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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • There’s nothing special about it. Linux distros are one of the options, alongside windows and osx as desktop systems.

    What there are are preferences, morals, affordability. Linux is generally free, has different approaches to how the system is structured, how software is installed, how much access to the system you have, and how much responsibility for setting it up you have.

    This will also vary from distro to distro, but generally software is installed from the distribution’s repositories, not downloading files from various websites - and instead of having some different scheme for updating every program on your computer, you use a single command (or button in an app) to update your system and all your software. This is one of the main things I love about Linux - you get to update your stuff when you want, all at once.








  • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.detolinuxmemes@lemmy.worldIT Department's Plan
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    2 months ago

    Does windows come preinstalled and preconfigured with more potentially vulnerable software on open ports?

    I personally don’t value an antivirus that much, since it can only protect you from known threats, and even then, it only matters when you’re already getting compromised - but fair point for Windows, I suspect most distros come without antivirus preinstalled and preconfigured.

    A firewall, on the other hand, only has value if you already have insecure services listening on your system - and I’m pretty sure on Windows those services aren’t gonna be blocked by the default settings. All that said though… Most Linux distros come with a firewall, something like iptables or firewalld, though not sure which ones would have it preconfigured for blocking connections by default.

    So while I would dispute both of those points as not being that notable, I feel like other arguments in favor of Linux still stand, like reduced surface area, simpler kernel code, open and auditable source.

    One big issue with Linux security for consumers (which I have to assume is what you’re talking about, since on the server side a sysadmin will want to configure any antivirus and firewall anyways) could be that different distributions will have different configurations - both for security and for preference-based things like desktop environments. This does unfortunately mean that users could find themselves installing less secure distros without realizing it, choosing them for their looks/usage patterns.




  • I think you’re actually agreeing with me here. I was disputing the claim that software should be made available in “a native package format”, and my counterpoint is that devs shouldn’t be packaging things for distros, and instead providing source code with build instructions, alongside whatever builds they can comfortably provide - primarily flatpak and appimage, in my example.

    I don’t use flatpak, and I prefer to use packages with my distro’s package manager, but I definitely can’t expect every package to be available in that format. Flatpak and appimage, to my knowledge, are designed to be distro-agnostic and easily distributed by the software developer, so they’re probably the best options - flatpak better for long-term use, appimage usable for quickly trying out software or one-off utilities.

    As for tar.gz, these days software tends to be made available on GitHub and similar platforms, where you can fetch the source from git by commit, and releases also have autogenerated source downloads. Makefiles/automake isn’t a reasonable expectation these days, with a plethora of languages and build toolchains, but good, clear instructions are definitely something to include.




  • And reinstalling the packages, moving over all the configs, setting up the partitions and moving the data over? (Not in this order, of course)

    Cloning a drive would just require you to plug both the old and new to the same machine, boot up (probably from a live image to avoid issues), running a command and waiting until it finishes. Then maybe fixing up the fstab and reinstalling the bootloader, but those are things you need to do to install the system anyways.

    I think the reason you’d want to reinstall is to save time, or get a clean slate without any past config mistakes you’ve already forgotten about, which I’ve done for that very reason, especially since it was still my first, and less experienced, install.


  • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.deto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneStone Rule
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    3 months ago

    The implication of the meme is that the people talking about how stupid the protests are are actually blind to the very real climate change happening. They might know about it, but they don’t really comprehend that defacing the Stonehenge is nothing compared to it being completely underwater, alongside the whole area.

    Whether the comic is right or wrong is another thing, and the other guy arguing in bad faith is a cunt, but I strongly believe that’s what the comic is meant to portray.