thelinuxexperiment

joined 4 years ago
 

Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #OpenSource #TechNews #Ubuntu

Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 00:36 Sponsor: 10% off your first ebsite with Squarespace 01:33 Linus Torvalds talks about the future of Linux 03:58 Ubuntu might drop older CPUs 06:57 LXQt working on Wayland as well 08:33 Cosmic gets more improvements 09:48 GNOME & KDE updates 11:45 Gaming: Linux beats Windows, No Fortnite on Linux 15:17 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 16:24 Support the channel

Linus Torvalds talks about the future of Linux

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-on-state-of-linux-today-and-how-ai-figures-in-its-future/

Ubuntu might drop older CPUs

https://ubuntu.com/blog/optimising-ubuntu-performance-on-amd64-architecture

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-24.04-LTS-Desktop-Plans

LXQt working on Wayland as well

https://lubuntu.me/noble-alpha-featureset/

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Lubuntu-24.04-LTS-Plans

https://lubuntu.me/noble-alpha-featureset/

Cosmic gets more improvements

https://blog.system76.com/post/the-spirit-of-cosmic-december-updates

GNOME & KDE updates

https://pointieststick.com/2023/12/15/this-week-in-kde-un-flashy-important-stability-work/

https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2023/12/twig-126/

Gaming: Linux beats Windows, No Fortnite on Linux

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/12/fortnite-on-linux-steam-deck-not-until-tens-of-millions-of-users/

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/3860211327585452520

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Windows-11-scores-dead-last-in-gaming-performance-tests-against-3-Linux-gaming-distros.778624.0.html

 

Try out Proton VPN, it's free, it's open source, it's private, it's encrypted, and it's what I use: https://protonvpn.com/TheLinuxEXP

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 00:51 Sponsor: ProtonVPN 02:21 Standardization and cohesiveness 05:31 Packaging formats and app distribution 07:17 Display, Wayland, HDR, and scaling 09:27 Drivers, graphics and firmware 11:40 Gaming 13:06 App support 14:31 More challenges? 17:02 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 18:00 Support the channel

#Linux #desktop #operatingsystem #linuxdesktop #linuxdistro

Unified theming between desktops is pretty much abandoned as a thing that should be pursued, but we're also seeing an accent colors standard emerge. And that's complimented by the work being done on portals. With portals for settings, screenshots, remote desktops, printing, sending email, creating shortcuts or transferring files, there's now a solid abstraction layer between your desktop and the apps it runs.

But, for now, we're not there yet. These standards are progressing, but they're not all encompassing, and they're not implemented equally across all desktops. The big ones, like GNOME and KDE, sure, but other smaller options aren't there yet.

Packaging formats, at the end of 2023, are in a bad state. Linux packaging has never been messier. As neither flatpak nor snap are fully ready for 100% of applications, some stuff simply can't be packaged using these, and they still have drawbacks that some users don't want to deal with. Which means a lot of app developers still can't say "hey, this is what we should be using now".

The display situation is much better though. X11 is now clearly abandonware, and work on Wayland has been stellar in 2023. Mostly all desktops now have plans for Wayland, everyone is in agreement.

Added to that, work on supporting HDR has moved by leaps and bounds, and we'll see a fully working implementation in 2024. Fractional scaling is now properly implemented on Wayland as well, meaning we can finally do non blurry scaling, with different scaling per monitor, and different refresh rates per monitor as well.

As per drivers, we've seen some solid progress as well. AMD now has solid drivers on launch day for their GPUs, Intel has finished their Xe driver, Arc GPUs are now well supported, and nvidia drivers have progressed a lot. We're also seeing very strong efforts for open source nvidia drivers.

As per firmware, the linux firmware vendor system, or LVFS has also seen broad adoption, letting you apply firmware updates on the fly and easily. This already supplied 100 million firmware updates, and Google is even pushing manufacturers to support that for their own Linux based Chrome OS.

Gaming has been incredible in 2023. Not only did Linux pass macOS market share for Steam, but we've seen great support for the Steam Deck, which, in turn, means great support for Linux. Sure, it's all driven by Proton and Wine, it's not native Linux ports, but my opinion is that it doesn't matter: if you can click install, and then play, and run the game with the performance you'd expect, things are good.

