Actually extremely low bar. I was checking the Wikipedia page and I was thinking that Liechtenstein could be safe, but I'm not not completely sure now.
DON’T MISS ANYTHING! ONE CLICK TO GET NEW MATILDA DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX, FREE! Australia wasn’t always a lapdog of the United States, writes John Pilger.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
I think the Iroquois Nation counts. They certainly had representative government that included the minority parties in decision making. It didn't look like democracy because it wasn't modeled after the Greeks or Romans. They'd never heard of them.
(It's hard to know which criticisms were propaganda and which were legit, so I can't pick many that I can call my "favourite". I'm 100% confident in Australia, mostly in Bolivia, somewhat in Chile, doubtful of Indonesia).
As a Labor/Greens voter in Australia, I am still salty about this. They did a entire peaceful coup just to save their little enclave next to Alice spring
I would like to showcase Gosuki: a multi-browser cloudless bookmark manager with multi-device sync capability, that I have been writing on and off for the past few years. It aggregates your bookmarks in real time across all browsers/profiles and external APIs such as Reddit and Github.
Features
A single binary with no dependencies or browser extensions necessary. It just work right out of the box.
Multi-browser: Detects which browsers you have installed and watch changes across all of them including profiles.
Use the universal ctrl+d shortcut to add bookmarks and call custom commands.
Tag with #hashtags even if your browser does not support it. You can even add tags in the Title. If you are used to organize your bookmarks in folders, they become tags
Builtin, local Web UI which also works without Javascript (w3m friendly)
Cli command (suki) for a dmenu/rofi compatible query of bookmarks
Modular and extensible: Run custom scripts and actions per tags and folders when particular bookmarks are detected
Stores bookmarks on a portable on disk sqlite database. No cloud involved.
Database compatible with the Buku. You can use any program that was made for buku.
Can fetch bookmarks from external APIs (eg. Reddit posts, Github stars).
Easily extensible to handle any browser or API
Open source with an AGPLv3 license
Rationale
I was always annoyed by the existing bookmark management solutions and wanted a tool that just works without relying on browser extensions, self-hosted servers or cloud services. As a developer and Linux user I also find myself using multiple browsers simultaneously depending on the needs so I needed something that works with any browser and can handle multiple profiles per browser.
The few solutions that exist require manual management of bookmarks. Gosuki automatically catches any new bookmark in real time so no need to manually export and synchronize your bookmarks. It allows a tag based bookmarking experience even if the native browser does not support tags. You just hit ctrl+d and write your tags in the title.
An Exxon gas station!? Really? Was this picture made in 2005?
You're more likely to find a charging station with SGCC written on it if you're lucky, because it'll more likely be 国家电网 as latin letters will have lost all status.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
People think normal people will be able to go to the moon base and it won't just be penthouses for the 1% to rule the Earth from somewhere that Mario's brother can't get to?
BERLIN (AP) — Germany will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in Gaza “until further notice,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Friday, in a strikingly quick response by one of Israel’s strongest international backers to a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet to take over Gaza City.
The move by Germany, which has previously stopped short of tougher lines against Israel’s government taken by some of its European Union allies, appeared likely to further isolate Israel in the wake of the controversial military takeover plan that has been decried by the United Nations and supporters of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
It wasn’t immediately clear which military equipment from Germany would be affected. Asked by The Associated Press for details about which military hardware would be affected, the German government declined to comment.
At this point it's undeniable Germany fully supports the extermination of Palestinians. They blocked European wide sanctions despite the EU report showing that Israel is committing war crimes and violating the trade convention rules.
The only thing that's holding them back is diplomatic pressure and a balancing act of pretending the West cares about human rights and the rules based order.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in Gaza “until further notice,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced Friday, in a strikingly quick response by one of Israel’s strongest international backers to a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet to take over Gaza City.
The move by Germany, which has previously stopped short of tougher lines against Israel’s government taken by some of its European Union allies, appeared likely to further isolate Israel in the wake of the controversial military takeover plan that has been decried by the United Nations and supporters of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
It wasn’t immediately clear which military equipment from Germany would be affected. Asked by The Associated Press for details about which military hardware would be affected, the German government declined to comment.
The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip [...] makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved.
(Emphasis mine)
Is that a bad translation? I hope so, otherwise he seems to be saying if Israel could be successful he would support it.
Edit: I think it's quoting without context and he's referring to the goals of "the release of Israeli hostages and purposeful negotiations toward a cease-fire in the 22-month conflict".
Back again for a massive Gosuki 1.2.0 release, a multi-browser real time bookmark manager.
