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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • always check downloads (by David on 2016-11-14 02:25:21 GMT from United States)
I download lots of isos, and check each with utility from raylin.wordpress.com, I use windows since I must so this utility comes in handy as I evaluate many linux & BSD releases.
2 • checking ISO's (by tom joad on 2016-11-14 03:10:11 GMT from United States)
I would say 90-95% of the time I do the hash thing. That is the easiest and the fastest for me. Sure someone could jack with a file to add some 'spyware' but I think it would be pretty difficult to produce the exact say hash output after doing that.
I have spent a bit of time fooling with files and hashes to see how much they change with just a small change. Just adding a comma or deleting a period has a profound effect on the hash out put. I think the signature and keys is even more difficult to manipulate a file while still getting the hash exactly right.
What surprised me was, even at this early point, some folks never check a file download. Really? Why not? I worry more about getting the exact file in the download. A downloaded file with some lines of missing code is worthless and a true waste of one's time. Security is one aspect. But the larger one is making sure one gets the complete file. And doing the hash check is so easy too.
3 • Download checking... (by Bobbie Sellers on 2016-11-14 03:28:10 GMT from United States)
I have been using check sums for quite a while.
Especially since I started downloading numerous .iso files for the LUG.
After all the members who get media from me deserve at least that
much security.
For my own downloads of non-OS files most entertainment I really.
feel that the bad files will fail to run in whatever player I am using
if they are corrupted somehow..
I really prefer that when I have to use Bit Torrent to get a file that it
should have the check sums and signature coming with it and am
sorry that more of the big distributions fail in this regard.
Some of the smaller distributions fail to list the check sums
in a readily accessible place and clicking on a tiny icon
that will display the information in a momentary fashion
is not what I think of as handy.
In any case however I get the published check sum it goes
into a file with a descriptive name.
When I check the file the date is recorded into that
same file along with output of the command for
reference,
bliss
4 • Endless OS (by Herold von haitabou on 2016-11-14 06:35:27 GMT from Germany)
Anyone thinking of using this data collection tool should read the privacy terms carefully. No way I or anyone in my family or company would wish to use this distro. The only positive side is they admit to what they are doing.
HH
5 • verification of downloads (by kenedy on 2016-11-14 06:38:50 GMT from South Africa)
I only check md5sum of .iso images for distros just to make sure that the image is authentic and that it will work, not for security reasons. Once I get the md5sum value I google it and the search results tell me what I need to know.
6 • sabayon (by blah on 2016-11-14 08:12:33 GMT from Spain)
If you only found one annoyance in sabayon after this long, you are clearly not using it very much. :D
7 • NAS4Free & back-up (by Sondar on 2016-11-14 08:13:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Clonezilla! Two identical drives, one for daily use, the second normally static. Both drives in same machine or separate ones. Unhook second drive via caddy door if using single machine. Easy peasy, no third party/network/foreignOS involvement.
8 • Endless (by kenedy on 2016-11-14 08:20:46 GMT from South Africa)
Endless OS English full is 13.77 GB worth of download data ! I will not be trying it. I get maximum of 25GB per month from my ISP.
9 • Kubuntu default scheduler is deadline.. (by morgan on 2016-11-14 09:14:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
The Kubuntu 16.10 scheduler is deadline (same as the other ubuntu variants),
This is on a fresh install
------------------------------
dmesg |grep sched
[ 0.899430] io scheduler noop registered
[ 0.899430] io scheduler deadline registered (default)
[ 0.899435] io scheduler cfq registered
-------------------------------
However I believe it uses CFQ on SATA disk.
10 • Backup ! (by LAZA on 2016-11-14 10:30:02 GMT from Germany)
If the data is not backed up - it is not important !!!
Therefore, it can deleted without hesitation if the system - hard- or software - has crashed...
11 • Endless OS (by Robert McQueen on 2016-11-14 10:48:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
@Herold comment #4, the detailed metrics instrumentation in the OS is completely optional, which of the automated information we gather is of concern to you? We use location and computer vendor/model information to track where we put our effort in advertising, translation/localisation, content & hardware support.
@kenedy comment #8, the full image is designed for systems with poor or no internet connectivity, so it has all apps/content pre-installed which obviously makes it much larger. For a trial or a system with reasonable internet, you can get the Basic image and download just the apps you wish.
12 • NAS (by Marco on 2016-11-14 11:35:11 GMT from Germany)
Currently I make backups on an external usb harddrive, but I was thinking about buying a NAS to backup data from my wife's laptop, as well.
Would you recommend buying a out-of-the box NAS or would be building one the better option? I have an empty case at home and a few spare parts, but I would need to buy a MB, CPU, RAM, etc.
13 • backup (by argent on 2016-11-14 11:55:32 GMT from United States)
Best low cost backup for me has been an external hard disk enclosure which does nothing but act as storage and nothing more. Keep all archives and transfer daily and keep it in a safe when not at home. Don't trust cloud or any other system since anything can be hacked and data stolen.
Being sensible and knowing that I would be a low level target, not too concerned.
Also have two other machines and both run multiple drives, but use one specific for important things.
