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1 • Monitoring of file changes (by Leo on 2022-09-05 00:52:37 GMT from United States)
I am disapointed a bit that the answer does not mention the established dedicated programs for detecting changes to files by comparison of cryptographic hashes. There are Tripwire and AIDE.
For /boot directory specifically, we have got Secure Boot and signed kernel images and modules. If you are really serious about security or locking down the system then you should consider Intel IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) or similar solutions. At least the administrator can use a dedicated read-only filesystem for /boot.
The superuser can "chattr +i" files to prevent ordinary users or system daemons (those running with reduced capabilities) from modifying files and to prevent accidental modification by privileged processes.
2 • File changes (by Jesse on 2022-09-05 01:05:16 GMT from Canada)
@1: The original question specifically mentioned Secure Boot and that it wasn't what they wanted. It also wasn't clear to me, based on the context of the question, that the person wanted to locked down their system. It seemed they were interested in detecting changes more than preventing them. Or maybe both.
Using tools to prevent changes, like putting /boot in read-only mode or using Secure Boot, come with their collection of issues the person may want to avoid. They can be useful tools, but aren't great for monitoring directories in general.
3 • Ubuntu Unity and Deepin (by Guido on 2022-09-05 01:11:01 GMT from Philippines)
I just learned that the main developer of this new distro is just 10 years old. I am impressed.
But I will probably not use it and surely not Deepin from China. In the past the Arch version of this desktop was very unstable.
https://ubuntuunity.org/
4 • Ubuntu Unity (by Jesse on 2022-09-05 02:18:02 GMT from Canada)
@3: "I just learned that the main developer of this new distro is just 10 years old. "
Something I find interesting about this person (and their project) is the developer keeps getting reported as being younger and younger. When I first heard about the project two or three years ago they were 14 reportedly . Last year someone told me the main developer is 12. Today it's 10. The kid is ageing backwards!
5 • New package formats (again) (by Charlie on 2022-09-05 03:49:40 GMT from Hong Kong)
Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we have Flatpak and Snap already.
That said, I know some still oppose to the new cotainer format of packagers while preferring the traditional one (rpm, deb etc.), but Flatpak has really begun showing its advantages.
I can now have wine on my 64bit system easily installed without adding a bunch of 32bit libraries as dependencies, and I am more willing to try some apps without worrying about cleaning the dependencies when I no longer want to use it. It's really handy.
6 • Debian DDG Chromium (by fenglengshun on 2022-09-05 03:51:38 GMT from Ireland)
I'm a little bit confused - why DDG? I guess 2 years ago, they seem like a trustworthy alternative to Google. But recently it has come to light that they have secret deals with Microsoft whose Bing search index is the provider for DDG search index. They only disclosed the deal after getting caught redhanded and even now they still do not disable certain Bing things.
In my mind, it is trading the devil we know with a new devil we know less about. Sure, it's probably better than Google, but at least Google's well documented and you can't argue that on average they bring the best search results for you. But we don't know what else DDG have in the background, and that makes it a questionable decision for me.
While I also understand that people don't like Brave, if the issue is with Google, then why not use a SearX or Whoogle instance? Heck, use Ecosia which at least does something decent with their profit or Startpage which is basically DDG but uses Google so it serves the same purpose but without the baggage that DDG has.
7 • Linglong (by penguinx86 on 2022-09-05 03:54:42 GMT from United States)
No, I won't use Linglong. I never heard of it before and the name sounds like it could contain Chinese spyware. I'll stick with Synaptic and Apt, because I'm more famaliar with them.
8 • Ubuntu Unity (by Rudra Saraswat on 2022-09-05 06:03:02 GMT from India)
@3 and @4: I'm the dev of Ubuntu Unity, and am 12 and will be turning 13 on September 25 (created Ubuntu Unity when I was 10). Hope it's clear now :)
9 • Linglong (by Pete on 2022-09-05 08:00:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Anything to do with China......no chance. I couldn't trust any of it.
