and the forementioned dependencies.
So, I installed Debian on my main workstation (two days ago). I am already using Debian on on my Raspberry Pis. I did choose a more challenging way using debootstrap, because I want to use systemd-boot, encrypted btrfs and have working hibernation. I am still busy with configuring everything.
One could argue, that I could've used the time on Gentoo to solve my current python_targets_python3_13 issues and do a proper world update. No, this is a future investment. I want the time to configure new stuff, not wait for dependency resolution or waste time solving blocking packages.
The main reason to switch from Gentoo to Debian is being able to install security updates fast without blocking packages in the same slot.
secureblue: Hardened Fedora Atomic and Fedora CoreOS images
Hardened operating system images based on Fedora Atomic Desktop and Fedora CoreOSsecureblue
I love Pop OS because it got me back into Linux after ditching it for windows for the last 10 years, partly to do .net development and partly because I hated the state of Ubuntu/Unity.
As soon as cosmic is stable and easy to install on Nix I'll switch to it.
It's actually quite good so far, been struggling a bit with external monitors, but I don't miss windows
I use Kubuntu. It is defintly not the best Distro. I am just used to it and too lazy to get used to another distro. My days as a distro jumper lie 15 years back...
Tbh though, I might switch to Debian stable whenever Trixie comes out.
It isn't. I'm on PopOS 24.04 Alpha 7 (soon to be Beta 1), because of COSMIC (and because I was having some bugs with Fedora a few months back).
I recently wanted to tinker with a piece of software that wasn't packaged, and I couldn't compile it because of outdated libraries. I could return to Fedora specifically to tinker with it but as an ex-distrohopper, I know it isn't worth the effort.
Even though Fedora or some version of it will likely be my forever distro, I will stick to PopOS for now because I can't be bothered to distrohop and back up months' worth of files, including game saves and a ton of stuff in my Downloads directory.
I use debian cause it just works.
I was a Nix user (more specifically, nix-darwin user) but after being away from the computer for like one year (to study for the university entrance exam), I completely forgot how to use it and resulted in erasing the computer. Nix/NixOS is fun, but it was too complicated for me.
I use Nobara with KDE for my gaming computer, Mint with Cinnamon for pretty much everything else.
Mint is the closest to a "Just Works" experience for me. Cinnamon is rock stable, especially on Mint Debian Edition. I don't remember the last time Cinnamon crashed or had any major bugs for me.
I use Debian for most of my servers, stable and simple. Arch on a junker Thinkpad to test and mess around with new programs and window managers.
Mint Cinnamon is also great
EndeavourOS is the best because.
It's currently on my system and said system hasn't burst into flames yet, so I'm too lazy to change it.
Tumbleweed. Rolling release with automated testing (openQA), snapper properly setup out of the box.
Honestly the entire openSUSE ecosystem. Tumbleweed on my main PC that often has some of the latest hardware, Slowroll on my (Framework) laptop because it's rolling but slower (monthly feature updates, only fixes in-between), and Leap for servers where stability (as in version/compatibility stability, not "it doesn't crash" stability) is appreciated.
openSUSE also comes in atomic flavors for those interested. And it's European should you care.
With all that being said, I don't really care much about what distro I'm using. What I do with it could be replicated with pretty much any distro. For me it's mostly just a means to an end.
- The fricking AUR
- Nothing I don't _actually_ need
- Pacman
- Everything is the latest version available–ALWAYS.
- ArchWiki
Gentoo because it is as stable as Debian, less bloated than Arch, has more packages than Ubuntu, is rolling release, can mix and match stable, testing and unstable on a whim.
Even its one downside, compile times, is now gone if you just choose to use binary packages.
And less stable than Arch, and more bloated than Ubuntu... If that is something you want for whatever reason! It is the most versatile distro in existance because it's literally anything you want it to be - clean and nice, or total chaos. What is there not to love?
Gentoo ❤
Since I mostly use computers for entertainment these days I keep coming back to Bazzite. It’s fast, stable, kept up to date, reliable, and “just works”. I’ve created custom rpm-ostree layers to faff around, but it’s not actually necessary for anything I need.
I used to keep a second Kubuntu Minimal partition around but I realized I just don’t need it. If I wasn’t so happy with Bazzite, I would probably go with openSUSE or Endeavor.
I've been using (X)Ubuntu for ages. I just wanted something that "just works". Tired of too much tinkering and there's plenty of (non commercial) support. Mixing it with i3 as my window manager.
Roast me ;)
For me it's openSUSE Tumbleweed on my Desktops/Laptops and openSuse Leap on my Servers. The killing Feature for me was the propper BTRFS integration with Snapper for seamless rollbacks in case I borked the system in some way.
One "downside" for me is the mix of Gnome Settings and Yast on my Desktop. But I like yast on my servers for managing everything (enabling ports in firewall, network config, enable autoamtic isntall of security updates, etc.).
Also openSuse is not that common, so sometimes it is hard to find a solution if you have a distribution specific question.
Personally never looked to closely into openSuse Build Services (OBS). But I know some people who really like it.
I am using Bluefin, based on Fedora Silverblue. I realized that I was already exclusively using flatpaks for everything except one random app, so I thought why not go all-in?
Haven't had to worry about updates or system breakages since, and it's been great so far.
I used to use Debian Stable, but since doing SysAdmin work I've just become used to the way Fedora / RHEL does things.
I think linux distros are a coinflip on if they like your hardware or not, sometimes it feels like they just don't like you individually as a person.
When I use fedora for example, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. It's in theory not any more complicated than debian, but I've never had good luck keeping a fedora system healthy.
With Debian, usually the best troubleshooting tip I can give people is try installing testing instead of stable. Sometimes the kernel in stable is just too damn old for the hardware you want to install on.
Which Kubernetes is the Smallest? Examining Talos Linux, K3s, K0s, and More - Sidero Labs
Which Kubernetes is the Smallest? Examining Talos Linux, K3s, K0s, and More - Sidero Labs
Lots of projects claim to be the “smallest” or “simplest” Kubernetes, but they never provide data to back it up. Let’s look at how these distributions compare to Talos Linux.Justin Garrison (Sidero Labs)
And obviously their option is the "best". From the conclusion:
Talos Linux is unique. It’s the only option that includes OS management in a purpose-built distribution for running Kubernetes. There’s no compromise for scaling up or down. In terms of small-scale numbers, it “wins” in several of the examined categories, including memory usage, disk r/w, and installation size. But all of these metrics are side effects of Talos Linux’s defining characteristic: It’s simple.
You could try mine, SimpleK8s (kubeadm, containerd, systemd, buildroot), ~50Mb single file (kernel+initramfs).
simplek8s.org/
The current footprint is lower than every alternatives commented on this article.
I find this comparison unfair becuase k3s is a much more batteries included distro than the others, coming with an ingress controller (traefik) and a few other services not in talos or k0s.
But I do think Talos will end up the lighest overall because Talos is not just a k8s distro, but also a extremely stripped down linux distro. They don’t use systemd to start k8s, they have their own tiny init system.