NAS seems like a good option and will a look and test it.
14 • hashes are not for security! (by PR on 2016-11-14 12:14:25 GMT from Germany)
checking your file and it's published hash does only show that the download finished without errors within the transmission. it does not show anything more.
please think about the linux mint breach a few months back: intruders replace your iso and of course adapt the published hash.
checking your file's signature gives you a lot more authenticity for your file. linux mint downloaders who would have checked the pgp-signature of their downloaded iso (i don't know if the did provide them, but they sure should do now) would have noticed the faulty file, although it matched the hash.
15 • Ubuntu Budgie (by Alex on 2016-11-14 13:35:25 GMT from United States)
Good that Ubuntu Budgie in now an official flavour, only the guy, who created Budgie desktop, Ikey is not interested in doing any work with .deb files, so it'd be an uphill task for the developer of the Ubuntu flavour. Solus-Project only supports Arch, but through the community.
16 • Downloading ISOs (by klu9 on 2016-11-14 13:47:17 GMT from Mexico)
BitTorrent is ideal for this, and I always look for the torrent, as it automatically takes care of checking the multi-part hash and redownloading only the parts that got corrupted.
17 • Checking ISOs (by a on 2016-11-14 14:25:58 GMT from France)
I use dowmthemall and often bittorrent to download ISOs. BitTorrent takes care of making sure the download is correct, and I never had download issues with downthemall (I installed it because Firefox was stopping downloads in the middle without any warning). So I don’t feel the need to check the hash on top of that.
For security purposes checking the hash is useless because it’s on the same web page as the ISO, so if an attacker can change one they can change the other too. Checking PGP signatures should be safer but it’s too much work.
18 • A good idea behind EndlessOS (by Lennie on 2016-11-14 15:09:42 GMT from Canada)
There appears a very good idea behind EndlessOS. Their videos, https://endlessm.com/videos/ are interesting, and how to install too, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-7PWKwmfE
It is the same Gnome3, but something different. And, easy for those, who know how to use a smartphone.
19 • Verifying ISOs (by cykodrone on 2016-11-14 15:14:00 GMT from Canada)
My first choice is sha or md5, but yeah, I definitely like to verify them, whatever way I can so I voted 'combo'.
Speaking of rolling distros, I've had PCLOS MATE on my machine since forever, but recently when updating it insists on installing Adwaita icons and uninstalling Gnome icons, which actually causes some icons to go missing after the update (like right-click open for example), so I have to manually reverse the situation (uninstalling Adwaita automatically marks Gnome icons for reinstallation). This all started after the last update of the MATE desktop to 1.16.1, anybody else having this issue? Other than that, it's fairly stable and bug free, even running the latest 4.8.x kernel, my machine hates the 4.4.x branch.
20 • @19, Missing icons (by a on 2016-11-14 16:23:53 GMT from France)
Same situation on Gentoo, a couple weeks ago gnome-icon-theme was automatically removed and that caused some icons to be missing. I installed faenza-icon-theme to solve the issue, which by the way also pulled in gnome-icon-theme anyway…
21 • @19, 20 broken theming in MATE (by curious on 2016-11-14 16:32:39 GMT from Germany)
I've noticed quite a lot of breakage among the themes in new versions of MATE lately (specifically when testing Korora 24 and the new MATE Edition of Solus).
If one doesn't like the "new, modern" ugly flat low-color themes with minuscule scrollbars and no window-borders, one is slowly running out of options. Even the bog-standard Raleigh theme now has glitches and frequently shows those horrible Adwaita-looking elements.
Fortunately, this sort of rubbish is not yet happening in Xfce, but at the moment, the future looks ugly.
22 • @21 (by a on 2016-11-14 16:42:15 GMT from France)
I’m using Xfce actually, not MATE. My prefered theme is Drakfire Black which is beautiful and has normal scrollbars with arrows. It’s only for Gtk2 (and Qt with gtkstyle) though. The default Xfwm theme has one pixel borders so I use an older one instead.
23 • Verifying ISO... (by Vukota on 2016-11-14 16:58:58 GMT from Montenegro)
Verifying ISOs downloaded is not just integrity checking, which may cause you a headache down the road during failed installation, but the security feature. How can you tell for sure that downloaded ISO from a mirror or torrent was not purposely modified or that you were not served modified ISO by some kind of reverse proxy by some malicious third party? It would be like installing a very malicious and powerful virus, instead of the OS, without being aware of it. Do you think that you may be able to spot it later? Scan for it with some kind of antivirus? Think again! It is at least 10 times easier to create a such malicious counterfeit distro, than it is to create virus which you may shield from by pragmatic practices.
24 • theming not related to DE (by PR on 2016-11-14 17:12:12 GMT from Germany)
@21 @22
gtk3 broke everything. stick to gtk2 and wait until the fixed themes make the way into your distro
25 • Endless OS (by Lennie on 2016-11-14 19:00:00 GMT from Canada)
Checked this distro quite thoroughly. Its something quite different from all distros here at Distrowatch. It is using Gnome 3, but in quite a different way, and something spectacular had happened. I am glad that someone out of the mainstream distro developers thought of something completely different.
