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1 • KODI & Raspberry Pi (by Buck Owens on 2021-03-01 00:27:21 GMT from United States)
I wanted to use the same thing and was hoping this review would confirm in the positive. Sadly it doesn't.
2 • Kodi (by Roger on 2021-03-01 00:42:01 GMT from Belgium)
I do not run Kodi, I have no use for these things. I mainly watch YouTube and Netflix these days, the TV channels here in Belgium suck. The commercial ones are really below point zero and the state owned ones are not much better. On top of that all the washed so-called news, it's always the same bullshit. This is all over Europe and in Australia. I installed Hypnotix on Linux Mint, there are almost 3200 channels on it from the whole world, but that is not better even worse. Most of the times I browse for the real news and what they don't wont to show, political correctness is a scam anyway, just to clean up what they are showing. If we want to know what is happening to the economy in China, Japan, India and so on I watch Indian channels on YouTube. Same go's for Russia and so on, CNN and all the US channels are not trustworthy.
3 • Not running Kodi (by Flyingalone on 2021-03-01 01:16:23 GMT from Australia)
I was surprised with the results , voted 'I do not run Kodi at home' thought a lot more people would be using Kodi Great article sharing your experiences with Kodi and all the other things you and the team here tell us about, week after week. Thank you
4 • Kodi (by Jimbo in NZ on 2021-03-01 01:40:29 GMT from New Zealand)
Thanks Jesse - the Kodi review was bang on the mark with my own experience. It was impossible to get either netflix or on demand tv working well or consistently.
I currently use Debian+non free codecs with Cinnamon on my 55" TV with videos and on demand TV all working flawlessly through the Brave browser.
5 • Kodi (by cor on 2021-03-01 01:45:28 GMT from United States)
I have tried Kodi/XBMC many times. It always fails for my purposes.
6 • Why would anyone subject themselves to this grief? Masochism, perhaps? (by R. Cain on 2021-03-01 01:51:01 GMT from United States)
Given Jesse Smith's sterling Feature Story write-up ("LibreELEC 9.2 and Kodi"), I couldn't respond to The Poll because there is no option titled "I will NOT be even REMOTELY ATTEMPTING to use Kodi".
7 • Kodi et al (by Bobbie Sellers on 2021-03-01 02:00:48 GMT from United States)
Well I have a television and a computer (actually several computers and one TV) and the problems other users encounter while attempting to fuse the two systems of TV and of Linux OSes has convinced me that such tasks are beyond my capacity.
Your review of the problems you had is further evidence that such fusion is difficult to achieve even by the skilled with access to knowledge and a wide variety of tools.
bliss
8 • kodi (by kevin on 2021-03-01 03:08:44 GMT from Canada)
i have been running libreelec and kodi and numerous platforms android phones and tablets ubuntu machines and windows machines as well as all variants of the raspberry pi. i have not encountered too many issues. i did get the input stream error while setting up netflix and amazon prime but quickly got that fixed. libreelec is an amazing program for all my media needs
9 • XBMC or Kodi (by tuxUser on 2021-03-01 03:19:33 GMT from Canada)
I tested kodi or XBMC several times before it changed the name. Honestly I have never been able to do anything with it... I even wonder how it's still being developed. Please put an end to the Kodi pain. This thing is useless... Put your talent and effort into building something else...
10 • @Jesse (by whoKnows on 2021-03-01 04:48:02 GMT from Switzerland)
To make it short ... you also need a proper HW, not only the SW - NON-Free.
https://www.informationstash.com/netflix-4k-streaming-hardware-requirements-are-ridiculous/
https://itstillworks.com/devices-can-stream-netflix-tv-8107089.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix-compatible_devices
https://www.howtogeek.com/414080/how-to-watch-netflix-in-4k-on-your-windows-pc/
* What works and what not also depends on your Netflix plan and the settings inside your Netflix user account ...
11 • kodi (by Tim on 2021-03-01 05:40:35 GMT from United States)
Kodi is a beautiful, customizable media player that does many things right. If you've got local media files to organize, it absolutely excels at that.
12 • LibreElec (by Konstantinos on 2021-03-01 07:08:50 GMT from Cyprus)
I use libreelect in my rasp2 board having a nas as a backend. Everything run smoothly!