It should be noted that Sidero Labs is the creator of Talos Linux, which another commenter pointed out.
I've been looking at K3s deployed on FCOS, but I have no clue how I'm supposed to use Terraform to deploy FCOS.
My understanding is that FCOS is supposed to be ephemeral and re-deployed every so often, which would imply the use of a hypervisor like Proxmox on the host, but Proxmox does not play well with Terraform.
I also considered OpenStack, but it's way over my head. I have a very simple single-node Kubernetes setup to deploy using GitOps, and nothing seems to fit the bill.
Is the Trinity Desktop Environment Secure?
So, a while back I installed Xfce with Chicago95, but was disappointed. Xfce just doesn't vibe with me, and a strict emulation of Windows95 is not really what I wanted, I just wanted something that "felt" that classic.
So I was gonna give up and just use KDE, until I saw TDE. I think TDE is probably what I'm looking for but I'm concerned about using anything so minor because security.
It TDE secure (for personal use)?
Can a DE even be insecure, or are they all generally as secure as each-other as long as you follow the rules (trustworthy software, closed firewall, install patches fast, and disaster recovery plans)?
What vulnerabilities can a desktop environment even have (edit)?
It appears to be maintained, which is a point in its favour.
You could send them a message on their mailing list and ask the question.
It's good that it looks to be still maintained, but I imagine their resources are limited with so little market share and it doesn't look like they have the resources to switch to Wayland (which I assume is more secure).
I'm not sure my noob questions are worthy of asking the devs directly.
That might be true. They have a Mastodon too floss.social/@tde
There are no stupid questions and the attitude of any response would be a good way to judge if using the DE is worth your time.
As one practical example, a malicious program may monitor your key presses to extract your passwords (in web browsers or sudo).
Or it could be taking screenshots behind the scenes and sending that data remotely or to a local AI.
Or turning on your mic and….
So basically they still require arbitrary code execution as a starting point.
Another guy shared this link from Secureblue that goes into thumbnail generation, which can be done programmatically and has been documented in the past as an avenue for infection in Nautilus.
Probably not significantly less secure than Xorg itself, I wouldn't mind using in your place. DE security is usually not a huge problem, if someone can exploit these vulnerabilities usually you are quite bonked.
Remember most of what happens on screen is xorg, the wm is a simply interacting with xorg and other parts of your DE are simple user level programs like the panel etc..
What kind of threats could affect Xorg? I can't imagine anything really exploiting the display manager without arbitrary code execution elsewhere (not that I know anything at all about software security).
I guess the biggest risk is whichever browser I use becoming a Wayland exclusive and not getting updates.
There are no open security bugs against TDE that I'm aware of—if there were, I'd expect them to be fixed in the next release. In my experience, the development team, while not huge, is active and competent.
I've been using TDE since a little while after Gentoo sunsetted KDE3, and I've had no issues. Just make sure your X server is secure—-nolisten and all that stuff—and don't try to use Konqueror as a web browser (it remains an excellent file manager), and you should be fine.
Wayland is "more secure" than X in that it makes less LAN contact by default and tries to sandbox programs from one another to an extent, just in case some future browser exploit that can copy random swathes of your screen tries to screenshot your password manager or something. There are no active exploits against a correctly-configured X server at this time that will magically vanish if you switch to Wayland, as far as I'm aware—it's more future-proofing stuff.
Thanks, that's a very clear response. I guess I basically can use it until X11 stops getting security updates. I wonder whether an X11 vulnerability can trigger a serious vulnerability even if it doesn't get security updates.
No idea what that -nolisten stuff is about. Is that to do with the firewall?
-nolisten is an actual option passed to the X server—your distro may do so by default—to work around a known security issue in some versions. I admit I'd have to look up the details, as it's been a couple of years since that issue was reported. Recent X versions almost certainly have a patch.
That might be a better fit for me. I know KDE has a polish and security I want, I imagine I could make it how I want.
Apparently TDE has lower resource usage, so I wonder if for that reason TDE might be a better fit. Clearly I should get both more experience with KDE and a better idea of what I'm actually looking for.
Before you give up on XFCE and/or Chicago95 - have you replaced the default menu with Whisker Menu? For me, Whisker Menu is a must-have for any sane XFCE user. When I used it with Chicago95, I found I could have a Windows 7 style interface with Windows 95 aesthetics.
Honestly, even if Chicago95 is aesthetically not what you want, I'd recommend trying an alternate theme on XFCE - I currently use modified DesktopPal '97 combined with a pack of Haiku-style icons.
Overall, I'd be interested to know more about your qualms with XFCE and see if customization can help you overcome them. A lot of distros have annoying defaults for XFCE, but I changed a few simple settings and have a desktop I rather enjoy using. It is totally fine if it still isn't the thing for you after any potential discussion, but I just want to make sure you really know what XFCE has to offer before you move on.
I don't really like how I keep accidentally rolling-up the windows in Xfce and how long the settings menu takes to load, I probably had more qualms but I don't remember what they are. It works fine (except for some aspects of Chicago95), but it feels outdated in a bad way rather than good way. Part of it is probably my crummy laptop with broken CTRL keys and incompatible bluetooth.
DesktopPal '97 seems really cool, but right now my top priority is switching to KDE Plasma 6 with custom themes and seeing how that goes.
What do you mean by "window roll-up"?
Also, the settings menu thing is weird - mine takes less than a second to load, and I'm on a machine with a 7 year old processor at this point. I almost worry that if that takes a long time KDE will be more miserable performance-wise, unless you've already tried it on here.
By the way, what distro and XFCE version are you running - just for good measure.
The outdated sentiment is probably based, honestly. I think it's gotten better, but there are rough edges. In the end, do what works for you.
Roll up is when you scroll-up while hovering over the title bar and everything except the title-bar disappears. In the image monovergent provided the title bar is highlighted in red.
I use Linux Mint with Xfce. Gonna change to OpenSUSE once I can be bothered distro-hopping.
EDIT: Specifically it's the Font Settings that take forever to load, not all of the settings menu.
Oh yeh. The font menu is crap. I can’t argue with that.
It’s one of those mysterious annoying things that’s up there with the GTK file picker in some apps taking 10 seconds to load.
But I also don’t change fonts that often. Still, that has much room for improvement.
Window roll-up can be disabled under Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility > Use mouse wheel on title bar to roll up the window
Getting the bitmap font right goes a long way towards making the theme much more cohesive: github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95…
If you decide to return to any GTK-based desktop environments, I'd suggest trying out the GTK3 port of the Raleigh theme (github.com/thesquash/gtk-theme…). It's a much less involved install compared to Chicago 95 but gets you most of the look-and-feel.
The Whisker menu properties menu also has settings to make it fit the Windows 95 style a bit better. Here's how it could look:
GitHub - thesquash/gtk-theme-raleigh: A GTK+ 3 version of the old Raleigh theme for GTK+ 2
A GTK+ 3 version of the old Raleigh theme for GTK+ 2 - thesquash/gtk-theme-raleighGitHub
I made the changes, and it's slightly better but I think the main issue is my bad laptop and the negative association I have with Xfce as a result (since Xfce was what I was interacting with).
