Linux

I was thinking about going immutable for a long time and now I'm choosing a distro to hop to.
My question is: what are good immutable distros other than Fedora Silverblue spins, UBlue family and NixOS?
Maybe someone uses/used any? What is/was your experience with it?

Just installed Bazzite and it seems to work well so far.

Then I added a second standard user to the system and thought they'd have access to all software I just installed for the main user. But that doesn't seem the case, Bazzite prompted me to install all those again for the second user.

Is that just a thing with immutable distros or did I do this in a wrong way? I tried looking this question up, but I couldn't find any info on multi user setups with immutable distros.

Welcome to the monthly update for openSUSE Tumbleweed for June 2024. This month was busy with events like the Community Summit in Berlin and the openSUSE Conference, but a number of snapshots continued to roll out to users. Developers, system administrators and users receive updates designed to enhance your experience and ensure high levels of security and performance.

Should readers desire a more frequent amount of information about snapshot updates, readers are encouraged to subscribe to the openSUSE Factory mailing list.

Let’s go!

New Features and Enhancements

• Linux Kernel 6.9.7: This kernel introduces several important fixes and enhancements across various subsystems. Key updates include addressing undefined references in netfilter when CONFIG_SYSCTL is disabled, correcting TCP Fast Open handling, and resolving a conflicting quirk in Advanced Linux Sound Architecture for Realtek devices. Improvements in file system writeback operations, multi-threaded path handling and memory management for Hisilicon crypto drivers enhance stability. Networking updates include fixes for race conditions in netpoll, enhancements for specific SFP modules, and improvements in WiFi drivers such as RTW89, Ath9k, Ath12k, and MT76. Additional platform-specific updates address issues in ACPI, ARM64 configurations, HID device handling, and Bluetooth driver fixes.
• PipeWire 1.2.0 and WirePlumber 0.5.4: PipeWire 1.2.0 introduces asynchronous processing, node.sync-group for synchronized scheduling, and improved config parsing error reporting. It also adds mandatory metadata support for buffer parameters, multiple data-loops with CPU affinity, and dynamic log level adjustments. Key fixes include RTP-SAP module enhancements, ROC 0.3 support, and improved Bluetooth BAP broadcast code parsing. WirePlumber 0.5.4 refines the role-based linking policy, allowing role-based sinks alongside standard audio operations and enabling regular filters to act as best targets. It addresses startup crashes due to empty config files, improves Bluetooth profile auto-switching, and fixes issues with DSP filters and infinite loop scenarios in autoswitching scripts. Together, these updates enhance the flexibility, reliability, and overall performance of audio management in Linux environments. Both also received updates in snapshot 20240627
• Mesa and Mesa-drivers 24.1.2: Both packages underwent a specfile cleanup, involving the relocation of Rust crate sources into subprojects folders and updates to baselibs.conf. Due to the maintenance burden associated with Rust crates as system dependencies, these crates are now downloaded as vendored dependencies, as detailed in the README-suse-maintenance.md. The update adds support for building libvulkan_nouveau, including necessary Rust crates such as paste-1.0.14, proc-macro2-1.0.70, quote-1.0.33, syn-2.0.39, and unicode-ident-1.0.12. However, building libvulkan_nouveau on Leap is not possible due to the requirement for rust-cbindgen >= 0.25. For more details, refer to the release notes at https://docs.mesa3d.org/relnotes/24.1.2.
• KDE Plasma 6.1.1: Discover improves UI elements and Packagekit support, while Dr Konqi corrects the Sentry dbus interface usage. Plasma Addons addresses reference issues in Effects/cube, and krdp ensures version compatibility and resolves session controller bugs. Kscreenlocker improves greeter functionality, and KWin introduces multiple fixes for shaders, tiling, and input panels. Libkscreen and libplasma update protocol versions and fix plugin loading issues. Plasma Desktop enhances task icon sizing, panel opacity and file dragging across screens. Plasma Audio Volume Control removes unnecessary symlinks, and Plasma Systemmonitor correctly positions loading overlays. Powerdevil improves battery protection UI and limits backlighthelper calls.
• Python-setuptools 70.0: Key features in this new major version include emitting warnings for ignored [tools.setuptools] entries in pyproject.toml, improved error messaging for pkg_resources.EntryPoint.require and handling None location distributions more gracefully. The update also refreshes unpinned vendored dependencies, supports PEP 625 by standardizing package name and version in filenames and ensures encoding consistency for .pth files. Obsolete Python < 3.8 code has been removed, and pkg_resources now uses stdlib importlib.machinery. Bug fixes address race conditions in the install command, improve handling of nested namespaces with package_dir and correct various pkg_resources method behaviors. The patch for reproducibility has also been refreshed.
• Xen 4.18.2_06: This version resolves intermittent system hangs when Power Control Mode is set to Minimum Power. Patches also improve CPU mask handling and interrupt movement in various scenarios. Upstream bug fixes include improvements in scheduler resource data management and include fixes for building with GNU Compiler Collection 14.