Non steam gaming has also progressed immensely, with Heroic becoming a really fantastic launcher for Gog and EPic Games, and Lutris still handling most of the rest.

Now for app support, I'd say we haven't seen many improvements in 2023. Sure, our own open source apps have progressed this year, but the usual suspects are still missing, that would let a lot more people move to Linux. Still no Office, Adobe apps, a lot of content creation software, or CAD software are still missing, with no indication that it will change.

The big challenge I can see is AI integration in the desktop. It's a move Microsoft is making with Windows 12, adding AI powered search, and automations throughout the desktop. Whether we should chase that trend on Linux, I'll let you decide, but what's certain is that once users have had a few years to get used to one click buttons that save 30 minutes, it will be hard to go back.

 

Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #OpenSource #technews

Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 00:34 Sponsor: 10% off your first website with Squarespace 01:31 Zorin OS 17 beta 03:49 Mint 21.3 brings Wayland support 05:03 Giant AI alliance forming 06:33 EU regulates AI 08:00 systemd brings blue screen of death 09:38 Giant security flaw affects most Windows and Linux systems 11:18 GNOME improves scaling & triple buffering 13:25 Gaming News: Steam Deck, wine on Wayland 15:23 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 16:27 Support the channel

Zorin OS 17 beta

https://blog.zorin.com/2023/12/04/a-sneak-peek-at-zorin-os-17/

https://linuxiac.com/zorin-os-17-beta-unveiled-with-striking-improvements/

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/12/zorin-os-17-beta-released7

Mint 21.3 brings Wayland support

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4604

Giant AI alliance forming

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/12/meta-ibm-assemble-open-source-ai-alliance

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/ai-alliance-launches-international-community-leading-technology-developers-researchers-and-adopters-collaborating-together-advance-open-safe-responsible-ai

The EU regulates AI

https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/eu-provisional-agreement-ai-act-regulate-artificial-intelligence

systemd brings blue screen of death

https://www.phoronix.com/news/systemd-255

Giant security flaw affects most Windows and Linux systems

https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/12/just-about-every-windows-and-linux-device-vulnerable-to-new-logofail-firmware-attack/

GNOME improves scaling + triple buffering

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Shell-Better-Text-Scaling

https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2023/12/twig-125/

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-Triple-Buffering-Ready

Gaming News: Steam Deck, SteamOS, wine on Wayland

https://www.phoronix.com/review/steam-deck-oled-benchmarks

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wine-Wayland-Relative-Mouse

 

Make sure you're prepared for the End of Life of your CentOS 7 fleet right now: https://tuxcare.com/extended-lifecycle-support/centos-7-early-repo-access/?utm_campaign=The%20Linux%20Experiment%20-%20CentOS%207%20Early%20Access&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_term=TheLinuxExperimentCentOS7EA

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

Timecodes: 00:00 Intro Sponsor: Start securing your CentOS 7 fleet now 02:06 Slimbook Hero 03:32 Design & Build Quality 04:45 Specs and options 07:02 Performance & Gaming 09:25 Display 10:06 Keyboard & Mouse 11:20 Software Experience 12:36 Linux gaming laptop? 14:10 Support the channel

#Laptop #Gaming #Linux

It's a 15 inch device, with a 1440p display that refreshes at 165 hertz, with an aluminium chassis, a 13th gen Intel i7 CPU, an RTX 4060 GPU, as much RAM as you could cram into a laptop, and very solid I/O.

So, this thing is chunky: it's not meant to be an ultrabook, it weighs 2.1 kilos, or 4.6 pounds, and it's pretty damn sturdy. Not much give or flex to this chassis, thanks to the aluminium.

The hinge is really solid as well, with minimal wobble when typing. It's a 16:9 form factor. Of course you can open the laptop, and access the 2 M.2 slots for SSDs, the 2 DDR5 RAM slots, and the battery, which is 62 Wh. You can also buy spare parts from Slimbook, including the bezel cover, touchpad, lid, battery, keyboard palm rest, display, and more.

Now, in terms of specs, this laptop is well equipped, with a core i7 13620H, and an Nvidia RTX 4060, with 8 gigs of VRAM.

You can spec the rest up to your liking, with up to 64 gigs of DDR 5 RAM, at 5200 Mhz, and up to 4TB of PCIE4 storage.