Raleigh isn't really my style. Too many lines. Plus I've decide I'll switch to themed KDE (and probably FreeBSD with TDE on one device).
The theme in the image you sent is really nice. Beige makes it feel more classic, and the red title-bar is far less jarring than a blue one is in 2025.
As far as the TDE devs know, there haven't been any issues resulting in a user getting hacked, they've modernized the underlying code, and actively patch any reported vulnerabilities: redlib.tiekoetter.com/r/linuxq…
That said, it is still a niche codebase with a small team, so they might not have the resources to be so proactive against theoretical vulnerabilities as a project like KDE or GNOME with Wayland. If you're being targeted, TDE would certainly be a shiny attack surface, but otherwise, I don't really see why a hacking group would go for something as niche as TDE. There's a tradeoff, like the one I take with X11 because I refuse to give up my XFCE+Chicago95 setup for an arguably more secure Wayland setup.
Most of the issues of a desktop environment just come down to there being more code and therefore a larger attack surface. Lots of widgets, obscure processes, and nooks and crannies to hide malicious stuff too. And legacy code with expansive privileges from the days before security was as much of a concern. While not Linux, it is analogous with security being a big part of why Microsoft released Server Core, which stripped out much of the GUI.
An extreme case, I also know of a someone who used Windows XP to do rather important work on the internet until around 2020. Only thing that stopped them were websites getting too bloated to load on their computer. But they did follow the basic rules as you mentioned and seemed to be just fine.
Is Q4OS/Trinity Desktop Environment inherently insecure to use on a 'main' computer? - r/linuxquestions
View on Redlib, an alternative private front-end to Reddit.redlib.tiekoetter.com
I guess it all comes down to the security of X11, and also whether X11 could even be exploited without arbitrary code execution though Anki or Firefox or Steam Chat or something. At which point no sane hacker would waste such an exploit on X11 that's rapidly becoming defunct.
An extreme case, I also know of a someone who used Windows XP to do rather important work on the internet until around 2020.. But they did follow the basic rules as you mentioned and seemed to be just fine.
I think they skipped the third rule, install patches fast.
It TDE secure (for personal use)?
Depends on your threat modeling. Though, unfortunately, none of the DEs/WMs on Linux offer perfect security; this even applies to a hardened distro like secureblue.
So, practically-speaking, it probably ain't great. But we aren't used to great anyways 😅.
Oh damn, so just viewing a file in your file manager is enough to get infected in an insecure desktop environment, as thumbnails can be generated programmatically? If I clicked a bad link that would 100% infect my system.
I'm not worried too much about screen-capture. I'm worried first and foremost about triggering any arbitrary code execution and thumbnail generation on a file would definitely do it.
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant
An internal government assessment shows USAID officials raised “critical concerns” last month about a key aid group’s ability to protect Palestinians and to deliver them food – just days before the State Department announced $30 million in funding for the organization.
A scathing 14-page document obtained by CNN outlines a litany of problems with a funding application submitted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed group established to provide aid following an 11-week Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations human rights office says that hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed around private aid sites, including those operated by GHF.
The assessment flags a range of concerns, from an overall plan missing “even basic details” to a proposal to potentially distribute powdered baby formula in an area that lacks clean water to prepare it.
A USAID official came to a clear conclusion in the report: “I do not concur with moving forward with GHF given operational and reputational risks and lack of oversight.”
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant
Key concerns were raised by USAID in vetting process days before $30 million grant was awarded to US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, documents show.Yahya Abou-Ghazala (CNN)
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant
An internal government assessment shows USAID officials raised “critical concerns” last month about a key aid group’s ability to protect Palestinians and to deliver them food – just days before the State Department announced $30 million in funding for the organization.
A scathing 14-page document obtained by CNN outlines a litany of problems with a funding application submitted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed group established to provide aid following an 11-week Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations human rights office says that hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed around private aid sites, including those operated by GHF.
The assessment flags a range of concerns, from an overall plan missing “even basic details” to a proposal to potentially distribute powdered baby formula in an area that lacks clean water to prepare it.
A USAID official came to a clear conclusion in the report: “I do not concur with moving forward with GHF given operational and reputational risks and lack of oversight.”
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant
Key concerns were raised by USAID in vetting process days before $30 million grant was awarded to US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, documents show.Yahya Abou-Ghazala (CNN)
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant | CNN
An internal government assessment shows USAID officials raised “critical concerns” last month about a key aid group’s ability to protect Palestinians and to deliver them food – just days before the State Department announced $30 million in funding for the organization.
A scathing 14-page document obtained by CNN outlines a litany of problems with a funding application submitted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed group established to provide aid following an 11-week Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations human rights office says that hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed around private aid sites, including those operated by GHF.
The assessment flags a range of concerns, from an overall plan missing “even basic details” to a proposal to potentially distribute powdered baby formula in an area that lacks clean water to prepare it.
A USAID official came to a clear conclusion in the report: “I do not concur with moving forward with GHF given operational and reputational risks and lack of oversight.”
USAID review raised ‘critical concerns’ over Gaza aid group days before $30 million US grant
Key concerns were raised by USAID in vetting process days before $30 million grant was awarded to US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, documents show.Yahya Abou-Ghazala (CNN)
Imperial Hypocrisy About "Terrorism" Hits Its Most Absurd Point Yet
The US has removed Syria’s Al Qaeda franchise from its list of designated terrorist organizations just days after the UK added nonviolent activist group Palestine Action to its own list of banned terrorist groups.
The western empire will surely find ways to be even more hypocritical and ridiculous about its “terrorism” designations in the future, but at this point it’s hard to imagine how it will manage to do so.
This move comes as Sharaa holds friendly meetings with US and UK officials and holds normalization talks with Israel, showing that all one has to do to cease being a “terrorist” in the eyes of the empire is to start aligning with the empire’s interests.
So that was on Monday. The Saturday prior, the group Palestine Action was added to the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist groups under the Terrorism Act of 2000, making involvement with the group as aggressively punishable as involvement with ISIS.
The “terrorism” in question? Spraying red paint on two British war planes in protest against the UK’s support for the Gaza holocaust. A minor act of vandalism gets placed in the same category as mass murdering civilians with a car bomb when the vandalism is directed at the imperial war machine in opposition to the empire’s genocidal atrocities.
Imperial Hypocrisy About "Terrorism" Hits Its Most Absurd Point Yet
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin’s Newsletter)
'Alligator Alcatraz' Already Ballooning Over $600 Million, Leaked Document Shows
and Ryan Grim
Jul 08, 2025
'Alligator Alcatraz' Already Ballooning Over $600 Million, Leaked Document Shows
DHS is redirecting FEMA money to create a slush fund for ICE detention centers.Ka (Jessica) Burbank (Drop Site News)
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
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Right at the top:
FOKS is like Keybase, but fully open-source and federated, with SSO and YubiKey support.