Key Package Updates

• NetworkManager 1.48.2: This package updates support for matching OVS system interfaces by MAC address and fixes port reactivation and VPN secrets handling for 2-factor authentication. It saves connection timestamps during shutdown for proper autoactivation after restart. Key changes in 1.48.0 deprecate autotools building, add support for changing OpenSSL ciphers for 802.1X authentication, and set unmanaged device reasons in the StateReason property visible in nmcli. Additionally, it replaces the mac-address-blacklist property with mac-address-denylist, improves WiFi 6 GHz band detection and optimizes performance to avoid high CPU usage during route updates. Previous version 1.46 adds brought dynamic SSID-based stable IDs, randomized MAC addresses and several enhancements for handling IPv6, D-Bus and cloud setup.
• ibus-table 1.17.6: This update drops Python2 support, transitioning all scripts to Python3 using pyupgrade. It now allows the use of keys with Unicode keysyms in keybindings, enhancing customization and flexibility. Additionally, the frames_per_buffer=chunk_size option is now utilized in self._paudio.open() for improved audio handling. The update also includes translation enhancements from Weblate, with Czech translations reaching 36.6 percent, Japanese at 45.3 percent, and Chinese (Simplified) at 92.0 percent.
• btrfsprogs 6.9: The mkfs utility now halts if the mount status cannot be determined when using the --force option and corrects the minimum size calculation for zoned devices. The check command removes the --clear-ino-cache option, shifting its functionality to the rescue command group, and adds detection and repair for incorrect file extent item ram_bytes values. The qgroup commands now sync the filesystem before searching for stale entries, handle uncleaned subvolumes and squota enabled scenarios, and display the cleaning status of subvolumes. The receive command fixes stream parsing for strict alignment hosts, and tune change-csum and dump-tree commands include updates for handling dev-replace status items. The convert command improves extent iteration for preallocated/unwritten extents. The build process now ensures compatibility with e2fsprogs 1.47.1 and improves header file dependency tracking. Documentation was also updated.
• GNU’s Emacs 29.4: An emergency bugfix took place in this release. In this update, arbitrary shell commands are no longer executed when enabling Org mode, significantly enhancing security by preventing the execution of potentially malicious commands.

Bug Fixes

• Python-dnspython 2.6.1:

  • CVE-2023-29483 - Eventlet before 0.35.2 in dnspython allows remote "TuDoor" DNS attack interference.

• php8 8.3.8:

  • CVE-2012-1823 involved a vulnerability where attackers could inject arguments into PHP-CGI, leading to potential security issues. The new vulnerability, CVE-2024-4577, was discovered to bypass this original fix, allowing the same or similar types of argument injection attacks. The update ensures that this bypass is no longer possible, reinforcing the security measures originally put in place for CVE-2012-1823.
  • Similarly, the bypass of CVE-2024-1874 was made with the fix to CVE-2024-5585.

• kernel-firmware-nvidia-gspx-G06 (NVIDIA GPU driver)

  • CVE-2024-0090 was a vulnerability where a user can cause an out-of-bounds write.
  • CVE-2024-0091 was a vulnerability where a user can cause an untrusted pointer dereference. A successful exploit of this vulnerability might lead to denial of service.
  • CVE-2024-0092 was an improper check or improper handling of exception conditions might lead to denial of service.

