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Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

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Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#111

Post by tremon »

embik wrote: post #20
asb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the problem is the mixing of Debian and Ubuntu binaries rather than the fact they're not recompiling everything. Ubuntu doesn't just take Debian and add a few extra packages - it's a complete recompile with package versions likely don't match any Debian release.

Oh, Linux Mint mixes Debian and Ubuntu packages by default? I was under the impression that there is Linux Mint based on Ubuntu and Linux Mint Debian Edition based on Debian.

Yes. Linux Mint was based on Ubuntu but still would pull packages from Debian unstable. LMDE was based purely on Debian.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#112

Post by bitL »

Mint's HiDPI is simply the best experience on Linux these days, not to mention it just works. But let's attack it because it doesn't conform to some autistic standards of ours. Way to go friendly Linux community! Let's make all distros unusable, super complex, require all people to wear their own personal TPMs and certificates so that they can feel finally secure. Let's blame Mint for not having DNA real-time sequencers for confirming package authenticity! Let's force my grandma to compile all her packages - she must be upgraded as well or she won't make it during singularity, right? /s

You are blaming Mint for things that are wrong in some context with Debian/Ubuntu or Linux or even unsolved in computing as such. And the small team of developers simply can't respond to every single issue within minutes as you wish, they have their plate full.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#113

Post by palumbo »

viperscape wrote: post #86
jnbiche wrote: post #21

I've used Mint in the past, and it was my go-to distro for family members who aren't so technical. I'm not bothered by the licensing issues mentioned, and I'm ambivalent about the namespace issues, but I've been increasingly uneasy for some time now about Mint's security practices. Serving downloads over http and not providing GPG signed SHA hashes like every other distro is fairly irresponsible in this day and age.…

Have you given Arch a try yet? Their are also some family friendly projects like Antergos. Arch wiki is my all time favorite for great documentation, even when not using arch, go figure.

Exactly the response I was about to give!

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#114

Post by codeisawesome »

red_admiral wrote: post #18
m00dy wrote: post #3

Whos using Mint these days anyway ?

Ubuntu refugees like me. I not only don't like the new UI (and amazon shopping lens) but there's also hundreds of little things like gnome2 gedit having a usable search/replace dialog box as opposed to the gnome3 thingy-in -the-corner. Also I like to be able to take a theme and modify components one by one like changing the colour of title bars or the font in menus without having to wade through 2k lines of CSS and n…

Amazon lens turned me off of Ubuntu (and towards Mint) more than anything else. I lived with many bugs in Ubuntu. But the day they decided to corrupt it with pre-installed $$MEGACORP$$ stuff, even if it's uninstallable (and sharing my data of searches on the UI no less!!), is the day I swore off Ubuntu. Too bad.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#116

Post by eatonphil »

autoreleasepool wrote: post #102
jnbiche wrote: post #21

I've used Mint in the past, and it was my go-to distro for family members who aren't so technical. I'm not bothered by the licensing issues mentioned, and I'm ambivalent about the namespace issues, but I've been increasingly uneasy for some time now about Mint's security practices. Serving downloads over http and not providing GPG signed SHA hashes like every other distro is fairly irresponsible in this day and age.…

> Edit: I'm also playing around with FreeBSD for my development environment, since I can use Mate on there. To be honest, I don't really need a DE these days anyway, since I only use terminal and a web browser. I should look into just using a Windows Manager. FreeBSD has good support for DEs with XFCE and Lumina, anyways. At least I've never had a problem.

I've been running Mate and Gnome3 for the past 6 months as well. Mate had some issues and, for both, the screen went black for 1-2 seconds when videos start playing.

I was able to get a compositor (Compiz) working on Mate and this fixed the tearing issue. It had some issues where it just kept crashing and rebooting that I never figured out. So I switched back to Gnome3. Although Gnome3 comes with a compositor (I think? And I think it might be Compiz?), I can't seem to get rid of the screen going black when a video starts.

But it really doesn't make a big difference and it's not a big enough annoyance to matter. I don't really use FreeBSD for media anyway. It's just the auto-play videos on Facebook that triggers the infrequent frustration.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#117

Post by vertex-four »

smt88 wrote: post #59
JupiterMoon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out NixOS

I absolutely love the concept of NixOS, but I haven't tried it out. Is it well-supported enough to use day-to-day as a developer? Do you often have to build things from source?

It's generally well-supported enough so long as you don't need the latest and greatest packages within about a month of their release. They're having issues with their continuous integration system (the box it's running on isn't powerful enough and the project doesn't have money to get a new one), and there's occasionally breaking errors in important packages meaning a new version of the package repository doesn't get rolled out for a while, even if you're not using those packages.

Note that building from source is exactly the same process as building from binary - i.e. "nix-env -i firefox" will try to install from "cache" (the output of the continuous integration system's build process) and if it can't find something, build from source. Most important things are in the cache, some things aren't (mostly obscure packages and things with no-redistribution licenses), but in general it works out well.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#118

Post by DonHopkins »

red_admiral wrote: post #26

Starting a post with "I know this is voluntary work, pitch in or shut up and all that ..." doesn't make the quote you're attacking untrue. For what I'm paying for Mint ($0.00) and what I get out of it in terms of productivity, I find it quite a decent distribution.

Poor security is more expensive than money.

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#119

Post by DonHopkins »

teekert wrote: post #35

An yet, it just works, looks nice, is fast on old hardware, mounts everything out of the box, controls your audio from the volume icon and gets out of your way in general. 17.3 is one the best out of box experiences imo.

How bad must desktop Linux in general be, if people are so busy rejoicing about a volume icon that works, that they accept poor security?

Re: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

#120

Post by weavie »

m00dy wrote: post #3

Whos using Mint these days anyway ?

Me... I had been using Arch and FreeBSD for a time because I felt it was what serious programmers had to use. Then one day after FreeBSD refused to boot up again I figured I was bored of messing about in recovery mode yet again so I just thought I would give Mint ago. 20 minutes later everything was up and running. Since then I haven't been able to find the time or the will to spend a whole evening setting up my machine to change back.
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