I guess the reason I am asking is that I have never understood the use-case for Keybase either.
So your answer does not really answer my question. 😀
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Is the data and public keys being replicated in the communication between instances? it's not made clear how the federation actually works, because "enabling users on different servers to share data with end-to-end encryption" (from foks.pub/) is something all services with TLS / HTTPS support already do...
Also.. one big plus for the OpenPGP HKP protocol is that technically you can self-host your own key in a static HTTPS server with predefined responses and be able to have it interact with other servers and clients without issue. I'm expecting the more complex nature of FOKS might make self-hosting in this way difficult. I'd rather minimize the dynamic services I expose to the outside publicly if I'm self hosting.
systemd has been a complete, utter, unmitigated success
systemd has been a complete, utter, unmitigated success
Eleven init systems enter, one init system leaves.Tyblog
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journald. I'm supposed to wade through all the log files in /var/log myself??
tail -f /var/log/* could work too with multiple files, it'll "follow" all the files and display only new lines.
I’m supposed to wade through all the log files in /var/log myself??
You configured your logging. You could have made them all one file.
The Logfile Navigator
The Logfile Navigator, lnav for short, is an advanced log file viewer for the small-scale.The Logfile Navigator
journalctl is the one part of systemd I really do not like. For whatever reason, it's insanely slow, taking multiple seconds before it gets around to display anything. It also has all the wrong defaults, displaying error messages from a year ago first, while scrolling to the bottom again also takes forever and consumes 100% CPU while doing so.
There are flags to filter and display only the relevant parts, but not only are none of them intuitive, doing a mistake there just gives you "-- No entries --", not an error. So you can never quite tell if you typed it wrong or if were are no messages.
Maybe it all makes more sense when studying the man page in depths and learned all the quirks, but /var/log/ kind of just worked and was fast, without any extra learning.
I totally agree. I used to hate systemd for breaking the traditional Unix philosophy, but the reality is that a tight init and service-tracking integration tool really was required. I work with and appreciate systemd every day now. It certainly didn't make things simplier and easier to debug, but it goes a long way towards making a Linux system predictable and consistent.
Poettering can go fuck himself though - and for PulseAudio too. I suspect half of the hate systemd attracted over the years was really because of this idiot.
Is it really breaking it? As far as I'm aware, it's more like gnu. It has components and you can select what you use (here meaning distros and packagers).
People mistake this for a monolith because it's all named systemd-thing. Integration, like you said, was and is needed. But what if all those separate utilities and services are actually disconnected and speak some protocol different to pipe? Does it make it less unixy?
And poettering is an absolute good guy here. Pulseaudio wasn't perfect, but did it improve things compared to what was there before? Sure it did. Even now, pulesaudio protocol is used within pipewire and it works just fine.
Perfect is the enemy of good. And while all these tools might not be perfect, they are the best in the Linux world.
poettering is an absolute good guy here
Agreed. But he's also an abrasive know-it-all. A modicum of social skills and respect goes a long way towards making others accept your pet projects.
pulesaudio protocol is used within pipewire and it works just fine.
I wasn't talking about the protocol, I was talking about the implementation: PulseAudio is a crashy, unstable POS. I can't count the number of hours this turd made me waste, until PipeWire came along.
Everybody who is hated and popular gets death threats. Hell, even the nicest actors get death threats.
They are easy to write and send, and there's 0.01% of the population that is mentally unstable enough to actually do so. You and I don't get death threats because we aren't popular enough.
I feel that generally, when the issue is that the person is an arse, then the complaints are often not about the software. You might see people campaigning to boicot the software out of spite, but they won't give you a technical reason, other than them not wanting the creator to get any credit for it.
When the complaints are about discrepancies in the way the software is designed (like it was with systemd), there's no reason to expect the person to be an arse. Though him not being an arse does not make the criticism about his software invalid... in the same way as him being an arse would not have made the software technically worthless. Don't fall for the ad-hominem.
Pulseaudio was introduced in 2004. How come it took almost 20y for it to be replaced if it was that bad?
Implementation, being what it is, improved the situation compared to alsa and other things before it. Again, while not perfect it made things better for everyone.
It's funny that this is a thing attributed to poettering as bad since things before were way worse... why not throw Sticks and stones at those people?
I really don't get it.
And all of these things are optional. The fact that distro people and companies select them is because they solve real world problems.
Pulseaudio was introduced in 2004. How come it took almost 20y for it to be replaced if it was that bad?
Did you learn nothing from X11 usage? May I remind you that X11 was invented by Xerox in the fucking 80s?!
Bad software attaches itself to OSs like a cancer.
things before were way worse… why not throw Sticks and stones at those people?
My earliest memories of Linux audio were in Slackware in the mid 90s, reading and re-reading the HOWTO that started off with a bunch of attitude about how real computer users don't need audio, but we can do it anyway "so, if you must hear Biff bark..." and then a bunch of very unhelpful things to try following that never ever worked on any system I ever tried to use them on. Diverse systems that, of course, all played audio through Windows flawlessly.
Agreed. But he’s also an abrasive know-it-all. A modicum of social skills and respect goes a long way towards making others accept your pet projects.
This isn't what I get when reading bug reports he interacts in. Yeah, sometimes he asks if something can't be done another way – but he seems also very open to new ideas. I rather think that this opinion of him is very selective, there are cases where he comes off as smug, but I never got the impression this is the majority of cases.
I wasn’t talking about the protocol, I was talking about the implementation: PulseAudio is a crashy, unstable POS. I can’t count the number of hours this turd made me waste, until PipeWire came along.
PipeWire for audio couldn't exist nowadays without PulseAudio though, in fact it was originally created as "PulseAudio for Video"; Pulse exposed a lot of bugs in the lower levels of the Linux audio stack. And I do agree that PipeWire is better than PulseAudio. But it's important to see it in the context of the time it was created in, and Linux audio back then was certainly different. OSS was actually something a significant amount of people used…
But he’s also an abrasive know-it-all. A modicum of social skills and respect goes a long way towards making others accept your pet projects.
You mean like Linus Torvalds?
And poettering is an absolute good guy here.
You obviously weren't actually around when he was granted mini-king status and acted like a jackass to literally anyone who objected to pulse or systemd. As a result, redhat, canonical, and Debian had to eat criticism over pushing these before they were ready... because of "superstar" poettering.
Poettering is a disrespectful clown.
“It’s more like gnu”
You are correct. GNU has the bad habit of only working with itself as well. Systemd only works with Glibc so it fits in well.
The reality is that GNU is just a subset of the Red Hat Linux platform these days. Systemd is another part. GNOME is the other big chunk. They are all designed to work with each other and do not care if they work with anything else.
predictable and consistent.
Or none of those.
Oh. My NIC didn't 'start' because systemd and network manager are fighting again? Neet.
I don't know why they are downvoting you, it's true. I'm dealing with this kind of problem currently.. sometimes the boot lasts forever to the point that I have to use AltGr+SysRq commands to force kill everything.. other times it simply boots as normal. It's not consistent at all.