Most probably there are some more people like this developer.
Interesting part is the way how the distro gets installed into a USB drive and how it boots in a UEFI laptop. Whatever apps you install, gets installed to that USB stick as another disk - persistence in a way. The other matter is how the apps are created and what they are and where they are situated. It has something like an App Store,
I have been looking inside the distro for a while, trying to think the way, the dev had been thinking. When, I tried to install an app from other sources (from app owner's web site), it said sorry, outside apps cannot be installed. I did the same thing as the dev, and got some apps working. Actually you don't install an app as in all other distros here at Distrowatch.
If anyone wants to try something not-out-of-the-box, download the Linux version and write it to a USB stick. You are in for a pleasant surprise!
26 • Fedora 25 not coming out, Nov. 15th, maybe Nov. 22nd. (by Scott Dowdle on 2016-11-14 20:01:18 GMT from United States)
They had a Go/No-Go meeting last week and decided to delay Fedora 25 due to a blocker bug. Maybe the next Go/No-Go will be a Go and if so, then Fedora 25 will hit Nov. 22nd. Or not. We'll see.
27 • @24 gtk3 broke everything (by Jeff on 2016-11-14 20:25:31 GMT from United States)
This is done intentionally.
GTK3 is built specifically for Gnome 3
Each new release breaks all themes built against previous versions.
This is done to force use of the Gnome 3 theme and icon set which is released at the same time, to make all Gnome 3 installs look the same.
This is done to 'protect the brand'.
Their internal emails have said this.
If you don't like it and complain to them, they will tell you to go use something else.
28 • @25 Endless (by Gerr on 2016-11-14 21:00:51 GMT from United States)
Your comment intrigued me and I downloaded this Endless OS. When, I burnt it to a usb pen, it actually got installed there. It was interesting the way it booted in, asking to make a username, password, then your location was detected. It also has a tutorial telling you how and where things are, how to install apps etc. This distro is for everyone, who is not a geek. You just install it and use it. Actually, I've not seen another distro like this here. I have been distro hopping for quite a while. Its web site is very informative too. The devs of this distro are on a mission.
29 • closed source... and a side-order of fries (by stu on 2016-11-14 21:48:08 GMT from United States)
eNdLeSs OS
https://endlessm.com/for-developers/
" Although not everything we create can be open source, we release most components of our system under free software licenses. Many members of our core team have a long history with open source projects, and continue to be an active part of those communities."
30 • Checksums (by Some guy on 2016-11-14 22:35:29 GMT from United States)
Why do so many distros and programs make it so hard to find their checksums?
31 • @ the Endless advertising bots (by Gerr Lennie from United Canada on 2016-11-14 22:51:31 GMT from United States)
A thing happened, with many, commas. I could not believe it installed right to the usb stick. The developers exist.
32 • @ 29 Maybe so... (by Lennie on 2016-11-14 23:04:38 GMT from Canada)
Maybe so, pal, maybe so...
I can understand why the devs didn't make a iso, and only gives it to be used in a USB. It can be installed in UEFI and alongside Windows, but not alongside Linux. I can understand that too. This is the same attitude of Remix os too. Both companies are interested in selling small (meaning cheap) computers to the poor of this world. Maybe, even 79$ is too much for the poor.
But, we are even more poor than those, who'd buy that computer, aren't we? We want everything free, don't we? For 0$?
Anyway, pal I have 2 persistence distros in 2 quite cheap 8GB USB sticks.
Remix and Endless. One is on Android Marshmallow, and the other is Linux, without any deb or rpm packages. And, I hope other devs would start creating new distros, away from all those "mainstream" ones. After all, we are in the 21 century now.
33 • @19: cykodrone: (by dragonmouth on 2016-11-14 23:41:43 GMT from United States)
I just did a clean install of PCLOS KDE 2016.03. During the first update, the Adwaita theme was also installed and GNOME icons uninstalled. So it seems it's a decision made by PCLOS developers.
34 • gtk 3 adwaita (by cykodrone on 2016-11-14 23:48:30 GMT from Canada)
Thanks to all those who confirmed my suspicions. I had a sneaking feeling it had something to do with gtk 3. Those pesky little pointy hat yard decorations strike again, lol. ;D
35 • Gnome (by Some guy on 2016-11-15 02:02:25 GMT from United States)
27, come to think of it, Gnome is the big reason for systemd too, isn't it?
36 • @27 Gnome themes (by linuxista on 2016-11-15 06:53:19 GMT from United States)
You said:
"Each new release breaks all themes built against previous versions.
This is done to force use of the Gnome 3 theme and icon set which is released at the same time, to make all Gnome 3 installs look the same.
This is done to 'protect the brand'."
I'm not going to dispute this with you, but in practice, using Gnome3 and Archlinux, I haven't had any trouble using themes besides Adwaita. Being Arch, I'm usually onto the next version of Gnome as quickly as possible, e.g. updated to Gnome 3.22 a number of weeks ago.