13 • XBMC / Kodi / OpenElec / LibreElec (by Tonio on 2021-03-01 07:38:27 GMT from France)
I used all these variants of Kodi to play local medias on dedicated PC, Raspberry, Android set-top box and even if it was not straightforward, it ran. Streaming had always been difficult (streamers do not help with that) and was not my primar utilisation. I switched a year or two ago to Plex due to my family utilisation, which is not open source but based on a fork of XBMC. Installed on the Android set-top box which already includes Netflix & Co, it is a complete solution.
14 • Kodi (by Serge Terryn on 2021-03-01 08:26:07 GMT from Belgium)
For someone who write so many reviews, I don't understand why you can't run kodi. I have kodi running on arch, debian and ubuntu without any problems. There is 1 additional package you need to install, kodi-x11 and all your GUI problems are solved. I use kodi for years now with an real-debrid subscription and it is an very good opensource application.
15 • Kodi (by Arthur on 2021-03-01 09:00:40 GMT from Australia)
I run LibreELEC on an old (2008ish) iMac and it runs essentially flawlessly. The only glitch is that, due to some hardware quirk of the iMac, I need to pull the 3.5mm jack out a little and push it back in when it starts/comes out of suspend. Admittedly I don't use Netflix and the like - it's mostly an audio player, with the occasional on-demand stream from television services or video file. Been doing so for five years or more. Occasionally I have a network connectivity issue, but this is the age of the hardware, not LibreELEC. Couldn't be happier with it.
16 • CoreELEC (by vermaden on 2021-03-01 09:53:08 GMT from Poland)
Thanks for mentioning my FreeBSD Upgrade guide here :)
... about LibreELEC ... I have used LibreELEC in the past for a while on Odroid C2 device but they (LibreELEC team) ceased the development of new releases for Odroid C2 so I moved to CoreELEC which still actively develops new releases for Odroid C2 devices. Here is their site - https://coreelec.org/
Hope that helps some Odroid C2 users.
Regards.
17 • Using Kodi (by Barnabyh on 2021-03-01 10:11:44 GMT from Germany)
Kodi works pretty well for streaming with plugins such as Exodus, Venom, Tempest and such if you keep abreast of changes. Better to have at least two installed in case one is unmaintained and scrapers stop working for a while or the developer drops it, as has happened. For that and streaming live TV legally with the respective dedicated plugins it's a great solution. It's also a good frontend for locally available content in a home network as several previous comments here confirm, but that alone would be severely limiting its use.
Youtube used to be a free plugin but now demands to register an API as Jesse has found. I even did that and it worked for a while but a few weeks later stopped again. So YT is now purely installed as a dependency because so many other addons demand it.
Like Jimbo in comment #4 I now use the browser for Netflix, Amazon Prime and the occasional Youtube. The quality of the commercial streams is better too. So it looks like one's gotta have a two-pronged approach to be able to use everything without putting in an unreasonable amount of time, constantly fix the API issue etc.
The above is true for Kodi on PC and RPi. It's different on Android and dedicated Kodi boxes where these services are more integrated and you don't have these issues. That seems to be the way to go. Not getting the request for an API on Android is not surprising, but the overall impression is that the commercial vendors are locking down access to their officially sanctioned platforms.
18 • Alma Linunx (by Otto on 2021-03-01 11:34:26 GMT from Austria)
I was really entertained when I first heard about AlmaLinux. I know the project explained how they chose the name, but I can't help but be reminded that "alma" is Hungarian for "apple". (Interestingly enough, "AlmaLinux" reminds me firstly of the fruit, and not the company.)
19 • LibreELEC & Kodi (by Cheker on 2021-03-01 12:31:10 GMT from Portugal)
I have not attempted Kodi anywhere outside of LibreELEC, as the overhead of running it on a normal OS would kill the point of using it (for me). Kodi itself has not given me many problems, though I don't really use it for anything other than Twitch and, sometimes, playing the music on the hard drive. LibreELEC itself is a mess, specifically the networking. Wifi connects properly or doesn't, completely at random. None of the dev's suggestions work. You go back years in the forum posts and these exact same problems have existed since the distro was born, so they don't seem to interested in fixing things.
20 • Kodi (by zephyr on 2021-03-01 12:44:22 GMT from United States)
Have tried Kodi, several times since XMBC and yet find NO practical need for it. Over sized, extremely limited compared to many very small lightweight media players.
21 • Kodi (by Adam Drake on 2021-03-01 12:47:10 GMT from United States)
I run Plex on Debian Bullseye and am perfectly happy with it.