At least before with the old init it was relatively simple to dig into the scripts and make changes to them.. I feel now with systemd it's a lot more opaque and harder to deal with. I wouldn't even know how to approach the problem, systemd-analyze blame does not help, since the times I actually get to boot look normal. But I do believe it must have to do with the mountpoints because often they are what takes the longest.
Any advice on what should I do would be welcome.
Also, I have a separate Bazzite install in my living room TV, and while that one does not get locked, sometimes NetworkManager simply is not running after boot... I got fed up to the point that I wrote a workaround by creating a rc.local script to have it run, so I can have it available reliably when the system starts (that fixed it.. though some cifs mountpoints often do not get mounted.. so I'm considering adding the mount command to the same rc.local script too....).
Any advice on what should I do would be welcome.
You can play around with the mount option nofail, if that's set, systemd will not wait for the mount point to be ready and continue booting normally. Can be useful with HDDs that take a while to spin up and aren't needed for the boot process (e.g. backup drives, etc.).
Another thing to look out for: SDCards or USB flash drives that might randomly fail to "spin up" and hang, unplugging those helps.
Thanks! I'll try with nofail and see if the lockups stop!
Another thing to look out for: SDCards or USB flash drives that might randomly fail to “spin up” and hang, unplugging those helps.
Honestly, that could be it now that you mention it.. I have had for a while an external hard drive plugged in that I've used for some backups.
I had (and still have) way more issues with Audio on Windows then I ever had on Linux.
And I have seen it all, OSS, ALSA, aRts, EsounD, pulseaudio, pipewire and most likely some more that I have forgotten.
It definitely depends on what you are trying to get out of it.
I'll grant: low lag audio performance in Windows is... dismal. Which is why everyone had conference call lag adjustment issues in 2020, "go ahead", "no you go ahead", "ok" - both start talking simultaneously again... It seems better these days, I'm sure that's at least in part due to training of the conference participants, but maybe they have been working on getting the lag down without too many dropout / stutters.
We have a bespoke low lag audio system that was specifically implemented in Linux even though we put the GUI in Windows because of those lag / stutter issues, years back the audio was done on a dedicated DSP chip, but a Core i7 is more than up to the task on Linux these days.
The Linux audio pains I refer to were: A) audio just doesn't work at all, and B) audio works, until you start to try to use two audio applications simultaneously - then they start to mess each other up. Both of those were better in Windows long before Linux came up to speed. But a lot of how Windows audio gets acceptable performance is big laggy buffers.
I’ll just go ahead and start the flame war.
I totally agree with the functionality of systemd. We need that. But the implementation… Why the fuck do we need to cram everything into pid 1? At least delegate the parsing into another process, god damn. And could we all just agree that ’systemd-{networkd,resolved,homed}’ don’t really have a reason to exist, and definitely not that coupled to a fucking init system. Systemd-timers are wonderful, but why are we running cron-but-better in pid 1?
We have an init-system where the developers are afraid of using things like processes and separation of privileges. I’m just tired of patching fleets of servers in panic every time Pöttering’s bad design decisions hit the fan with their CVEs and consequences.
systemd-networkd for some use cases, though. It lets me declaratively manage the network interfaces on my headless servers in a way that's very similar to how I'm managing the services. Sure, it's coupled to systemd, but it's mostly one-way coupling; if I want to use NetworkManager (which I do on my laptop), I can switch over, and nothing in the init system breaks.
I'd say the main bad part of systemd is how it's used and now expected everywhere.
If you search for some Linux guides or install something complicated or whatnot, they always expect you to have systemd. Otherwise, you're on your own figuring how things work on your system.
This shouldn't really happen. Otherwise, yes, it's great, it integrates neatly, and is least pain to use.
like this
HeerlijkeDrop likes this.
like this
TVA likes this.
In my opnion, systemd is like core-utils at this point.
It's so integrated into most things and the default so many places, that most guides assume you have it.
I have struggled with Fedora for couple of years (graphics drivers after major updates), then Ubuntu got me down a couple of times (snaps and other malice).
Zero issues with Gentoo after the initial setup. You build it, update it, and IT WORKS. Also you can easily remove parts of software you're building with USE flags. -telemetry, -x11, and you never care about it anymore.
I have an 8 core CPU, but I have to admit I don't use any DE.
Updates can take several hours if I don't upgrade for a while, but PC is usable during them (you can set number of build threads).
Manual intervention is what I've said needed way more in Fedora, which left me without any video after updates, or Ubuntu which broke integrations or replaced my software.
Gentoo just... is.
There are sometimes updates that would require intervention if you do something special, nothing too difficult though, and you get a link to Wiki with working solutions.
I need to donate more money to that project.
Several hours for an update sounds insane to me lol
But I understand it's the tradeoff Gentoo makes to add a lot of control and minor optimization
It's usually the llvm that takes forever, then Firefox, then LibreOffice.
You can actually pull binary packages in Gentoo, if you are into that, and update like any other system.
Yeah I know 😀
Fiddled with Gentoo a little, just don't think it's worth it for me anyway.
I like systemd overall. The ease of use, uniform interface and nice documentation is awesome.
Though each time I try to run it on outdated hardware (say, my Thinkpad X100e, which is, well, a life choice xD) — it makes whole system much slower. IMO, openrc is not as bad, and in some ways it gives some capabiilties of systemd these days.
Re: systemd has been a complete, utter, unmitigated success
I totally agree.
I hate to admit I didn't want anything to do with systemd because it took me forever to get somewhat familiar with some other mainstream init systems.
Then, I didn't care for a while until I developed software that had to keep running using some sort of init system. The obvious choice was whatever the default I had (systemd) and I fell in love with the convenience of systemd (templates, timers, ..). I started shipping sample systemd with the things I provide & yes, you are on your own if you use something else.
I've been using systemd on most of my systems since it was released; I was an early jumper to upstart as well.
The thing I don't like about systemd is how pervasive in the OS it is. It violates the "do one thing, do it well" Unix philosophy, and when systemd went from an init system to starting to take everything over, I started liking it less.
My issues with systemd is that it isn't an unmitigated success, for me. journald is horrible: it's slow and doesn't seem to catch everything (the latter is extremely rare, but that it happens occasionally makes me nervous). There are several gotchas in running user services, such as getting in-session services working correctly (so that user services can access the user session kernel keyring).
Recently I've been using dinit on a system, and I'm pretty happy with it. I may switch all of my systems over to it; I'm running Arch everywhere, and while migrating Arch to Artix was scary the first time, in the end it went fairly smoothly.
Fundamentally, systemd is a monolithic OS system. It make Linux into more of a Windows or MacOS, where a bunch of different systems are consolidated under a single piece of software. While it violates the Unix philosophy, it has been successful because monolithic systems tend to be easier to use: users really only have to learn two command-line tools, vs a dozen. Is it categorically better, just because the user interface is easier for new Linux users?
It is not modular. This is a lie Poettering keeps pushing to defend building a huge edifice of interdependent systems.
