2023: Linux rusting away into non-FOSS territory – Build rnote and you will see

Linux 6.2-rc2 kernel is out as the last commit in kernel.org at the start of the 2023 year.  RUST is here, the initial code-base is included in the kernel.  At least Arch seems to be disabling it for now, at the beta level at least, we shall see.

Rust is not just a language, as people commonly think, it is much more.  It is a building environment, system, and a mode change of the philosophy of building packages from source.   Rust incorporates its own git system in pulling code in from 2nd and 3rd parties.  So if you have never gotten into the real FOSS practice of auditing code before you build, try and audit this stuff.  If building in C you thought was a practice similar to building sand castles, by comparison, this is like building sand castles with quick-sand ON QUICK SAND.

Spyware: KDE Plasma, like Gnome, the anti-FOSS eye-candy blackmail

Non-Linux OS with extensive telemetry:
MS Windows
Apple macOS – based on Unix
Apple iOS & derivites – based on Unix
Google Chromebook ChromeOS – based on Linux
Google Android – based on Linux

Linux OS with extensive telemetry:

Pretty much any Linux with KDE-plasma or Gnome, and there are some like ElementaryOS, EndeavourOS, Fedora that may use telemetry even with LXDE or i3wm.

New Obarun live image based on all new 66 0.4 edition

A new Obarun live image has become available on July 10th 2020 and it brings many updates and changes.  From the live JWM session you can install a base system, Openbox, JWM, XFCE4, or KDE-Plasma with corresponding setup of 66 root and user service structure already set-up.  All recent (July 9th 2020) stable Arch-Linux upgraded software based and a much improved installer is onboard.  You can run the live system off of a CD (still fits) or Dvd or USB stick, or a virtual machine as a common disk system or a RAM only system from its syslinux editable boot menu.

NOTE:  Previous Obarun images and installer may not work without manual intervention to incorporate the new GPG keyring for Obarun.  Therefore older versions of pacman will not upgrade or install software, hence the net-install process will fail.

Waterfox is sold out officially, it is part of the corporate world

We had dedicated much energy in the past,  2 years ago, to advocate for Palemoon and you should at least read the piece about the NoScript parody, and how we gave up on it for specific suspicious reasons (still holds unchanged, Palemoon has branded NoScript as “dangerous” because it breaks pages).  We had seeked refuge at Waterfox, retaining some old firefox functionality and ensuring us it is blocking all of Mozilla tactics of robbing you of private data and feeding it to “who knows who”.

Waterfox officially was sold by mr Alex Kontos to System1, a UK payperclick ad company, which it would be absurd to believe that it wouldn’t utilize the browser’s ability to feed their other interests with private data.  Or why else would they buy to promote their own browser, to make all others break while they are getting robbed?

Thank you Alex for your sincere efforts and sleepless nights of coding, all these years, it has been a great ride, and it is too bad it had to crash in such a bad time for browser variety and period.  Goodbye and good luck for all that you had done up to now.

Update your 66? no, you 66-update your 66

Coming up, any day now, is your new 66 package.

obcore-testing/66 0.2.4.0-5 (base s6-suite)
  small tools built around s6 and s6-rc programs

obcore/66 0.2.3.2-1 (base s6-suite)
   small tools built around s6 and s6-rc programs
 No .zstd packaging here, just good old xz, despite of the 0,0094 second decompression advantage. 🙂

Ok, 0.2.4 over 0.2.3… brings yet one more tool to you. Still, the package (66) is only a fraction of systemd, but it has more “features”. That database of trees and services you have created, after a major reorganization of 66 and its service file definitions and syntax do not have to be destroyed and recreated, not for the root and not for the user. Simply run 66-update as root and as user after each upgrade to ensure perfect transitioning to the upgraded software. 66-update -v4 for maximum verbosity.

The next step in development will be a more automated backup and restore of your trees and services structure.

In the past 9 months 66 evolved quite a bit and after each major evolutionary step the safest way to upgrade was to destroy old trees (delete them) and recreate them and populate them with services. Not any more. But that is not all. 66-update doesn’t mean it is a one way procedure, Say you found out something is wrong, you located the bug of the century, something wrong with 66, and you want to downgrade back to the previous edition of 66. You downgrade the package and run 66-update again.