I posted about this project a month ago and had very positive feedback. Many users asked for multi-device sync so now Gosuki offers two methods to automatically synchronize your bookmarks across devices. Integration/import from other self hosted bookmark managers is in the works.
This is a project I have been writing on and off for the past few years. It aggregates your bookmarks in real time across all browsers/profiles and external APIs like as Reddit and Github.
Features
A single binary with no dependencies or browser extensions necessary. It just work right out of the box.
Multi-browser: Detects which browsers you have installed and watch changes across all of them including profiles.
Use the universal ctrl+d shortcut to add bookmarks and call custom commands.
Tag with #hashtags even if your browser does not support it. You can even add tags in the Title. If you are used to organize your bookmarks in folders, they become tags
I have a question regarding the comparison table: I tried to draw some inspiration for new 42links features from it, but I don’t really understand why shiori (a similar software) only has a yellow dot for its tag support. I mean, shiori has its own set of bookmarks and doesn’t really care about what the browser supports, or do I misunderstand the inner workings of Gosuki here?
Other than that, a quite interesting piece of software. Thank you!
It relates to automated detection and merging of tags without any manual intervention.
For Chrome based browsers and many others, there is no native support of tags. With Gosuki you can hit ctrl+d, add some #tag and that's it. It will be merged with the database. If it already existed, say from an other browser, the tag will be added.
In other terms you may have the same bookmarks across many browsers and profiles and they will all end up in a single consistent state.
All of this is handles in real-time as if you had a browser extension installed in every browser / profile.
I want to make posts that include video, and those videos I wish to upload on my own webserver to not rely on external links or expiration dates.
But I fear for bandwith, and I want to know if the videos will be cached on the instance or if every user will be a full web request of the video (that I can of course mitigate via good compression, and/or having a dedicated CDN that won't empty my pockets).
This depends on the instance of the video being used. Some instances clone a copy of the video, some use proxies, and some send the link directly to the user. I don't recommend it if you have limited bandwidth.
Parody of a popular clip from the American-Malayalee television series 'Akkarakazhchakal' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkara_Kazhchakal) advertising Debian. Those unaware, watch the the original...
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
According to a report in the British Times, Israel is considering suspending security and intelligence cooperation with the United Kingdom if Prime Minister Keir Starmer proceeds with formal recognition of a Palestinian state.
The move, if carried out, could threaten national security on both sides and potentially damage one of Israel’s strongest defense and trade partnerships in Europe.
Diplomatic sources cited in the report say that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is actively weighing this option among several possible responses. One source warned, “London should be careful. Bibi and his ministers have cards to play. Israel values its partnership with the UK, but recent decisions have caused real pressure, and Britain has a lot to lose if Israel chooses to act.”
The fallout would not only be strategic but also economic. Israel is a major exporter of weapons systems, parts, and defense software to UK firms, including BAE Systems. Israeli-made drones have also been used by British forces in operations across Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over the past two years, Israeli intelligence has provided critical information to British agencies about Iran-backed threats on UK soil. These threats, are now considered as serious as those posed by adversaries like Russia.
Right, because there are no other intelligence services or weapons manufacturers in the world. I don't think Israel would benefit from proving to the world that they're irrelevant. Combined with the genocidal bloodlust, it's not a great look.
Governments keep buying Israeli weapons and spyware. Then, when people say Israel is a lunatic state the governments say they are too reliant on Israeli weapons and spyware to cut ties. A hilarious catch22.
"In response to the statements of the war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Fox News, in which he confirmed his intention to occupy the Gaza Strip without holding it, and to hand it over to Arab forces that do not threaten the occupying entity, we, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), confirm the following:
"Netanyahu's plans to expand aggression confirm beyond any doubt that he seeks to get rid of his prisoners and sacrifice them to serve his personal interests and his extreme ideological agenda.
"We confirm that Gaza will remain steadfast against occupation and attempts to impose guardianship over it. The expansion of aggression against our Palestinian people will not be a walk in the park, and the price will be heavy and costly for the occupation and its Nazi army.
"We call on Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to condemn and reject these dangerous statements, and to take urgent action to stop the aggression and end the occupation, to empower our people to realize their right to self-determination, and to hold the enemy leaders accountable for their ongoing crimes against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."
Are you using KDE Plasma but still working the same way you did on Windows? Do you wonder if you're getting the most out of your KDE Plasma setup? Well, here are five game-changing features that completely transformed how I use and interact with my PC!