I can't think of an issue with broken theming with any of the non-Adwaita themes that I use (Paper, Adapta, Evopop). So if Gnome/Red Hat is doing what you're saying in order to "protect the brand," aren't succeeding much.
37 • @27 Gnome themes (con't) (by linuxista on 2016-11-15 06:55:26 GMT from United States)
...[they] aren't succeeding much.
Ditto for icon themes. Never had any issues.
38 • @36, 37 breaking themes (by curious on 2016-11-15 09:55:00 GMT from Germany)
You apparently misunderstand. "Protecting the brand" in Gnome-logic means that you MUST use the latest Gnome 3 theme and icon set with the latest version of Gnome 3. All the themes in this set should work. As you are an Arch and Gnome 3 user, you will probably update the theme set together with Gnome, so you shouldn't have any problem.
What they are trying to prevent is somebody using an older version (of any theme) with the latest Gnome 3.
The result is a lot of breakage with all other desktop environments that use the same toolkit but want some kind of stability and backward compatibility. As has been stated, this appears to be intentional.
39 • Debian Stable Updates (by steve on 2016-11-15 10:16:59 GMT from Philippines)
Hi,
I've been using Debian Jessie (Stable) 8.6 and I do not receive as much updates as you mentioned: " Each of the past two weeks, I've been running Debian's Stable branch and had about 20 updates per week, with total download sizes weighing in at just over 50MB."
Debian is rock-solid and boring. Totally nothing to break and fix. Everything just works.
40 • @38,37,36 breaking themes yes and no (by mandog on 2016-11-15 15:42:08 GMT from Peru)
Arch users are fortunate to be able to install a lot of the latest themes icons from the git repros using aur, I use Arc-Dark-git, Arc-Light-git, they update continuously as any GTK3/GTK2 changes are made so the themes are totally compatible with gtk2/gtk3 apart from the header being slightly different, icons match etc, I use a shell theme 2 years old no problems, don't like many modern icons being dyslexic I need icons the are self explanatory not a icon that looks like a text file when its a ISO etc, so use icons a year or so old with no problems.
41 • @38,37,36 breaking themes yes and no (by mandog on 2016-11-15 15:42:09 GMT from Peru)
Arch users are fortunate to be able to install a lot of the latest themes icons from the git repros using aur, I use Arc-Dark-git, Arc-Light-git, they update continuously as any GTK3/GTK2 changes are made so the themes are totally compatible with gtk2/gtk3 apart from the header being slightly different, icons match etc, I use a shell theme 2 years old no problems, don't like many modern icons being dyslexic I need icons the are self explanatory not a icon that looks like a text file when its a ISO etc, so use icons a year or so old with no problems.
42 • Any other distros using flatpak/snap/AppImage apps? (by Alexi on 2016-11-15 15:47:42 GMT from Netherlands)
Are there any more distros using flatpak/snap/AppImage apps? Except, of course, Fedora or Ubuntu.
43 • @32 free software does not mean it costs nothing... (by miku on 2016-11-15 16:02:44 GMT from Norway)
Free software licenses does not mean it costs nothing, but that the freedom to use the source code in whatever like you want is available as long as you contribute your changes back.
A distro that is not fully free software means that nobody can look at the source code and find bugs and security holes, or maybe data gathering for nefarious purposes or whatever might be in there. People developing non-free software are usually nice people, but there is no way of knowing what their software is up to except to trust what they are saying it does. This is why anybody concerned with security would only use free software.
44 • @38 Gnome themes (by linuxista on 2016-11-15 16:04:13 GMT from United States)
First you say the devs' intendions are, "to make all Gnome 3 installs look the same." Then you say, "All the themes in this set [any current 3rd party theme] should work." Pretty hard to reconcile these two statements.
Additionally, as I understand it, Gnome3 was intentionally coded with javascript to encourage devs to come up with creative variations of the desktop, like Cinnamon for one prominent example. So I'm not sure how that would fit into your assertions either.
It seems like what you're saying is that Gnome breaking their APIs often makes it difficult for other DEs, like say Xfce to stay compatible. I think Gnome's argument is that they don't want to commit to backwards compatibility of their API until they've gotten to a certain point in development. Not sure who's right here, but I still don't see support for the nefarious hypothesis that they're doing all this for the "protecting the brand" motive that you're asserting.
45 • "Free" [ 43 • 32 ] (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2016-11-15 17:10:35 GMT from United States)
By definition, "free" has several equally valid meanings, one of which is zero-price. If proponents of "Libre" software want to translate clearly, they'd use "freed".
Marketing, of course, rarely wants clarity.
46 • This week's question (by Ted H in Minnesota on 2016-11-15 17:10:40 GMT from United States)
I don't do checksums. I usually, though not always, download an OS .iso via DW or from known sources. And besides, if someone posts a screwy Trojan download, DW's worldwide eyes will catch it very fast. I download .iso files rather than torrents, because I don't know how to download a torrent and I am also not willing to go to someone else's machine or have them on my machine! Unfortunately, more and more download sites do not provide an .iso download option: they just support torrent downloads, which leaves me out in the cold.