• XZ 5.6.2:

  • CVE-2024-3094 Through a series of complex obfuscations, the liblzma build process extracts a prebuilt object file from a disguised test file existing in the source code, which is then used to modify specific functions in the liblzma code. This results in a modified liblzma library that can be used by any software linked against this library, intercepting and modifying the data interaction with this library. More details in snapshot 20240605

• cJSON v1.7.17:

  • CVE-2024-31755 - A segmentation violation, which can trigger through the second parameter.

Conclusion

The month of June 2024 saw a range of significant updates, security fixes and enhancements. The Linux Kernel 6.9.7 update improved stability and performance. Mesa and Mesa-drivers 24.1.2 introduced Rust crate dependencies and improved Vulkan support. KDE Plasma 6.1.1 brought UI improvements and a major version of Python-setuptools 70.0 arrived for rolling release users. A few critical security vulnerabilities were taken care of and fixes related to the XZ backdoor continued, so that Tumbleweed remains secure, efficient and feature-rich for all users.

For those Tumbleweed users who want to contribute or want to engage with detailed technological discussions, subscribe to the openSUSE Factory mailing list . The openSUSE team encourages users to continue participating through bug reports, feature suggestions and discussions.

Contributing to openSUSE Tumbleweed

Your contributions and feedback make openSUSE Tumbleweed better with every update. Whether reporting bugs, suggesting features, or participating in community discussions, your involvement is highly valued.

More Information about openSUSE:

Official

• openSUSE News
• openSUSE Mailing List
• openSUSE Wiki

Fediverse

• https://discuss.tchncs.de/c/opensuse@lemmy.world

(Image made with DALL-E)

I have an Acer Chromebook R11 which has reached End of Life and won't receive updates (which is insane, I bought it new four years ago). I have checked, and my model is now fully supported by most Linux distros.

I need suggestions for a lightweight distro to use. I will use the machine for surfing, playing Pixel Dungeon, streaming some indie games over Moonlight/Steam Headless and manage my home server over ssh. So nothing major. I want something lightweight and really low maintenance.

Specs:

• Processor: 1.6GHz quad-core Intel Celeron N3150 (quad-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.08GHz with Turbo Boost)

• Graphics: Integrated Intel HD Graphics

• Memory: 4GB DDR3L

• Storage: 32GB (with SD card reader for more storage)

I have a lot of experience with Arch-based (EndeavourOS, Manjaro), Ubuntu-based (Mint, PopOS) and Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Raspbian) distros, but I am open for other suggestions

A video from openSUSE Conference 2024 about using distrobox on openSUSE Aeon.

All my ducks seem to be in order and the correct configs in the right place. But i keep getting this message. As you can see the file exists. It is not empty, but systemctl cannot find it. Any help would be very very appreciated.

•fedora 40 xfce spin •kernel 6.9.9.200 •fucking chromebook

Hello! I use Bazzite Linux with KDE, and I'm having some issues with duplex printing on my system.

I have a Brother HL-L2300D, and I've already installed the drivers for it. Brother provides an install script for their driver on their website, but because my system is rpm-ostree based and immutable, I would get rpm-ostree errors and the installation would fail.

I found a Reddit post yesterday that suggested running sudo rpm-ostree install printer-driver-brlaser, which worked and I was able to connect to the printer and configure everything as needed.

However, when I try to print on both sides of the page, the back side of the page prints upside-down. I've tried changing the setting for which edge to flip when printing (portrait/landscape), and it doesn't seem to change anything. I printed the same document on a Windows machine on this printer, and it went through just fine, so I've isolated the problem down to the CUPS server that my machine is running.

If there's any more information I can provide, please let me know. I've tried the troubleshooting steps I know and have reached the limit of my knowledge.

UPDATE (13:40 ET / 2024-07-05): Got the connection working via SMB. Literally the only thing I changed was moving to a credentials file rather than specifying credentials inline, so ... I'll be trying to figure out what mystery affliction prevented the connection before. Leaving this up because there are a bunch of great suggestions for troubleshooting this issue in the comments. Thanks everyone.

ORIGINAL POST:

Currently pulling out my hair. I have a Synology NAS with the tailscale service (everything up to date). I have a NixOS client laptop, everything up to date.

