My most recent version of this was symlinking SSL Certs before building Nix packages, a simple task I just kept forgetting to and was then greeted by errors.
The very evening I installed Linux for the first time (I think it was Ubuntu 12.04), my Wifi stick was the first major hurdle. I was a teenager, had no idea about package managers and such, but the drivers for my stick were only available in an uncompiled format, so I had to first learn what build utils and kernel dev packages were, download them and their dependencies onto the windows PC of my dad and copy them onto a CD.
After I had figured all that out (took me.a while), I learned how to compile on the fly.
After I had run ./configure and it finallyfinally ran through without error, the config script had this last line:
Configure done successfully. Now type 'make' and pray
Things have changed over the years, but they haven't changed enough.
Yep, been in the same boat 😂. Was an LTS fan for a long long time till I realized… this shit ain’t worth it 😂.
Everthing there is out there in 99% of the cases compiles against latest libraries. And well, LTS is just… lagging behind 🤷. So, you solve one lib dependcy and then, bam, another one pops up… OK, solved that one, bam, another one 😒… it just gets frustrating to compile stuff on LTS.
And then you get all sorts of errors from the package manager cuz you did the unthinkable - install latest libs on an LTS distro.
LTS is good for one thing only nowadays - servers.
Compiling starts to work rather well once you've done it a few times. Especially when you get more used to understanding what ./configure tries to tell you. You should really try to get behind that, since you Linux will
I used to do sudo !!, but then I’ve started learning the shortcuts of my shell a bit more - Ctrl+A jumps to the beginning of the line, which, technically speaking, is a saving of 1 (!) keystroke, compared to Shift+1+1.
This has also led to discover that emacs is actually much more useful compared to vim as it uses the same shortcuts.
If you already submitted the command, you’ll have to hit Up first to have a line to jump to the beginning of, though, so it’ll be the same number of keystrokes either way.
I do the same thing you do, just with vi-mode keystrokes (up, then esc-I).
I was just thinking about why many things on Linux are better. Like the install process on Linux is years ahead of windows.
Then it occurred to me that windows only improves things that can make them money. If you need to install windows, then you can deal with the crappy installer.
Linux devs improve the parts they think need to be better. The decisions are not guided by money and can be made without bias.
There’s that one screen where you disable telemetry, which I’ve always consider a part of the install process, but is there anything malicious other than that? The process as a whole is quite straightforward in my experience.
Try installing debian some time, the installer makes windows’ installer feel like its for a piece of software you got of a sketchy site that wants to install 16 other things not even related to it
We must be using different installers then, because between the amount of telemetry you have to turn off, the dark patterns, and the insistence on using a Microsoft account the whole experience reminds me of installing one of those “driver updaters” when I was a kid and before I learned that was a very bad idea
But at the same time, they do offer increased security when they work correctly. It’s like saying we shouldn’t use virtualization anymore because historically some virtual devices have been exploitable in a way that you could escape the VM. Or lately, Spectre/Meltdown. Or a bit of an older one, Rowhammer.
Sometimes, security measures open a hole while closing many others. That’s how software works unfortunately, especially in something as complex as the Linux kernel.
Using namespaces and keeping your system up to date is the best you can do as a user. Or maybe add a layer of VM. But no solution is foolproof, if you really need that much security use multiple devices, ideally airgapped ones whenever possible.
6 years ago, I was using a USB wifi adapter with my desktop (my friends next door paid for internet and we paid them half the bill to share).
I had picked this wifi adapter specifically because it had linux support, even though I used windows (I had an inkling I’d switch). So, I tried to switch but upon boot I couldn’t wifi because the adapters module wasn’t bundled by my distro so I had to instal ‘dkms’, but I couldn’t do that without an internet connection…
I had a similar experience trying to install a m.2 drive in my win7 PC. It needed a hotfix to work but Microsoft had taken down the downloads so I ended up finding out it was in an update pack from I think Lenovo’s website and pulled it out of that.
To get it to work in Windows I literally had to go to a website that was only Chinese, download a zip file, and extract a dll that would then work when pointed to.
It’s called manual driver install in Windows… pretty common with older hardware.
Most of those just go over Windows Update now or work with a generic driver that comes with Windows. Only really obscure drivers need manual installation.
infosec.pub
Active