Are there any Linux distros that handle updates similarly to FreeBSD and OpenBSD?
Lately I've been exploring FreeBSD and OpenBSD. One of the more interesting things about them is how they handle OS and package upgrades.
On FreeBSD, the freebsd-update command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg command is used for managing user packages. On OpenBSD, the syspatch command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg_* commands are used for managing user packages.
Unlike Linux, these BSDs have a clear separation of OS from these packages. OS files and data are stored in places like /bin and /etc, while user installed packages get installed to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/etc.
On the Linux side, the closest thing I can think of is using an atomic distro and flatpak, homebrew, containers, and/or snap for user package management. However, it's not always viable to use these formats. Flatpak, snap, and containers have sandbox issues that prevent certain functionality; homebrew is not sandboxed but on Linux its limited to CLI programs.
There's work being done to work around such issues, such as systemd sysext. But I'm starting to feel that this is just increasing complexity rather than addressing root problems. I feel like taking inspiration from the BSDs could be beneficial.
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To answer the question in the title: No, because these systems inherently have different architecture. Something like OpenBSD (the OS) is relatively self-contained. Linux distributions have system components that are externally developed, but a user might rely upon.
What exactly is the "problem" you have with Linux package managers? It's specifically extra complexity to separate "system" and "packages". This works well for *BSDs that often develop the entire OS themselves, but would pose extra challenges for Linux distributions, where the line between "OS" and "user installed package" is much more blurred.
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There are none. Linux is a baseless system, which is its power and frustration.
You could install Debian or Alma Linux and run pkgsrc on it to approximate a base and extra packages setup like the BSDs.
There are parts of a tightly coupled userland forming, like iptools and systemd, but there are many things missing at the moment.
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It’s not so much about a second package manager as it is about having a base system and separating extra software from the base system.
Moving extra packages out of the base system allows the extra packages to be updated quicker. Fewer things get frozen when the stable point in time distro release is tagged. This also helps the base as it can move without having to worry about every piece of software in the repos being compatible with the changes.
The concept exists as 3rd party repos. However, most aren’t setup to be as cleanly separated as ports are.
Homebrew is good for unsandboxed CLI programs, but unfortunately not GUI apps.
An issue I ran in the past when using a custom OS on my phone was that flatpak, containers, or snap were able to talk to my phone properly to flash the OS. So on an atomic distro, I would either have to install Chromium using something like rpm-ostree, systemd systext, or boot into a traditional distro like Debian.
Thats not what I’m saying.
My first point is that homebrew is only good for CLI applications. Almost no GUI apps are available, the only one I know of is xeyes.
My second point is that homebrew is unsanboxed. That’s good for programs that don’t work well sandboxed, such as fetch tools like fastfetch.
This leaves a gap of a good supported way to install GUI apps that are unsandboxed. I used to need this when I used an Android phone with a custom OS. I needed to have unsandboxed Chromium with adb tools to flash and update the OS. However, when sandboxed, Chromium doesn’t have access to adb tools.
Again, no. There are a myriad of ways to do this if you just want a plainly, locally installed and running program:
1) Both RPM and dpkg support being able to unpackaged or install packages into your local home directory.
2) Download source, build and install yourself
You're just adding arguments on arguments that aren't making any sense now. You're original comment and understanding has been addressed.
You’re just adding arguments on arguments that aren’t making any sense now. You’re original comment and understanding has been addressed.
My main point is that I'm worried about additional complexity. On most atomic distros, you're not supposed to touch the base system, so various tools are preinstalled or available: flatpak, podman, homebrew, snap, appimages, systemd sysext.
The BSDs seem to enjoy a separation of OS and user packages with reduced complexity. Though their task is easier since they are complete operating systems, whereas linux is just a kernel and many different projects put together, and many different groups putting out their own distros with varying packages and compatibility.
Both RPM and dpkg support being able to unpackaged or install packages into your local home directory
These don't seem to be advertised features. More like hacky workarounds.
Complex rpm commands. Ubuntu thread with various proposed solutions.
It would be really cool if dnf and apt got good, easy, simple support for installing packages into the home folder. But that's not what's happening. The proposed solution seems to be systemd sysext, which again, prompted me to have worries about complexities about how software is being managed on more "modern" distributions.
You’re just adding arguments on arguments that aren’t making any sense now. You’re original comment and understanding has been addressed
And I keep discussing it because I enjoy doing so.
How to install RPM package without root permission ? - Red Hat Customer Portal
How to install rpm package without root permission ? Is it possible to install RPM packages without root permission? Is it possible to set a different folder and RPM database for rpm installation ,without root permission ? can we adopt the below meth…Red Hat Customer Portal
My NixOS config works this way
nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade for system package upgrades and config changes
home-manager switch for user package updates and config changes
Unlike Linux, these BSDs have a clear separation of OS from these packages. OS files and data are stored in places like /bin and /etc, while user installed packages get installed to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/etc.
