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OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

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Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

none of those solutions apply the BSDs though

Can you run graphical applications inside a BSD jail?

Yes. Here's an example for Firefox on FreeBSD: https://wiki.freebsd.org/VladimirKrstulja/Guides/JailingGUIA...

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#252
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run Arch, I don't anymore although not for stability reasons. 13 instances of "manual intervention required" over 6 years seems awesome . I think I did 2 manual interventions during my time using Archlinux, and each time it took maybe 2 minutes, it was just a matter of copy-pasting the commands in Arch News.

That's not awesome at all, it means something happening every 6 months. In corporate environments this means all the ceremony around it: tickets, CAB, etc. Meanwhile you can use RHEL or CentOS and basically leave the thing alone for 5 years.

In corporate environments

I probably wouldn't recommend Arch for corporate environments, but at this point I feel I should point out I wouldn't recommend Linux either if you're working in a windows shop.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#253
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies It's funny, from your point of view having a centralized repository with a (usually) single (usually) latest version of a lib…

I left arch linux because I got tired of all the breakages, so not a great example.

Docker to the rescue! For development, docker is godsend. It is a developer must have just like git, I regret I didn't learn it sooner.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#254

I am arguing about this on FreeBSD forums - from an end user perspective. I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies. The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house - o…

> The whole ecosystem falls down like a card house [...] > praying my Python and other projects survive [...] And this is exactly why I never update. Every 10 years or so I go through the pain of installing a new version of the OS, mostly because the browser no longer works on most websites. But then, now that the web becomes more and more uninteresting to me, I might as well keep the current version until the hardwa…

What type of system is this? I appreciate the sentiment but I’m surprised you manage to pull it off seemingly easily. You don’t run into software compatibility issues?

(I’m trying to do something similar by downgrading to an old version of macOS more-or-less permanently, because I don’t like where the platform has gone.)

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is containerization any better than static binaries for compiled apps (not talking about python/ruby/js apps here, but instead compiled ones like firefox)?

Many applications were never designed to be compiled entirely static, as much as I’d like that to be the case it isn’t possible. Containerization satisfies the contract the application expects. That is really the problem it fixes, dependency hell and dynamic linking.

That’s great on a personal level, but bigger picture, aren’t we going about this the wrong way?

If most people are using containers because “applications were never designed to be compiled entirely static”, developers should start designing their applications so they can be compiled entirely static.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#256
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the benefits of saving disk space by sharing libraries do not justify the inconveniences we, desktop BSD and Linux users, obtain from being forced to disrupt and upgrade hundreds of installed software packages, just because one single desired upgrade requires to pull its dependencies It's funny, from your point of view having a centralized repository with a (usually) single (usually) latest version of a lib…

I left arch linux because I got tired of all the breakages, so not a great example.

Strange, the story has been quite the opposite for me, Since I moved to Arch Linux I only had one minor breakage (bluetooth) that was fixed in a day, whereas in Ubuntu I cannot count how many times an update or a PPA broke something.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#257
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run Arch, I don't anymore although not for stability reasons. 13 instances of "manual intervention required" over 6 years seems awesome . I think I did 2 manual interventions during my time using Archlinux, and each time it took maybe 2 minutes, it was just a matter of copy-pasting the commands in Arch News.

That's not awesome at all, it means something happening every 6 months. In corporate environments this means all the ceremony around it: tickets, CAB, etc. Meanwhile you can use RHEL or CentOS and basically leave the thing alone for 5 years.

RHEL and CentOS are not targeting the same users as Arch.

Distros targeting the same desktop needs are Ubuntu, Mint, Debian-flavors, Fedora, Gentoo, ...

In corporate environment for critical software you would get a contract with an on-call duty and you would only have a limited choice fo supported distros.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#258
post #100

The problem seems to be one of command line interface. In the C/C++ world, you specify the language version using a flag passed to the compiler. e.g. -std=c++98 In most other programming languages, you specify language version by installing multiple copies of the compiler/interpreter and running the corresponding version. The C/C++ way works fine if your language spec is updated once every 3 years. It does not work f…

It's similar in Rust, you specify the language edition with a line in Cargo.toml. https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/edition-guide/editions/cre...

Rust language editions are not similar to C++ standard versions.

Every new version of the Rust compiler brings changes to the language, so the language you're actually using depends on the tuple (compiler version, edition), not just on the edition.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#259
post #49

This is 100% is on mozilla, given: - it's much bigger and resourceful than openbsd maintainers. - it decided to adopt this fancy update policy, and instead of making it easy/seamless, left it up to the whole open source community to play catch up. Well played.

The "fancy update policy" being 'latest FF stable uses latest rust stable', which seems like a pretty reasonable policy to me.

It's not reasonable at all to change the programming language you're using every 6 weeks, if you expect to be part of stable systems.

Have you ever heard of any program requiring a 6-weeks-old-or-newer version of GCC or Clang, and failing to build on older ones?

"Stable" is just a name -- Rust stable is anything but.

Re: OpenBSD won't update Firefox, advises users to switch to ESR

#260
post #22

Is there a better alternative to Firefox? Of all the browsers it seems like the "least bad" choice (above Chromium, and other proprietary browsers) and I use it, but is there something safer, simpler, and more secure?

Waterfox (with Web Extensions) or Pale Moon (with XUL/UXP extensions)

I ran into Pale Moon years ago when Let's Encrypt was started and that experience gives an adequate flavour of their approach to security.

The up shot is Pale Moon's maintainers decided they don't trust Let's Encrypt for spurious reasons. But if you use Pale Moon you've probably never noticed this because Let's Encrypt is cross-signed, and so even though Pale Moon claims not to trust them, the cross-signature makes everything still work because they didn't intervene.

So that's a bad decision, combined with total incompetence to produce the appearance where everything looks fine.

That's exactly the sort of thing in a browser that should make people run away screaming.

In the years that followed Pale Moon wanted to keep StartSSL (the outfit which straight up lied to us about issuing clearly bogus certificates for money, Pale Moon's maintainers apparently feel that this shows "integrity") and described Mozilla's distrust decision as a "foot gun". How did that work out? Oh right, it turns out that everybody else doesn't trust liars either and so Pale Moon eventually went along with this because as others explained in practice they're mostly just applying patches blind to core Firefox subsystems like NSS.

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