Look at the effort required to factor out logind. It can't just be used in it's own; it has a hard dependency on systemd and needs code changes to decouple.
I will repeat that journald is really bad at what it does, and further assert that you can not run systemd without journald, or vice versa. That you can not run systemd without getting timed job control. Even if you chose not to use it, it's in there. And you can not get time job control without the init part. In most unix systems, init and cron are utterly decoupled and can be individually swapped with other systems.
Systemd is not modular if you can't swap parts out for other software. Systemd's modularity is a bald-faced lie.
The one exceptions are homed and resolvd, which are relatively new and were addedlong after systemd came under fire for being monolithic. And, ironically, they're the components most distributions don't use by default.
It's refreshing to read to someone that actually says "I was so wrong"
I was wrong also with systemd, I hated it mainly because I already knew init.d, where files are, where configs where etc. Some years later hate is gone, I'm not a power user, but I just now know how to handle my things with systemd and all is good.
I see most often that it's the people who live in init.d - interact with it multiple times a day - who are most vocal about systemd hate. I'm going to call "old dogs don't like new tricks" on that one.
I do get into that layer of system maintenance, but it's maybe 1-2% of my time, mostly a set-it and forget-it kind of relationship. There was a time when the old ways were easier due to more documentation and guides on the internet, which I lean on heavily because I interact with this stuff so rarely. Those days passed, for me, 8-10 years back.
I've never used any other init system since I'm relatively new to Linux (8 years of use). So, systemd is all I know. I don't mind it, but I have this one major issue with it. That "stop job for UID 1000......" Or whatever it says. It's hands down the most annoying thing I have ever experienced in Linux. Making me wait for 3 minutes sometimes is just insane. I know I can go in and make it wait for 5 seconds /etc/systemd/system.conf or whatever, but why? Also, another one usually pops up.
Other than that, I really like how I can make timers. I like how I can make scripts run on boot, logout or login. And I like how I can make an app a background service that can auto start if they ever crashed. Maybe all of this can be done with other init systems? I wouldn't know, but I like these in systemd
I use it because I'm frankly too dumb to use something else, but if that wasnt the case, i dont think id be speaking fondly of it.
I'm a ram usage fetishist, I absolutely disagree with the "unused ram is wasted ram" phrase that has caught on with people.
I see some of these distros running a graphical environment with only 90mb ram usage and i cream myself. All of them run something other than systemd, usually avoid GNU stuff, and...require you basically to be a developer to use them.
I already run a half broken, hacked together system due to my stubborness, I can't imagine how fucked I'd be if I tried one of these cool kid minimalist distros.
Even a system that uses 90mb of ram on a cold boot will accumulate gigs of stuff in cache if you're using it. (assuming it has the memory for it) That isn't what people have a problem with though.
Maybe this is an incorrect use of language on my part, but I feel like I'm not the only person who means "memory actively being used by a process" when referring to memory usage. I understand the whole linux ate my ram thing. That just isn't what I or what I assume a lot of people mean when talking about this.
When I boot up my system, pull up my terminal, run htop, and see 800-1200mb being used just by processes (not in buffer, not in cache), that doesn't raise any flags or anything, but I also know that some people have gotten their systems so streamlined they use 10x less than that. That's all memory that could be used by other things. That could be the difference between a low memory system running a web browser or not. Could be the difference maker in a game someone wants to play on their system. There are endless possibilities.
Could be the difference maker in a game someone wants to play on their system.
One reality of the world is: the developers choose what hardware/OS configurations they target. If the makers of your game don't target your RAM efficient system, you're outta luck. Developers make their choices for their own reasons, but even with the ever-growing FOSS communities, the majority of developers work for a paycheck, that paycheck comes from profitable businesses and those businesses have very strong influence on what the developers work toward. The businesses only exist because they are profitable... FOSS may not be bound by those realities, but it lives in a world dominated by them.
90mb ram
If you're in a system where 256mb of RAM is the limit, sure - go for the RAM efficient OS options, they're out there.
Can you even buy less than 2GB of RAM in a desktop system anymore? Even the Raspberry Pi 5 starts at 2GB (and, yes, the older models have less, but I did say desktop system, implying: reasonable desktop performance.) Maybe if you feel the need to use a RasPi 3 as a desktop for something then you should dig around for one of your more efficient OS configurations, but I'll note... back when RasPi 3 was the new model, Raspbian came default without systemd, but offered a systemd option. The systemd option booted from power off to the desktop (such as it was) in about 1/3 the time.
Though I see Systemd as an improvement, I still do not like it.
The Chimera Linux FAQ captures my thoughts quite well:
People handling 50 times those numbers encounter issues where it starts to matter, and those people tend to claim that, while it ain't perfect, it is a lot better than any alternative
All words from any it admin have weight, that is not what I meant.
Its just that init scripts and weird boot requirements are really crap to manage at scale and my job, like many others became a lot easier with systemd, that is why almost everyone uses it now. In my experience those that complain either never encountered these issues because they never scaled enough and like to use what they were used to, or prefer to write a script over a config file and make this a religious issue for some reason.
Unrelated but how do people feel about the ai images when used for something like this.
The font is very telling for being DallE
People would be less mad if you straight up used a stock image with a watermark so I don't understand why people go out of their way to use AI when they know people will comment on it and it will detract from the point of the article.
Also, using AI in the thumbnail makes people automatically assume you're using AI in the text as well. And if you're not doing that, why would you lessen the perceived value of your writing by making it seem like you are?
It just seems pointless and actively harms your actual goals because people will get hung up on the fact that you used AI and ignore your actual valid points. Especially when you're writing about open source projects when most people interested in open source are vehemently anti-AI, it really just shows you don't know your target audience.
While I mostly agree with you (and 100% on it distracting from the article), I think you’re not thinking about image rights.
If you’re a serious blogger with a good sized blog, a lawsuit or DMCA or otherwise is potentially a killer outcome of using an image you don’t 100% sure have the rights to. With AI, you can be 100% sure you can use the image however you want, without any repercussions. I’d imagine that’s huge in the considerations for a blogger.
I dont think this is a reasomable counterpoint because the target audience in question would also vastly prefer shit as simple as an mspaint illustration or a dithered irl image.
Also, it is quite feasible to find royalty free images, and I have no idea where you're getting the impression it is not. There are a host of images that provide licensing metadata. Google image search and co. can find these. It's simply a matter of verifying the license authenticity.
It's just fundementally stupid.
With AI, you can be 100% sure you can use the image however you want, without any repercussions.
For now... maybe. The courts haven't really settled that issue yet.
Personally I think it's fallen out of fashion. For my blog I'd either use a meme or other dump picture for each post. When generated images first came out I used a few for blog posts, it was new and interesting and said "I'm interested in technology and like playing around with new things".
Nowadays I'm back on the meme pics. I feel now it's so much easier to generate images, it more says "I want to look professional but also spend no money and have no standards".
i’m downvoting ai slop every chance i get. i’m sure it’s just as futile as downvoting every post that used the acronym ‘FAFO’. i hated that one because i think the people who used it thought they sounded sooo cool.
if you’ll excuse me, i’ve got some clouds outside i need to go shake my fist at.