10 • I don't mind using a Chinese Linux distro (by Andrei Kim on 2022-09-05 08:49:28 GMT from South Korea)
South Korea, the country where I live in doesn't respect open source software that much and Chinese software engineers are much better training-wise. I might install deepin 23 with this new package system in my spare laptop eventually.
We software engineers are not politicians nor diplomats, so let's stop with boycotting new software introductions.
11 • Linglong and Deepin (by Kazlu on 2022-09-05 09:14:58 GMT from France)
I am already not using Flatpak, I have no reason to try Linglong. Should I need something of the sort one day, I would go for Flatpak because it is not designed for any specific distribution and therefore aims to be universal. I would not use Snap for exactly the same reason.
About Deepin, I must admit I have some reserves using software from a Chinese company. I don't know what ties there are with the Chinese government. I went through the deepin EULA, just to try to get the philosophy of the company. I found two elements that I found weird:
"this Agreement does not allow you to redistribute (including but not limited to software sales, pre-installation, bundling, etc.) the software or its components for any commercial purpose, regardless of whether the software or its components have been modified."
This means nobody is allowed to sell computers with deepin preinstalled. Or nobody is able to provide IT services that would include installation of deepin. That seems strange, since that can only enlarge the user base and potentially sell support... or does the company sell support? I don't know how they make money.
"If you fail to comply with the above provisions, Deepin Community does not take any liability, and has the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate, completely or partially suspend, or limit its normal function of the software, and reserves all rights to pursue your actions."
Am I reading that the "deepin community" grants itself the right, "in its sole discretion" to stop the deepin software on your computer from working???
I might not understand all this properly, so outside opinion on this would be appreciated.
12 • deepin to buntu unity (by linglong & prosper on 2022-09-05 10:33:01 GMT from Canada)
@11, it's also strange that the devs use a live-&-install script to boot deepin, but don't offer the live boot option - you have to edit the boot script yourself. why do they want users to only install deepin, and not use it live?
@3, @4, well the 14 year old dev doesn't make buntu unity all by himself - he has a team - probably all 14 year olds too.
13 • Deepin, Linglong, @8,Unity (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 11:21:55 GMT from Philippines)
@Jesse, It's too bad you decided to forgo the fashion and effects. Without those, Deepin is just another DE, no better more efficient than KDE, XFCE or Cinnamon. It's really all about eye-candy, and I assure you, it doesn't look like KDE. I've installed it a couple of times, but as they say, beauty is only skin-deep, and it hasn't stayed long on my hardware. Strictly a VM for now.
The 23 preview is still quite rough around the edges. I've been Deepin 20 on a VM and it's much more polished. Don't really know what the independent upstream and Linglong are all about. Maybe like some in China they are retreating across a digital moat and pulling up the bridges. The web store only has 24 or so apps, of which some are Windows apps like Photoshop. Downloading from the store can call up Wine to install the Windows apps. Download and install takes a bit of time. For now, no Linglong for me. Maybe at some future time.
@8, Read some stuff about you. Congratulations on Unity. I've tried it, and it's excellent. So you are 12? Practically an old man, then. I read somewhere that Unity will be one of the Ubuntu community editions on 22.10. If so, more congratulations are in order. Try not to pay much attention to what is said in forums like this, or you may end up with gray hair before you are 18.
14 • Linux developers (by James on 2022-09-05 11:22:03 GMT from United States)
Seems Linux developers are more interested in re-inventing the wheel than improving Linux.
15 • Watching for changes in directories (by Jeffrey on 2022-09-05 11:45:52 GMT from Czechia)
Others already mentioned Tripwire and the like, so I'll only add the BSD utility `entr`. It is relatively simple, so one has to build their own solution on it, but it also means it is lightweight and that it can be used in many ways. (It can be found in the repositories of Debian and its derivatives, e.g. https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/entr .)