22 • computers > media centers (by fonz on 2021-03-01 12:48:35 GMT from Indonesia)
while its nice having some alternatives and whatnots, id still prefer having a PC for everything and anything compared to a dedicated media center. the last media center ive ever had was back in the US with tivo and cable IIRC, late 90s til early Y2K. consoles (wow, you can even install kodi on consoles, TIL) werent worthwhile ever since i got my first PC. an old PC might even still be good enough as a general purpose media center. i just vacuum them daily and backed up with a UPS thing.
my oldest still working PC i built 05 for highschool is now my kitchen PC running plain old debian and upgrading it over the years. my second was built 08 for college is now my home server running arch. my current gen DDR4 PC might be given away to my little bro for college. PCs for my kids later? not sure, but thinking about LTSPs or PIs, oh how time flies...
23 • Kodi on the Pi (by crayolaeater on 2021-03-01 13:03:26 GMT from United States)
I am truly surprised of the difficulties you had with Kodi. Both times I have installed it, it went pretty much seamlessly to a working system on a Raspberry Pi (first on a 1B then a 3B). I did nothing fancy, just downloaded and followed the install directions from the official Rasberry and LibreElec sites [https://www.raspberrypi.org/ - https://libreelec.tv/]. A note here - the Pi computer is primarily a linux box (though you can also run the MS IOT software on it), but due to it's elementary hardware architecture, it does not boot like a normal PC, and as I gather through reading (not practice) it is somewhat a primitive yet effective system. I have yet to have issues with regular Raspian images, or LibreElec images. In fact, there are now GUI tools from both parties to install their products to the microSD so you do it before that first cup of coffee. After that it was just plug it into the tv, (be sure to power on the tv before powering on the PI, just like the old days), and boot to finish the install by setting up the system. Then go. I don't use Kodi to direct connect to the internet, but that is just me, not a limit to Kodi. The newest one on the Pi3b was basically just an upgrade to allow me to watch X265 encoded media. SO if you desire an open source solution, don't shy away from the Pi and LibreElec/Kodi - thay work well together. And yes you are running a minimal linux system (just enough to run Kodi), but it is just enough different that you have to go slow the first time you encounter it.
24 • Code audit (by crayolaeater on 2021-03-01 13:13:42 GMT from United States)
Jesse wrote "Another point I feel is important to make here is that a lot of code auditing is done using automated tools that look for common issues or mistakes".
That is somewhat akin to letting the fox guard the hen house in some aspects.
That is just me in my hesitancy to let AI and other machine code loose as an arbitrator in things that are important to me. Yet the practical side of me knows that we are doomed to live in caves again if we don't. I'm glad that the automated tools are there to let us get out of the muck towards the light, but their existence is not inherently that they make us safer.
25 • RED HAT OFFERES FREE SERVERS (by Hank on 2021-03-01 13:23:26 GMT from United States)
After the games Red Hat has played with open source they can keep the "not trustworthy offer" or free licences for ever.
Our worry is they will manage to kill the now developing open fork then change the direction yet again to ask for exhorbitant licence fees.
We are now running debian and will not go back.
26 • libreElec/Kodi (by Modd on 2021-03-01 13:34:08 GMT from Germany)
The problem of open source players is DRM restrictions...
Netflix will only work correctly on certain hardware. Google wants to gather yet more dollar millions by forcing users on to a paid version or at minimum using them as guinea pigs with endless recaptcha.
Codi on the pi is fine for local and open content.
27 • Kodi (by Horrace Lee on 2021-03-01 13:45:53 GMT from United States)
I for one did not people could have problems with kodi, I have been faithfully using it for thirteen years, even after moving to Linux. The only problem I have seen is when some of the channels go down. It performed the way it was supposed to, allowing me to watch the type of things I like to watch, it was to setup, even easier adding adding ons, I use it on our windows and linux computers and laptops, and I never run it without a vpn. We have some shoddy cable companies here where I live , that was why I started searching for a alternative and found Kodi.
28 • Kodi (by Tom on 2021-03-01 14:43:41 GMT from Germany)
I used OpenElec/OSMC years ago on a Raspberry Pi (1st gen, I think) for some time. No problems installing, but admittedly no need for Prime or Netflix then either. I even set up my DVB-T stick to record TV shows through Kodi, which worked well - for some time. Then, first programmed recordings suddenly stopped working, some time later, TVheadend consistently claimed another program would be blocking access to the DVB-T device (nonsense, of course), and eventually, when the whole installation ended up in an eternal reboot loop, I gave up about Kodi for several years.