You can also choose to dispose with the gamer branding and use a more unified black keyboard instead of having the white accents on the WASD keys, and you can pick any keyboard language you want.

As per I/O, on the left, you get a kensington lock, a USB 2.0 port, probably for a mouse, a mic jack, and a headphone jack. On the back, you have a mindisplay port, USB C 3.2 gen 2 with dusplayport support, HDMI 2.1, a gigabit ethernet port and the barrel charger, since charging this thing over USB would be a challenge. And on the right, there's an SD card reader, and 2 type A USB 3.2 ports.

On top of all that, you get Bluetooth 5.2, Wifi 6, a basic webcam and onboard mic that won't blow your socks off, dual speakers that are pretty decent, and a backlit keyboard with RGB, because, gamer.

In terms of benchmarks, the CPU get a score of 2733 in single core and 11625 in multi core on Geekbench 6.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/3787232

Battery life is decent, with about 7h of generic office work with wifi on, 50% brightness, and using the silent mode.

In Horizon Zero Dawn, at the native 1440p resolution, without any upscaling, and at the ultra preset, the Slimbook Hero managed a super smooth 60 FPS.

For Shadow of the Tomb Raider, also at 1440p without upscaling, and the ultra preset, I got 99 FPS on average, sometimes going down to about 80, or up to 120.

The display is really solid, it covers 100% of SRGB, it has a refresh rate up to 165hz, and it's 1440p.

The keyboard is solid enough. The keys are very stable, and they have good travel. They're quite clicky, and the sound is pleasant, and they bounce back super fast, it's very nice to type on.

The touchpad is ok. It's smooth enough, and precise, although it's very off center, which I find annoying in day to day use.

 

Regain control of your privacy with Proton (and enjoy their Black Friday / Cyber Week deals while they last!): VPN: https://protonvpn.com/blackfriday Mail: https://proton.me/mail/black-friday

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

00:00 Intro 00:59 Sponsor: Proton 02:17 Data grabbing 05:07 Why this data matters 07:41 Laws make it worse 11:11 What you can do 14:04 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 15:07 Support the channel

Playlist on how to De-Google your life: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqmbcbI8U55EfYUVdZfjrfyJyNHD-Bly8

#Privacy #anonymity #private

Virtually everything online now collects data. And this data doesn't just stay at the company that collected it. This data is a giant repository for governments to use and track or monitor their citizens.

See, in a LOT of countries, governments have the right to ask a company to provide all the data they've collected on their users. Companies have no choice but to comply with these, which is also why using end to end, and zero access encrypted services is crucial.

For example, the US can request any company to give them data on a specific user, they've done so more than any other country in 2020. But other countries do the exact same: Germany, Denmark, South korea, France, virtually ever country does this.

If you want even more scary numbers, in 2022, Meta, the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, or Whatsapp, got 827K requests for data. They complied with 76% of these requests.

https://www.globalsecuritymag.com/Meta-received-over-800k-user-data-requests-from-governments-in-2022.html

There are a lot of legal offensives being planned, or already implemented in various countries, so let's look at a few.

In Russia, recent laws from 2017 banned anonymous use of online messaging apps, and prohibits the use of tools that would circumvent government censorship. This means that while VPNs aren't exactly banned, if they let people access banned websites, then they'll also be banned. This has happened to at least 15 VPNs, including NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and OperaVPN.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/01/russia-new-legislation-attacks-internet-anonymity

In Australia, in 2021, a law was proposed to force people to attach their real name to their social media posts, apparently to fight online trolls, bullying and harrassment. Users would have had to provide an ID before opening any social media account, which would obviously open the door to surveillance, monitoring, and censorship.

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/govt-wants-to-end-online-anonymity.html

In France, we have the recent SREN law. This thing would give the telecom watchdog powers to block websites, and require tools for age verification. On top of that, the law will give the government capabilities to demand web browsers and DNS providers block certain websites.

https://adguard.com/en/blog/france-web-browser-dns-blocking-law.html

in the UK, the Online Safety Bill of 2022 allows the regulatory agency Ofcom to force websites to collect people's personal data, and they'll be able to scan, restrict and remove content that is considered harmful. The bill also mandates online communication services to be moderated, which basically means end to end encryption can be enabled there anymore.

https://datainnovation.org/2022/05/the-uks-online-safety-bill-undermines-encryption-and-anonymity/

So, what can you do about this? For protecting your data, there are plenty of things you can do. First, stop using privacy invasive operating systems. If you can't move to something like Linux, try at least to disable all the telemetry you can in Windows or macOS, in Android and iOS. You can try using a degoogled, privacy focused Android ROM on your smartphone.

