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KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

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Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#361
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Flatpak has some kind of hangup about the idea that some tools need actually real full access to the system. Wireshark is similarly useless because you can't actually capture packets with it. It is really strange that both this and "it's totally ok for packages to set their own security defaults" are true in Flatpak land.

If Linux starts attracting commercial development and we see an influx of new apps, wouldn't you feel safe knowing that the ones you install as flatpaks aren't allowed to capture packets on your system? Wireshark is a tool more in the realm of development/sysadminry, whereas flatpaks are designed for more traditional apps, like Discord or Firefox. I wouldn't want my development tools to come from flatpaks even if the…

> If Linux starts attracting commercial development and we see an influx of new apps, wouldn't you feel safe knowing that the ones you install as flatpaks aren't allowed to capture packets on your system?

See, here's the problem with letting packages determine their own defaults. I want the ability to give a Flatpak those permissions, not that they be able to give them to themselves. As it is, Flatpaks can give themselves permission to $HOME without ever notifying me, which I think is just as silly.

In my opinion, Flatpak should support a user-definable default permissions template that says "always permit", "always deny", and "don't care" for any given permission.

> you have Toolbox for that

Actually I agree that when it comes to these collections of software to build an "environment" something like toolbox/distrobox is a better fit. I have my issues with both[0], but the base concept is sound.

[0] For instance: why is podman required? The container functionality required is built into the kernel and podman has a lot of features that are entirely unused. Even bubblewrap has all that's needed and it is included anyway because of Flatpak. I will probably end up writing my own replacement for these tools.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#362
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is NixOS a cult? Every time someone posts about Linux packaging, there's a "you should just use NixOS" comment. Although it provides its own solution to the Linux packaging problem, it's a single solution that comes with a whole load of baggage with it. It is not the panacea its proponents wants us to believe it is.

> Is NixOS a cult? Rather than being a cult in itself, there's a crowd of very vocal fanboys similar to the RIIR stike force. Pestering people with "why don't you use $thing" is not good advocacy.

Point of order: I didn't say "you should use nix", I said "oi, nix is actively doing that thing you said was impossible", and suggested that they should do that themselves.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many different versions of OpenSSL are running on my laptop right now? Who can say? That's the beauty of flatpak: if you sweep the problems of software management under a big enough rug, they go away and never bother you again.

Why would I care? Ok Spotify has an old package with some vulnerabilities in it. But flatpak has it sandboxed so the worst you could do is maybe steal my Spotify session token. That's more a problem for Spotify than it is for me. They will go and fix their package and I will reset my sessions. Meanwhile we have distros lagging behind for years to provide a new package because they can't break all the things depending…

If every application is properly sandboxed, and the sandbox has zero holes, then it's fine. I don't believe either.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#364
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is NixOS a cult? Every time someone posts about Linux packaging, there's a "you should just use NixOS" comment. Although it provides its own solution to the Linux packaging problem, it's a single solution that comes with a whole load of baggage with it. It is not the panacea its proponents wants us to believe it is.

> Is NixOS a cult? Rather than being a cult in itself, there's a crowd of very vocal fanboys similar to the RIIR stike force. Pestering people with "why don't you use $thing" is not good advocacy.

Indeed the communication factor is critical. I've been around long enough to see plenty of good tech fail simply because backers are not very good communicators and I think the top level comment is a great example of this. I am just a lowly end user, I just want to be able to install and run the latest version of PrusaSlicer or Zoom on whatever Linux distribution I am using. I don't obviously see how to do that with nix and I don't really want to spend the time to figure it out, while the folks behind flatpak seem to have made it a trivial experience.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#365
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is an African word which means "Afraid of Debian" Seriously though, just install Debian. It's not hard, the netinstaller may be text-mode but it walks you through the simple steps one by one just like Ubuntu's GUI installer. Anybody who's comfortable using Ubuntu in the first place should be able to get through the Debian installer just fine.