By default, KDE Plasma can feel like another desktop environment (DE) trying to nail the Windows look and feel, but it's so much more than that! Plasma offers unique features that can fundamentally reshape how you think about desktop computing, turning routine tasks into effortless interactions. These aren't just a different way of doing things, but rather a better way as they eliminate entire categories of friction and open up more efficient workflows. Here I've shortlisted my top five favorite KDE Plasma features, how they've changed my approach to desktop computing, and why I can't go back!
Anyone know what music visualizer that is in the screenshot near the bottom under entry 2? Quick search of the available music widgets and I didn't see anything that looked like it.
This is an audio spectrum analyzer.* Requirements: OpenGL >= 3.0 KDE Framework >= 5.63* Required packages for ArchLinux:sudo pacman -S qt5-websockets python-docopt python-numpy python-pyaudio...
I actually didn't know you could nest Virtual Desktops within activities, so that was nice. Now I can make my setup even more absurdly complicated for anyone who's not me to use lol.
Plasma is nuts, it's customizability is wonderful. I just spent a few hours last week redoing my layout and theming with a gruvbox feel for my desktop system. I named the configuration gruvfox.
I used gnome for the longest time, but after discovering the true power of KDE I don't think there is ever any going back for me.
Overview In February 2023, researchers at Exodus Intelligence discovered a bug in the Data Flow Graph (DFG) compiler of WebKit, the browser engine used by Safari. This bug, CVE-2024-44308, was patched by Apple in November 2024.
👤 Quando parli di Linux, Fediverso, Privacy, ecc ... ti guardano strano
Ci sono momenti in cui ti accorgi che il mondo attorno a te non parla la tua lingua. Non quella fatta di parole, ma quella fatta di passioni. Quando dici "sto lavorando su un server", "gestisco un'istanza Fediverse", "mi piace la decentralizzazione", vedi subito gli sguardi cambiare.
Ti osservano come se stessi parlando in codice binario, come se stessi perdendo tempo in un mondo tutto tuo, inutile. E invece no. Quel mondo ha valore, senso, umanità, costruzione, appartenenza.
🧠 Non mi sto isolando: mi sto esprimendo
Quando scegli Linux, il software libero, il Fediverso, non lo fai per moda. Lo fai perché credere nella libertà digitale oggi è un atto rivoluzionario. Lo fai perché vuoi essere parte di qualcosa che non è controllato da pochi, ma costruito da molti, insieme.
Ma per chi ti sta vicino e non conosce questo mondo, sei solo quello "fissato col computer". Se poi – come me – sei anche in carrozzina, allora l’etichetta è servita: "poverino, si rifugia lì perché non ha altro da fare."
E invece no. Quello è il mio modo di essere utile. È lì che metto le mie energie, le mie idee, la mia voglia di contribuire a qualcosa.
🤝 La rete a cui contribuisco nella costruzione è fatta di persone vere
Nel Fediverso ho trovato relazioni autentiche, collaborazione, ascolto. Nel gestire server, istanze, spazi condivisi… ritrovo me stesso. In un mondo che spesso ti fa sentire inutile, lì posso essere parte attiva.
Non serve camminare per muoversi nel mondo digitale. Basta voler esserci davvero.
🙏 Non chiedo comprensione. Chiedo solo rispetto
Non tutti devono capire cosa faccio. Ma almeno, non giudicatelo. Non riducete tutto a "passatempi da nerd", a "roba da smanettoni". Perché per me – e per tanti altri – questo è un modo di vivere, di partecipare, di resistere.
E se qualcuno là fuori si è mai sentito guardato "diverso" per quello che ama, voglio dirti: non sei solo.
Se ti ritrovi in queste parole, rispondi, condividi, racconta. Perché non siamo pochi. Siamo solo troppo sparsi per farci sentire.
ehi che belle cose hai scritto, condivido in pieno e anche se di informatica e computer mi interesso da molto profano come sono (anche se da un bel po' di tempo: il primo incontro con linux fu negli anni novanta ed ero incuriositissimo) la vedo allo stesso modo come scrivi tu. Grazie 🙏 @ghim727
Anch'io condivido l'esser buon esemplare di linuxaro schiappa da almeno 10 anni. Ed anche se senza vanto, perché poi in ottica di riparabilità... 🙁 , la ritengo un'ottima strategia per insistere sui valori della decentralizzazione, cioè sull'uso appropriato di formati e licenze.
Ricordo quando provai a spiegare cos'è Mastodon ad un server Discord di giocatori di picchiaduro, e mi dicevano:
"Ah, ma Mastodon è un social per attivisti? No grazie"
Un discapito più stupido di così non l'ho mai visto. è la conseguenza devastante di quando ti ci abitui nei posti centralizzati dell'internet.