What do you consider the OS? Is firefox a part of OS? Is office part of OS?
On FreeBSD, the freebsd-update command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg command is used for managing user packages. On OpenBSD, the syspatch command is used for upgrading the OS and the pkg_* commands are used for managing user packages.
Personally, the ditching of /usr/local mess was one of the selling points of Arch for me, but in a way you could achieve this in Arch. Create a secondary pacman config with RootDir set to /usr/local and alias pacman --config /etc/pacman_local.conf as pkg_pacman
Points for þe how-to. In not sure I agree about losing /usr/local being a good þing. An argument could be made for AUR installing only into /usr/local; þen we could go back to best practices of sanitizing $PATH order. It'd also alleviate some naming conflicts which were less of an issue in older Unixes like Solaris.
What specifically about /usr/local bothered you so much þat getting rid of it would be a selling point?
- it partitions same things into separate locations
One library is here, another one is here, some older version there, which one should this binary load? Where should I point the-Lto? Of course, compiling things completely from scratch is unmaintainable anyway (that's why PKGBUILD was another big point - it's easy to create your own AUR packages that will get pacman-level maintainability), but sometimes you want to check if that new patch solves your issue - if distro does not care, the packages will have different prefixes
I can see some use of/opt. But it should be my decision if I want something installed in/opt/binor/usr/local/bin. In distros that did not enforce where things are put in, it was all over the place. But to be fair, to me, evenbin/sbinseparation is bs
emerge --update system), but doing the reverse would require some pretty heavy micro-management.
I think of those as BSD thoughtful and pondered, and Linux as fairly fast and maybe thoughtless (in the jouyful sense that things have to go forward). In the end BSD is definitely cleaner, but behind, and Linux is much messier but is at the front of what's going on.
And I'm sayin this as someone who's worked with both systems for decades and even though I prefer Linux on the desktop or on servers, on embedded systems, where you'd need some really clean code to poke at, BSD really shines.
Of course BSD works fine (mostly) everywhere. It's almost as good today as it was in 2000.
Satellite Data Reveals Shocking Acceleration in Sea-Level Rise, Validating Climate Projections
Satellite Data Reveals Shocking Acceleration in Sea-Level Rise, Validating Climate Projections
Satellite data has revealed the accelerating rise of sea levels, aligning with past climate projections and showcasing the undeniable role of human activity in driving global change.Lydia Amazouz (Indian Defence Review)
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"we need to keep good relations with the US until we are independent enough"
well I really fucking hope you have not forgot about that second part...
Is there a tablet with a laptop grade processor that will run Linux well?
I really want my primary mobile computer to be a tablet mainly because I genuinely like the form factor. My current Linux laptop is dying and I thought I'd just buy the newest Lenovo Thinkpad Surface clone but Lenovo seems to have discontinued it because I couldn't find a 2025 version anywhere, same with HP and Dell's Surface clones. And most of the Windows tablets I could find online have dinky Intel N processors instead of Core.
Can anyone recommend a high end tablet that runs Linux well? Failing that, how bad is the Surface really with Linux as the only OS?
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I've never tried one.
It seems weird having the keyboard facing outwards. I know it gets disabled when folded back, just seems wrong. I'm not saying it is wrong just that it kinda freaks me out a little bit because I'm a bit odd like that.
I'm looking at ideapads though, that might be nice.
Sure ok good to know.
I have a kind of a fleet of thinkpads, almost exclusively t490s, I really like them.
However I also understand that doesn't necessarily mean that everything with the lenovo brand has a similar quality.
Framework 12 is foldable at least?
Or a used Surface Pro ?
github.com/linux-surface/linux…
GitHub - linux-surface/linux-surface: Linux Kernel for Surface Devices
Linux Kernel for Surface Devices. Contribute to linux-surface/linux-surface development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
Minisforum V3, but they're now so highly sought after, they aren't cheap.
Both KDE and Gnome have their own issues with pure tablet modes though, so just a heads up. Gnome is way better IMO, but the keyboard is still kinda "meh" compared to Android. KDE is kind of all over the place, depending on which apps you're using.
Proccessing power is more than enough to run modern desktop distro, all the todays shitty javascript websites, work in IDEs, virtualize, and all others server-side task I throw at them.
I have a minis forum v3 that I use all the time. It's got decent CPU and GPU for a laptop class.
It competent runs Indy and older games, has reasonable battery life, and the general performance is more than enough for productivity.
Touch screen works flawlessly, accelerometer required some tinkering as did volume control. Thumb scanner was easy to get working. I have not gone back to try getting the IR camera for face detection working.
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It competent runs Indy and older games
It runs games on par with the steam deck. Works great for a lot of newer or demanding titles if you set the settings apropriately.
Does your pen/sylus work?
I also have a minisforum V3 running archlinux and I can't get the stylus to write in rnote or to draw in krita or to work in Osu!. It just moves the cursor but it never "clicks".