Leaving Chrome for a more private browser is also pretty much mandatory. Same goes for your online services: stop using Google as a search engine, Gmail, or stuff like Outlook, OneDrive, iCloud, and the like. Using a VPN is also a solid option to at least try and blur the lines.

 

Extend the life of your Debian 10 systems before migrating to another distribution: https://tuxcare.com/extended-lifecycle-support/debian-10-extended-support/?utm_campaign=The%20Linux%20Experiment%20-%20Debian%2010%20ELS&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_term=the-linux-experiment

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

00:00 Intro 00:36 Sponsor: Extend the life of Debian 10 01:47 Cosmic Updates 03:36 Plasma 6 and GNOME get even better 06:53 Youtube has a 5s delay against adblockers 08:24 Google moves forward with manifest v3 09:46 Linux outperforms Windows 11 11:10 Open Source Nvidia drivers now VUlkan compliant 12:14 Gaming: improved Steam, Wine 8.21, DX12 support 14:27 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 15:27 Support the channel

#Linux #OpenSource #technews

Cosmic Updates

https://blog.system76.com/post/a-cosmic-thanksgiving-2023

PLasma 6 and GNOME get even better

https://pointieststick.com/2023/11/24/this-week-in-kde-the-plasma-6-feature-freeze-approaches/

https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2023/11/twig-123/

Youtube has a 5s delay against adblockers

https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/

https://www.techradar.com/computing/browsers/youtube-may-now-have-annoying-delays-if-you-use-an-ad-blocker-heres-why

Google moves forward with manifest v3

https://www.techradar.com/computing/chrome/chromes-ad-blocking-plan-could-be-a-privacy-disaster-and-a-reason-to-switch-to-firefox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KWCLhHrblE&pp=ygULbWFuaWZlc3QgdjM%3D

Linux outperforms Windows 11

https://www.phoronix.com/review/threadripper-7995wx-windows-linux

Open Source Nvidia drivers now VUlkan compliant

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/11/open-source-nvidia-vulkan-driver-nvk-hits-vulkan-10-conformance/

Gaming: improved Steam, Wine 8.21, DX12 support

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/3823053915988527062

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/11/vkd3d-proton-211-released-with-directx-raytracing-enabled-by-default/

https://www.winehq.org/announce/8.21

 

Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #Systemd #opensource

00:00 Intro 00:42 Sponsor: 10% off your first website 01:36 Init systems and SystemD 03:21 SystemD is bloated? 05:48 Everything depends on it now? 07:01 It's a Red Hat project? 08:44 It restricts choice and modularity? 09:51 It makes Linux less secure? 10:59 Why use systemD? 12:37 Parting thoughts 13:52 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 14:52 Support the channel

All Linux based systems use an Init system, short for initialization: it's the first process that starts after you boot your OS, and it runs in the background while you're using your computer, to manage system services, and various processes. For many, many Linux distros, SystemD is this init system.

SYstem D is a relatively recent project, at the scale of Linux anyway, it started in 2010, and was spearheaded by Red Hat. Its goal was to replace the existing solutions, like SysV or Upstart, to make things faster and more resilient.

It quickly became the default on Fedora, obviously, then on Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, and many, many others.

The famous Bloat argument is one advanced most often. System D, as time went on, encompassed more and more features that were generally handled by individual services, not the init system itself, like device management, login, or network management and creating logs.

This can be perceived as going against the Unix philosophy, where a piece of software is supposed to do just one thing, and to communicate well with other small systems.

What's certain is that most distros that implement it are general purpose distros, that need to provide as many systems as possible, and so they tend to use most of systemD's features and modules.

SystemD also "hides away" certain configurations with its own tools, like systemctl, instead of exposing everything as a config file. Whether these things are important or not, though, depend on the person.

