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stealthnerd, in Yes, Ubuntu Is Withholding Security Patches for Some Software

TLDR: Ubuntu Pro offers additional security patches to packages found in the universe repo. Universe is community maintained so Ubuntu is essentially stepping in to provide critical CVE patches to some popular software in this repo that the community has not addressed.

I suppose it depends on how you look at it but I don’t really see this as withholding patches. Software in this repo would otherwise be missing these patches and it’s a ton of work for Ubuntu to provide these patches themselves.

Now is they move glibc to universe and tell me to subscribe to get updates I’ll feel differently.

pastermil,

Yeah, I think Canonical is full of crap, but in this context, what they’re doing is justified.

This article is clickbait.

Bitrot,
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

The title is. The article itself is pretty generous.

GenderNeutralBro,

How does this compare to other distros?

Debian includes ffmpeg, for example, in the main stable repo. Given Debian’s reputation, I would think they are including these security patches in a timely manner, though I’m not entirely sure how to compare specific patches to verify this.

Of course, everything changes when you are selling support contracts. Canonical and Red Hat are the big two for enterprise because they provide support.

When I was last running Ubuntu on desktop, I signed up for an account and enabled these extra security updates. Yeah, it’s “free”, but it requires jumping through hoops. Requiring an account to get patches is the kind of user-hostile design pattern I expect from Apple or Google, but not in the desktop Linux world.

dan, (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Ubuntu and Debian are essentially the same here.

Debian’s contrib repo, which is the equivalent of Ubuntu’s universe repo, doesn’t get security updates from the Debian security team, as it’s not considered an official part of Debian. Package maintianers have to provide security updates. www.debian.org/security/faq#contrib

The difference is that Ubuntu provide paid support for contrib packages, including patches. Debian doesn’t have any official paid support options.

AProfessional, (edited )

Nobody else has this hybrid model. RHEL is a paid distro in general. Most others are just free entirely. They all patch CVEs when they can. Ubuntu doesn’t write all of their patches or anything.

interceder270, in Yes, Ubuntu Is Withholding Security Patches for Some Software

Gonna switch my server to Debian once DigitalOcean releases their Debian 12 guides.

Tired of seeing this “extended-security maintenance” bullshit on the most recent LTS of Ubuntu.

n2burns,

If it’s just the message that bugs you, you can disable ESM by commenting out the esm repo (the second answer here). That’s what I did.

interceder270, (edited )

The message is definitely annoying, but the fact they’re locking security updates behind paywalls makes me want to switch.

Just doesn’t make sense to pay extra for security updates when Debian gives them out for free.

fossisfun,
@fossisfun@lemmy.ml avatar

There are plenty of reasons to get rid of Ubuntu, but this isn’t one of them.

Before Ubuntu Pro, packages in universe (and multiverse) were not receiving (security) updates at all, unless someone from the community stepped up and maintained the package. Now Canonical provides security updates for universe, for the first time since Ubuntu has been introduced, via Ubuntu Pro, which is free for up to five personal devices and paid for all other use cases.

Debian is actually not that different (anymore). If you read the release notes of Debian 12, you’ll notice that quite a few package groups are excluded from guaranteed security updates, just like packages in universe are in Ubuntu. Unlike Ubuntu, Debian doesn’t split its package repository by security support though.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

via Ubuntu Pro, which is free for up to five personal devices and paid for all other use cases

this stinks a lot like red hat's early days.

we know how that turned out.

interceder270, (edited )

Looks like Canonical is trying to sell me security updates I would be getting for free on Debian.

Debian 12 likely isn’t that different, but I don’t want to follow a Debian 11 setup guide then run into issues.

dan, (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

security updates I would be getting for free on Debian.

Debian contrib doesn’t get official security updates, the same as Ubuntu universe. www.debian.org/security/faq#contrib

In both Debian and Ubuntu, only the main repo gets official security updates for free. Ubuntu has a paid option for universe whereas Debian doesn’t have that option and relies on the package maintainer to provide any updates.

I’d still recommend Debian over Ubuntu though, for various reasons.

interceder270, (edited )

Do users get the package maintainer’s updates for free?

dan, (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Definitely on Debian, and I think on Ubuntu too.