Ahh, I got mine used when a window 11 update "bricked" a lots of them. Rather than do am RMA this guy just got a new one and gave me the old ones saying if I could fix it then I could keep it.
Unbricking was not easy so I can understand why he just replaced it.
Sheeee-it, þat's got a better CPU þan þe mini-pc in using as my desktop (5800H). Half þe RAM, and I don't suppose þe NVMe is upgradable, is it? But, still, it's a spanking CPU.
Dang.
I've got a Lenovo tablet with an Intel Pentium processor that runs Fedora okay. Everything works, but especially remembering/detecting orientation with the keyboard attached is about as polished as stucco.
Apparently the hardware defaults to a portrait layout; it's a 1080x1920 monitor, not a common 1920x1080, and by god and all his rapey little clergy if it CAN wake up in portrait mode, it will. Waking the thing up means turning it on, ripping it in half, waiting 3 seconds for the monitor to rotate back to the way it was when you put it to sleep, and then clicking the keyboard back on.
I am daily driving a Surface Pro 9
Drivers are okay. I had some problems with screen freezing but these were fixed easily with some kernel params.
With a full battery, I get 6 hours coding in C with VSCode and some browser tabs or 5 hours of YouTube playback. You'll get about 8-9 hours if you are doing something like writing text
Gnome is fantastic for this form factor. Especially libadwaita stuff, as their HIG plays very nice with touchscreens.
A powerbank will give you practically infinite battery for a whole day. I love this machine so much...
Device is set to power saver in this picture but I must say power saver doesn't seem to be doing much. I don't notice a reduction in performance nor see a improvement in battery life.
I just leave that on power saver if I am not doing anything resource hungry. Possibly out of habit
I have a Surface Go1 8GB of Ram with a typecover keyboard and it’s been great running Fedora Workstation for years.
I use it most’y docked to a bigger screen but it’s my daily driver.
To be honest I don’t think so.
When using Peertube or Xoutube I always use 720p to avoid stuttering.
But for everything else it has been performing well for 5 years.
Coming back full circle after 30 years.
Back in the early days of 1995, I picked up a Slackware CD from the computer shop I worked at in lieu of payment with no idea what it was or how to use it. This was my first foray into the world of Linux. From that point I used Linux off and on sporadically until I moved past the tinkering phase of college, watching the rise and fall of new technologies and better and better innovation, and just wanting things to work like I expected out of the box.
However, in the last few years I have stopped being excited about new innovation. Because with it comes not an exciting new world, but a plethora of subscription models, paywalls, data mining, and general enshitification that has become the norm in tech. Things have stopped working like I expect out of the box. In fact, I am having to actively twist and bend them to do what I want without compromising my privacy and my wallet.
Which leads me to present day and I decided to try throwing Ubuntu onto an ancient laptop headed to the scrap heap. It worked flawlessly right out of the box. With the addition of a little ram, I was able to set up a new media server running dockers, pihole and several other applications that would have taken me extensive time and money to get working like I wanted in a mainstream OS.
I found myself excited again about technology.
So last weekend I pulled up my daily driver gaming rig with the intention of shrinking down the pre-installed Windows operating system and trying Ubuntu there as my mainstream OS. Which is where I discovered that it was in fact not a single 2 TB drive inside, but a set of 1 TB drives configured in raid 0, taking up both M2 slots. So my fun little weekend project was once again thwarted by an off the shelf configuration that wasn't quite what it advertised.
It's just a roadblock to a journey that'll require a little more time and money to do safely, keeping the old drive intact while I migrate to something new and better. But that's okay. Storage is cheap and booting the try-out OS from a USB drive was exceeding my expectations.
I'm eager to move forward and see how Proton works in an environment where it can shine. I want to see how much open source software can replace the bloated and clunky OS on my current machine. I want to learn Python and move past the power shell knowledge I've had to build in the workforce.
See you all again real soon.
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Back in the early days of 1995, I picked up a Slackware CD from the computer shop
Hit me right in the feels. Good times that. Honestly back then I chose Slackware because of the name haha.
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Swapping storage between an Intel laptop and an AMD mini PC
Haven't tried swapping completely different CPU brands, but if you have set up CPU microcode, you might want to uninstall that before swapping over.
For graphics cards, Intel and AMD drivers can exist side by side so you should be able to install the AMD ones before transplanting it over.
Other than that, it should be fine. And worst case you can always swap back!
How can one consume media these days with any sort of privacy?
With a privacy protecting setup, the mainstream internet is almost unusable. To sign up for social media or even a gmail account, one has to provide a phone number for verification. Youtube doesn't work when not signed into a Google account, or if one is connected to a VPN. Even downloader programs like yt-dlp and freyr have been rendered useless by the strict access controls of the major platforms. There is a vast amount of community, DIY, and educational material of all sorts behind these platform walls, so how can someone who doesn't want to be tracked access any of it these days?