16 • Unity dev, Linglong (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 11:46:05 GMT from Philippines)
The Unity dev does have a team: https://ubuntuunity.org/team/
And for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcwyb_LUVjY
Ling long means "exquisite" in Mandarin. Reading some of the posts, seems like for a technology forum we still have our share of knuckle-draggers.
17 • @ 6 DDG (by kc1di on 2022-09-05 12:18:18 GMT from United States)
One of the things that make Debian so stable is it takes so long for them to update. But the flip side of that is that they also miss some of the changes that come to light from the time something is purposed till it's enabled.
Two years from being purposed to finish is a long time in search engines today.
What you mentioned is one reason I've changed to Start Page. But I suppose they will find fault with it in some way sooner or later.
18 • @5 Charlie: (by dragonmouth on 2022-09-05 12:51:43 GMT from United States)
"Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we have Flatpak and Snap already."
Not sure why they reinvent the wheels again while we had AppImage already. Is it because they want to have things THEIR way?
@17 Dr.Hu:
IF one knows Mandarin. If one doesn't, then "linglong" is just a nonsense word much like "dingdong". Considering that there are hundreds of languages/dialects in the world, it is certain that a perfectly good word in one is a curse or a derogatory term in another. That's not knuckle-dragging, that's linguistics.
19 • @8 Ubuntu Unity (by Greateffort on 2022-09-05 13:03:16 GMT from Australia)
@8 well done on your efforts - it is mind-boggling for me to think someone so young is leading the way in doing this. You're an inspiration to some of us much older people...
20 • @19 dragonmouth (by Dr. Hu on 2022-09-05 13:06:08 GMT from Philippines)
Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Where in there is the disparagement and dismissing of something or someone's name in another language because it sounds funny to you.
21 • Linglong (by Multiget on 2022-09-05 13:17:16 GMT from Italy)
I don't trust Linglong, Flatpak, Appimage and Snap. Only .deb and .rpm (with the only exception of "balena etcher" in appimage format).
22 • @22 China (by Justme on 2022-09-05 14:26:19 GMT from United States)
"Boycott China on what? Software? Phones? Computers?" Futile indeed. But first, it puzzles me that people think they have such valuable secrets that everyone from China to Microsoft wants to spy on them. I know some people who are afraid of vaccines because they think Bill Gates or someone like him have designed a chip which is inserted and by which they can track them. These are otherwise seemingly normal people. Why?
Most phones (including iPhones), laptops, desktop PCs, CCTV cameras, and just about every other gadgets are put together in China, including installing the OS and/or firmware if any. Wouldn't China take this golden opportunities to put their spy stuff in there. Wouldn't they be rather dumb to put the spyware on their own OS, where it can be easily laid at their door?
Last week I posted the website of Linux Foundation members. Here are some of them for your perusal: Tencent, Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu, WeBank, Allwinner, and of course Uniontech, which owns Deepin. These are some of the evil corporations on the Chinese side that fund the Linux kernel. And this is not nearly an exhaustive list. Seems to me that those who have strong objections to Chinese (or western) evil spying should probably go talk to trihexagonal, who posts here, about switching to BSD.
23 • What's the point? (by Appalachian on 2022-09-05 16:00:52 GMT from United States)
Linglong does the same thing as Flatpak, and it does it in the same way. So, if a person wanted that kind of thing on their system, then why not just use Flatpak in the first place? Linglong doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table which would justify its existence.
24 • Deepin, Linglong, and Unity (by Friar Tux on 2022-09-05 16:17:40 GMT from Canada)
I'm curious why the angst about government intrusion in Deepin and linglong. If it's toted as being open source, I'm sure someone in the know can check out the source code (or already has) to see if there is any "suspicious" coding. Otherwise, or until someone can point at something suspicious, wouldn't it be more appropriate to hold off with the conspiracy silliness?
Of the three, Flatpak, Snap and AppImage, I prefer AppImage as, so far, I find it is the only one that works best, on my machine. And it is truely portable - "one file = one app". (It is also the only one of the three (now four) that will use MY chosen theme, and has all the features/options of the version from the default repository.)