47 • @45 Free doesn't mean... (by Lennie on 2016-11-15 21:00:08 GMT from Canada)
Free app doesn't mean the source code be be freely available. Someone, who has a good idea, but doesn't want others trampling his idea, might give the app free, but keep the source for himself. Not all those, who wants to fork, would make a better app than the original dev. No two people are the same, no two people think the same way.
48 • GNOME Breaking Things (by M.Z. on 2016-11-16 00:29:47 GMT from United States)
@44
I've heard similar statements to the one above about GNOME breaking things between releases; however, my understanding was that it had to do with third party extensions & that the Gnome folks wanted to steer folks back to the default 'vanilla' version of Gnome 3 & away from things like the short lived Mint Gnome Shell Extensions. I know Cinnamon is built using Gnome pieces, but I though the reason it became a full fork was partly because of some sort of intentional backward incompatibilities built into Gtk3/Gnome 3. I could easily be getting some details wrong, but I have a strong impression that there is something like that going on in modern versions of Gnome.
49 • download checking (by hsw on 2016-11-16 01:35:33 GMT from Taiwan)
I usually check the SHA256 or above after downloading, but then I almost always think to my self "I got the checksum from the same site as the file". After all if the ISO/IMG file was compromised the checksum files, in the same directory, would have been replaced also. At least FreeBSD send signed email containing SHA512 of the files so I have better guarantee there.
50 • GTK3 and Gnome (by Jeff on 2016-11-16 01:55:23 GMT from United States)
GTK3 was/is built specifically for Gnome 3 and is called Gnome Tool Kit 3
(the original GTK was GIMP Tool Kit)
Whether it works for anything else the GTK3 devs don't care.
When asked about it one said "What's Xfce?"
51 • GTK3 and Gnome (by argent on 2016-11-16 05:07:39 GMT from United States)
Have not been able to get past the first 5 minutes of a Gnome install 8 years ago, ugly then and uglier now.
Yes, Gnome-Tool-Kit ruins xfce and glad I run just Wm's. Be able to pick and choose for the best look and rendering.
Keep as little as possible of Gnome off my install, just works better, looks better and my PC runs faster.
Just say NO to Gnome!
52 • @44 please don't misquote me (by curious on 2016-11-16 09:07:17 GMT from Germany)
Comment 38 was mine (explaining that you shouldn't have problems if you use the latest Gnome(! - not any third-party) theme and icon set with the latest Gnome). Comment 27 was not.
However, it seems that there is no smoke without fire (see e.g. comments 48 and 50).
53 • Endless OS (by Sal on 2016-11-17 01:32:38 GMT from United States)
I just recently tried this out. I installed it directly to my SSD. Twice the installer failed and I was forced to reload the live usb and on the third attempt, it finally installed.
After installation, I opened up the app center to give it a go. It has very little to offer. At least for me. Also, the only place you are able to install apps from IS the app center.
I loaded up terminal and tried to add in a couple repos. That failed. Totally. I also found that dpkg isn't installed. I tried installing it and that also failed.
All in all though, if someone wants a basic system that is stable and works well and don't need any apps that aren't in their personal repo, I would say it's a good choice.
But, if you are an intermediate, to advanced user, I would say stir clear. Just my opinion.
54 • ISO validity ... @12,3,5, 14,16,17, 19,23, 30,43, 45,46,47, 49. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-11-17 02:11:35 GMT from Australia)
Not seemingly known, is that these very many computer systems autocheck the files. Each batch, clusters, sector, etc of the file is checked several times. If failures occur, re-sends and e-writes are automatically performed.
As one comment correctly mentions, any file-type (iso, deb, rpm, etc) can be malware engineered, to fit the newly published checksum. Whether it is supposedly "free" or "open-sourced" still allows deliberate malware to be created. Both Apple & Android have experienced this criminal malware. This criminal malware was injected by a developer's coding utility that seemed better, faster, etc than the standard coder tools. So scores of apps that had used this coder tool needed removal from the official "stores" of both Apple & Google.
Linux's "Dirty Cow" fault was widely known for years, but because of its difficulty to use or interfere, the "fault" was not needing any essential remedy.
Because of the auto-testing that operates in the background, I usually do not manually check the checksum. Re-download on a fast internet, especially for a small file, is better. If the iso-file is able to be burnt onto a flash stick, CD or DVD, usually it is ok. Any CD or DVD that is created is usually suspect, because it is much more unreliable than a trusted flash stick process.
Auto-testing continues in the installation of any file-type as well. The first error-trace is the raw sizes of the files being installed, compared to the download files. If it fails to install, downloading, reburning or re-installation is the second error-trace that is manually needed.
However I have found over millions of personal downloads in the last forty years, the original file, before downloading, was the villain. So the check-sum fuss MIGHT be the third check.
Checksums of downloaded files can be done manually; skills-demanded, tedious & slow. After-download testing can be done easily however, by "opening" the download package, to see what it contains. If it fails this "test", then either the file-storage is wrong, or the file-type does not match the file-type description (iso, deb, rpm, etc). Most high powered file browsers will auto-open these compressed files: rpm, deb, iso, etc.
