rufus

@rufus@discuss.tchncs.de

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rufus,

Depends. Lots of universities have Linux and Windows computers.

Most companies use Windows, some also Mac and Linux.

I’m alwasys fascinated by IT people who manage a fleet of Linux servers and containers, but sit in front of a Windows PC. 😃

rufus,

That statement is certainly true.

But how do you think you install software on Windows? You download a random installer from the internet and double-click it. The installer is an executable file and runs some code on your computer to set up the software. I’d argue it’s exactly the same.

In the one instance you copy and paste code and run it. In the other instance you execute an installer that also contains the random code. And you can’t even have a look what happens.

The real issue is: You have to trust the vendor. If you don’t trust Mullvad, don’t run their 5 lines of code. But you then also shouldn’t install their software and not run their windows installer. I don’t see a way around this ‘trust’ issue.

The proper way of course would be a standardised process that also confines the software into containers with minimal permissions. Something like Android Apps. In theory you could add a default update process so the vendor just needs to define an update server in the (apk) installer file. Google didn’t do this, but they want people to use their Play Store. And I don’t think we have a permission system that is actively used on any of the major desktop operating systems, anyways.

rufus, (edited )

Thanks. Yeah I spent some time with it and drew some finite-state machines with TikZ(?), other diagrams, we assembled a few physics homework assignment scripts to tidy the data from experiments, do linear regression and generate beautiful diagrams. It also taught me a bit about typesetting and proper formatting. I ‘wasted’ quite some time with it but a homework assignment in TeX looks almost like a scientific paper. Depending on the later career it’s a good skill to have. And I still prefer writing stuff with that instead of fighting LibreOffice. YMMV, since I also like programming and prefer text and the command line over GUIs.

Is there such a thing as split-screen grep?

I want to run a command and see all of its output on the left hand side, while simultaneously searching/grepping for particular lines on the right hand side. In other words, I want a temporary vertically split screen in my CLI, ideally with scrollback on each side of the split, but where I expect the left hand side to be...

rufus,

Couldn’t you just check the rsync exit codes? echo $? check if both return 0?

rufus, (edited )

Not necessarily. There are other operating systems and frameworks for embedded devices. Especially for commercial products. It doesn’t have to be something like Linux and GPL code.

en.wikipedia.org/…/Comparison_of_real-time_operat…

This is a list of many other choices with many of them having non-copyleft licenses. And a thermostat is a comparatively simple device. They could also have implemented most things themselves and just taken a network-stack to connect it to the outside world. (I think network is something that is very complex and companies just buy a solution instead of writing all of that code.)

rufus,

Is there even a sender? All Android devices in my house don’t include Miracast anymore.

Is it actually dangerous to run Firefox as root?

I have a few Linux servers at home that I regularly remote into in order to manage, usually logged into KDE Plasma as root. Usually they just have several command line windows and a file manager open (I personally just find it more convenient to use the command line from a remote desktop instead of directly SSH-ing into the...

rufus, (edited )

Yes. Running anything as root is potentially dangerous. And a browser is a complex and big piece of software with many security issues that can be (potentially) triggered remotely. So it’s bad because of two reasons.

Btw a desktop environment also is a complex and big piece of software with potential issues. Running the whole desktop as root is another thing you wouldn’t do for extra security.

The proper way is to just create a user account and run the desktop and browser as a user. Open a terminal and ‘su’ or ‘sudo’ to limit root rights to the operations that actually need those permissions.

Just running everything as root certainly works. But you do away with all the extra layers of security and end up with something as secure as MS-DOS or a Windows in the 90s or early 2000s.

Is Ubuntu deserving the hate? (lemmy.ml)

Long story short, I have a desktop with Fedora, lovely, fast, sleek and surprisingly reliable for a near rolling distro (it failed me only once back around Fedora 34 or something where it nuked Grub). Tried to install on a 2012 i7 MacBook Air… what a slog!!! Surprisingly Ubuntu runs very smooth on it. I have been bothering all...

rufus, (edited )

It’s relatively alright for something that’s called unstable. There is also testing which is tested for at least 10 days. And you can mix and match, but that’s not recommended either.

I wouldn’t put it on my server. And I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who isn’t okay with fixing the occasional hiccup. But I’ve been using it for years and I like it.

However, mind that it’s not supported and they do not pay attention to security fixes.

rufus, (edited )

Thanks for clarifying. Yeah I implied that but didn’t explain all the nuances. I’ve been scolded before for advertising the use of Debian testing. I’m quite happy with it. But since I’m not running any cutting edge things on my server and Docker etc have become quite stable… I don’t see any need to put testing on the server. I also use stable there and embrace the security fixes and stability / low maintenance. I however run testing/unstable on my laptop.

rufus, (edited )

Glad you were able to figure it out. Yeah, there are a lot of settings and different moving parts involved in doing audio. And the config files are all over the place. It can get nasty.