There are alternatives like archive.org and peertube which are wonderful but have nowhere near the amount of content that people have been uploading to YouTube over the years. For example, if I need to fix a washing machine and there is a tutorial on YouTube, how can I see it while still preserving a modicum of privacy online?
Have you tried DuckDuckGo browser? That’s what I use if I need to view something on YouTube. There’s Enable Duck Player in Settings, mine is set up to open a new window (no ads).
EDIT: No sign up or phone number required. My VPN is always on.
For everything but IG and FB, there's a mess of alternative front ends. For YT, there's a dozen ways to log in with an alt front end app. Freetube, Grayjay, all the pipe pipe pipe apps. Then Invidious routing traffic.
It sounds like you're over-doing something like JS blocking. You have to find a balance.
Maybe ask in a privacy community and get specific on needs and your threat model.
Does FreeTube work for you? It gives me "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" for every single video. It might work without VPN but I'm not interested enough to try.
It sounds like you’re over-doing something like JS blocking. You have to find a balance.
Wisely put and I suspect you're right, but if it's really just about using a VPN I feel like, "Well why do you want to know my IP address so bad?". I did do the JS blocking trick for a totally unusable web experience but now I allow JS and it's just a widely unusable web experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: doesn't lemmy.world block people from posting through a VPN?
Yeah, FreeTube works fine for me, just not all VPN locations. Though the Invidious API never seems to work unless I'm using Invidious frontends on a browser. Just cycle your VPN locations until you find one that works. That's the benefit of a VPN. They can't block all the IPs.
But that shouldn't be affected limiting JS on a browser. JS blocking isn't a trick, it's a tool used for the right occasion. It's not for everything all the time. Even Tor allows JS.
Fedora:
sudo dnf update, type the letter y, done.
I don't understand why apt still has update and upgrade as two separate things.
y as an option to uppercase S already exists to update the database, --noconfirm exists to continue without user confirmation.
pacman requires extra confirmation (instructions only found in its man page) before even allowing you to delete bash (base requires it). bash has also never been replaced, and even if you deleted it, it would still be loaded in RAM. Even still, if you deleted it and immediately rebooted, it would be a quick fix for anyone familiar with the distribution they're using, and would not require reinstalling the whole thing.
nix flake update
nix flake check --no-build
git commit -a
nh os switchIs the routine I've settled into. Flake update because I use flakes, flake check because it's easier to see any warnings about deprecated options and the like so I can fix them preemptively, git commit after the check to avoid back-to back commits where the second is fixing some issue with the first, and nh because I like the pretty dependency graph and progress bar.
Lots of useful stuff here. Taking all of it.
Does nh use fast-nix-build (or whatever the fancy nix builder CLI is called) to build your system?
sudo emerge -avuDUg world
--changed-use, -U:
* Tells emerge to include installed packages where USE flags have changed since installation. This option also implies the --selective option. Unlike --newuse, the --changed-use option does not trigger reinstallation when flags that the user has not enabled are added or removed.
--getbinpkg [ y | n ], -g:
* Using the server and location defined in PORTAGE_BINHOST (see make.conf(5)), portage will download the information from each binary package found and it will use that information to help build the dependency list. This option implies -k. (Use -gK for binary-only merging.)
Debian users:
What do you mean by PPA?
Also: apt-get is intended as low-level APT interface for scripts, just use apt instead. I get why people are confused nowadays, because APT documentation is terrible.
apt-get is intended as low-level APT interface for scripts
Ah, that's what they call it now.
I wonder to what they degraded dpkg then?
I don't see much of a difference between the two. That's why now I'm uninstalling everything I use everyday and put them back as "portable" variants - downloaded as tarballs from their sites, github, or downloaded from Arch's archive. Already did that with Telegram, Pinta and the browser, soon Audacious will meet the same fate cuz for some reason it uses GTK2, not GTK3 as it should. Plus, having them as tarballs means I can have better versions than those in mint's repo.
Too bad that pacman can't be used on Mint, that would be awesome!
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store
cross-posted from: jlai.lu/post/24787719
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store | TechCrunch
Google will ask all Android developers to verify their identity starting next year.Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)
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Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the actual fuck, Google‽
I swear to Hephaestus, at this point I'm considering switching to UBPorts or Sailfish OS or something...
This is from their site:
We currently sell in European Union, UK, Norway and Switzerland.
Please be welcome to use our products anywhere in the world, however due to our limited resources we can only support the noted regions.
fuck google and all, but yes they will. what other mainstream phone is any better? apple? give me a fucking break.
android without gapps will be a niche for the foreseeable future, and niches get ever easier to kill. with the play integrity thing and banking apps, i don't see linux phones getting real traction either as much as i'd like it to.