55 • Automatic testing @54 (by hsw on 2016-11-17 03:44:43 GMT from Taiwan)
I am not sure what you mean by the "auto-testing in the background". Certainly HTTP(S) does not have any mechanism to validate the file, though it may include a Content-Length header to indicate the size and some servers support a resume feature to continue from a partial download. Resume does not always work and many times I have had corrupted downloads, only a checksum afterwards indicated the failed file.
Package manages like pkg,apt,pacman,… will actually do a signature verification which is much more secure than a simple checksum. though the back-end build systems still depend on checksums. These checksums are held on the distros site, not the application's origin site so we can still have some confidence.
I think there were a couple of compromised downloads a few months ago, but the checksums had not been changed so a manual check would have caught these.
56 • Master Keyring on DW (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-11-17 04:31:03 GMT from United States)
I always do both/and, cksum and sig. I refuse distros lacking OpenPGP sigs for ISO files, or whose package manager doesn't use them. Such a distro is security-braindead, so even with a good ISO, why run the risk of using the distro with my data.
Jesse thanks for the searchable database of signing keys. It would be nice to see an option for downloading all of them in a single keyring file for easy import. Of course DW would sign it.
57 • @ 53 Endless OS - Sal (by OstroL on 2016-11-17 06:13:14 GMT from Germany)
Which installer did you use, Sal to install this Endless in your SSD?
I couldn't find an installer in the Linux version. All I could do was to have it in a USB. I tried to install it to a free partition, but failed. There is nothing much in their web site about installing it, so can you give the exact steps you took?
58 • @15 Ubuntu Budgie (by IkeyDoherty on 2016-11-17 12:27:13 GMT from Europe)
> Good that Ubuntu Budgie in now an official flavour, only the guy, who created Budgie desktop, Ikey is not interested in doing any work with .deb files, so it'd be an uphill task for the developer of the Ubuntu flavour.
It is not my place to provide packaging for Budgie in every single distro that exists. I have my own distro to work on, and I'm trying to keep Budgie distro agnostic. Just because I personally do not create the deb files (Which is the *Right* way of having a downstream/upstream relationship) - doesn't mean I don't do anything to support this.
The *easiest* part is the actual packaging itself. I'm still the one who does all the work within Budgie itself to support Debian and Ubuntu, no matter how ridiculous the request.
As a brief example you might want to check:
https://github.com/budgie-desktop/budgie-desktop/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=label%3Adebian-maintenance%20
https://github.com/budgie-desktop/budgie-desktop/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=label%3Aubuntu-specific%20
> Solus-Project only supports Arch, but through the community.
Again this isn't true. Arch Linux developers support Arch through their official repositories, which, again, is the correct way for a downstream/upstream relationship to be had.
Please be entirely sure of your facts before painting me to be the bad guy. At the end of the day, I'm creating free open source software, and others are benefiting from it.
59 • @58 Budgie desktop (by OstroL on 2016-11-17 13:52:43 GMT from Canada)
Ikey, you moved away from deb environment to pisi, especially because didn't want to do anything deb files. I read this somewhere, I believe in one of your interviews. I think you are making Budgie to work with your Solus, and you don't have much time to play with developing other distros, or even trying to support them. Well, I'm supposing so.
Anyway, going away from the above, I'd like to ask, whether the future Solus OS would work with touch screen x86(64) tablets or laptops? I couldn't boot the last Solus OS on a Uefi Laptop, I could install it only on a mbr one.
60 • @59 • @58 Budgie desktop (by IkeyDoherty on 2016-11-17 14:05:35 GMT from Europe)
Again untrue :) I moved to an independent base because it was _less_ work than maintaining a derivative of Debian with the scope of SolusOS. When I shut down the project it had over 7k packages (between amd64 and i386) and was a constant battle. It was simpler to achieve what I needed in a scope limited fashion with an independent base. And I kept that project dead. Evolve OS was a separate venture which was eventually renamed to Solus (Not SolusOS) due to legal battles with the UK government.
> I think you are making Budgie to work with your Solus
I make Budgie distro-agnostic. If you check the latest news on Budgie you'll see that it's now under a new GitHub organisation, outside of the Solus umbrella. We even have a separate IRC channel on freenode, *specifically* to keep it distro agnostic. It's one of the core aims of the project, to provide a distro agnostic desktop without forking.
> Well, I'm supposing so.
Please, don't :) The facts are publicly available and you've misconstrued all of them so far, making my project look bad for no reason, when we're doing good work.
> Anyway, going away from the above, I'd like to ask, whether the future Solus OS would work with touch screen x86(64) tablets or laptops?
Solus is for desktop class machines, and I wouldn't recommend it for a tablet. We've always supported touchscreen devices in our kernel configuration though, as they've become so common place on laptops.
> I couldn't boot the last Solus OS on a Uefi Laptop
1.2.1? Sounds like you didn't correctly put it on the USB/CD. Without details I can't help though, sorry.
61 • Again untrue (by bigsky on 2016-11-17 16:39:08 GMT from Canada)
Thanks Ikey for the honesty. I'm Loving the Solus Mate edition. Cheers mate. Great job.