Another criticism levelled at System D is the fact that it has become so pervasive that a lot of other components are created with a hard dependency on it: without SystemD, they can't work at all, or will have a limited featureset. This results in some extra work for distros that don't want to use systemD, as they have to use an alternative implementation of these features.

Another regular criticism of SystemD comes from the fact it's mainly a Red Hat project, or at least was started by Red Hat. The fact remains that while systemD was started at Red Hat, it IS an open source project, and it is receiving contributions from a lot of people that aren't at Red hat.

Another criticism of SystemD is that it's making Linux based systems uniform and that it restricts choice. I'd argue this isn't really true, since there ARE other alternatives, like OpenRC, Dinit, SysVInit and more.

One final problem people identify with SystemD is system security. First, there's the fact that having one single system that powers the init and service management of most distros is a security risk: an attacker can target many, many systems by targeting systemD.

Second, some people would say that since SystemD is huge and does a lot of things, it has a very large attack surface.

But why would you WANT to use it, exactly?

SystemD is a unified project, which means you don't have to learn 20 different programs if you need to interact with something: you learn how systemD works, and you can manage everything.

Compared to other init systems, it's also simpler, as it opens various sockets that services can plug into, and services can start in mostly any order. And finally, systemD is written in C, and isn't the usual compilation of bash scripts, so it tends to be faster and more efficient than many other init systems.

 

Try the new version of Thunderbird (it's now my email & calendar client of choice!): https://mzla.link/tb-flatpak

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #OpenSource #TechNews

00:00 Intro 00:47 Sponsor: Thunderbird 01:40 Microsoft has to open Windows 03:22 FSF calls to the EU for more open source 05:06 AMD is teasing some FOSS work around AI 06:36 Peertube's roadmap looks pretty awesome 08:21 Desktop Environment news 10:47 Kernel 6.7 is full of good stuff 12:39 Gaming: Deck OLED, SteamOS update, Wine on Wayland 15:40 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 16:36 Outro

Microsoft has to open Windows

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23963579/microsoft-windows-11-eu-digital-markets-act-feature-changes

FSF calls to the EU for more open source

https://fsfe.org/activities/upcyclingandroid/openletter.en.html

AMD is teasing some FOSS work around AI

https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-Advancing-AI-Open

Peertube's roadmap looks pretty awesome

https://framablog.org/2023/11/14/lets-regain-ground-on-the-toxic-web-framasofts-2023-report/

Desktop environment news

https://pointieststick.com/2023/11/17/this-week-in-kde-panel-intellihide-and-wayland-presentation-time/

https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2023/11/twig-122/

Kernel 6.7 is full of good stuff

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/11/linux-6-6-kernel-confirms-long-term-support

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.7-rc1

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.7-USB-Thunderbolt

https://www.phoronix.com/review/bcachefs-linux-67

Gaming: Deck OLED, SteamOS update, Wine on Wayland

https://9to5linux.com/steam-deck-oled-is-now-available-to-order-with-hdr-display-and-bigger-battery

https://www.phoronix.com/news/SteamOS-3.5.5

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wine-Wayland-HiDPI-Merged

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/11/wine-820-brings-directmusic-improvements-and-preparations-for-wine-90/

 

Try Proton VPN, my pick for a secure and private VPN: https://protonvpn.com/TheLinuxEXP

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #Flatpak #Snap #AppImage

00:00 Intro 00:47 Sponsor: Proton VPN 02:17 Quick summary of formats 05:52 Performance benchmarks 08:52 Sandboxing 11:41 Missing Features 15:24 Parting Thoughts 16:59 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 18:00 Support the channel

So, what we call "packages" are debs, for Debian and Ubuntu based distros, and RPMs for Red Hat and SUSE based distros. These packages can contain libraries, or apps, and all libraries are shared between applications.

We then have Flatpaks, which are distro-agnostic. Flatpaks are sandboxed, and while they share a lot of libraries through runtimes, they can use more space over time.

Snaps are basically the same concept as flatpaks, made by Ubuntu. There are a few technical differences with flatpaks, the big one being that Snaps are suitable for graphical apps, and for command line programs.

AppImages are a more portable format: the whole app is shipped inside a single file, with most, if not all of its libraries. This means you can copy/paste apps from a system to another, and they run on any distro that has access to FUSE2.