I'm now running a multi-device strategy, with my living room receiver recording TV shows, a FireTV stick for Prime - and since recently, with a new single-board computer running CoreElec for nicely organising my external harddisks with movie and TV series recordings. Whatever works best for the purpose!
29 • This week's review (by CS on 2021-03-01 16:16:20 GMT from United States)
Main thing I learn from this week's review is the Fire Stick is a really well done piece of technology. My guess is Kodi and similar things grew up long before the age of streaming and are unable or unwilling to adapt to it. I didn't see any mention of Netflix on the few pages I saw on the Kodi website. The only mention of Youtube is in their social links. If they don't tout support it's hard to expect it to work.
30 • Kodi on TV (by Nozomu on 2021-03-01 16:16:36 GMT from Brazil)
I run Kodi on my Android TV, and it works fine here without having to mess around repos and whatnot.
31 • Toilete lid cover offers "free" ... (by whoKnows on 2021-03-01 16:55:59 GMT from Switzerland)
@25 • RED HAT OFFERES FREE SERVERS (by Hank)
"... eligible organizations will be granted ..."
To ... Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Twitter ... ?
;)
32 • KODI + Netflix, HBO and Youtube (by Mário Pinto on 2021-03-01 17:21:52 GMT from Portugal)
I would agree with the Kodi setup problems. Although a year ago I managed to get up and running LibreELEC on a Rpi3 with Netflix, HBO Portugal and Youtube that I've later documented in portuguese here: https://librehacks.blogspot.com/2020/05/raspberry-pi-osmc-kodi-netfilx-e-hbo.html
I've follow the pimylife guide: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-netflix
Hope this helps!
33 • Vero 4K (by Gavin on 2021-03-01 22:09:19 GMT from Chile)
I can heartily recommend https://osmc.tv/vero/ which gives me all the Kodi I could desire in a neat little device running Debian.
34 • Auditing Kernel and the Foundation Problem (by Norwegian on 2021-03-01 23:20:19 GMT from Norway)
If you follow Linux Foundation on Facebook, you see there is not limit to whom they will cooperate with. Latest was a bank, a controversial Bank known be no do'godder.
As a lot of freedom conscious are pointing fingers at Big Tech, Linux Foundation is embedding them into their organization. One does not need to be neither a rocket science nor rather smart to see that these companies does not want Linux any good, and represent the spear head of 1984 in today's world.
One might say its a clear sell out strategy. The very few persons in that foundation might benefit personally very good from selling out a strategic point of Linux and that is the kernel auditing that is supposed to be so safe, according to a Q&A found above.
Never mind Linux Foundation is IN BED with the worst enemies possible as Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Just go to sleep Linux users as there is no one that can have the capability to audit that the autoaudit is not compromised, so its the perfect hack.
Out of the prior 31 comments there is not one single comment on the very core of Linux security that people seems to take for granted and hence that its the perfect place to BUY YOUR WAY IN TO ATTACH or SOCIALIZE YOUR WAY IN TO ATTACH.
Sharks are swimming in a circle around Linux Foundation and yes, kernel.org IS UNDER Linux Foundation.
Now I admit to like to provoke a bit and I got to ask...
Are Linux user getting stupid or what is this?
35 • Kodi can be easy-peasy (by Sam Adams on 2021-03-01 23:22:32 GMT from United States)
I've got Kodi running on my MacMini at home, I installed it on my brother's MacBook Pro, and I set it up with LibreElec on a Pi3 for my Mom. Each install went off without a hitch, strange you had such issues. The only thing I can say as a caveat is that you have to READ a good portion of the Kodi wiki or you will certainly have issues. While it isn't rocket surgery, you can't just plug-n-play in every case.
36 • @34 (by Dr. Dave on 2021-03-02 02:26:05 GMT from United States)
The GNU/Stallman/socialist left wing uses 'Free/Libre' slogans, but represents the mega wealthy universities of the world, while the Linux/Torvalds/capitalist right wing uses 'Open Source' slogans, but represents mega wealthy corporations. These seemingly disparate groups converge upon a single elitist agenda and neither of them behave in the best interest of the average person, who they see as pawns, marks, workhorses and guinea pigs.
