I’m old enough to remember the Leisure Suit Larry series that used age verification by asking questions that kids probably wouldn’t know (obviously this was long before the internet).

Debian - the very slight value hassle of having to install the web blobs for glances manually. This is really minor, because it only comes up occasionally, but it’s rare enough that I can’t remember what the path is each time.

That said, I totally agree with Debian’s stance on the issue, and I think glances should change their process. Debian’s way makes me acknowledge the risk of installing the blob. It’d be nice if there was a package I could install after going, yep, I know this is potentially dangerous.

Honestly I thought I’d be disappointed with Debian on my gaming machine, but it works fine. I updated Wine to the newer version on their site (instead of using Debian’s packages), and it works great.

Uh keep in mind they could just unplug the computer. Software limits are good, but if they really want to shut it off, they’ll find a way.

I use Debian for everything, and the only thing I’ve updated to the current (non Debian distribution) version is Docker, which I use for a game. But this isn’t a problem, because it’s Debian, so the Docker people make packages for several recent Debian releases.

I don’t miss the bleeding edge. That issue a while back where someone infiltrated a basic library didn’t affect me. The software I use might have bugs (what software doesn’t?), but by the time I get it, it has been well tested for security issues.

I’m pretty happy with my switch to Debian. I’ll admit I’m curious about Bazzite for my gaming computer, but even then, it’s like, “Why? Debian is doing just fine.”

But I’m not laughing at anyone. This is a scary new variety of attacks we’re seeing, and there’s no real reason one couldn’t end up in my computer. Reminds me of the old one where someone slipped a backdoor into a compiler.

Debian on my server, my desktop, my laptop, and my gaming computer. That last one might be the most questionable choice, but so far it has been working well.

Just works. No issues.

You have your answers, but I just want to note that what I do is run rsync from cron nightly, without the delete option.

Basically this reduces the chances of losing something by accidentally deleting it on the primary drive. Every few weeks/months, I run the rsync command with the delete option to clean up.

It’s not a perfect backup by any means, especially since I could erroneously delete something right before that second rsync command and lose it for good. But it does provide a measure of safety.

Debian, on the server, the laptop, the desktop, and the gaming machine. Debian.

I started with Slackware many years ago. Eventually switched to Kubuntu on my desktop and laptop machines, then later the server switched to Debian. The desktop and laptop switched later.

Volkerding, I think! checks Yep that’s it!

I remember being an idiot and compiling my own kernel (“oh it’s so much faster!”). Lol. I guess if that’s the dumbest thing I’ve done, I’m doing well. I remember that sound clip, too.

Hey you were recycling them, just not into a dump!

I thought he did do a proof of concept, but I could be wrong. It’s been a while (many years) since I’ve read up on it.

My first Linux install was also Slackware, albeit Slackware 3.x, in the late 90s, while avoiding grad school work. I don’t remember what kernel it used at that time. So if you’re grampa, I guess I’m your son. :)

Yeah, I watched that. I mostly already knew the story, but it was a great video anyway. And…extremely disturbing. Whoever it was will learn from the mistakes of this attempt…

It can be frustrating, but Debian’s policy against binary blobs was a smart decision. I’ve run into it for glances web interface, and it’s easy enough to decide I’m okay with installing it (and hopefully glances revises their release to address the issue), but removing them by default is smart.

I think you are thinking of this.

But, more recently, this should make anyone who is concerned about security shudder. And it was only discovered because some guy in Germany noticed ssh logins were taking a bit longer than in previous versions.

Aww I didn’t know that. I used Slackware for many years and had the DVD subscription. I got tired of worrying about dependencies and moved to Debian, but I still have a soft spot for Slackware.

I do remember one time Slashdot had an article about a new Slackware release, and he was like, “Do I get first post?” lol What a time that was.

Ah that would do it. Disappointing. But thanks for the suggestions and finding that.

Yeah 3.0 on Trixie.

Sounds like that gimp-data-extras package shouldn’t apply to 3.x. So maybe that’s the fundamental problem.

Unfortunately, the message in the terminal isn’t helpful:

scriptfu-Message: 19:50:36.837: Error while executing script-fu-alien-glow-logo:

That’s it. There’s no additional info.

I just downloaded the Gimp appimage, but it doesn’t have the logo generation scripts in it. I feel like they’ve been abandoned and no one noticed.

I tried editing one of them to change the -1 in the gimp-text-fontname call to None, then Null. Restarted GIMP after each change, but I’m still getting the error.

But it sounds like it’s an error in the GIMP distribution…

Really? With the drive letters? I’ve seen people who were running out of letters to use.

I assume you don’t mean the path names, since that’s more Unixy.

I use DHCP for everything, even my server, with a reserved IP address in the router for the server and my desktop and a few other things I don’t want to move around (printers, some IoT things, Home Assistant, etc.).

I think the issue is the bridge interface I have to set up for Home Assistant.

This reminds me… My server demands to be known as hostname.local on my network. The other machines just respond to just hostname. I really should figure out why that is.

Yeah that’s my problem with this story - I can’t figure out what he thinks happened to see if it happened on my machine as well. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t, but you never know.

I don’t even know which dll was the malicious one. And how it got installed. I have trouble believing some remote hack that would work on windows would also work on wine. I know it’s not impossible, but it just seems really far fetched.

It would have had to have happened while he was running the software; as far as I know, wine isn’t sitting there running all the time like a service, and it shouldn’t be answering requests from the internet. Maybe he does run the program all day, though, which opens up some sort of vulnerability.

But it’s so confusing, I can’t even come up with another theory. They deleted all his files in retaliation for discovering the hack? Possible, yes, but like someone else said they would have had to be watching, unless he hit some trip wire. And a separate windows system had the same hack?

In any case, at the least, it’s a reminder to have a good firewall, especially on an untrusted network, and backups.

Pretty?

In my mind, I equate Gnome with OS X, while KDE is more like Windows.

I can use both competently, but I prefer KDE. Back when I used Ubuntu, I’d always use Kubuntu.