Rudra Saraswat, as said elsewhere, you are an inspiration. My hat comes off to you. While I, personally, do not like Unity (it make my laptop look ,ridiculously, like a giant cell phone), I DO like the idea of choice. And to think that someone as young as 12 in taking on developing/maintaining Unity, I think is fantastic. Keep it up.
Dragonmouth, your comment on linguistics - a good, normal word in one language is a curse word in another - is absolutely dead on. I speak three languages (English, French, German) and in just those three I find lots of examples of this (no, I won't quote them, here, as DW will feel the need to cancel this post, and I can't blame them.)
25 • @22 "Seemingly normal people" (by TFC on 2022-09-05 17:24:20 GMT from United States)
There is your explanation ...
The story goes on like, 99 % ('normal people') uses their preinstalled OS, 1 % uses something else, and of those 1 %, again 1 % goes to forums.
Those last ones really have and share a big secret -- almost all of them need a really good (psycho-) doctor, and they know it -- just refuse to visit one to get some help ...
As of 'good-looking' Deepin, if I take a look at the first screenshot in the review above, there's nothing good to see on that panel and start menu ...
As of the 'strange license terms', as much as I know, Deepin Desktop is a commercial product, but everybody is allowed to use it for free. Someone explained that here once in the past.
As of 'trusting Chinese', I'd be more scared to use the EU & USA distributions. They both are collecting data about everybody and everything -- and they are even trying to undermine encryption to spy on messengers, building the backdoors in HW ...
BTW, good luck with rejecting everything Chinese -- even US medicaments are produced there -- that this is also truth for the US cars, or for the US houses, is the smallest problem ...
26 • 2 Years for a simple search engine change (by Hank on 2022-09-05 17:38:06 GMT from Germany)
At the rate Debian is moving I will be dead before they fix a regression to NVidia drivers .
The install fails as one part of X points to a library which does not and never has existed.
Was declared fixed a few weeks ago and promptly broken again with a recent update.
Debian Quality assurance and user orientation are sadly lost in space these days.
27 • @22, @25 On the subject of trust (by Leo on 2022-09-05 20:17:17 GMT from United States)
Corporations usually do not "spy" on specific people, they collect as much bulk data as they can because it can increase their profits. These immense amounts of data can be and often are abused, compromised or shared with governments and various virtually unknown partners.
Free Software should provide transparency to avoid need of trusting software vendors. However this depends on people reviewing the code. The amount of code is such that it is reviewed poorly. Explicit backdoors and anti-features are catched, but subtle intentional vulnerabilities are very difficult to find.
So going independent is a reason to avoid Deepin, it was more trustworthy when it was more closely based on Debian, the established and widely used community distro.
28 • @22 - Deepin owned by UnionTech (by Andy Prough on 2022-09-05 21:08:48 GMT from New Zealand)
I read the post by @22, and having not heard of UnionTech I looked them up and their relationship with Deepin.
I'm not passing judgment, I'm just noting that Deepin is owned by a company that is developing an OS for the Chinese government. Some people may see that as either a good or a bad thing. On the good side, they are trying to replace MS Windows with a Linux distro, so there's that. From Wikipedia:
"The development of Deepin is led by China-based Deepin Technology Co., Ltd. The company generates revenue through the sale of technical support and other services related to it.[3] As of 1 January 2020, Deepin Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件)."
"Unity Operating System (also known as Unified Operating System[2] or UOS, Chinese: 统一操作系统) is a Chinese Linux distribution developed by UnionTech (Chinese: 统信软件) based on Deepin,[3] which is based on Debian. It is used in China as part of a government initiative beginning in 2019 to replace foreign-made software such as Microsoft Windows with domestic products."
If a half-billion people start using a Linux distro instead of Windows, you could make an argument that this is a positive development. Of course, any government project by its nature is suspect, so you could argue the other side.