I'm simply (?) trying to connect to a share via tailscale, and I have not managed to find anything that works. I've been using NFS, but I'm fine with SMB ... or carrier pigeons at this point.

Does anyone know of a step by step, detailed, current tutorial to accomplish accessing a Synology share via tailscale on a linux device? I would not have thought this would be challenging!

Does anyone here use LXD/Incus? What do you do if you want to find the IP address of an instance, but incus list does not give you one? I am not sure what would be stopping one from being issued since that is how I have found that information before.

I am just a student trying to learn about them and do stuff. I often just find the IP of the container and then ssh in as that feels natural, but perhaps I am cutting against the grain here.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17218011

I was looking for a TUI modern podcast manager, with support for syncing with the gpodder API, therefore allowing synchronization with Android clients such as AntennaPod. shellcaster was unmaintained and relatively easy to extend (huge thanks to the original author), therefore I aimed at fixing known bugs and adding the features that seemed more important. There is a TODO in the repo, which should be done as soon as I get some feedback from the community.

As far I know I am the only one using hullcaster as a daily driver (for archlinux people, AUR package hullcaster-git). Still, it should work as is in most linux environments.

For people coming from shellcaster, unfortunately I had to make too many breaking changes, therefore it is better to just make a clean install.

Feel free to try it and submit the issues you find. This is my first project using rust therefore there is surely space for improvements in many places.

Which folders and files do I need to exclude from TimeShift?

Also is there a way to also exclude programs installed as .deb ?

I doing this to reduce Backup size as I have limited storage.

100GB - Windows 11
400GB - Storage
400GB - Mint
100GB - TimeShift

Where should I mount my internal drive partitions?

As far as I searched on the internet, I came to know that

/Media = mount point for removable media that system do it itself ( usb drive , CD )

/Mnt = temporarily mounting anything manually

I can most probably mount anything wherever I want, but if that's the case what's the point of /mnt? Just to be organised I suppose.

TLDR

If /mnt is for temporary and /media is for removable where should permanent non-removable devices/partitions be mounted. i.e. an internal HDD which is formatted as NTFS but needs to be automounted at startup?

Asking with the sole reason to know that, what's the practice of user who know Linux well, unlike me.

I know this is a silly question but I asked anyway.

This is a follow up thread as I saw some posts regarding games being used on Linux such as ports from Loki.

Was it a rarity to get say, DOOM on a Linux compatible disk? Surely the floppy disk version would've worked as normal no?

There was also DosEmu which seems like an ancestor to DOSBOX to play all your face dos games in a redhat or Slackware box.

I understand that getting things to work in order was a mess, but was it that difficult to find a Linux compatible game CD or floppy disk? Was there some form of piracy to acquire a converted windows copy on a BBS?

TLDR : I just wanna know if 90s linux gaming there for you guys since firms like Loki existed, hell there was a port of Quake on the funni penguin OS.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17607748

Slowroll, which has a more modest update cadence than Tumbleweed, is gaining acceptance as a balance between the rapid updates of Tumbleweed’s rolling releases and the traditional Leap release.

Slowroll is nearly ready for full deployment and the development team has been working diligently to prepare the next version bump, with planned updates scheduled for July 9, August 9 and Sept. 9. These updates are expected to maintain a consistent monthly cadence to ensure users have timely and stable updates.

One of the critical updates pulled in will include the latest OpenSSH CVE fixes, which have already been made available in Tumbleweed. This fix enhances the security of Slowroll & ensure that it remains a robust and reliable distribution for users.

Highlighted Features of Slowroll

Balanced Update Cadence: Slowroll offers a monthly rolling update cycle that provides users with the latest features and security updates while ensuring stability through extensive testing and validation.

Beta Phase: Slowroll is now in the Beta phase, indicating its near readiness for full deployment. Users can expect a reliable experience with continuous improvements.

Continuous Improvement: The distribution integrates big updates approximately every month, alongside continuous bug fixes and security patches, ensuring a secure and up-to-date system.