Ma ormai io ho ceduto nel tentare di portare qualcuno a conoscere Mastodon. Prima o poi se ne riparlerà quando l'internet centralizzato perderà credenza grazie a Trump.
@Snow Lemmy non sono uno smanettone, nel senso che non so programmare, ho qualche infarinatura di HTML e con fatica riesco a gestire il mio blog che comunque è una mia creatura, ma per gli altri sono quello "esperto in computer", che poi non sia vero non ha importanza, magari so qualcosa più di loro che in informatica sono fermi all'asilo, ma anch'io a volte ho avuto la stessa impressione tua. Quando ad esempio scrivo di linux mi sento dire "troppo complicato", no non è vero, è complicato spiegarlo a parole, come tutte le cose semplici, ma non è complicato usarlo. Provate a descrivere l'acqua che bolle, una cosa banalissima, non è mica facile, dovete parlare di chimica, fisica, termica, le molecole che impazziscono, ma cosa sono le molecole? Una cosa semplice come l'acqua che bolle spiegata diventa roba da Einstein, eppure basta aprire il rubinetto, riempire una pentola, accendere il gas e mettere la pentola sul fornello, un gesto che facciamo quotidianamente senza neppure pensarci, ma se devo dare una spiegazione la cosa cambia. Così è Linux, più facile a farlo che a dirlo, eppure per tutti (o quasi) è fuori dalla propria portata.
Da una parte c’è Qwant: elegante, europeo, semplice da usare... ma con un piccolo segreto: per anni ha preso in prestito i risultati da Bing. Negli ultimi tempi sta cercando di diventare più indipendente (anche grazie a Ecosia), ma il suo codice resta chiuso e un po’ misterioso. 🤫
Dall’altra parte c’è SearXNG: 💻 open-source, trasparente, senza tracking, personalizzabile al 100% e, se vuoi, pure ospitabile sul tuo server. Nessuna pubblicità invasiva, nessuna azienda curiosa a frugare tra le tue ricerche… insomma: la vera privacy è qui. 🚀
SearXNG: Richiede configurazione o uso di istanze pubbliche
📌 Conclusione? Se vuoi qualcosa di pronto e immediato → Qwant. Se invece la privacy per te non è uno slogan ma un requisito, SearXNG è il tuo migliore amico (anche se dovrai sporcarti un po’ le mani). 😉
What are the principles we can use to build LLM-powered software that is actually good enough to put in the hands of production customers? - humanlayer/12-factor-agents
By the way, if you're using software that supports following users(Like MBin), you can follow them @ecosia@mastodon.social. Their last post seems to be from a month ago, so I hope it's not abounded
How VINs encode everything from check digits to 565 submittals, and why the NHTSA's database is the only comprehensive public vehicle registry on Earth
European search engines Qwant and Ecosia said on Wednesday that they have both started serving search queries through an index they developed together, Staan, which aims to be a cheaper, more privacy-focused alternative to Google and Bing.
Last year, French privacy-focused search engine Qwant struck a joint venture with German non-profit search engine Ecosia, to develop a European search index. Called European Search Perspective (EUSP), the JV now aims to serve around 50% of French queries and 33% of German queries by the end of the year.
Qwant said it is using the new index to power some of its features, like AI summaries for search, and Ecosia has plans to add some AI features soon to its platform, too.
EUSP is also in talks with companies to spur the adoption of its index for enabling search within apps. Notably, it is targeting chatbots, presenting Staan as a cheaper alternative to Google and Bing.
“If you’re using ChatGPT or any other AI chatbot, they all do knowledge grounding with web search […] our index can power deep research and AI summary features. Google and Bing’s solutions are also pricey, and our index can offer power search features at a tenth of the cost,” Christian Kroll, CEO of Ecosia, told TechCrunch.
EUSP, like Proton, is pushing to develop a European tech stack that doesn’t rely on technology from the U.S. or China.
“The timing could not be more urgent. The outcome of the 2024 U.S. election has reminded European policymakers and innovators just how exposed Europe remains when it comes to core digital infrastructure. Much of Europe’s search, cloud, and AI layers are built on American Big Tech stacks, putting entire sectors – from journalism to climate tech – at the mercy of political or commercial agendas,” the companies said in a statement.
Kroll added that through this index, combined with European privacy laws, EUSP can offer a more privacy-friendly search solution as compared to its U.S. counterparts.
European search engines Qwant and Ecosia said on Wednesday that they have both started serving search queries through an index they developed together, Staan, that aims to be a cheaper, more privacy-focused alternative to Google and Bing.
Apple has made headlines in recent weeks for touting its commitment to privacy and human rights, rolling out tools to limit surveillance and spyware. But behind the corporate messaging lies a much darker reality.
