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Joined 2Y ago
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Cake day: Oct 28, 2020

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No, you are confusing flatpak with sandboxing. Sandboxing is a good thing. You don’t need flatpak to implement sandboxing. Additionally, good sandboxing has to be configured by trusted 3rd parties, like package maintainers, not by upstream developers, because the latter creates a conflict of interest.


Flatpak, snap and docker are the problem.


Not really. Signal is a walled garden but Matrix has a lot of a privacy issues.



This is why we need a strong GPLv3 ecosystem. GPL 3 has protection clauses against patent trolling.


There are plenty of thermostat regulated shower taps. They’ve been around for decades and do exactly what the author wants.


No thanks - that would harm the fediverse by allowing a lot of targeted trolling.



When Debian switched over to Systemd, there was fork made called Devuan that doesn’t use systemd.

That’s not correct. Debian distributes both SystemD and sysvinit. Any use that does not want to use SystemD can install the latter.

Additionally, the large majority of distribution switched to SystemD as default - often before Debian. This is in no way a Debian-specific topic.


Debian is good because of their packages or package manager or something. Recently sold out

Huh? Debian is not sold out.

but there are spinoffs that don’t use proprietary software like Duvian.

That’s not correct. There’s no proprietary software in the official Debian repository “main”.


I wouldn’t use debian as a new user. It is a great distro, but they package only free (open-source) software, so various drivers and codecs will not be available without some tinkering.

This is false. You can easily enable contrib and non-free at install time.


Walkscore gives very inflated ratings.


Debian, for providing security backports, pioneering reproducible builds, and handling software licensing carefully.


No need to reinvent the wheel: just use Debian, either Stable or Unstable.


Urgh. No, I was thinking of UIs that are information-dense and allow quickly scanning across long threads and thousands of messages, e.g. https://usenet-abc.de/wiki/uploads/Team/Sylpheed2.7.1_big.jpg


No, the tools are crucial in presenting content in the right way to create the community.


Discussion groups for meaningful conversations, like Usenet/NNTP was.


Nonetheless, the concept of supply chain applies perfectly.


As SoCs constantly increase both in complexity and power, the amount and size of firmware has been increasing as well. It becomes more difficult to find hardware that runs without any close source component.



You are missing the point. A process-independent file opener that is used by all applications to access files provides user-friendly security. This would be a core component of an OS so the description is correct.


there could be a Flatpak API for requesting the user for a file to open with their explicit consent

That would not be Flatkpak then. It would be an OS component, much like Android has a file opener implemented as an independent process IIRC.


All in all, most problems with Flatpak are problems, that can be solved

No, flatpak and similar things are designed to bypass the relation of trust between end users and Linux distributions. Users are required to either blindly rely the upstream authors with the sandboxing, privacy, legal compliance and general quality or do extensive vetting and configuration by themselves.

Additionally the approach of throwing every dependency in one big blob removes the ability to receive fast, targeted security updates for critical libraries (e.g. OpenSSL). And there is no practical way to receive notifications for vulnerabilities and to act on them for the average user.

Traditional Linux distributions carefully backport security fixes to previous releases, allowing users to fix vulnerabilities without being force to upgrade their software to newer releases. New releases might contain unwanted features or be too heavy for older hardware, or break backward compatibility.

With Flatpak, even if the upstream developer forever releases new packages every time a vulnerability is found in the entire blob, end users are forced to choose between keeping the vulnerable version or update it. Plus, the authors might simply abandon the project.

Furthermore, Flatpak, Snap etc and similarly Docker do not require 3rd party / peer review of the software. Given the size of the blobs it would very impractical to review their contents even if it was required.


This is a Flatpak problem. Its design requires the user to either trust the upstream developers to set the sandboxing properly or learn how to do it and spend time configuring each and every application as needed. This is not practical.

In traditional Linux distributions there is a trusted package mantainer that reviews software and configurations with the user’s needs in mind.


The majority of closed source software is not innovative at all. It’s usually just a rehash of existing ideas and functions with a new UI.

Cloning it is also not innovative but FOSS is hardly to blame here. If anything, breaking users free from lock-in is the main innovative aspect.




First you release something, wait until is widely adopted and then add ways to control users or capture their data, for example host contents on a CDN you control, or add paid extras, or switch license for later releases. All of this examples happened in the past. The good old embrace-extend-lock-in.


…but it does not federate with Lemmy and other platforms on the fediverse. Meh :(


Then… just use Debian and live happy.


This is just advertising. It’s also misleading because RISC-V targets more use-cases than ARM, especially around microcontrollers.


Too little too late. Want safety and sustainability? Build a railway.


For most people distro hopping is like changing car when a light breaks. You are denying yourself the opportunity to learn how to solve a problem. I’ll stick with Debian.

Edit: if you want to learn about different package managers you can just use VMs for that. There’s no need to distro-hop.


No, if anything you should use the average number of passengers for each vehicle.


Obviously you have to use the right binary…


Alternatively you can buy a Lichee RV. They seem to be still cheaper. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003741287162.html


Debian itself runs on ARM, RISC-V and many other architectures.


It’s called latency or (rarely) RTT, not “ping”, and network congestion is almost always the reason for such high values.


If anything, they will create a big amount of night traffic where tourists sleep in RVs/minivans while travelling and visit places during the day.