29 • buntu unity (by linglong $ prosper on 2022-09-05 22:33:30 GMT from Canada)
The buntu unity dev is young in the tech world - he's 10?...12?...13?...14? - already you can't even pin down his proper age. He's probly already had plastic surgery, and dated one or two of the Kardashians. :) (But the Unity distro does look good.)
30 • buntu unity dev (by Titus_Groan on 2022-09-05 22:53:41 GMT from New Zealand)
@29, "already you can't even pin down his proper age"
maybe read comment @8
looks like Rudra has a great future ahead in software development
31 • Deepin desktop @25 (by Dr Hu on 2022-09-05 23:12:56 GMT from Philippines)
"As of 'good-looking' Deepin, if I take a look at the first screenshot in the review above, there's nothing good to see on that panel and start menu ..." As I said earlier, it is unfortunate that the reviewer decided against fashion look and effects. It misses the transparencies and floating dock and menu effects. (Screenshots are available online by googling.) My DDE doesn't look anything like Jesse's screenshots. As shown, deepin looks like a stock KDE or Cinnamon, which will probably be better choices in that case. Maybe the icons are prettier, but that's it. The menu is versatile. It can be a category-based menu in the corner, or a full-screen dashboard like Gnome's or scrollable full-screen series of category panels.
"As of the 'strange license terms', as much as I know, Deepin Desktop is a commercial product, but everybody is allowed to use it for free. Someone explained that here once in the past." Deepin is a community distro. The commercial version is UOS, which is used, among others, by Huawei. As broadcast widely on the news a couple of years ago, Huawei is under sanctions by the US government, and cannot use Windows on their PCs or Google services on their phones. So China's corporations are looking for, and coming up with alternatives.
32 • Deepin license (by Justme on 2022-09-05 23:41:06 GMT from United States)
deepin is published under the GPL v3. Going back and forth about the EULA might be entertaining, but means nothing. Anyone with a vested interest would need to contact the FSF and let their lawyers decide if deepin is in compliance. For practical purposes, it doesn't matter unless one is in China, as the EULA is only enforceable there.
33 • @32 Deepin license (by Leo on 2022-09-06 01:30:00 GMT from Austria)
Of course they are not in compliance if their EULA supercedes GPLv3 in mainland China and if it has no provisions like "notwithstanding all of the above nothing herein shall supercede or modify the terms of any separate license agreements..." (of individual open source software components).
34 • @33 license (by Leo on 2022-09-06 02:00:34 GMT from France)
Hmm, it looks like clauses 1 and 7 of their EULA effectively cancel all of the additional restrictions from other clauses. So it looks like at least for Deepin (I have not looked up the UOS EULA) they are in compliance.
35 • @34 (by Leo on 2022-09-06 02:16:18 GMT from Austria)
However it is not clear from their EULA whether GPLv3 applies to software components developed solely by UnionTech or whether these components (if there are any) are governed by contradictory "EULA + GPLv3" nonsense mix. Maybe Chinese language version is more clear.
36 • Salix release this week (by Kazlu on 2022-09-06 08:42:13 GMT from France)
I'm reading the Salix release annoucement. I remember trying it a little less than a decade ago, worked very well but eventually I stayed with Debian-based distros because it's more widely used which has advantages in termes of QA, bug/vulnerability hunting/correction and software availability. But I am wondering, and honestly asking users of a Slackware based distro here: what is the drive to a Slackware-based distro? What do you find more appealing in a Slackware base than a Debian base (I am only mentioning Debian because I also see it as a stable, slow moving base)? This is an honest question here, I am absolutely not trying to criticise the choice of a Slackware-based distro, I am wondering this out of curiosity, because maybe I am missing something.
37 • Unity (by JS on 2022-09-06 10:21:02 GMT from Germany)
I can only congratulate the Unity team. This is really a great achievement. The project is going in a promising direction. I wonder about the comments regarding Rudra S.'s age that keep coming up. If I remember correctly, Mozart made his first concert tours at the age of 6 and started writing down his significant compositions at about 8. Would anyone refuse to listen because of that?
