I'm not in the loop here. What's the "opt-out spyware" in linux distros the author mentions?
Ubuntu at one point packaged in Amazon search by default.
And was trivial to disable. Not like win10 telemetry reactivated on every update.
Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
21–30 of 169 posts
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#22The fragmented nature is what I love about Linux. In other words it's called "choice".
Because of the fragmentation, I don't have to use systemd, or pulseaudio, or snap, or Gnome desktop, or most other things I don't want to use for whatever reason. I can configure my box (or my container) mostly the way I see fit.
If you want ultimate unification, choose macOS. These guys are certain that they know what you need, and rid you of the need to choose. If you want a bit less strict unification but with backwards compatibility, choose Windows.
BSD sees less fragmentation mostly because it's less widely used. Though FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, and even Darwin exist, and differ significantly form each other. The BSD land, fortunately, also offers choice.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#23Ok, but then if everyone switches to BSD, won't it suffer the same fate? I.e. whenever something goes mainstream, corporations are drawn to it like insects to a lightbulb.
The article addresses that.
Companies are free to do whatever they want with BSD and as such they don't need to try to affect the way things are going. If that wasn't the case we would possible see, for example, Sony trying very hard to influence the development of FreeBSD because they use that in their PlayStation products.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#24I recently moved my home systems from Ubuntu to Debian because Ubuntu dropped 32-bit support (I have a mix of 64 and 32-bit and wanted to keep them on the same OS). The installer didn't work on my oldest laptop from 2003 with a new mSATA SSD IDE adapter (it hung when formatting the SSD). In the process of debugging the problem I tried FreeBSD for the first time, which not only installed successfully but even supported the wireless adapter. I'm running LXDE as I'm doing with the other machines. The learning curve was far less than I expected, so hats off to the FreeBSD project!
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#25"Linux is fragmented", and then goes on to list Free, Open, Net, Dragonfly and avoids listing a few more. "Poettering creepware". Web developers who use Google Analytics are "stupid". This is emotion-driven drivel.
I noticed that, too: the author doesn't mention the many-splendored versions of *BSD. My personal favorite is FreeBSD.
I like Linux, but I have mixed feelings about systemd, especially when I discovered that systemd runs its own DNS server, which prevents the DNS server I wrote from binding to port 53 using INADDR_ANY. Instead, I had to write code to enumerate the interfaces & corresponding IP addresses & bind to each one separately. Systemd's decision to run their own DNS server is a bit of overreach, IMHO.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#26> Proprietary operating systems like Microsoft Windows 10, Apple MacOS, and Google Android have become famous for their ill conduct... I find it mildly ironic that MacOS was based on BSD.
You mean like adding systemd and snaps ... that make it harder to run a system in a deterministic manner with easy security updates, etc?
I'd really like to hear your explanation for how systemd is "harder to make deterministic" than piles upon piles of init scripts.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#27"Linux is fragmented", and then goes on to list Free, Open, Net, Dragonfly and avoids listing a few more. "Poettering creepware". Web developers who use Google Analytics are "stupid". This is emotion-driven drivel.
I noticed that, too: the author doesn't mention the many-splendored versions of *BSD. My personal favorite is FreeBSD. I like Linux, but I have mixed feelings about systemd, especially when I discovered that systemd runs its own DNS server, which prevents the DNS server I wrote from binding to port 53 using INADDR_ANY. Instead, I had to write code to enumerate the interfaces & corresponding IP addresses & bind to eac…
you'd probably like voidlinux
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article, it sounds like it's that upstream systemd uses Google Public DNS as a default (if you don't configure a server or get one in your DHCP lease) and Firefox uses Cloudflare's DNS-over-HTTPS, which would allow those companies to see all your DNS queries.
If you’re doing DNS some company is going to see your DNS queries. So the objection is the new default choice?
I think the objection is the type of company that sees your requests.
Traditionally, it's your ISP who gets to see your and all their users' DNS lookups.
But now it's Google (on top of your ISP) and Cloudflare (on top of with 1.1.1.1 and instead of your ISP for DNS-over-HTTPS), and the claim is that they are going to misuse the data (well, it's pretty much a fact for Google).
I am generally not in favour of any siloing and centralisation of that scale, but if you want private DNS, your options are quite limited.
I also wonder if it'd make sense to bundle a simple DNS-over-Tor service or would that be easy to track? I'd run it on my openwrt router.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#29"Linux is fragmented", and then goes on to list Free, Open, Net, Dragonfly and avoids listing a few more. "Poettering creepware". Web developers who use Google Analytics are "stupid". This is emotion-driven drivel.
I noticed that, too: the author doesn't mention the many-splendored versions of *BSD. My personal favorite is FreeBSD. I like Linux, but I have mixed feelings about systemd, especially when I discovered that systemd runs its own DNS server, which prevents the DNS server I wrote from binding to port 53 using INADDR_ANY. Instead, I had to write code to enumerate the interfaces & corresponding IP addresses & bind to eac…
This is where I sit. I like systemd as an init system. I find its syslog replacement unneeded overreach, and its DNS server absolute insanity.
So when asked if I like systemd, it's a loaded question. It's great but absolutely sucks, both.
Re: Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD
#30Ok, but then if everyone switches to BSD, won't it suffer the same fate? I.e. whenever something goes mainstream, corporations are drawn to it like insects to a lightbulb.
The article addresses that. Companies are free to do whatever they want with BSD and as such they don't need to try to affect the way things are going. If that wasn't the case we would possible see, for example, Sony trying very hard to influence the development of FreeBSD because they use that in their PlayStation products.
And yet they do anyway. Netflix contributed network code to FreeBSD. In so doing, they took code they had developed and handed over the maintenance to the FreeBSD team.
I think this is the biggest incentive companies have for making contributions to open source: they don't want to pay engineers to keep maintaining their own patches forever.