The company has quietly brought in dozens of veterans from Unit 8200, Israel’s shadowy military intelligence unit known for blackmail, mass surveillance, and targeted killings.
Many of these hires took place as Israel escalated its war on Gaza, and as CEO Tim Cook publicly expressed support for Israel while disciplining employees for pro-Palestinian expressions. Apple’s deepening ties to Israel’s most controversial intelligence raise uncomfortable questions, not only about the company’s political loyalties, but also about how it handles vast troves of personal user data.
A MintPress News investigation has identified dozens of Unit 8200 operatives now working at Apple. The company’s hiring spree coincides with growing scrutiny of its ties to the Israeli government, including its policy of matching employee donations to groups such as Friends of the IDF and the Jewish National Fund, both of which play a role in the displacement of the Palestinian people. The intense pro-Israel bias at the corporation has led many former and current employees to speak out.
This investigation is part of a series examining the close collaboration between Unit 8200 and Western tech and media companies. Previous investigations examined the links between Unit 8200 and social media giants like TikTok, Facebook and Google, and how former Unit 8200 spies are now responsible for writing much of America’s news about Israel/Palestine, holding top jobs at outlets like CNN and Axios.
If you're talking about online multiplayer games, they're server sided so no. Though, for some games, there are people who will sell you battle pass codes for cheaper because they buy them in countries with a weak currency, it all depends on the game.
Confused by all the compiler options? I just broke down the must-know settings in tsconfig.json tailored specifically for modern ESM-based projects.
What you’ll get inside: • How to extend base configs for strictest type safety • Tips on include/exclude globs to control your source files • Setting rootDir and outDir for clean builds • Source maps for seamless debugging • Declaration files for publishing libraries • Choosing the perfect target and module system (ES2024, NodeNext, and more) • Strictness flags that catch subtle bugs early • Tricks for JSON imports, unknown file extensions, and external tool compatibility • Ready-to-use example configs for apps and libraries Say goodbye to confusing tsconfig setups and hello to confident builds in 2025.
His 1000 sq.ft. circular house could be put together by a couple of people in less than 2 days, weighed under 3 tons (lots of aluminum), self-cooling. It was supported by a single mast, and portable. 80 years ago, the 'kit' cost $6500, delivered.
It is an attempt at legitimizing it to prevent diplomatic action against it.
Israel is past the point where its allies have had elections and, generally, has either had people elected who maintained the status quo or allowed Israel to do more than the previous administration. Israel can now eat Gaza in diplomatic peace.
I feel like MX Linux has been at or near the top of Distrowatch forever, but I literally never hear it mentioned elsewhere on the web. Is it just people literally asking this question for them selves, clicking on it and bumping it up? Has anyone tried MX to see if it lives up?
I asked because I saw a video talking about Catchy and Edeavour, and had them near the top which I don't think of as super old, so it seemed like somehow newer ones here moving up the list.
I used MX Linux all of 2024 because I had previously installed antiX on an old netbook and I really liked the tools it came with that meant I didn't have to touch the console too much, and MX Linux is a sister project based on antiX sharing the same custom utilities. And I have no clue why it rose to the top of distrowatch, but once it was there it stayed there because people click the top distros on the list in the sidebar, which in turn gives it clicks making it stay on top. I do still believe it's a good starter distro, it's just that once you get a bit more comfortable with linux the old Debian packages become more and more annoying.
MX has become my go-to for low-power, outdated computers.
It runs on a toaster. It installs on 64-bit systems with 32-bit EFI. The base install supports touchscreens. It fits on a 16GB SSD with room to spare. 2GB RAM is plenty. It has an active development community.
If your computer is less 5 years old, there are better options. But if you're trying to keep a Chromebook out of the junk yard, MX is a good choice.
Why? What makes it good for þat? Is it because þe kernel is trim?
I ask, because MX isn't þe base for any leading LXC "mini" containers, AFAIK. Alpine was þe top choice for a long time, alþough þere are competitors for minimum-sized containers. And while containers aren't fully bootable images, and more is needed, probably þe biggest addition is þe kernel. If you stay away from systemd, you can add dinit, metalog, and crond for a smidge over 1 mibibyte (750Kib, 47Kib, and 230Kib respectively, vs systemd's 36MiB).
So I'm wondering: what makes MX so good for old computers?
Oh, now come on… 5 years is hardly where a system becomes “old.” It’s 2025 right now. Using a system made in 2020 hardly differs at all from one made yesterday. I’d say a cutoff for considering slim distros would be more like ten years ago. I’ve got some systems that are older than that even and they blaze. Only a few things really put that kind of thing to the test: games and heavy graphics editing. Am I wrong?