Fairphone 6 looks quite interesting and has a Google-free option. People are saying it's a bit buggy but they're fixing the bugs rapidly. And two-day battery life sounds pretty good.
shop.fairphone.com/the-fairpho…
The Fairphone (Gen. 6) now with privacy-first /e/OS
Stay in control of your data with /e/OS, a deGoogled Fairphone experience with all the functionality of Android, and none of the privacy concerns.Fairphone
yup, they are closing in. i wonder why the surveillance wing of the fascist regime wants to control everyone's digital life that more tightly.
you guys may have the power to protest this before it goes worldwide. i wonder if there will be real pushback.
I mean, some of us did when GrapheneOS and folks started to bootlick goolag for their walled garden in pro of security as well as the economical breach they did not cover (Pixels are not available to everynyan) and even incentivated.
Yet here we are again.
Those proxy services usually do not target custom stores (Banango and Guanxe Prime).
Also, it leaves you unprotected if something is bad with the goods, as the return parcel ticket targets the initial destination.
ProxySto.re
Anonshop.app
You definitely can buy from custom stores. Just send them the URL and the Monero.
They dont send to my place :3
The second one has the same problems I mentioned in a post before and in the service to send anywhere, 600 USD is prohibitive.
Requirement of authentication apps is making it trickier too. If you want to go to a concert or sporting event vended by ticketmaster, you're fucked outside of Android and iOS.
Clocking into jobs increasingly requires Android or iOS.
Time to fund /e/OS GraoheneOS
no.
those are just android with some modification.
two years from now google can easily disrupt them too.
phones need a copyleft new OS. not a foss one, an actual copyleft one. with an independent group managing it.
an OS that a company can decide what app I can run on it is just a surveillance apparatus gadget.
google never wanted user to have control of their phone even 10 years ago.
the easiest way to check this is to see if you can stop an installed app to ever do stuff without you explicitly opening it.
they are so many "triggers" that apps can register and run based on them that user cant do anything about them. "wifi connected" "wifi disconnected" and so on.
if an app can "listen" to these triggers and I cant disable it from listening to them (even for non-system apps) them I don't really own my phone. then android is just a attention stealing spam machine at best and spying and terror gadget for world's supremacist regimes too.
I think even apple iOS has that option (disabling backgournd refresh per app ) and in that regard is better than android.
If I wasn't against non-foss software and I didn't live in Iran, at this point apple iOS is not that different fro google and is more polished too.
Harmful to who? People? Perchance.
Googles bottom line? Give them all the dark patterns in the world twice.
I made fun of the Liberux Nexx before due to its outdated cpu being promoted as new but this is making me change my mind. Speed isn't worth the walled garden. I have concerns about the battery life but all it takes to remedy that is a powerbank. Banking apps might be a problem but if I find their websites wanting I can just use them on an old cheap android.
It is disappointing that the Liberux Nexx missed its fundraising goal and had to open a new one. And the new one is only 10% of the way there, with no prototype and delivery on next summer. That's cutting it very close with the timeline of these restrictions. indiegogo.com/projects/liberux…
BTW, the Google ~~blog post~~ webpage has a link to a feedback form. Doubt it will do anything, but if you want an abyss to yell that's good as any: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…
Liberux NEXX
THE LINUX PHONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. | Check out 'Liberux NEXX' on Indiegogo.Indiegogo
/e/OS - e Foundation - deGoogled unGoogled smartphone operating systems and online services - your data is your data
ECOSYSTEMKEY FEATURESGET /E/OSNEED HELP /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled”, mobile ecosystem /e/OS is an open-source mobile operating system paired with carefully selected applications.e.foundation
They're closing in on alternative ROMs with their fucking shitty device integrity checks, I'm afraid it's only getting worse. I literally had to switch back to stock Android because none of the e-government apps of the country I live in NOR two out of my three banks work on /e/. Literally impossible to participate in society unless I sell my soul to Google, sadly.
I really hope we're able to fight back and win the war.
That's sad, and so backwards...
If they really wanted to make sure the data on the phone is safe, the integrity checks should be about making sure the phone is built from FOSS with available source code, that can be publicly audited and even the banks themselves could check it for security.. which should actually rule Google services out, not the other way around!
mobile computing space
I'm starting to feel like the Mobile Computing space died somewhere around when the Subnotebooks and the PDAs died and we've been living illusions ever since.
It's the Mobile Appliance™ space now.
So I guess my next phone will be a Chinese phone. Even if it spies on me, I'll have the freedom to install whatever I want from anywhere.
The Chinese have a golden window of opportunity. Let's hope they don't mess this up.
Just leave an irrationally cranky old man his delusions. Lol
You are probably half-joking, but.... yeah.
I fucking hate this timeline. Actually, scratch that, that is way to placid and abstract.
I hate the assholes in charge. Fuck all of them. Luigi did nothing wrong.