Now, let's look at some performance comparison between different packaging formats. I ran all these tests on the same Ubuntu 23.04 VM, with 16 gigs of RAM, 4 cores of my 13th gen i7 13700h.

Judging from the results, we can see that all packaging formats take longer to start than basic deb packages. It's especially visible with heavy apps that need to do some setup when they first open, like LibreOffice or GIMP. But we also notice that on subsequent openings of an app, all packaging formats are pretty close.

I ran the Speedometer test in all 4 versions of Firefox: the snap performs worse for jetstream, but much better for Speedometer, while flatpak performs on par for SPeedometer, but worse for jetstream. Deb packages perform well for jetstream, but worse for speedometer., and the Appimage is generally just a good performer.

A sandboxed application runs in its own environment, with very few ways to access things outside of that sandbox. This is similar to how web browsers run each tab in a separate process.

Regular packages aren't sandboxed by default: basically it means that you should only install these packages from sources you trust: either your distro's repos, or well vetted third party repos.

As per Flatpaks, they're all sandboxed. The sandbox isn't 100% bulletproof, nothing is, but it does limit what the app can access. This is all managed through app permissions, much like what you'd find in Android or iOS apps.

Snaps can be sandboxed, but the sandbox isn't mandatory: developers can decide to not use it, although this triggers a manual review of the snap app when it's uploaded to the Snap Store, to check if it does anything weird. As per AppImages, they don't have a sandbox natively.

Now let's see what's missing in terms of features. Regular packages can access everything, so there are no missing features there.

Flatpaks and snaps have more restrictions. The main missing piece is native messaging support: this is what lets an app communicate with another, and one main use case is for password managers: currently, no web browser packaged as flatpak or snap can interact with a third party password manager reliably.

Support for the system theme is also not perfect for snaps and flatpaks, or for AppImages.

As per various problems with these packaging formats, you also have the size of packages: while Snaps and Flatpaks do share libraries between apps, they don't share as much as regular packages, which means they can take up more space.

Snaps also have the added problem that they mount each app in its own virtual filesystem, that is decompressed on the fly: this can clutter your mount points, which can be annoying if you need to manage these regularly. The Snap Store backend is also proprietary, and it's centralized.

 

Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperiment

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja

#Linux #office #work

00:00 Intro 00:27 Sponsor: 10% off your first website with SquareSpace 01:25 Linux is everywhere 02:47 Developers 04:00 Office Work 06:57 Media Creation 08:15 AI 08:58 The tip of the iceberg 11:19 Not for everyone 13:40 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux 14:41 Support the channel

The first thing is that Linux is everywhere and already used by professionals all around the world.

I could take the example of Android, which is the most popular smartphone OS in the world, and using a Linux kernel. I could turn to the absolute domination of Linux on the server space.

I could also point to every NAS out there, generally using a Linux kernel, if we look at IoT and small appliances, Linux also dominates the space. But it's not what people intend when talking about an OS. Generally, they mean that the Linux DESKTOP isn't ready for professionals.

The first obvious counter argument is developers. Linux is used by 47% of professional developers. That's higher than the market share of macOS among developers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_C3pgc1Iho

If we take the vast majority of people who will interact with a computer, what do they truly need in their day to day job? A web browser, an email client, an office suite, and a usable interface.

On that specific front, Linux has all that's needed. Whether it's KDE for an interface closer to Windows, or GNOME for the simplest thing to use possible, the Linux desktop IS one of the most usable out there.

In terms of web browsers, there's no question, we have them all. For email clients, we do lack Outlook, but the web interface might be enough for most people's needs, and if not, we have awesome clients that can replace Outlook: Evolution and Thunderbird.

LibreOffice might be a great option for a lot of people, but it does have some problems, let's face it. But LibreOffice isn't our only choice. For perfect compatibility, we have access to SoftMaker Office, now called FreeOffice, or to WPS Office.

Now, for media creation, Linux lacks all the Adobe programs. But that doesn't mean we don't have tools either. Davinci Resolve is a tool used by professionals and hollywood studios to edit videos, edit audio, and create virtual effects. It basically does what Audition, After Effects and Premiere do, in one single package. it's available on Linux.