Indeed! It depends what you’re doing on it. Because there’s a wealth of computer activities that have not increased in actual power demand in decades. Sure they keep making software more bloated to keep the need up, but if you throw an efficient distro on a machine and only need it for basic office type things like office suites, email etc. and even basic graphics editing, you can use a 25 year old machine and do just fine. It will run, and it will do the job well, and you’re never going to feel like it’s slow. Maybe not as glitzy as newer ones, but that is where you’re already beyond need and into want.
The only things that are tricky are internet connections with anything using web protocols, due to certificate tech etc. and that can be handled by using a still-maintained browser such as a Firefox fork, and email can be done via software like Thunderbird, which doesn’t have to render the bloated front-ends of many email providers.
The issue ends up being a hardware limitation. I can't quite recall the specific issue but there was some sort of encoding thing on the CPU that prevented me from using most apps without severe performance issues. Of course browsing and so on was fine. I ended up using it as a server for some time (20 Years old at this point) and the energy costs were bad enough that I decided to put it to rest. Its now part of my own little museum of old ass computers that I let guests use for mostly for viewing pdfs and boardgame rules. I tell my family to ship me their old laptops and stuff I got like 15 of them at this point, and I have in fact used all 15 of them simultaneously when I invite a lot of nerds over. Most of them are running Fedora Atomic, a couple are running MX Linux, Alpine, and Damn Small Linux. I intend on going through the small distros at some point and do a comparison
Distrowatch popularity is a pointless metric. IIRC they measure clicks on their own site as popularity. That means that people that just want to check out that distro near the top that they never heard of actually ensure that it stays near the top.
I am using Linux since the 90s, used Ubuntu a lot at one time, then started using MX linux, 16.1 iirc was my first install. Then I continue to use it, I have always like Xfce (coming from mwm and such), and no systemd, no snap, no flatpak etc. MX is very stable, use the latest package in .deb format. I am using it for almost 10 years now, 24/7, I am using it as my work PC too.
There was a pretty good indication that Manjaro was click-botting it a few years back, then Mint, and now MX. While I actually like Manjaro, that team is totally not above having done such a thing. And pretty much as soon as the rumors about that started, it mysteriously started dropping in the ranking...
Why? For a long time, DW was considered a source of distro recommendation and popularity. With these "attacks", it's become a community joke and not considered much of a real indication.
I cannot understand why anyone would be so childish. It’s not even as though money is involved; it’s some kind of juvenile popularity contest by people who clearly don’t believe their work speaks for itself, and clearly don’t take pride in their product.
Manjaro defaults to a defective dock that is riddled with bugs if you customize it. I broke it dozens of times just by making some minor modifications in the preferences. It also slows down a little gradually. That’s only minor but the dock thing really irked me. Really? Can’t just get the dock settings finished so the thing completely works? Anyway, that was a few years ago and I haven’t touched it since.
Apparently my experiance has been the outlier here but I've seen a ton of MX talk in the last year. Even to the point of it being somewhat commonly recommended alongside mint for beginners but on older hardware
I think there is no ranking site that can be 100% trusted.
That said, I trust linux-hardware.org a bit more than distro watch, even if it's not as popular, because you have to intentionally download an app/script for it to scan and upload your distro/hardware data (so no page clicks or just traffic, you must have the distro installed), and if you repeatedly try to upload the same distro/hardware data, it doesn't count multiple uploads on its statistics, if they are not at least a month apart.
Edit: and even on linux-hardware you have strange results like OpenMandriva and ROSA as Distros on top 15, and I have never heard of them outside there, and from what I can find they are somewhat popular in Russia and some parts of Europe
But that just tells you all the people that have visited the site and downloaded a script.
I find it hard to believe that OpenMandriva is the most popular distro. I distrohop quite a bit and never even came across it (currently using Nobora on my PC, KDE Neon in the living room, tumbleweed on the kids laptops (though I may move them to silverblue or another immutable), and Pop on my laptop. It takes me a minute when I sit at any console to remember which package manager is the right one)
If you want honest results of actual use on general-purpose PCs...I'd wish for something like Alexa Page Rankings that could get deep enough to know Distro, but that's not possible (I don't think, without every distro having its own User Agent signature in the browsers), and Amazon bought Alexa and discontinued those services
As I said on the first line, no ranking of any kind can be trusted 100%, I pointed out an alternative to distrowatch, and why I would trust it a bit more, not saying I really trust it, or that I believe every result.
It is less popular so it could be a case like OpenMandriva has it integrated to upload automatically for all its users by default, or they found another way to game that ranking.