Regarding the '1984' dystopia.. just look at how the Linux Foundation has partnered with IBM, World Economic Forum, etc with money from the Rockefeller Foundation, to push vaccine passports; tracking via smartphones. The Linux Foundation has demonstrated that they do not give a hoot about privacy.
https://www.linux.com/featured/linux-foundation-public-health-joins-the-fight-against-covid-19-pandemic/ https://www.lfph.io/ https://commonpass.org
Seems pretty obvious that GNU/Linux has always been part of this over-arching agenda. It mostly projects the appearance of a benevolent family of products/projects, however it fits too well in to the 'globalist' grand scheme to put a much trust in to it. I trust Stallman and Torvalds about as much as I trust Gates and Jobs.. all of these frontmen simply represent degrees of a single technocratic agenda.
"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves." -Vladimir Lenin
37 • Kodi on Raspberry Pi (by Unusual Use Case on 2021-03-02 04:51:31 GMT from United States)
Yeah, the trouble here doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I happily use Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 2... to play back local media (like, thumb drive type local, I don't even have networked storage set up or anything). LibreELEC *used* to let me play back an album of music in a random order (I used to do this while doing housework), but wherever the button to do that went, I haven't found it in a long time. At first I figured it was a weird quirk that would be fixed in the next update, but it never came back.
As for streaming stuff from online, I tried once. It was about as much a headache as it outlined here. I really wish it worked better, but I've always been inclined to blame the service for not cooperating. I mean, Google demanding you create an account just to watch videos on the de facto internet video platform? The point. Y'all missed it. It's back there.
But yeah, LibreELEC (and OpenELEC before it), in my experience, really only seem to work nicely if you know what you're doing and plan to locally have/host everything. Even then, it's riddled with odd tiny little bugs (I'm looking at you, CEC switch that doesn't *actually* turn CEC off...) and the main benefits boil down to a well optimized interface for hooking up media to a TV. It's kind of unfortunate, because tiny, low-power computers running nice, open setups would be cool.
38 • Linux security is granted (by niceguy on 2021-03-02 09:14:09 GMT from United States)
@24, @34, @36 C'mon guys, Mr. Torvald was hired & is payed $1,ooo,ooo/year to be honest & true to the Linux users, not to those that pay him... Right?
39 • Playing Netflix etc with open source (by DTB on 2021-03-02 11:29:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use a Raspberry Pi4B with a version of the Chromium browser which has DRM compiled in. It plays Netflix beautifully. It also claims to be able to play Amazon Prime, but I haven't bothered to try. I haven't tried streaming TV services.
40 • Thanks... (by Norwegian on 2021-03-02 18:43:03 GMT from Norway)
For at least some are asking questions and not just taking security for granted. I am personally looking for alternatives to the Linux kernel, as i no longer trust that nor its "auditing" as the entire chain of command seems to be infected by Big Tech.
I ran away from Windowz for that reason. No trust in mr Gates or his worldvirus. The very reason Microsoft came to power, was a hidden strong hand that bought their way into competitors and sabotaged it from the inside. A not very well know part of human history.
Would be fun and nice if Distrowatch could sort of be a bit more critical towards the Linux Foundation and the kernel, rather than just take it for granted its not compromised.
Being inside Linux Foundation as such Big Tech takeover is done, gives you a lot of free lunches and free this and that. The sellout is a party for a few...
41 • no do gooders (no gooders?) (by Otis on 2021-03-03 00:29:43 GMT from United States)
@34 "If you follow Linux Foundation on Facebook, you see there is not limit to whom they will cooperate with. Latest was a bank, a controversial Bank known be no do'godder."
Vague. We need specifics in this discussion. What you say there.. can it be said about Atea Ataroa Limited in the U.A.E.?
Are we all just participating in more corporate fascism a-la Microsoft/Apple etc.. in its embryonic stages here at DW?
Is that the implication or inference we should be entertaining?
42 • The Foundation Problem (by Flyingalone on 2021-03-03 00:46:13 GMT from Australia)
@34 Are Linux user getting stupid or what is this?
I don't believe that Linux Users are ( getting ) stupid, just getting older and seeing a good thing 'Linux" getting in bed with Windows Google etc etc, the money is now a higher priority than YOUR freedom ! and as we get older we get tired of seeing the same things happen again and again with other ares not just tech and now now we are seeing Linux this good thing turning into just another one of 'those' big companies. When Windows started buying into Linux some Linux Users could see the potential danger that was the start of the end of Linux they thought rightly Keep your friend close, Windows and Google (example) Keep your enemies closer, Windows and Linux (again example) or simply buy them out...