Package maintainers can be slow to update packages though. Debian have a separate security team that get patches out ASAP, and those packages go into a separate security repo. I imagine Ubuntu does the same. It’s that security team that only deals with “official” packages, meaning anything that’s not in contrib, non-free, or non-free-firmware.

interceder270,

To me, it looks like Debian and Ubuntu are both secure but you have to pay extra to make Ubuntu at least as secure as Debian.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

What you’re paying extra for are timely security updates for community-maintained packages that aren’t an official part of the OS. Debian doesn’t provide that for free either. Debian doesnt provide it at all since they don’t have any paid options.

interceder270,

So users just run insecure packages on Debian?

dan, (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

No. All the official packages in the main repo get security updates from the Debian security team.

Only the packages in contrib, non-free and non-free-firmware don’t have official security updates and rely on the package maintainers. These are not considered part of the Debian distro, and I don’t even have them enabled on my servers.

Out-of-the-box, Debian only enables the main repo, plus the non-free-firmware one if any of your devices require it (e.g. Nvidia graphics, Realtek Bluetooth, etc). You have to manually enable contrib and non-free, and by doing that, it’s assumed you know what you’re doing.

In the case of non-free and non-free-firmware, they can be closed source software (like the Nvidia drivers) or have a non-open-source license that doesn’t allow distributing modified versions. In those cases, the Debian team is unable to patch them even if they wanted to.

TigrisMorte,

Nope. Not accurate at all.

interceder270, (edited )

Really? Why?

TigrisMorte,

Because the updates are not anyone "trying to sell me security updates I would be getting for free on Debian."

fossisfun, (edited )
@fossisfun@lemmy.ml avatar

This has always been the case with Ubuntu. Ubuntu only ever supported its main repository with security updates. Now they offer (paid) support for the universe repository in addition, which is a bonus for Ubuntu users, as they now have a greater selection of packages with security updates.

If you don’t opt-in to use Ubuntu Pro, nothing changes and Ubuntu will be as secure (or insecure) as it has always been. If you disable universe and multiverse you have a Ubuntu system where all packages receive guaranteed security updates for free.

Please note: I still don’t recommend Ubuntu due to snapd not supporting third-party repositories, but that’s no reason not to get the facts right.


Debian has always been the better choice if you required security updates for the complete package repository.

Personally I have my doubts if Debian actually manages to reliably backport security updates for all its packages. Afterall Eclipse was stuck on version 3.8 for multiple Debian releases due to lack of a maintainer …

interceder270,

Thank you for the information.

I’ll still be going with Debian because Ubuntu keeps telling me I have 2 security updates locked behind their paywall.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

debian's repo is massive. there are holes here and there from time-to-time as is likely the case in any distro--paid updates or not.

BeatTakeshi, (edited ) in What happens when Linus dies/retires?
@BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world avatar

sudo mount --bind /linus2 /linus

cupcakezealot, in An Untold History of Thunderbird
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

the original thunderbird and firebird logos take me back

Untitled_Pribor, (edited ) in An Untold History of Thunderbird

There are 3 types of men

Untitled_Pribor, (edited )

Weird, looks like the image doesn’t show up on lemmy. Shows up fine on /kbin

rah, in Should I install Linux on my smartphone?

I guess doing the same on my smartphone wouldn’t be too hard

Snigger

Omega_Jimes,

Computer is computer, and it works great. Phone is computer, so it should work great.

I understand this thought train, but yeah I had the same reaction as well.

Zamundaaa, in AMD+Wayland+dual monitor = Screen flickering

That sounds like your TV is temporarily disconnecting at random, or at least doing something that the GPU detects as a disconnect.

Most likely, AMD’s hotplug detection is too aggressive. You can report that at gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues

florge, in An Untold History of Thunderbird

Really like that original logo

aniki, in A new pilot will investigate the use of Forgejo (A non profit FOSS alternative to github and gitea) in german schools

deleted_by_author

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  • neshura,
    @neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

    afaik none of the current options offer fedi support.