There has to be a way to make your settings and that pipeline the (system) default. Or at least change the profile that gets loaded for your specific soundcard and change and override the channel mapping so it won’t load something else first.

rufus,

Obviously not any more.

rufus, (edited )

Is Usenet always that expensive? Their recommended plan is $30 per month with a discount for the first three months. And the cheapest one is $10/month but that only gets you 20GB…

I’m not really a pirate so I don’t know much about paid pirating services. But I’m pretty sure I could get Netflix and Disney+ for that kind of money. Is Usenet access really worth that much?

rufus, (edited )

Hehe. I think the majority of people (who haven’t stumbled here by accident) don’t really need that reminder.

I’m a bit unsure. I don’t really mind stealing from big companies. Even more so if they make all those stupid business decisions and start to become more and more greedy. I personally think it’s a bit unethical to pay for stolen goods. That is fencing. But I think everyone should decide for themselves how they’d like to handle this.

If Nextflix only licenses a show for temporary use by me, it’s more a license violation than a proper analogy to stealing that would apply. But maybe I shoud read a book and not watch that much TV anyways.

rufus, (edited )

Yeah. Spotify really got to me. It’s so convenient to have everything available. At least it used to be that way except for the one-off obscure album or a few artists who still own their copyrights and can decide to not participate. But lately a few of the songs have become greyed out and unavailable. And the unavoidable enshittification has begun.

I still remember the times when I bought CDs and owned stuff. And the time when lots of series were available on Netflix and it was worth it’s (lower) monthly price. But as of now half the movies and series I like aren’t available. Like Star Trek, all the Disney movies…

And concerning Spotify: I read they pay an artist at most a third of a cent per streamed song. That is ripping off the artists anyways. I think I could just cancel my subscription, rip off the artists myself and cut out the middle man.

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    rufus, (edited )

    Well I got a Lenovo Yoga with a touchscreen and I somewhat disagree. I use the Gnome desktop. And it follows most of the design principles you’d have on other devices like Apple or Android. Sure, it’s not a 1:1 copy of Apple. And the high-dpi auto-configuration and -detection may not be there yet. So you’d need to configure it yourself. You can set the UI scaling in the settings app and all the buttons become (for example) twice the size. This works really well.

    The on-screen keyboard has annoyed me to no end. But it got better and maybe most issues will be solved once we switch to Wayland and it’ll pop up at the right moment. (I advise against installing important system apps via Flatpak, this generally leads to issues and incompatibility. And it’s not Linux’s fault.)

    The full disk encryption is a bit of an issue. You’d need to put the key into the TPM module and the tutorial to do it is really long. I don’t see a good solution there, aside from putting the device into standby and not rebooting it that often.)

    I don’t think Gnome is clunky at all, given the on-screen keyboard pops up… Auto-rotate works, the button sizes are configurable, the stylus from Lenovo works out of the box. You have a full screen app launcher that is nice… And it’s super responsive on my device.

    I agree that sometimes the experience get’s interrupted by software that isn’t adapted for touchscreens. Most of the desktop is. And some browsers are annoying and we’d be right to criticise that. But if Visual Studio Code lets you down if you start developing a Rust application… I’m not sure how that compares to an iPad, because you wouldn’t be able to do it at all on such a device. So I wouldn’t include desktop software.

    Is linux good for someone tech illererate.

    Now i’ve been considering moving to linux. I don’t have much of a history using a computer and find it tougher to use than my phone. But I also really appreciate the foss movement. I’ve currently got an old laptop running windows 11 I think and it would prolly speed up with linux too. But I’m afraid I’d fuck smth up...

    rufus, (edited )

    I’d say so, too. I’ve seen at least 3 tech illiterate people (who gave it a chance) be really happy with Linux. You will probably face some annoyance at some point, as it is with everything. But I think Linux is a good choice. Get help installing it if you know someone who can. It’s not that difficult but that would speed up the process. The most important thing is to save your data so you don’t accidentally overwrite it.

    How many of you run a Linux phone (Pine64, Librem etc) as your daily driver?

    I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?...

    rufus, (edited )

    Yeah, I think so, too. It doesn’t have to be this way. I mean this is mainly due to the way ARM hardware works, lack of good drivers, maintenance and dedication by the manufacturers of that hardware. And everything is quite fragmented. In theory we could have a hardware platform that has good open-source drivers and is well-supported. The Pinephone was an attempt to establish one platform that people could focus on. But it has quite some limitations and also hardware/design issues.