38 • @36 (by Simon on 2022-09-06 10:32:42 GMT from New Zealand)
Yes, I appreciate the fact that it's a genuine question. I've run far more Debian-based (including Ubuntu) systems than Slackware systems over the years, but genuinely preferred Slackware when I had the time to set it up (I don't these days).
Slackware is heaven for control freaks because it's so simple: Debian is a convoluted mess by comparison. Debian (and most other distros) pile an enormous amount of automation onto everything to make it easier to do stuff with minimal effort. Slackware is (or at least was, when I last used it) so simple that it's possible for a relatively unskilled administrator like me to understand most of what it's doing, just from reading the simple text files it uses for configuration. Everything is clean, tidy and straightforward... at the cost of requiring more time and effort to set up initially.
Debian's more like a chainsaw, Slackware's more like an old-fashioned hand saw: a chainsaw user might scoff at the "ridiculous" effort involved in sawing things manually, but there's a clean simplicity to Slackware that can make it more trustworthy in some circumstances, in roughly the same way that your arm's more trustworthy than a chainsaw's engine. I always felt like I knew what was going on in my Slackware boxes: perhaps the fact that it was basically the product of one man's oversight limited its complexity, in order to keep it comprehensible in its entirety by one person. I've never had that experience with the likes of Debian: it's so complex that it's a case of "well, I don't really understand what's going on here, but it seems to be working so I'll trust that others have configured this stuff wisely". Obviously there are degrees of that, and I've never come close to being able to say (without looking anything up) what every single file was doing, even on a Slackware box... but you can get a lot closer to that with Slackware than Debian.
Also, as a result (and again, after some effort to configure it), it was much faster in the old days, especially at booting up... breathtakingly fast ("what the heck, we're at the desktop already?!?!") compared to other distros. These days with systemd, a properly configured Debian-based box can boot very quickly, and I don't notice as much sluggishness in desktop responsiveness and so on either (with a few exceptions like launching Ubuntu's horrible default snap version of Firefox): there aren't as many practical arguments for Slackware as there used to be. It has an excellent long support life (many years, like Ubuntu LTS), but a much smaller official package set so there's a higher chance you'll have installed a bunch of your own stuff (and slackbuilds from slackbuilds.org or whatever) that won't be getting timely (or any) security fixes. Basically you're probably right to stick with Debian-based distros... to answer your question I don't think you're "missing" anything in that respect... but I'll always have a soft spot for Slackware's tidy simplicity.
39 • @Jesse - Deepin Review (by Linux Revolution on 2022-09-06 16:06:16 GMT from United States)
Way to exercise your diplomacy of Deepin. My paranoia compels me to read between the lines! LOL...
40 • Where is the source code for linglong? (by source-code-seeker on 2022-09-06 17:40:53 GMT from United States)
Sounds like flatpak, is it a fork or just another UI over the whole ostree stack? And where's the source code, so we can find out the answer? In any case we really don't need another packaging format. Unless a certain country wants to maintain a software stack independent of other certain countries.
41 • @38 (by Kazlu on 2022-09-07 07:57:51 GMT from France)
Thank you very much for this thorough and very clear description! The chainsaw VS hand saw image is particularly well chosen and helps getting your point. I guess I get it, I could even be interested in this especially on an older backup machine or a server, but like you I am already (s)lacking time to invest in it anyway. I suppose there is some appeal to Salix implementing Flatpak, to get additional packages from another source than slackbuilds and in a way that does not mess with your base OS, but you lose in snappiness... Anyway, it's good to know this is an option.
42 • @38 (by kc1di on 2022-09-07 09:58:40 GMT from United States)
Thank you for your good description. I found slackware about as you discribe it. Used it for many years, was my first distro when getting into Linux many years ago. Just got lazy and now use Debian distros mostly.
I have soft spot for the now discontinued Vector Linux - Which was a nice slack base system.