    Forgejo is a Fork of Gitea made because Gitea is managed by a For-Profit company. Their code is almost identical, in fact Forgejo is a drop-in replacement for Gitea. Gitea and Forgejo are (iirc) both working on the same federation support but Forgejo seems to be further ahead since they announced that they’ll upstream the Federation code to Gitea.

    aniki,

    deleted_by_author

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  • cerement,
    @cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

    from a couple random comments, it sounds like the migration to Codeberg is relatively nice – if you want to do the interim step of getting out of GitHub and worry about personal instance at some later point …

    dan,
    @dan@upvote.au avatar

    What does being federated mean in this case? Git is already distributed. Is it just for discovery, or do you mean for things like issues and discussions?

    neshura,
    @neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

    exactl, issues, discussions, merge requests anything like that

    onlinepersona,

    You’ll be able to (among other things) open a merge request from another instance. Gitlab and other source forges require you to create an account on each instance you want to contribute to.

    dan,
    @dan@upvote.au avatar

    That’s a great use of federation. Thanks for the info.

    beta_tester, (edited ) in A new pilot will investigate the use of Forgejo (A non profit FOSS alternative to github and gitea) in german schools

    I knew about codeberg but not forgejo

    Codeberg is a public non-profit Forgejo instance hosted by the actual maintainers of the tool. They’re compromised with free software and provide their services with no pay walls other than a single limitaiton: only accepting open-source projects in their instance. That shouldn’t be a problem if you want to work on open-source, right?

    devforum.roblox.com/t/…/2505867

    NightAuthor,

    Compromised?

    dewittlebook,

    “Made up of” -> the non profit consists of software that must be free and open source…?

    Patch,

    It’s a typo. It should be “comprised”.

    possiblylinux127,

    This is the FOSS community, open up!

    amanneedsamaid,

    I think they meant comprised?

    neshura,
    @neshura@bookwormstory.social avatar

    Forgejo is developed by the people at Codeberg, they just rebranded their own Forgejo instance to Codeberg and added some extra around it (like Pages or the FAQ sections)

    ReversalHatchery,

    They’re compromised with free software

    Lol

    yetAnotherUser,

    GitHub uses Git, and you don’t need any cool interface for Git, just a terminal. But we don’t like terminals, they’re ugly! Issues, pull requests, projects, wikis, actions… thanks to code management.

    This guy doesn’t git.

    Kerb, (edited ) in A new pilot will investigate the use of Forgejo (A non profit FOSS alternative to github and gitea) in german schools
    @Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    i was confused for way to long, trying to figure out
    why a pilot would investigate a github alternative.

    im an idiot 😂😂😂

    andrew,
    @andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun avatar

    He’s not even experienced, he’s new! Why’s he the one we picked to investigate?

    shrugal, in What happens when Linus dies/retires?

    His firstborn son will take over as Linus II, as is tradition.

    duncesplayed,

    Hm, he and his wife are getting on in years. If they want a son, they should probably get on that right away.

    fluxion,

    He has decided it shall pass on to his eldest daughter, and he has already fulfilled his kingly duties. Long may she reign.

    Wes_Dev,

    The far future: A man sits at a table, staring at a floating hologram display. He watches as an indecipherable block of alphanumeric characters wiggles and splits into two segments. He nods slowly.

    He takes a breath and closes his eyes, broadcasting a message to everyone on duty that day.

    “Merge the request. Tell Linus#3418 that Wayland is now the default display manager.”

    shrugal,

    For King and Kernel!

    BOFH666, in A new pilot will investigate the use of Forgejo (A non profit FOSS alternative to github and gitea) in german schools

    Noticed someone mentioning this (the product ) last weekend and did a next-next-finish install on some old hardware.

    This is really nice, got me some nice actions running already.

    I used to build locally and use git, cgit and Trac, but will probably move everything to forgejo.

    dan, (edited )
    @dan@upvote.au avatar

    Trac

    That’s a name I haven’t heard in a looong time. I used to use a pre-1.0 version before GitHub became popular.

    BautAufWasEuchAufbaut, in An Untold History of Thunderbird
    @BautAufWasEuchAufbaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I really like the new logo.

    LemmyIsFantastic, (edited ) in Should I install Linux on my smartphone?

    No. None of it is worth the effort. None of it works well, you’ll fight with payments, and shit is going to be buggy and unless you really want to learn you don’t sound too technical.

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