Statistics and Status

According to the latest statistics available on the Slowroll Stats page:

Tumbleweed had 2813 updated packages since the last version bump

Slowroll received 1316 updates from 871 different packages and only 339 updated rpms are Slowroll-specific builds

Origins and Purpose

Slowroll, introduced in 2023, was designed as an experimental distribution. Its primary goal is to offer a slower rolling release compared to Tumbleweed, thus enhancing stability without compromising on access to new features. The distribution continuously evolves with big updates integrated approximately every month, supported by regular bug fixes and security updates.

It’s crucial to understand that Slowroll is not intended to replace Leap. Instead, it provides an alternative for users who desire more up-to-date software at a slower pace than Tumbleweed but faster than Leap.

If you try Slowroll, have a lot of fun - rolling… slowly!

I've run a small business for over 10 yeas. I use linux. I'm grateful to the community and I use FOSS where possible.

I have had some issues over the years, but have always been able to get around them (except CAD in 2013), but recently I've had issues with my government (UK). First they introduced 'making tax digital' and told me for years that I would have to buy windows only software (there was no legal option on linux until a few weeks before the deadline (https://www.comsci.co.uk/100PcVatFreeBridge saved the day). The UK Government didn't create a free solution or any route to that as they don't want the source to be open for making tax digital so accounting software companies have made a killing!

This week my internet banking stopped allowing payments, it no longer works in firefox (I'm guessing). On the telephone they asked me 'what search engine I was using'^+^ and advised to use google.

What is the best UK business bank to use if you use linux to run a small business? Do I have to use Chrom(e)ium? Does anyone else use linux for business admin? Is anyone (Freesoftware foundation, etc) thinking about the creeping legislative changes that make it literally illegal to use FOSS and linux?

I wanna be an ally, but its so tiring.

^+^ browser ≠ search engine. Yes, I'm pedantic, at least I didn't confuse them by saying 'quant' or 'duck duck go', OK!?

[SOLVED] Go to Gnome Settings > Multitasking > Disable Hot Corners

I'm on NixOS 24.05 and I'm using GNOME 46.2 (Wayland) and whenever I hover over the upper left corner of my screen all apps are showing as if I clicked the "Show Apps" button. Is there any way to turn it off? It's driving me insane. Since I'm working with multiple monitors, it's happening quite frequently. Thanks in advance.

I am running Linux on my macbook pro and it has a Broadcom BCM4360 wifi card. Problem is that the driver for it is proprietary (or more accurately, mostly proprietary with some of the source code available), quite outdated, and I couldn’t get it to work with Linux kernel v6.9.5.

I am running Gentoo Linux on my macbook with a custom kernel. I previously had wifi working, but then I reinstalled Gentoo (because I wanted to do full disk encryption), copied over the kernel config file from my previous install (which I knew had working wifi), migrated it to a newer kernel version (plus added support for full disk encryption) and now the wifi drivers won’t even compile.

So, I was thinking of replacing the current wifi card with something that has modern and open-source drivers for it. Is it possible to do that on a Macbook pro 11,2 (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)? If so, are there any compatible wifi cards with open source drivers for Linux?

Creating importer: Failed to invoke skopeo proxy method OpenImage: remote error: cryptographic signature verification failed: invalid signature when validating ASN.1 encoded signature ___

I was banging my head against my keyboard for an hour thinking that I broke my system until I saw this.

Hi folks,

I downloaded Aurora (https://getaurora.dev/) the other day with the intention of installing it on my 2013 MacBook Pro.

It wasn't until I got to the install screen when I realized that I have no networking.

I currently have Manjaro installed on this laptop, and I remember having to connect via Bluetooth to my phone to download and the Broadcom BCM4360 drivers.

Is there a good way to bake that into the image prior to installing?

Either that or I can try downloading the driver over Bluetooth again, but then I'll need to use a command to somehow layer it on top of the existing image? (rpm-ostree?)

Sorry if I'm missing some command or documentation, but it is a little more confusing trying out these immutable distros.

Has anyone else out there run into this issue and worked around it?

This is a quite complex process, and their documentation is incomplete and different 🥳

So here you go!

In the Fedora Forum we collect a lot of useful posts, that are not yet Documentation-ready (or not suited for Docs, as they are "too unofficial".

There are constantly new ones added.