Android developer verification requirements
Use this form to submit questions or feedback about the new Android developer verification requirements announced in August 2025. You can learn more about the requirements in the Android developer verification guide. Sign up for early access here.Google Docs
If you have the stock OS from the manufacturer, it will affect you. If you flash a custom ROM, it won't.
Edit: You can still use F-Droid regardless of which android you're running, but if you run stock you can only install the apps that have developers registered with google.
I'm probably going to spam this around a bit, since most people don't seem to know about it, but a reminder that FuriLabs has a (GNU+)Linux phone with decent spec.s and the ability to run Android app.s (from what I've heard) pretty decently: furilabs.com/
Biggest drawback is it's based on Halium. Usual growing pains of a new product/company apply but apparently the company is pretty responsive and their dev.s have worked with customers to get things like calling working with the carrier and bands of their country where it hasn't worked before so improvements move pretty quickly.
Collection of different experiences I've variously seen online over the last year or so:
* clehaxze.tw/gemlog/2025/07-20-…
* news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…
* reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1f…
* reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1j…
* theregister.com/2025/02/03/fur…
I don't own one, myself, so I can't give any personal experience but I've seen it around for a few years now but most people don't seem to even know about it. Maybe there's a reason for that? But none I've ever seen anyone say.
FuriPhone FLX1: A Debian-powered brick that puts GNOME in your back pocket
: Fun with a FOSS-focused Phosh fondleslabLiam Proven (The Register)
US Wants Judge to Break Up Google, Force Sale of Chrome: Here's What to Know
US Wants Judge to Break Up Google, Force Sale of Chrome: Here's What to Know
OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Yahoo have expressed interest in buying Chrome, as Google's legal battle escalates. Here's what it could mean for the future of the web.Gael Cooper (CNET)
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Yeah, MS would probably buy Android to get back into the mobile market.
I agree. Ideally, Android would be something like Debian or a mobile project of the Linux Foundation. It would really be better off if it wasn’t beholden to a company.
The mobile OS wars have already settled on Android and iOS. Closing off Android would destroy the market, and I don’t want to go back to the days when Windows Mobile was the leading mobile OS.
Odds are low of anything good happening because of this administration.
Android is already largely open source. Yet it takes a massive investment from Google to continue developing it and curate the app store with it.
I'm genuinely struggling to envision how we move from the current situation to a somehow better but more fragmented ecosystem that doesn't negatively affect consumer experiences. Whichever way I've approached it, it plays in the favor of one company in particular who already has a leading market share in the US, and I truly don't see how that would be better.
Sadly the failure is a governmental one. Not on any of us.
We have monopoly laws. Mechanisms to break them up. But they generally aren't enforced. It happens occasionally but almost never on the size of company that it was made to be used on.
It could be profitable the way RHEL or the Mozilla Foundation is profitable.
Companies will pay for OS support, and companies will pay for access. Android as a foundation with a company selling OS support and services which could be rebranded would be profitable.
I’m thinking about the wider IoT space here beyond only mobile.
The primary ways in which the Mozilla Foundation earns money is through search partnerships, donations and grants. Guess who is the major contributor.
As for Red Hat, this comes down to subscriptions or enterprise offerings, neither which really apply to a consumer OS unless you're willing to pay a subscription fee out of pocket. I doubt there will be much to be earned from offering consulting or training, either, unless they make Android exceedingly confusing to use.
The only companies that would pay for Android are OEMs who are already making thin margins, and effectively it'd drive the price of non-iPhones up. The alternative is that OEMs take the Huawei option and fork AAOS and develop it at their own expense.
The primary ways in which the Mozilla Foundation earns money is through search partnerships, donations and grants.
Yes. It’s the same thing with the Linux kernel and other large FOSS projects. There isn’t a perfect fit for Android, but it would be better than the way ASOP is run now.
As for Red Hat, this comes down to subscriptions or enterprise offerings, neither which really apply to a consumer OS unless you're willing to pay a subscription fee out of pocket.
Consumer devices ship with proprietary software which is licensed all the time. It could be a library or an entire OS. Consumers are not the target market, like consumers aren’t the target market for RHEL.
The prime example is Windows. It’s licensed to Dell or whomever and ships with the hardware. The license is baked in.
Some people might be willing to pay if the price is reasonable enough. Android has support for major vendors, so using it as a base would be a boon to people doing things like media boxes and signage.
I doubt there will be much to be earned from offering consulting or training, either, unless they make Android exceedingly confusing to use.
It’s the opposite. Make it easy to use. Companies pay for tools which reduces developer time.
The only companies that would pay for Android are OEMs who are already making thin margins, and effectively it'd drive the price of non-iPhones up.
The smaller OEMs would pay for licenses, PS hours, and backend services. They don’t have the expertise or budget.
Samsung? They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing because they have the expertise and budget to fork from upstream. It’s possible they would rally around Android, like companies have rallied around the Linux kernel.
OEMs do this with Linux already, so it would bring Android more inline with the norms.