We have Blender for VFX. Houdini, a tool used by VFX artists for simulations? It's on Linux. Maya? It's on Linux. Studio One, a professional DIgital Audio Workstation, just released a beta for Linux. We have inkscape, Ardour, Krita - one of the most popular digital drawing apps- OBS, PDF Studio for editing PDF documents, Bitwig, and a lot more.

Whether you like AI or not, it's happening. And AI is a professional domain in which Linux is the standard.

And that's the tip of the iceberg. Cybersecurity professionals mostly use Linux. Almost 100% of supercomputers used for any specific domain run Linux. The whole space industry runs on Linux. A bunch of military sytems run Linux.

The market share of Linux on the desktop is low, there's no denying that: it's listed at barely 3%, far below macOS or Windows. But this doesn't include another system: Chrome OS. And chrome OS has 3.9% market share on the desktop. Combined with non Chrome OS Linux ssytems, taht's almost 7%. it's still lower than proprietary OSes, but that's a LOT of computers running a Linux system.

Now, that doesn't mean Linux is ready for every professional out there. If you absolutely need certain software that's not available, then Linux won't work for you. But I'd argue that it's not necessarily a Linux problem: it has the tools needed to do the same job in most cases. It's just not the tools you're allowed to use, or want to use.

 

Try out Proton Mail, the secure email service that protects your privacy: https://proton.me/mail/TheLinuxEXP

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

IodΓ© OS: https://iode.tech/

My video on /e/ OS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNjnMEMWMLY&t=579s

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp

πŸ‘• GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

πŸŽ™οΈ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos

This video is distributed under the Creative Commons Share Alike license.

#Android #google #privacy

00:00 Intro 00:29 Sponsor: Make your email private with Proton Mail 01:47 What is IodΓ© OS? 03:08 First Setup 04:06 ROM and App selection 07:55 Ad & Tracker Blocker 09:21 App Experience 11:20 How it compares to other DeGoogled ROMS 12:48 It's good, but it still needs work 14:41 Sponsor: Get a computer that runs Linux perfectly 15:30 Support the channel

IodΓ© is Android, but with all Google software removed. It uses Lineage OS as a base, but adds a built-in ad and tracker blocker that runs at all times, locally on the device.

The ROM itself will be familiar if you ever used a Pixel. On the Pixel 5, IodΓ© OS 4 was preinstalled, and it's based on Android 13. The latest security update was on January 5th 2023. The IodΓ© team told me they provide security updates every 2 months, and every month for beta users.

The default experience is as close to stock as can be: you have either the 3 button layout of Android, or the gestures, a dock of apps at the bottom, an app drawer by swiping up, and a few preset widgets.

In terms of apps, IodΓ© ships with a Firefox fork by default, which disables telemetry, trackers and enables alternative search engines right out of the box. The default email client is Pretty Easy privacy, or pEp. It's a simple email client with an easy interface, that adds end to end encryption capabilities to any mail account.

For Maps, you get Magic Earth, which is also open source, and uses OpenStreet Map. The keyboard is OpenBoard, the camera app is OpenCamera, which, while very powerful, has a terrible user interface and looks pretty bad.

IodΓ© comes with a tracker blocker built in. This thing works using a man in the middle attack style: the OS intercepts all communications and requests that go out of your phone, and blocks everything that's part of the blocklists. These blocklists are collaboratively sourced, and include a LOT of adblock and tracker blocker related things. This system is based on Energized Protection, which is an open source project licensed under the MIT license.

To complement this, there's a preinstalled app that lets you check out how many requests you've blocked to how many recipients.

IodΓ© OS relies on 2 app stores: you get F Droid for all your open source app needs, and you get the Aurora Store. Installing apps works very well, I encountered 0 problems here.

Where you'll have issues is running apps that depend on Google services. I tried installing the Youtube app, and it never opened. Other Google apps got me the same experience, like the youtube studio app. Stuff like Google Maps or Google Photos worked, but were unable to use the already added Google account in micro G.

After reaching out to the IodΓ© team, they told me they have identified the issue, which is fixed in the beta, and will be patched in the next OTA release.