62 • @60 (by OstroL on 2016-11-17 18:43:46 GMT from Canada)
Thank you for the reply, Ikey. I wasn't trying to make you feel bad. I must've misread your interview, along time ago. I have Solus (I still call it SolusOS, a habit) in my Linux only laptop. Not a big deal, if I can't have it dual booting with Windows.
63 • Verifying ISO downloads (by k on 2016-11-18 16:02:32 GMT from Norway)
Thank you DistroWatch for the opinion poll maintaining awareness of the need and tools
for this integrity and security test of downloaded ISOs before installation, testing, and use.
Since most current Linux distros have integrated very easy-to-use and reliable tools for
it, usually verifying imported signing key, signature file accompanying ISO, and the ISO.
64 • Sabayon Kernel Ver (by Andrew on 2016-11-18 18:37:28 GMT from United States)
Use ' kernel-switcher ' to switch to the latest kernel sabayon does not switch kernels for you auto magically
65 • Verifying iso donloads (by OstroL on 2016-11-19 08:55:42 GMT from Canada)
As I am not using cds or dvds any more, and that an iso is downloaded in few minutes, I don't verify the download. Also, the download happens in the background and the eventual burning to a USB happens the same way, no real time is wasted, or even felt. Lately most distros don't really invite you to download them, not like those days, when something new was there to be checked--the need to distro-hop diminishes. Most of us use one distro, and the rest are downloaded for distro-hopping.
66 • Microsoft takes over Linux (by David Rentzel on 2016-11-19 23:13:41 GMT from Dominican Republic)
I am just now reading about MS joining the Linux foundation. For years many Linux users have hoped to swing users over to a non-MS operating system. MS has been an illegally operating monopoly for years. They have pushed and bought out the competition. The last thing we need to have them get control of anything Linux. We have enjoyed the freedom of do it ourselves with Linux. Have you seen Win 10? With MS its "do it our way" all the way. Push and shove you. Do what we tell you.
I for one am sick of it and want to protect the one little piece of NON-MS we have.
67 • ms platinum member (by Doug on 2016-11-19 23:32:40 GMT from United States)
This article?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3142625/linux/microsoft-just-joined-the-linux-foundation-but-end-users-wont-notice-right-away.html
They are not taking over.
What there designs are, who can tell.
68 • Debian Signing Keys (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-11-20 00:36:58 GMT from United States)
Unless I am missing something DW signing keys lookup lacks a Debian entry. Here's the relevant page and note the rsync command makes it easy to get all of them in one blow. There is also a git repo for Debian keys.
https://keyring.debian.org/
69 • #66 (by jadecat09 on 2016-11-20 01:59:16 GMT from Netherlands)
With the GPL in place MS or any other business would not be able to 'interfere'.
70 • Senseless paranoia (by M.Z. on 2016-11-20 05:47:29 GMT from United States)
@69
I seem to hear a fair amount of talk about Linux being taken over because of this or that & being under corporate control one way or another, but it always seems like so much uninformed FUD. No one can ever explain how any so called 'take over' will invalidate the GPL license that was meant to protect users & magically make open source software closed. Some people just can't see the line between needed vigilance & senseless paranoia.
71 • @70 (by Lennie on 2016-11-20 08:55:15 GMT from Canada)
Linux had been under corporate control all the time. The companied fund the Linux foundation. Where does Linus Thorwald get his monthly pay check? From us?
72 • MS with Linux foundation (by Adam on 2016-11-20 09:15:47 GMT from Germany)
Linux kernel is getting "better" to accommodate many new hardware, and that's what interests the corporate world, and they are ready to pay for that. MS is also into hardware, and having a hard time fighting Android. MS becoming a platinum member, pays about 500,000$ per year to Linux foundation. Linux is also copywrited. 41667$s per month is quite a good sum, don't you think? No one works for free, so Linux kernel is not exactly free, even though we are made to think that way. It is just another business venture.
73 • The Illusion of Control (by M.Z. on 2016-11-20 15:30:46 GMT from United States)
@71
And how exactly does that so called "control" invalidate the GPL or take away your equal right to the code? Once a company starts to publish GPL code they agree that the code belongs to all users & they give up the notion of controlling anything beyond their finished branded version of the product. Anyone that can get legal access to their software can change it however they want & make their own version that removes the copyrighted branding. Of course once it's under GPL licence it stays that way, so if the new version does something significantly better than the original it will be taken by the original code writer or others & modified again & at some point will be merged upstream. Then suddenly because upstream projects tend to give away all code for free a bunch of others will compile their own versions of the various software projects & many will likely give away said software at no cost & be organized as community projects.
That is the whole point of the GPL & free & open software, it takes the notion of control of software & turns it on it's head by giving control to users. I could really care less about corporations steering the general direction of a GPL project, because the second they publish GPL code they fundamentally cede all rights of control over the code & give it to the users & community. Of course by doing GPL software they gain free access to all other improvements by other companies & community members, but again they don't control the code after they publish it. Their may be a great deal to gain when you can offload most of the work to others by making software GPL, but you never gain any more control. After software becomes GPL any notion of true control by anyone other than users becomes an illusion.