    And Linux isn’t quite there yet. I mean I love Linux and it can run on embedded devices very well. But things like connected standby (for example receiving chat messages while the hardware sleeps and saves power) just isn’t implemented in a desktop environment that was made for computers. And also not in a chat application that was made for computers. So, set aside the hardware and driver issues, we have another issue with Linux software that wasn’t made to run on smartphones.

    There is a way around that and that is to add those capabilities to the Linux kernel. And also give applications means to stay connected in the background, adapt to different screen sizes, rotate the screen and evict themselves from RAM. It’s kind of what Android is. It builds upon the Linux kernel and adds lots of stuff that is specifically useful on smartphones.

    I hope someday some of those techniques get adopted into the mainline Linux kernel and also the frameworks the desktop software uses.

    rufus, (edited )

    Thank you. I completely agree. We can’t do stuff ourselves, my Pixel 4a is End of Life now and all the proprietary parts of the system won’t be updated anymore, which is a shame because the hardware is still perfectly fine.

    And I hate the business decisions Google makes. Android is built upon Linux and the core is supposed to be free software. But then they move more and more stuff into their proprietary Google services packages. Like the proper keyboard with swipe typing, the better calendar app, text to speech, push notifications and all of the payment stuff. I personally replaced everything on the phone with a custom ROM, and did not install the google services. But I had to find alternatives to all of that and some things really don’t work as well. It’s a hassle and some things just don’t work at all. Like some stuff that requires in-app payment. I don’t care too much, because I get most of my Apps from F-Droid anyways and they’re open-source. But I can’t pay with my phone in the supermarket, can’t rent those silly electric scooters and a few other things.

    rufus, (edited )

    I’m always happy to talk to people ;-)

    Yeah, paying with credit card also works for me. And I use the browser a lot for stuff like that. Just the added layers in the apps sometimes don’t work. Like when I tried riding one of those electric scooters. I was able to put in my credit card details and they got accepted, and I know my phone is capable of doing NFC, but somehow there is something else in that app that prevents me from doing the actual transaction and rent the scooter. Online-shopping and things like that work fine. I don’t need an App to use Amazon or PayPal… So I wouldn’t know either.

    Thx. I’m going to look up the de-googled phones you mentioned. I think I will try to use my Pixel as long as it works, but in theory it isn’t supported anymore and I’m supposed to buy a new one now. At least that’s what Google and GrapheneOS tell me.

    Alright, I'm gonna "take one for the team" -- what is with the "downvote-happy" users lately?

    Title. “lmao internet points” and all, but what is the point of participating in a community that sees assumptions and other commonly non-harmful commentaries/posts as “bad” this easily? Do folks in here are really that needy of self-validation, even if it means seeking such from something completely insignificant like...

    rufus, (edited )

    Heavily depends on the community. I see lots of communities with few down-votes happening. But it’s definitely a thing in -for example- the political/news ones.

    rufus, (edited )

    Well, Codeberg is a non-profit. I would say if it’s just a few kilobytes/megabytes of code, upload it and donate $10. That should be enough to store that for decades.

    I sometimes look for small stuff. Boilerplate code, how other people configure stuff that isn’t well documented, niche interest stuff even if it’s not finished. Sometimes stuff like that is useful.

    rufus, (edited )

    If you use one of the standard graphical desktops (Gnome, KDE, …) you don’t need to explore all of the config files. The most important settings should be in a settings program.

    And programs should (mostly) come with sane default settings anyways. Debian adds a few. So the usual way (for beginners) is to start with the defaults and change around stuff once you want to customize something, and starting with the software you use the most (like an text editor, …). The standard GUI software (like your browser, LibreOffice) has GUI settings dialogues anyways.

    rufus,

    I think the easiest way is to take them from the ‘experimental’ branch of debian’s own repository. But read about the consequences of enabling experimental, first.

    rufus, (edited )

    I’d say 4GB of RAM is barely enough. It’ll probably do for the things you mentioned. But opening a browser and surfing the web, or using modern Electron apps/software will quickly get you to the limit.

    Another idea would be buying something second-hand / refurbished. It’ll get you better specs for roughly the same money. But probably not a Surface or a tablet, so YMMV with that approach.

    rufus, (edited )

    I’m not so sure if taking screenshots of exact settings is the correct mindset. Sometimes you have a different selection of software available and you might for example want to change your email-client or learn a new video editor because some other software works better on linux or is tied into the system better. You also need to adapt a few workflows to be maximally effective. Because some things just work differently on Linux.

    I think your approach is quite good. All I want to say is: I’ve seen people get very disappointed with Linux. Especially if they try to recreate their Windows-experience closely. Be prepared to let go of your now perfectly configured software and start fresh with more things than you currently anticipate.

    But Linux is awesome. I think the most important thing is to do a backup first. In case something goes wrong and you accidentally wipe your harddrive or you need to go back.

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