• 2 Posts
  • 61 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023

  • I’ve never heard anyone say that Flatpaks could result in losing access to the terminal.

    My only problem with Flatpaks are the lack of digital signature, neither from the repository nor the uploader. Other major package managers do use digital signatures, and Flatpaks should too.






  • My favorite is Debian, with systemd uninstalled. At this point, you can’t install Debian without systemd, but you can uninstall systemd after OS installation.

    It used to be that most desktop environments in Debian depended on libpam-systemd, which depended on systemd and systemd-sysv. More recently, desktop environments just depend on libpam-elogind and elogind which is only part of systemd, and allows you to use sysvinit.

    I prefer sysvinit mainly because I find it easier to create custom services out of my own programs. My success rate at doing this in systemd is 1/3, and in sysvinit about 10/10.

    I also had a problem where a Debian-based embedded system had some kind of broken NTP client running on startup, and due to systemd, I couldn’t figure out how to disable it. It would set the time to several years into the future, as soon as it first got a network connection on each startup.





  • Copyright’s purpose is to improve the public domain. If it doesn’t do that, then its harmful and should be reduced or abolished.

    To keep copyrighted content relevant at the point it enters the public domain, copyright should be shortened to 20 years for creative works (films, music, paintings, Spongebob).

    Consider the current public domain, which contains things like fairy tales. People remix and retell fairy tales all the time, and it makes for good stories.



  • Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.

    Windows used to be easy. Now, it’s so obscure and locked down that only Microsoft can maintain your computer. And they maintain it for their own benefit, at your expense, with mandatory ads and lockouts.


  • SSHFS is very mature. I use it for administering several home servers.

    It works so well that they added a mode where some users can have SFTP only access (without SSH shell) so you can set up shared directories. It was easier to set up (for me) than CIFS or NFS.







  • Post-quantum isn’t really a big problem because it will be a very long time before there are viable quantum computers (maybe never). You should focus on the very real risks of security breaks from normal negligence and design errors.

    Threema seems pretty unpopular, so the risk is highest. Signal and Matrix are both popular and have a lot of scrutiny on their cryptography.

    All 3 have open source clients, but Signal contains some binary blobs. Only Matrix has an open source server, though end-to-end encryption enforced by the client alleviates most of the concern of proprietary servers. All 3 support end-to-end encryption.


  • It’s an issue.

    You can’t create an account on desktop. You can’t create multiple accounts. You can’t create an account at all if you don’t have a phone number. You can’t create an account if your phone number’s previous owner created an account. Signal can be subpoenaed for your phone number.


  • This article seems like a lot of FUD written from an anti-FOSS perspective. In their second point, they say that F-droid’s inclusion policy is “ridiculous” for requiring programs exclude proprietary software. I think the author is ridiculous for asking for this. This is what F-droid is for. I don’t want any proprietary apps or libraries on my phone. If developers only want to work on their proprietary software, they don’t get into F-droid. If they make a modified FOSS version and put it in F-droid, and let it bitrot and go unpatched when vulnerabilities are discovered, and F-droid issues a security advisory for that program, that’s not F-droid’s fault.