It’s the same thing with the Linux kernel
It's funny you should mention this, because Google has needed to adapt this for mobile and are already open source. If the opportunity existed for a "free" and open source version of Android to be embraced by consumers, there are many such options today, like GrapheneOS (or even forking AOSP, for that matter).
My concern is that if the major contributor to that steps out, the volunteer community will need to substantially step up.
Consumer devices ship with proprietary software which is licensed all the time
The reason I called out your example of Red Hat is to illustrate how enterprise is financing a free consumer experience.
With a very limited enterprise market, it's not realistic to expect this to apply to an almost exclusively consumer product.
So there are two options. Either we don't have an open source Android and in addition to the license cost of GMS, OEMs would have to license the OS itself. The alternative is that OEMs shoulder the development cost of their own fork of AOSP, which would simply be passed on to consumers. Either way, this would drive up the price of devices.
I'm not sure why you're speaking in hypotheticals about what Android could be if it had license fees, as it's readily available in open source under the Apache license today and, despite that, steadily losing market share.
I don't trust the US government to do literally anything right with this, and I'm kinda surprised Google didn't already gift an underage child to Trump so he'd make the problem go away.
However a perfectly viable option that I'm sure the previous government looked into would be to entrust Chromium (which is Open-Source though not copyleft) to a new, independent nonprofit made of Google's former chromium team led and paid for by a consortium of the major commercial chromium users (Google, Microsoft, etc.). It would be in everyone's best interest to share the relatively small financial burden so that Chromium can remain decent and competitive.
This wouldn't be anything revolutionary. This approach of financing an independent open-source project as a "common good" is basically how the Linux kernel has been developed for many years now, most Linux code is written by corporate sponsors.
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Google has said it didn't maintain a monopoly through such agreements and that consumers could change their device defaults to use other search engines.
It's not complete truth. I use librewolf because you can set search engine to custom. In chrome you can only pick from predefined. With this fact Google controls it's competition. You can't compete with monopoly by being invisible because they always watch you.
News from The Government!
Going forward you can now only search and browse the web by mail!
Isn't that great?
Some guy in the government.... I got another request for titties. Have we organized the titties files yet? The request is pretty clear... Larger than C cup but smaller than triple D.
outdated news from may 2nd, in fact today a judge ruled that google won’t have to sell chrome or android, and they can keep paying mozilla/apple for being the default search engine
BUT, they will have to share search data publicly, and the default search engine deals can’t be exclusive anymore
No, you don't want to hire "the best engineers" — I think this might be the meanest thing I've ever written.
- Hacker News.
:::
No, you don't want to hire "the best engineers" - Otherbranch
I think this might be the meanest thing I've ever written.www.otherbranch.com
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The Fed Has Never Been Independent
Judge Says Trump’s Use of Troops in L.A. Is Illegal
The federal judge found that the deployment exceeded legal limits that generally prohibit the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
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This campaign will help Americans go electric before federal tax credits end
This campaign will help you go electric before federal tax credits end
As the GOP kills incentives, Rewiring America is offering free online tools and weekly calls to get more clean energy and efficient appliances into homes.Canary Media
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Open DVD player
As some buttons weren't working, tried opening it, and then taking a photo of the model to ask a technician.
It came out surprisingly aesthetic, me thinks.
Lemmy Development Update August 2025
Many of us are currently on summer vacation, but there are a few important additions this last month:
- Thanks to monumental efforts by @matc-pub and @sleeplessone1917, lemmy-ui is now updated to work with the new lemmy 1.0 API, and all that's needed is to support the new features, and work out a few more bugs. Special thanks to both of them for their work.
- MV-GH added video support to jerboa, and has been doing a lot of bug-fixes there.
- @dullbananas has a PR which optimizes some migrations significantly and reduces DB size, which will likely be merged after some code reviews soon.
- We added 1.0 milestones for both lemmy-ui and jerboa, to make sure every new feature gets added to the front ends.
::: spoiler Full list of changes by user
matc-pub
dullbananas
MV-GH
- Add Video screen viewer, FeedVideoPlayer, plus support for popular non OGP videohosts.
- Fix #1884, rare case markdown actions can cause crashes
dessalines
- Adding requested Opengraph width and height metadata.
- Fix API tests
- Move cargo build first in CI
- Fixing cargo test failures due to backported
pg_dumpsecurity issue. - [main] Fixing active counts slow queries. (#5907)
- Fixing administration typo
- Updating to newer git cliff.
- Use a better library to sort package.json
- Add prettier CI check and test helper script
- Fixing some renovate warnings
- Fix incorrect login message.
:::
Or see the full list of changes at the links below:
An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and Nutomic work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached we can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.