Have tried Salix yet. Kinda wish the has a live version.
If you have the time Slack is a good system. And will serve you for many years.
43 • Salix etc. (by Barnabyh on 2022-09-07 16:17:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Nice to see Salix is back and has a new version out. Although these days I am tempted to stay with Linux Mint/ LMDE or try MX KDE if feeling adventurous.
Not keen on installing anything anymore though as the current systems have been running well for over three years. Getting old I guess. I leave it to the young folks to distrohop and try everything now.
Still, if ever a reinstall should be needed Salix will be on my list, as is AlienBob's Slackware live for thumb drives.
44 • Post 2 Years for a simple search engine change from Hank (by Lo Han Kuo on 2022-09-08 09:11:40 GMT from Germany)
Debian has it seems fixed the NVidia drivers. Installed Tesla 470 version without error yesterday.
Wonder if the post from Hank moved the issue in to focus.
Anyways I am very grateful for the fix.
Unfortunately open drivers are vastly inferior on some NVidia cards. On mine screen tearing and glitches are awful.
45 • Debian: open drivers VS manufacturer drivers (by Kazlu on 2022-09-08 13:58:35 GMT from France)
Since there are many comments about the poor hardware support of open drivers (and the implications for Debian), I'd like to add my 2 cents here.
My experience is different. Mostly for ecological reasons, I do not buy new hardware anymore, I make it last as much as possible and when I really need a new machine, I always go for second hand, refurbished if possible. So my hardware is never brand new. And I don't need that. Most od the time my needs are simple, but I am still doing some gaming or even video editing on occasion. These are resource intensive activities and I need capable hardware. But I don't need brand new hardware. I often end up with 2-4 years old hardware and that's plenty enough.
Why am I saying this? Well, in several occasions, on 2-4 years old Nvidia graphics card, the open drivers work better than the Nvidia drivers! Less crashes, even better resolution sometimes. And it makes sense: when a new graphics card comes out, the previous model goes out of fashion and manufacturer support slows down, before eventually ending. But open drivers continue to progress as long as there are developpers using the hardware, and they eventually catch up, even go beyond manufacturer drivers in terms of quality. So I actually feel much better with hardware that is a few years old, muuuuuuch less hassle. The only times I had issues was when I got hardware that didn't reach the 2 years old mark yet!
That being said, this is true for graphics. Wireless adapters are a whole different story. They don't evolve that much over time. And even the best retro-engineers have trouble getting them to work to create an open driver.
So my point is: don't associate open drivers with bad drivers.
46 • dev ages (by linglong & prosper on 2022-09-09 22:58:51 GMT from France)
Quote for the week:
"A 12 year old tech is better than an adult tech who acts like a 12 year old."
Number of Comments: 46
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| Archives |
| • 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 |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Cub Linux
Cub Linux (formerly Chromixium) was an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that attempts to recreate the look & feel and functionality of Google's Chrome OS on a conventional desktop. It combines the Openbox window manager with the Compton desktop compositor, Plank dock and LXDE's LXPanel to provide the desktop and menus. The Chromium web browser, equipped with the PepperFlash plugin, was the main online application, although the complete array of Ubuntu software can be easily added for offline/desktop use. Ubuntu updates are installed automatically, providing long-term security support.
Status: Discontinued
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| Tips, Tricks, Q&As | | Questions and answers: Running a distribution with automated updates |
| Questions and answers: Longest supported distribution |
| Tips and tricks: Basename, for loop, dirname, aliases, bash history, xsel clipboard |
| Tips and tricks: Running Ubuntu Touch on an Android phone |
| Tips and tricks: All about package signing |
| Tips and tricks: Working with images from the command line |
| Tips and tricks: Digital cameras, mobile phones and music players under Linux |
| Questions and answers: Live distro versus installed distro performance |
| Questions and answers: Distribution members, donations, and governance structure |
| Questions and answers: Using noexec to prevent social engineering attacks |
| More Tips & Tricks and Questions & Answers |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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