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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • I think on mutable distros, or at least arch, you can run a command to reinstall all installed packages, which will verify integrity of the package files (signatures) and then ensure the files in the filesystem match package files? And I think it takes minutes at most, at least for typical setups.

    I do think it’s also possible to just verify integrity of all files installed from a package, but I don’t remember if it required an external utility, pretty sure it’s on the arch wiki under pacman/tips and tricks






  • Why does every distro need yet another package manager?

    I think most package managers - the ones actually part of a distro - are old. It’s not a question of why they all use different package managers, it’s a matter of them having developed them long ago before any single one matured.

    That said, there are other considerations, which is also where new ones come from - different distros will have different approaches to package formats, dependency management, tracking of installed packages and system files, some might be implemented in a specific language due to the distro’s ideology, some might work in a different way (like NixOS), and there’s probably a whole bunch that just want a different interface.

    You wouldn’t ask why Linux has a different way of viewing installed programs from Windows, and in the same vein packages are not a universal aspect of Linux, so each distro has to make its own choices.

    Also I like pacman, some people complain about the commands being obscure, but I feel like they’re structured in a much more logical way. Don’t confuse it with yay though, pacman doesn’t build packages, and yay is specifically a wrapper around pacman that has different commands, while adding the ability to interact with the AUR.









  • I generally agree, but I’m not gonna continue buying on steam just because they’re developing new tech - I happily buy games on steam because of the features steam provides.

    That said, DRM-free games is something steam does not and probably will not provide - it’s a niche GOG is comfortable with, so many people who value freedom on software will choose it as their first platform of choice.

    In that sense, the hardware is completely unrelated - it does nothing towards the goal of DRM-free games, and in case of the index, locks more games behind a platform.


  • What take even is that? I can understand some complaints about Linux support for how much people praise the deck, but why would they make their own handheld… And VR headset? I feel like hardware shouldn’t be locked to specific platforms, and I would rather blame Valve for not releasing steam-independent software for their headset.



  • 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.