Even better, install Devuan, which is Debian without systemd (the attempt to turn Linux into Windows). Many former Debian developers are now working on Devuan.

How exactly many? Can you name them?

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only complaint about arch/i3 so far is that updating Firefox forces a restart of Firefox, and I've got FF windows scattered over a few workspaces so I need to sift them back to their places. Come to think of it I can probably prune one of the windows... ETA: and maybe one of the workspaces...

Would it be possible to create a script to save the desktop and screen position for each firefox window on close and restore them to the recorded desktops and positions on open? I haven't used i3 much (or arch at all), but I'm fairly certain I did something similar using Xubuntu some years back.

I did that on xubuntu too. Used xdotool, wmctrl and something else I can't recall.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#367
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe engineers might be enamoured by it. Whatever. On my GFs computer Chrome starts in about 7 minutes after fresh boot, no other programs running, yet. From a fricking Samsung SSD, 8GiB RAM. All it has to do is show some fake tabs and render a single page content. Tell about its quality to my GF. She's used to it, but some of these days, I'll check the DNS logs, to see if it's really loading all the 1000 tabs (she…

> On my GFs computer Chrome starts in about 7 minutes after fresh boot, no other programs running, yet. There is something wrong with your GF’s computer. I have no idea what but a seven minute start time is absolutely atypical.

The computer is fine, judging by Firefox starting resonably fast with very many tabs to restore for her on that computer.

Also the same chrome profile starts very fast when she uses the "private browsing mode" which doesn't restore any tabs. So it really just seems like chrome having perf issues with tab restore with many tabs.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#368
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On my GFs computer Chrome starts in about 7 minutes after fresh boot, no other programs running, yet. There is something wrong with your GF’s computer. I have no idea what but a seven minute start time is absolutely atypical.

The computer is fine, judging by Firefox starting resonably fast with very many tabs to restore for her on that computer. Also the same chrome profile starts very fast when she uses the "private browsing mode" which doesn't restore any tabs. So it really just seems like chrome having perf issues with tab restore with many tabs.

Maybe it’s extensions.

But anyway the point still stands: an outlier user with 1000 tabs open had a slow startup time doesn’t mean Chrome is horribly engineered. If it isn’t an extensions issue then it’s a minor bug.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#369
post #70
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is an African word which means "Afraid of Debian" Seriously though, just install Debian. It's not hard, the netinstaller may be text-mode but it walks you through the simple steps one by one just like Ubuntu's GUI installer. Anybody who's comfortable using Ubuntu in the first place should be able to get through the Debian installer just fine.

GP here. I use some tools that are Ubuntu specific. But I might look at Ubuntu derivatives such as Pop or Mint. As I said in my other comments, these are desktop/HTPC machines so, it's not as straight forward to change distro as it would be with a server.

zorin is another decent distro as well. i was on pop for maybe 3 years and that was great but zorin has won me over for reasons i can't really put my finger on

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#370
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, GNOME actually exceeds macOS minimalism… at least in macOS I have the ability to hide the top bar, several ways to launch apps, a systray, graphical configuration for most things, the ability to change keymappings, and so on. In GNOME, I need 3rd party tools for all of that.

At least in GNOME, I can turn off the laptop screen without closing the lid ...you can't compare minimalism/configurability in this way

Yeah - i make do with yabai and skhd. I'm curious how people use the Mac without having to use a touchpad/mouse for everything without third party additions (that in the case of proper desktop management / multiple monitors needs to disable system integrity protection to work...).

Ed: one minor (but somewhat understandable annoyance) is the lack of a free/reserved for users modifier key. Macos with the adoption of bsd uses both command, option and control (even though it uses command for core things like copy/paste). The windows/super key is a blessing on Linux pcs - as it generally can be used for just that - window management).

I know some rebind caps lock as a super (ed2: I mean "hyper", I think) (aka ALL THE MODIFIERS) key on Mac - but that leaves control in the wrong place :/

Maybe there's no RSI in Palo Alto?

https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai

https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd

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