Of course if you can somehow magically give away all rights to something yet still 'control' it, you would explain that one to me right? Otherwise you fundamentally don't understand the meaning of the GPL &/or the reason it was created.
74 • Illusion of Control - TL;DR (by M.Z. on 2016-11-20 16:09:59 GMT from United States)
@71
Of course to make that simpler, as soon as you publish GPL software you accept the fact that someone will inevitably be allowed to come along & create a copy & say 'This is _My_ version!' & someone else will come along with another copy & say ''This version is _All Of Ours_ & we are giving away it & the source code at $0/no cost!'. Now does anyone truly control that software? As someone who has a certain affinity for GPL software & what free & open means, I say no. You can talk about control all you want, I maintain that with the GPL control is an illusion.
Maybe I'm some kind of naive idealist, but I say as long as someone has a right to give away copies of something for free & change it however they want, it's free as in speech. That is just how the GPL was intended to be & you can't truly control something that is free.
75 • @74 (by Lennie on 2016-11-20 18:07:42 GMT from Canada)
>Maybe I'm some kind of naive idealist,<
Well, aren't we all?!
GPL is a license, whatever it is, and that is copywrited, not copylefted. And, neither Linus nor anyone at the Linux foundation work for free. Someone has to pay them, and those, who pay them are not us, but the corporations.
The corporate guys don't give away money, and when they give, they tell you what to do, and what they expect from you. So, the Linux kernel is done for them, and we get it as a side effect.
Also, to put the "free" Linux distro, you have to buy the hardware. You still pay money to use the hardware, and they have to be Linux compatible. If MS had put 500K, it'd plan to earn 1000 times that. Linux earns money for the corporate world.
76 • @75 (by deme on 2016-11-20 18:47:46 GMT from Germany)
Remember Meego? It was killed off by the Linux Foundation in favour of Tizen. Who is using,Tizen! You or me? Samsung.
I still have Moblin and Meego, and both works. There was no need to kill Meego off, but a corporate giant must've demanded.
77 • Illusion of Control vs Interconnection (by M.Z. on 2016-11-20 19:14:39 GMT from United States)
@75
Yes but none of that has anything to do with the fact that the corporations gave away control of the software they published under the GPL. There is still so little true control there that the software remains 'free as in speech'. If they make an improvement to the software & publish it under the GL they give me more freedom to do whatever I want with GPL software by letting me & others more easily use the software for whatever we want, they don't take anything away. If Linux gets 10x better on the server side of things it does nothing to diminish my freedom to use it on the desktop, & in fact it will probably help it on the desktop to some degree. I don't care if it improves less on the desktop than the server, because it is still improving on both. If one hardware maker adds better support & others respond by doing the same, they all add to my freedom to use Linux wherever I want, they don't take it away.
Regardless of where the most improvements are made in Linux it's still free as in speech & free to be used for whatever I want, so why should I care who made the free & open software if I still have full access & equal rights? No one takes away my right to do what I want with it by doing what they want with it. All they do is enable more people to do things more like what they want to use it for, but that's still more net freedom to do whatever you want with it.
You still have in no way explained how there is any taking away of freedom to do what I want with it, you've just said others can make it better for them more easily. So what? How does that take anything from me? Isn't it more likely to give me fringe benefits than to take anything?
I see no control, just more freedom to do whatever I want on more hardware & in more situations. Just because I depend on plants to make the oxygen part of the air I breathe in before push the air through my vocal cords & say what I feel like doesn't mean the plants have taken control of my freedom of speech. That just makes the plants & me interconnected, it doesn't put them in control. I'm very happy that Red Hat & others are doing their thing using Linux for what they want, because just like the plants breathe out air that I use for whatever I want, they are breathing life into the software I use & letting me do whatever I want with it. That's not control, it's interconnection & there is a big difference.
78 • @77 (by deme on 2016-11-20 19:43:21 GMT from Canada)
Can you tell us what exactly you do with the Linux kernel, and how do you change it to suit you?
Also what is the interconnection you see with Redhat and MS, or Redhat and Samsung, or Redhat and Oracle or whatever?
Or how does the monthly payment to Linus comes from?
79 • nope (by M.Z. on 2016-11-20 22:49:01 GMT from Asia/Pacific Region)
@78
Others do more than enough to make Linux suit me fine, but they do so in a way that does no take control away from other users. First you don't stop talking about control, then you don't stop talking about how things get paid for. Payment does not amount to unlimited control. Its great that things get done, but none of that affects control.
80 • @79 Payments (by demr on 2016-11-20 23:01:43 GMT from Germany)
No one pays for nothing. There is always a catch. You work for a living, and do the coding in your free time and create something and give it away free, then you are the one who decides. But, if you are paid for creating the code, whatever the name for the payment, you do what the paymaster tells you, otherwise the money won't tickle in.
Meego was shut up, Tizen was brought in. For you or for me? No, for Samsung.
Number of Comments: 80
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