 

PS  Now, if someone who is not banned from r/linux or r/archlinux could try and crosspost this important announcement there, to see if you can do this for a banned user like me, it would be nice to know, that I can still piss them off with my existence.

You want to update your 66, no, you 66-update your 66
byu/fungalnet inobarun

Are you confused about debian/antiX/MX/devuan/Refracta editions?

Debian 10 Buster became stable a few months ago, the rest of the systems had to follow but took their time.  This is done every two years and creates a wave of confusion, especially those on forked versions of Debian, like antiX, MX, devuan, refracta, etc.  Even more dangerous and confusing it is if you are using testing and although testing during debian stretch was buster it now becomes bullseye, while your antiX/MX/Devuan is testing alongside Buster still.

After antiX announced 19 (Marielle Franco) as its current stable branch, MS followed its mothership the week later (a few days ago), while Devuan/Refracta are still chasing Stretch (Debian 9), what they call Devuan 2 or ascii.

So here it is, to take the confusion away from numbers and names:

Debian         *   Debian       *  AntiX/MX   *  Devuan
the last good1 *   7   Wheezy   *    13       *  0  beta-testing
old old stable *   8   Jessie   *    15       *  1 jessie (old-stable)
old stable     *   9   Stretch  *    17       *  2 ascii (stable)
stable         *  10   Buster   *    19       *  3 beowulf(testing)
testing        *  11   Bullseye *    21       *  4 chimaera (next testing)
unstable       *       sid      *    sid      *       ceres

Artix new repository structure for testing [gremlins]

The new repository structure for testing in artix follows the pattern of arch and substituting labels to avoid confusion.

Gremlins is the term for what Arch calls testing, and goblins is the term for what Arch calls staging (where dev.’s place new packages while they are being debugged and getting ready for production –> testing).  For users not willing to contribute to development, other than “testing” their work, goblins is no place to be.  Most certainly things will be “broken” in goblins, and if they weren’t they would be in testing, or to be distribution correct “gremlins”.  For stable users, nothing has changed.

Devuan, EOL – trust, suspicion, and unanswered questions

First things first.  Those of us involved in this project had an internal debate from day one whether to cover Devuan development or not.  All but one person here, yours truly, argued that Devuan would never be able to overcome and change the psychopathology evident in Debian developer community and the inherent elitism against the common individual user.  If you are not directing the departmental budget of an IT enterprise nobody in that community would give a rat’s penny of what your problem may be.  Seeking help as a common user you must put up with tons of unsubstantiated arrogance, irony, and elitism.  This is also evident in the DNG list where devuan developers and their pre-split backroom buddies are larking, pretending they are Devian without the infrastructure of Debian.  It is like a life-raft’s  officers and buddies pretending to be the officers operating a supertanker.

Refracta Devuan 2 Openbox Eudev OpenRC ready!

It all started with curiosity and we all know what this may get for a cat.  But we are not cats, and discoveries were always made by the curious.  Neither the labels unstable, testing, experimental, nor the initial experience was enough to keep this bear away from the honey.

Temporary Artix web-forum server outage

artix-linux

Your linux, your init

24/11/17  artixlinux.org/forum  is back and fully operational

 

Artix: missing dependency and how to get it – [arch-testing]

This only applies to those using Artix-Testing and have no previous Arch-linux experience.

Today some meandering in the system-testing directory resulted in a package upgrade of libpsl that requires an additional pkg, libidn2.

Quote from: nous

If you use Artix testing repos, you should also use Arch testing repo, libidn2 is there and soon will be in ours.

You say “should” but this is the first time I encounter such a rule.

Devuan testing new amprolla3 powered repository

If you like to test the new amprolla3 powered repository system here is a small list of optional /etc/apt/sources.list

deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged/ ascii main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-backports main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-proposed-updates main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-security main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-updates main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/ ascii-proposed main contrib non-free
deb https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/ ascii-proposed-security main contrib non-free