So, I don't like the guy either, but for a little devil's advocacy:
The stuff that already "just works" was developed during a very different era in terms of computing power, tasking of the computers which were running the systems, etc. Nobody (serious, and he is serious) develops something different because "why not?" they, at least from their perspective, feel that they are improving on the status quo, at least for the use cases they are considering.
one-size-fits-all mentality is
being decided by the distro maintainers, not the developers. Sure, developers promote their product, but if a distro thinks that multiple flavors are a better path, they distribute multiple flavors. It's not like the systemd developers are filling billion dollar war chests with profit because they're using strong-arm tactics to coerce distro maintainers to adopt their products.
stuff everything into one bin
When one bin serves the purpose, it's a lot easier to maintain, modernize, security harden, etc. than ten bins.
the community and its users will ~~not~~ always be able to freely develop FOSS.
Fork it and your loyal users will follow.
Gnome is a good example of something that creates too much of a dependency
Agreed, I was never happy with GNOME, and starting about 5 years back I have been migrating my systems, personal and professional, off of it. That's the nature of FOSS, no contracts to negotiate, make the choices that make sense for your use cases and execute them.
FOSS shouldn’t work like that.
FOSS, by its very nature, should be expected to work all the ways. If a particular way can't get enough developer traction, it stagnates but never really dies, not until the ecosystem it is dependent upon can no longer find hardware to run on and users willing to run it.
IBM/Red Hat finally decide to seal the deal and lock everyone out for good.
I am very glad that I walked away from CentOS about 8 years back, its proximity to Red Hat never made me happy. I have been trying to walk away from Canonical (toward Debian) for about 3 years now, but it still has some hooks that keep our professional team happier than Debian. If the unhappy ever outweighs the happy, we'll execute the move.
Sorry if I can’t rejoice
Never asked you to. End of devil's advocacy. I still don't like the guy, but I never really interact with him. I do interact with his products and the alternatives, and in my use cases the products speak for themselves. There's nothing about systemd that makes me dig around for systemd free alternatives - they are out there, but for my use cases I don't care. YMMV.
Why did you quote me but leave out where I mention systemd explicitly with Gnome? lol
So you agree Gnome has too much of a dependency on systemd. Let's not beat around the bush. Let's call a spade a spade.
Does Gnome have too much dependency on Gnome: yes or no?
Gnome is a good example of something that creates too much of a dependency
Agreed, I was never happy with GNOME, and starting about 5 years back I have been migrating my systems, personal and professional, off of it. That’s the nature of FOSS, no contracts to negotiate, make the choices that make sense for your use cases and execute them.
Does Gnome have too much dependency on Gnome: yes or no?
Absolutely. If you don't mind using Gnome exactly as Gnome wants you to - this year - then it's usually a pretty refined desktop experience, but if I wanted to be told what to like, how to like it, and to shut up and be happy, I'd use a Mac.
I prefer XFCE for its modularity... don't want a launcher bar? Don't run the launcher; nothing else misses it when it's gone.
Mess around with Gnome too much and it becomes a nightmare mess of dependencies.
All it does is stuff everything into one bin
Well, it is not one bin.
There is no monolithic systemd bin that does everything.
There are a lot of separate bin files for all the different tasks.
Well and if you don't want to use timers, then don't and just use cron instead.
If you don't want to use journald, then just don't and use rsyslog or whatever you want.
Don't need systemd-homed? Well, then don't use it.
You want to configure your network with something else then systemd-networkd? Great, do it if you want.
The Poettering Army will not come and force you to enable all the options 😜
Except, they are. Pottering is the front man who does the dirty work for IBM and Microsoft to take over Linux by forcing distros to adopt systemd.
Those of us old enough to remember the "vote" that resulted in Debian going to Systemd remember it was almost at gunpoint.
Death to systemd, long live FOSS culture
I am not seeing how IBM and/or Microsoft are winning anything here or how systemd enables them to take over Linux. But maybe I am missing something.
Last time I checked (60 seconds ago) systemd was using FOSS licences for all it's code. So it seems to be living the FOSS culture, or not?
I am always open to learn and correct my view on things under new information, so if you can provide them I am open to read it.
Ah but you see, you have to understand the FOSS community a little more than just "using a license that FSF and OSI endorsed".
In terms of inter-project politics, systemd is almost wholly owned by IBM. They can override any will they want, they can change anything they want, all while fucking the community over. In short, IBM, using systemd as a massive octopus growing it's tentacles all over mainstream Linux distros, is gaining considerable weight to pull in the Linux world.
They can essentially dictate matters to everyone they want, because you don't want your distro to stop being supported, do you? And now, another IBM-majority project, GNOME, is almost dependent on systemd (despite the very good word of both gnome and systemd that this wouldn't happen, IT HAS) and KDE is also being slowly pulled in that direction, with DrKonqi becoming systemd only in it's latest update.
Essentially, we are handing over 30 years of work in FOSS to IBM, literally the caricature of evil tech company, and now they control the mainstream and can dictate their will.
Allow me to remind you that this same IBM almost immediately after taking over RedHat, started closing down the source sharing of RHEL, which is it's own whole thing so I digress.
Let my final word be this, R.M.S as much of a problematic piece of shit he is, correctly predicted we being fucked over by DRM and subscription services 20 years ago and was ridiculed for it.
Don't you think it's time to take a fucking hint? You don't have to be an anarchist to see where this is going.
I have seen with Oracle Java and OpenOffice (as two examples) that the open source community is very good in just leaving and forking a project if the current owners fuck up.
The same will happen with systemd if needed.
Red Hat may be the primary source behind systemd now, but they don't own it.
All the code is fully open source, none of your ramblings have any hint of facts or any real foreseeable danger behind it.
I asked for facts, for anything with some kind of real information behind it.
There is nothing that powers the claim that RedHat or IBM could take over Linux with systemd.
How would they do it? They can't, because even if IBM would tomorrow change the license to a closed one and would want money.
Who cares, everyone will just fork the version before the license change and good is.
Just as it happened back then with Xorg (I mean the change 15 or so years ago, not the current strange fork), like it happened a short while ago with Redis, and there are so many examples more.
Grub is working perfectly fine.
If it breaks it is, in my experience as a grub user for over 20 years and as a guy working in server hosting for 15 years, either because of failing HDD/SSD or because of user error.
People don't read when the updater tells them that running "grub-install" is needed (or they perform it on the wrong drive/partition) and then blame grub when it fails on the next boot.
The crappy bootloader that comes with systemd very often, in my experience, fails to register that a new Kernel was installed and boots the old one (or fails to boot if the package manager removed the old Kernel).
Oh and GRUB has so many useful features, like booting a ISO image.
GRUB is a piece of programmer art!
Because people here accuse Poettering of being an asshole: I've read some of his blogposts and seen some talks of his and him doing Q&A: He answered professionally, did his best to answer truthfully, did acknowledge when he didn't know something. No rants, no opining on things he didn't know about, no taking questions in bad faith.