When I see any ranking, I do research when I see a distro that is suspiciously positioned, and I haven't heard about outside the place I saw it referenced, and even so I always stick to mainline distros.
Honest results would need a standard way that every distro adopts and make an opt-out (not opt-in) regular upload thing similar to what linux-hardware.org does, and be actively trying to mitigate or deny certain distros or specific actors from tampering with the results, and we don't have that.
Page rankings, clicks, scripts, etc. are not enough if every device doesn't ping it in a legitimate way (fake user agent or other means), and there is always the case of people that will opt-out or block this as they don't want to be tracked.
On your point of something like Alexa Page Rankings, the thing I would add is that, at least for me, if it is a ranking shown by a corporation, it is not trustworthy.
Oh for sure, but at least Alexa's rankings were rather transparent and somewhat trusted built up on a reputation.
I hadn't even realized Amazon bought and discontinued the service, but that's clearly exactly the type of instance that needs to be guarded against. I'm sure that a big part of why Amazon wanted that Alexa gone was because it would show rising competition, and Jeff can't have that.
and even on linux-hardware you have strange results like OpenMandriva and ROSA as Distros on top 15, and I have never heard of them outside there
As you have said they are REALLY popular in russia, and that alone makes a great ammount of people, specially since they still support i386 and older architectures with full support, thats why ALT linux is also really popular.
I tried MX a few times on different machines maybe a few weeks/months apart. Every time I did because of it being up there at the top and I was like “What am I not seeing?” It’s a decent distro, yeah, but some of the customization is distracting to be honest. I can say it’s good but the top? For what… more than a year or two even, it’s been in the top few.
I installed MX on an old Acer tablet/laptop Hybrid. It's one of the few that would run due to its 32bit bootloader but 64bit system. It works fine, but I wasn't blown away either.
I’ve found two distros I enjoy on really old stuff: Bodhi and Q4. They run fairly well and for the footprint, they’re pretty feature-rich. I love the Moshka desktop on Bodhi.
Distrowatch ranking is just the distros that are more commonly searched on the site. The FAQ says "The page Hit Ranking represents hits per day by unique visitors". It's just an attempt to see what's more popular among visitors.
Yeah, maybe there is a feedback loop where people will click on the top one just to see why it is on top, and in doing so they give the clicks necessary to remain on the top.
First, as MX is catered mostly for a bit aged computers, it is likely the demographics of users are a bit more aged that other distros like CachyOS (which by the way, it is now in the crest of a wave, signaling Distrowatch ranking is not correlated with market share.)
Also, the fact that many of us are pondering about MX's high ranking, we are also clinking on it more that we would on Ubuntu or Mint so feeding the impressions count.
Similarly, when a post like this is brought up, a bunch of use go to Distrowatch and click on it to see info about MX.
Also a regional popularity must be at place... distrowatch probably is more prevalent is certain countries that MX is favored. I don't see many in Asia using MX for instance, so western distrowatch distorts its global popularity. For instance if 3 users in the US use Mint and 3 MX but in China, that they barely go to distrowatch, 3 use Mint and 0 MX, distrowach would rank globally MX and Mint as same while in reality, Mint is clearly in top globally.
Of course, it is also likely MX developers have a bit of incentive of clicking on Distrowatch for their baby... I don't find it particularly too bad since many developers are doing far worse things... Using bots and dozens of different IPs would trespass the ethical boundaries for me though! MX is not the only ones that could potentially be doing this... it is not possible that Arch or Kubuntu are raked way bellow Q4OS, Lite, or Bluestar for instance. I see some artifacts among top famed distros too. It reminds me of the VW diesel scandal... VW was cheeting, but all other car makers were manipulating in one way or another their emissions too, it is just that US found it convenient to go for the foreign low hanging fruit.
Best thing is for us to stop reading those rankings as anything more than distros that trend up and down and that is it. I categorize all distros we all hear about, from MX to Cachy, from Nobara to deepin all as equally competitive and the difference just catered to the needs of different users. The more unwarranted credit we give to these rankings, the more incentive we are given to manipulations.
Distrowatch lists MX origin as "Greece, USA", but likely have developers from both the US and the EU mainly.
I would not consider MX a branch of antiX. Some developers are also working on antiX so they likely share the same ideology (mainly anti-capitalism), but while antiX is explicitly affirming so, MX, instead, keeps a neutral political tone on its portal and its communications on everything non-linux related.
I had used MX and it is a well-rounded distro, totally recommended in in a computer older than a decade, you don't like systemd, like Debian but dislike anything Ubuntu or if you like any of the specific tools they ship with MX with. Also, knowing the ideology of some of their developers, if you despise big-brother, this distro should be less likely to be compromised than, lets say Fedora or Nobara.