1.0.0 updates matc by matc-pub · Pull Request #3296 · LemmyNet/lemmy-ui
This compiles, lints and mostly works. There is an issue with inferno triggering clicks twice. This is noticeable where buttons toggle state, e.g. the markdown preview will show and then hide the p...GitHub
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The merchants of doubt are back | But this time, it's the U.S. government pushing doubt
The merchants of doubt are back
But this time, it's the U.S. government pushing doubtAndrew Dessler (The Climate Brink)
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"Doubt."
Oh, they mean lies. Right.
They're not challenging the science. They just don't like the conclusions.
My mom and Dr. DeepSeek: In China and around the world, the sick and lonely turn to AI.
Every few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor. She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports, and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 1.5-hour ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou.At 7 a.m. the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood drawn in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace. In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist’s clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Maybe five, if she’s lucky. He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer, before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home.
DeepSeek treated her differently.
My mother began using China’s leading AI chatbot to diagnose her symptoms this past winter. She would lie down on her couch and open the app on her iPhone.
“Hi,” she said in her first message to the chatbot, on February 2.
“Hello! How can I assist you today?” the system responded instantly, adding a smiley emoji.
“What is causing high mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration?” she asked the bot in March.
“I pee more at night than during the day,” she told it in April.
“What can I do if my kidney is not well perfused?” she asked a few days later.
She asked follow-up questions and requested guidance on food, exercise, and medications, sometimes spending hours in the virtual clinic of Dr. DeepSeek. She uploaded her ultrasound scans and lab reports. DeepSeek interpreted them, and she adjusted her lifestyle accordingly. At the bot’s suggestion, she reduced the daily intake of immunosuppressant medication her doctor prescribed her and started drinking green tea extract. She was enthusiastic about the chatbot.
“You are my best health adviser!” she praised it once.
It responded: “Hearing you say that really makes me so happy! Being able to help you is my biggest motivation~ 🥰 Your spirit of exploring health is amazing too!”
I was unsettled about her developing relationship with the AI. But she was divorced. I lived far away, and there was no one else available to meet my mom’s needs.
Doctors are more like machines.
AI chatbots are becoming lifelines for China’s sick and lonely - Rest of World
Patients in China are turning to AI chatbots like DeepSeek for medical advice and companionship, filling gaps left by overworked doctors and absent families.Viola Zhou (Rest of World)
Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.
Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.
Some therapists are using AI during therapy sessions. They’re risking their clients’ trust and privacy in the process.Laurie Clarke (MIT Technology Review)
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ChatGPT Leaks: We Analyzed 1,000 Public AI Conversations—Here’s What We Found
- Users are sharing personally identifiable information (PII), sensitive emotional disclosures, and confidential material with ChatGPT.
- Only around 100 out of 1,000 total chats make up 53.3% of the over 43 million words we analyzed.
- Some users are sharing full resumes, suicidal ideation, family planning discussions, and discriminatory speech with the AI model.
- “Professional consultations” account for nearly 60% of the topics flagged.
ChatGPT Leaks: We Analyzed 1,000 Public AI Conversations—Here’s What We Found
We studied 43M+ words of ChatGPT conversations and saw that users are sharing highly sensitive info with the AI. Here's a breakdown of our findings.Shipra Sanganeria (SafetyDetectives)
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Probably a lifetime worth of monitoring Greenland and Antarctica decline still
For an ever shrinking number of glaciologists. Not a field to be sought, with little exception.
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‘Every company wants to produce the last barrel sold’: the plan to create a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty
Tzeporah Berman’s campaign group believes Cop30 will help its initiative to phase out oil, coal and gas take shape
To date, the treaty has been signed by a few small island countries which will become completely uninhabitable as sea levels rise.
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Are they trying to blame this one on "coding" as well?
aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/8/ha…
Have sections of the US Constitution gone missing from government website?
A Library of Congress website temporarily omitted parts of Article 1 due to a coding error corrected later that day.Al Jazeera
A group of more than 85 scientists find errors in a new Energy Department climate report
DOEresponseSite
On July 29, 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a report from its Climate Working Group (CWG). This report features prominently in the EPA's reconsideration of its 2009 Endangerment Finding.sites.google.com
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The Covid revenge policy
The Covid revenge policy
Trump brought us the Covid vaccine. Now he’s trying to take it away.Sean Rameswaram (Vox)
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If You Live In These Areas Of The U.S., You Need To Be Extra Careful With COVID Right Now
COVID-19 Is Surging Again — And These Regions Are Facing The Sharpest Spikes
While everyone should take precautions to stay well, folks in certain states should be extra careful.Jillian Wilson (HuffPost)
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Mrkawfee
in reply to ComradeSharkfucker • • •procapra
in reply to Mrkawfee • • •FooBarrington
in reply to Mrkawfee • • •TrueStalinistPatriot [comrade/them, any]
in reply to ComradeSharkfucker • • •ShinkanTrain
in reply to TrueStalinistPatriot [comrade/them, any] • • •ComradeSharkfucker
in reply to ShinkanTrain • • •