43 • Kodi (by Jeang3nie on 2021-03-03 02:23:29 GMT from United States)
The Kodi review is valid in the context of trying to use Kodi to replace a streaming stick through the use of third party addons. However, even a cursory read through the Kodi website will make it very obvious that those addons are not supported or recommended.
Please don't blame Kodi for the situation with Netflix. Netflix uses DRM to protect its videos, which is literally the only way they were able to negotiate media rights to the majority of their titles. If you want to watch Netflix on the same device, your best bet is the Chrome browser on an x86 computer. It's supposedly possible to install the widevine shared object in chromium on an arm board like the pi, your mileage will definitely vary and you can expect to spend some time tinkering.
Youtube is just Google being stupid. The api is a moving target. Again, to watch YouTube you're better off using a browser.
Where Kodi excels is in organizing a library of the media on your local network. I have a huge music collection and a rather large collection of movies ripped to a hard drive that I access using a Samba server using Kodi. I have also in the past used a tuner and MythTV to create my own DVR on a dedicated FreeBSD server, and accessed it using the official MythTV Kodi plugin, which makes Kodi into a really slick DVR and over the air TV viewer. Since I have Kodi on every TV in the house, it made for a nice whole house system. Expect to read a lot of documentation to set it up, and run a real operating system not descended from Ubuntu....
44 • Kodi for last 7+ years (by Dhoni on 2021-03-03 03:23:51 GMT from Indonesia)
I always have kodi on some device at my home. Now i run 4 of them, @pc, @laptop, @rpi4 on my bedroom and @android tvbox on my family room.
Why??
Because i got lots of movies, tv show and anime on my nas. And also i use kodi for streaming youtube/some video clip on my phone to my tv. Other than that, because i got tv cable that use rtp on their streaming (some of them is FTA) so i use udpxy to allow other device on my network to stream some live tv. This way i can save like $6 per device/month.
Roadmap: maybe if all tv channel here move 100% to DVB-T, i'll buy some dvbt rpi hat to stream all of them to my kodi on my network.
45 • Kodi (by penguinx86 on 2021-03-03 10:33:48 GMT from United States)
I tried using Kodi on my PC. Didn't do much for me. I mostly use a tiny Minix Neo desktop PC running Ubuntu to watch Youtube on my TV instead. But I'm upgrading to a Roku dedicated TV box soon. A dedicated TV box with a simple remote wold be simpler for the kids to use, without needing a keyboard or mouse.
46 • Kodi about a year ago (by Wally on 2021-03-04 12:56:38 GMT from United States)
I installed Kodi on Ubuntu 16.04 as indicated on wherever I was reading, around the year 2020. I was wondering why I had to use such an old version of the OS. For some reason, Kodi had so much trouble indexing my (Plex-worthy) local media that I just gave up on it, regardless of how slick the front-end might be. It was just tedious.
Now my HTPC just uses Thunar, VLC, and my trusty old NFS mount point (oh, and a web browser on occasion, Palemoon).
47 • Foundation rottening og alternatives (by Norwegian on 2021-03-04 18:07:33 GMT from Norway)
I am not alone in believing that Linux Foundation is now in the hands of Big Tech and hence that, its not really very interesting to trust in the kernel nor their auditing.
Microsoft is BUILT upon the idea to remove Personal from the PC. Mac took a bite of the apple themself in order to be reintroduced and "arise from death", and is the second largest surveillance software.
Linux Foundation is being eaten up by the same corporations that likes to believe your data belongs to them, and for all we know, the kernel is already corrupted.
Now let me just explain one thing. This shit might not be anything to worry about if you play games and watch youporn on your computer.
This becomes a worry if you live in a nation and all of a sudden your not on the Big Tech side of politics or your against lets say vaccines(an example). That is the sort of situation you like to trust the kernel, not to say military, automotive, corporate or state usage.
Linux is often there when trust is needed. Like in the ISS(International Space Station) and Zumwalt Class Destroyer is if i am correct, all Linux.
So as a target to infect or have a backdoor into, Linux Kernel is a hot target, and the most easy way to do that is to infiltrate the Foundation. This is what I see is going on as we speak.