As far as I can tell all the people declaring him some kind of asshole are full of shit.
He is not that bad, the issue is that, as all foss devs, he is not interested in solving problems he does not feel like are important.
The problem is, he disapproves when resources are allocated in his project to those problems and one main area he is not a fan of is support for legacy stuff.
It just happens that legacy stuff is the majority of the industry, as production environment of half the globe needs to run legacy software and a lot of it on legacy hardware
He answered professionally
Until you ask him about security and CVEs advisories...
Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies: An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes.
Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies | Quanta Magazine
An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes.Erica Klarreich (Quanta Magazine)
Love to see a Canadian mining company CEOs crying about their gold getting appropriated.
Mali plans to sell gold from Barrick Mining complex to fund operations, sources say
Canadian mining company temporarily halted operations in January after the Malian government seized gold stocks from its complexDivya Rajagopal, Portia Crowe and Tiemoko Diallo (The Globe and Mail)
Firefox is fine. The people running it are not
Firefox is fine. The people running it are not
Opinion: Mozilla's management is a bug, not a featureLiam Proven (The Register)
How can you make stock Android as private as possible?
I know that stock Android itself is spyware.
What tips about setting up my stock Android phone would you give me?
It's not factory unlocked so I'm sticking with Google Android.
Things I've done:
- Stopped and disabled all apps that I don't use or need.
- Replaced all apps that I can with FOSS alternatives from github using Obtainium.
- Not installed things that I can just check on my laptop like email.
Is there anything else that I can do?
Thanks in advance
Edit
I've also:
- Changed my DNS to Mullvad DNS
- Restricted app permissions to only what they need
- Not signed into the phone. I don't even have Gmail account.
So one of the gotchas about stopped/disabled apps is that other apps can still call and launch them. I frequently saw my apps pop back up even after being disabled, since I used SuperFreezZ to monitor them. f-droid.org/packages/superfree…
The alternative to that would be an ADB disable. IIRC it takes the app away from userspace completely. It doesn't touch the system-level though, so a factory reset will bring it back.
If you can't handle setting up ADB and it's hoops, there is an app combo that can set up a bridge and run the ADB disable for you: f-droid.org/en/packages/io.git…
SuperFreezZ App stopper | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
Entirely freeze all background activities of apps.f-droid.org
NetGuard | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
A simple way to block access to the internet per applicationf-droid.org
GitHub - TrackerControl/tracker-control-android: TrackerControl Android: monitor and control trackers and ads.
TrackerControl Android: monitor and control trackers and ads. - TrackerControl/tracker-control-androidGitHub
Rethink DNS is both a firewall app, and you can run a VPN at the same time using a wireguard configuration.
I use a VPN system wide, and for some apps like Fennec or a Torrent app (yes I torrent on my phone lol), I use a different wireguard config for each one of these apps. For the systemwide VPN, its using a server in my country, for individual apps, it goes to switzerland or iceland (So the IP used to check for system updates isn't correlated to the IP used for everyday browsing, watch youtube videos, or torrenting). I block everything from internet access unless it needs internet to function, like a phone app for example (for VoLTE). Enable "block connections without VPN".
Mullvad has the cheapest VPN at €5 Euro per month, and ProtonVPN have some free servers, but free servers have slower speeds.
a VPN doesn’t protect your privacy
Does from your ISP unless they do deep packet inspection and related techniques.
As I said, it doesn't protect, it changes who can see the data.
Your ISP might not be able to see it, but your VPN provider will instead. VPN providers are hardly ever under any kind of regulation, except those run by secret services, of which there are many.
And there are more than enough VPNs that sell customer data while claiming to be amazing for your privacy.
I''d argue changing who can see your data from either a large group to a smaller one or one you do trust vs one you do not trust precisely is protecting your privacy.
Also FWIW you can host your VPN, you do not have to rely on a commercial VPN provider.
I’'d argue changing who can see your data from either a large group to a smaller one or one you do trust vs one you do not trust precisely is protecting your privacy.
It's always astounding to me that people put more trust in an intangible rando from the internet than into organizations governed by law. Like those people who don't accept mainstream medicine but eat random supplements they imported from India by the kilogram.
Also FWIW you can host your VPN, you do not have to rely on a commercial VPN provider.
Sure you can. And where does that traffic go?
If you e.g. host a VPN in your home network and you connect to it from your phone, and then you use this connection to access the internet, then your traffic will just be visible to your home network's ISP instead of your phone's ISP.
No idea what your analogy about non conventional medicine is about. Feel free to explain.
just be visible to your home network’s ISP instead of your phone’s ISP.
Indeed, which is already what I mentioned, namely another group. It's about the threat model namely if you trust one ISP more than another. I believe your understood that but chose not to acknowledge it and I'm not sure why but maybe it related to your analogy that I didn't get.
Edit: if you and others are interested in the topic I recommend splintercon.net/ plenty of resources on the topic.
PS: FWIW I didn't suggest VPN is the solution to all problems but they do alleviate some. The point is one must understand both how they work and their OWN threat model rather than an idealized one.
SplinterCon- communications with and within isolated networks
A conference dedicated to technology for reaching isolated networks and solutions for users stuck inside national intranets.eQualitie
The analogy is that on the one hand you have a corporation where you know who they are, where you know which laws they are governed by, where you know how to file a privacy complaint, where you know who to sue in case something goes wrong. And you don't trust them.
Instead you choose to trust some rando from the internet. Where anyone with a sane mind knows they will get screwed over.
Mullvad, they have a feature called DAITA
Thanks, for reference mullvad.net/en/vpn/daita but as it's an arm race I wouldn't assume it's the perfect solution.
DAITA: Defense Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis
Even if you have encrypted your traffic with a VPN, advanced traffic analysis is a growing threat against your privacy. Therefore, we have developed DAITA – a feature available in our VPN app.Mullvad VPN
I guess you mean whatever factory OS is installed on your phone. Nobody uses stock OS.
What phone do you use?
Things I have done:
-install adguard and route all my traffic through it
- enable always on VPN and block connections without
-firewall all apps to block internet connection
-only allow apps the apps i want to use internet on
-replace everything I possibly can with FOSS software
-disable everything google and use helioboard as keyboard
-install shizuku and canta to debloat as much as I can
-route all traffic through orbot (except apps that require me to login)
This is probably overkill but that's the best I could do on stock android 🤭
To the extent that you still need to use standard apps, consider disabling your advertising ID. EFF has a guide to this at eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-…
This won't stop google of course. You should probably also install a firewall, like other people here have suggested. And keep in mind, disabling features entirely is different from not using them. For example, if location services is turned off, then even google maps doesn't know your location (in theory anyway), whereas if it is merely unused then google will still check periodically.
How to Disable Ad ID Tracking on iOS and Android, and Why You Should Do It Now
The ad identifier - aka “IDFA” on iOS, or “AAID” on Android - is the key that enables most third-party tracking on mobile devices.Electronic Frontier Foundation
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