I've been wondering the same for a couple of years now. I tried it once, and it's garbage. I never hear about it in forums, YouTube, Mastodon, Lemmy or any other place, but they are always top 10. WTF? 🤣
I use MX since years. I did distrohopping before, started by Manjaro then Mint, NixOS, MX, Alpine... One day Archlabs, my distro at the time, was closed, I had to switch quickly and MX was an obvious choice because I can have a nice Xfce setup out of the box and it was the most reliable of all distro I tried without being a fork of a fork like Mint. One day I asked about a package update on the forum, and a maintainer quickly answered me that it shouldnt be a problem and the package was added in some test repo. MX is not a scam, I dont know why this distro dont make noise on the classic linux places, maybe because Mint took the place of the easy beginner distro ? Or also the average MX prefer to use its computer to do stuff, than talking about his OS on the internet 😆
MX is a nice distro. However, it is also true that it is just Debian with XFCE, KDE, or Fluxbox on top.
Your comment about not “being a fork of a fork” is ironic. MX Linux is a fork of AntiX which is a fork of Debian.
This is a not a criticism of MX. I love EndeavourOS and it is just Arch with a different installer and some sensible defaults. But I can also understand why some people look at MX and wonder why they don’t just install Debian with XFCE directly.
MX is a new name for Mepis. Part of MX and AntiX contributors are the same persons. MX got kernel compiled by AntiX, that particularily suits old hardware. Also the Xfce setup is more modern comparing to the default provided by Debian.
Zerush
in reply to Dessalines • • •AnUnusualRelic
in reply to Zerush • • •PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to AnUnusualRelic • • •like this
Maeve likes this.
Maeve
in reply to Zerush • • •ordnance_qf_17_pounder
in reply to Zerush • • •n3m37h
in reply to Dessalines • • •like this
Maeve likes this.
Una
in reply to Dessalines • • •like this
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PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to Una • • •selokichtli
in reply to PolandIsAStateOfMind • • •PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to selokichtli • • •selokichtli
in reply to PolandIsAStateOfMind • • •ordnance_qf_17_pounder
in reply to PolandIsAStateOfMind • • •To be fair, you've got a lot of their names correct
PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to ordnance_qf_17_pounder • • •BeeegScaaawyCripple
in reply to PolandIsAStateOfMind • • •Zerush
in reply to Una • • •drolex
in reply to Dessalines • • •Actually extremely low bar. I was checking the Wikipedia page and I was thinking that Liechtenstein could be safe, but I'm not not completely sure now.
ETA en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United…
like this
Maeve likes this.
selokichtli
in reply to drolex • • •Chloé 🥕
in reply to selokichtli • • •surprisingly canada doesn’t seem to be anywhere on those lists
maybe because even those who get elected on being anti-USA bow down to lick the hegemon’s boots
Dessalines
in reply to drolex • • •eldavi
in reply to Dessalines • • •miridius
in reply to Dessalines • • •Dessalines
in reply to miridius • • •John Pilger On The Forgotten Coup Against ‘The Most Loyal Ally’ - New Matilda
John Pilger (New Matilda)No_Ones_Slick_Like_Gaston
in reply to Dessalines • • •Diva (she/her)
in reply to Dessalines • • •- YouTube
youtu.beSkullgrid
in reply to Dessalines • • •ozymandias
in reply to Dessalines • • •pretty sure it was legal according to their own laws…
Dessalines
in reply to ozymandias • • •Arthur Besse
in reply to ozymandias • • •en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internat…
regulations governing international relations
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)ozymandias
in reply to Arthur Besse • • •Mediocre_Bard
in reply to Dessalines • • •ShinkanTrain
in reply to Dessalines • • •baldingpudenda
in reply to ShinkanTrain • • •somerandomperson
in reply to Dessalines • • •This is not c/196
Why did you title it rule?
zululove
in reply to Dessalines • • •migo
in reply to Dessalines • • •HiddenLayer555
in reply to Dessalines • • •lectricleopard
in reply to HiddenLayer555 • • •Tenderizer78
in reply to Dessalines • • •Australia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Chile
(It's hard to know which criticisms were propaganda and which were legit, so I can't pick many that I can call my "favourite". I'm 100% confident in Australia, mostly in Bolivia, somewhat in Chile, doubtful of Indonesia).
Ascend910
in reply to Tenderizer78 • • •Tenderizer78
in reply to Ascend910 • • •BeeegScaaawyCripple
in reply to Dessalines • • •