So this leaves a big question... Where to head on?
Where is the ultimate "Security through obscurity"?
BSD? Hmmm... Not so much in my eyes, as its next on the list after Linux Kernel if not already on its back for Big Tech that throws silver money all over them...
So I had a little "roundup" and found:
Haiku ReactOS KolibriOS MenuetOS
Did I do proper research and if not. What is missing on this list?
48 • Foundation / Linux rottening / Linux trustworthiness (by Mike on 2021-03-04 19:18:02 GMT from Germany)
@47: Finding alternatives is indeed not easy.
One alternative could be GNU/Hurd. But it's well known, in what state the Hurd kernel still is - which is at the same time a pretty good indication that the Hurd project and contributors are possibly not together with the aforemtioned bad guys.
Success to GNU/Hurd and all GNU/Linux alternatives, you're more needed than ever!
49 • Probably BSD (by Cheker on 2021-03-04 20:47:02 GMT from Portugal)
@47 I honestly don't see the BSD folks giving in to anybody, they very much just stay in their own bubble and do what they want to do and ignore everything else.
Haiku I think is built in a way that prevents it from seeing mass adoption ("mass" in Linux terms), and ReactOS is just not stable enough. I'm not familiar with the other two.
50 • @49 (by Dr. Dave on 2021-03-05 00:35:06 GMT from United States)
I personally will not hold my breath about BSD. If the often prophesized exodus from Linux to BSD occurs, BSD will simply become the next target of the 'weapons' that have been fired toward the 'Linux community' in recent years. Most Linux refugees in this hypothetical future would flock toward FreeBSD, who immediately caved to an aggressive social signalling campaign; leapt on to the suicidal CoC bandwagon. These are shots across the bow; a test run for later attacks.
Financially, I don't get the impression that any direct funding is supplied by Apple, however there is a bit of a circular relationship; Apple DOES fund Clang and some other stuff that FreeBSD 'depends' upon and portions of FreeBSD's kernel have been used to build Apple's products. So while FreeBSD folks like to claim there is no substantial connection, I would be less than surprised if Apple openly gobbled them up.
On the flip-side, BSD's heritage & namesake links to a mega-university and Unix itself, to a telecommunications behemoth. Can we ever trust that the links of these chains have truly been broken? I'd like to, but I don't. So will OpenBSD or NetBSD respond to these pressures in the same way as FreeBSD? Only if they grow enough to draw attention from one of the internet's many corporate/university-driven, screeching mobs.
The sad truth is that anything that depends upon the internet, or that the internet depends upon, is ultimately subject to the global technocratic model for business and social order. It doesn't all happen at the same time (because then it'd be too obvious) but everything on the internet either falls in line with the corporations & universities, lays low, or gets extinguished. Unfortunately 99% of people are too hornswoggled to care and the other 1% will be forced in to compliance or out of society.
51 • Kernel/Large Software Auditing (by TRex on 2021-03-05 06:50:18 GMT from United States)
@34 @36 @40 @47 @50 All true and accurate points. Over the last 30 years we have allowed ourselves to be lured into switching our societies over to a fully digital based technology dependency. Now trying to avoid using Linux, Windows, Apple, BSD, xxx, etc is like trying to run away from using air. We have literally doomed ourselves into a 1984 scenario by doing this. The required code to operate is now way too complex for any one individual to make or understand by themselves. The large entities that do create and maintain our software are all controlled at varying degrees by the same globalists that seem to be hell-bent on destroying our world. Another area of concern is the hardware in our devices, computers, and routers which may contain malicious circuitry that can be used for spying and theft and may be even harder to audit than software such as the Linux kernel. A full on digital based society may prove to be our undoing as a civilization.
53 • Freed Open-Source - Both software And hardware (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2021-03-08 02:44:42 GMT from United States)
Until Freed Open-Source hardware becomes the standard (and thus vendors must actually compete), we are unlikely to see a robust marketplace for either hardware or software. Accommodating proprietary pranks in hardware drives burgeoning software in kernels and drivers - it's unsupportable in the long term. But extremism in Freed software licensing equally fails in this regard. Didn't the internet come from universities sharing "defense" research? Wasn't Unix likewise born for similar large-organization interests? … It's almost amusing how often reviews seem to (deliberately?) choose an approach most likely to fail.
Number of Comments: 52
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| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
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| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
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| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
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| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
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| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
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| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
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| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
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| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
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