Interestingly, stuff like my banking app worked immediately on IodΓ©, letting me use the phone as my secure device to authenticate purchases online, something that is usually blocked because the device doesn't pass SafetyNet checks. Here, it all worked perfectly for me.

Compared to Lineage OS, it adds all these tracker and ad blocking capabilities. You could probably replicate that yourself on Lineage, but at least here, it's setup right out of the box.

Compared to something like /e/, the latter has more advanced privacy features, with the ability to scramble your location at the press of a button, and more complete privacy controls.

But /e/ also deviates a lot from stock Android, with their own launcher, their own forks of open source apps, and generally an experience that won't appeal to everyone.

 

Make sure your Python applications stay relevant for longer: https://bit.ly/3CyfKnL Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux:https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#

πŸ‘ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UAwBUum7CPN5buc-_N1Fw/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment

Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp?locale.x=fr_FR

πŸ† FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nick_thelinuxexp/ Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick I'm also on ODYSEE: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheLinuxExperiment:e And on PEERTUBE: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos

This video is distributed under the Creative Commons Share Alike license.

#mastodon #fediverse #socialmedia

00:00 Intro 00:39 Sponsor: Extend the life of your Python applications 01:30 The Fediverse: a network of social networks 04:57 ActivityPub: all your social networks can talk to each other 06:44 How Mastodon works 08:33 How PeerTube works 10:19 How PixelFed works 11:39 Parting thoughts 13:02 Sponsor: buy a device that runs Linux perfectly 14:11 Support the channel

Join Mastodon: https://joinmastodon.org/servers Join Peertube: https://joinpeertube.org/ Join PixelFed: https://pixelfed.org/servers

PixelFed App for iOS: https://testflight.apple.com/join/5HpHJD5l PixelFed App for Android: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.pixeldroid.app/

List of Fediverse services: https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/

Fediverse is a contraction of Federated Universe. It's basically a very large network of servers that form, well, a social network. But contrary to the ones you might be used to, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others, the Fediverse is composed of different services.

The more well known are Mastodon, a Twitter-like microblogging service, PeerTube, a youtube-like platform, or PixelFed, an Instagram-like social network, but there are a TON of others.

Each service is also decentralized, which means there is not one big server farm where everything is hosted: each service is split into instances, basically independent servers, with different goals.

ActivityPub is an open standard, that lets all services on the Fediverse talk to each other. How does that work? Well, in practice, it means you can use your Mastodon app to follow a Peertube channel, or someone that posts pictures on PixelFed, or see new articles from a Wordpress website.

And this goes a bit further: for example, if I comment on Mastodon on a post from Peertube, that comment will also appear on Peertube underneath the video.

Let's start with Mastodon. Mastodon is basically Twitter, but open source and decentralized. It lets you post messages with up to 500 characters, it supports images, videos, polls, content warnings, animated avatar pictures, emojis, links, mentions, hashtags, anything you're used to on Twitter. Mastodon has 1.5 million active users, which might seem small compared to Twitter, but it's more than enough to have interesting conversations with a lot of cool people.

To join Mastodon, all you need to do is pick a server, also called an instance. You can pick any server you like, and it will let you interact with everyone else on any other server.

And then, you can use Mastodon on the web, by typing the address of your instance in your browser, for example, for me, it's mastodon.social, or you can use a mobile app.

Now let's talk about PeerTube. It's a Youtube alternative, although it's much, much smaller. Peertube is also decentralized, being split into different servers, that are federated together, so you can follow people from different instances and still have a complete subscription feed. It also supports ActivityPub, which means you could subscribe to my peerTube channel from a mastodon account, and have a post in your timeline every time I publish a video.

And as a creator, it also lets you sync your youtube channel to it, so you can auto-publish all your videos to Peertube in a few clicks, which is also a great help.

To watch peertube, just type the address of your instance in your browser's URL, for me it's tilvids.com.

Another cool service on the Fediverse is PixelFed. It's basically Instagram, without all the crap they tacked on lately, like reels, or lives. It's just pictures and videos. It's free software, it also uses the ActivityPub standard, so you can follow PixelFed users on Mastodon, for example, and it's ad-free.

It also lets you add filters, just like Instagram, or crop, resize, adding alt text, and you can use hashtags, locations, or create collections, basically photo albums.

view more: β€Ή prev next β€Ί