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Blog about some various Linux stuff
sfalken.tech The Crimson Permanent Assurance

The Personal Blog of Shawn W. Dunn

Just wanted to drop there here, in case anybody finds it useful. I started doing some blogging, mostly with the intention of archiving how in the hell I've done things on Linux, in the past, so I know where to find them the next time I need to do them. There will probably be other stuff there, with time, some of it not linux related, but I'll tag the relevant stuff, so it's easier to find.

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OpenSUSE seeks a Leap replacement, but will distro community rise to the challenge?
  • Correct, SUSE, the corporation is no longer providing a traditional linux distribution, after the SLE-15 EOL.

    openSUSE, which is a community project, and not controlled by SUSE, is currently debating as to whether we have the contributors interested in doing so, and in sufficient numbers, to continue to provide a traditional point release distribution.

    Tumbleweed (the rolling release) is not going anywhere. The community has not yet decided if the interest and manpower is there to use the ALP sources provided by SUSE to create A) A traditional linux distribution, akin to what Leap currently is, B) a "Slowroll" version of Tumbleweed, that has a slower release cycle, or C) Nothing at all, because there isn't the community there to support the development of it.

    SUSE != openSUSE

  • OpenSUSE seeks a Leap replacement, but will distro community rise to the challenge?
  • That is indeed the big question, if there's nobody willing to put in the work, then there's nothing to release.

    Maintaining something like Leap, with the contributor base that has historically existed, isn't sustainable, long term, especially when the upstream is going in a different direction.

  • Overrated Literary Classics (and What to Read Instead) | Book Riot
  • Bah. This is just a piece of clickbait nonsense, or somebody trying to be edgy. I'm actually mildly offended by their "review" of "On the Road". Just makes me think that they probably haven't ever read anything other than somebody elses review of it.

  • Paramount to sell Simon & Schuster to KKR for $1.6 Billion Cash
  • Well, RIP Simon & Schuster. I give em five years, tops.

  • Universal Chat Application, Beeper, Will Be Available To Everyone (For Free) In A Matter Of Weeks.
  • I don't care about beeper one way or another, but that bloody image with the post, it needs to die in a fire.

  • Tonight I decided to try jack-in-the-box for the first time...
  • I will never claim they are authentic, or even great, but I will destroy the 2 for a buck tacos.

  • [Question] Why does everyone seem to dislike containerized packages?
  • Mostly because they're uneducated fools, that haven't any actual idea what the hell they're talking about.

    Unless you're pulling sources, and building everything yourself, everything you get from most major distributions is "pre-compiled".

    People hate anything new, they fear change, and they like drama, that's all it is.

  • What is the most opinionated linux distro?
  • Fedora Silverblue or openSUSE Aeon, I'd probably say.

  • Stupid Beginner Question: What Linux Desktop Environment works well or has an output mode for NTSC/PAL resolution?
  • The dsektop environment really doesn't have anything to do with it. That's up to the video drivers and display server, be it X11 or Wayland. I haven't any idea which desktop might offer you the best tools for configuring those things though. Just as a rough guess, I'd guess KDE Plasma, perhaps XFCE?

  • A distro and desktop environment recommendation for an old laptop (Read all of it, please.)
  • I'd probably drop openSUSE Tumbleweed with LXQt on it. But that's my preference for low-spec machines. There's any number of distros with "lightweight" GUI's that you can use. XFCE/MATE/LXQt probably being the ones that will give you the least headaches.

  • Is Nobara tied in with all the Redhat Drama?
  • I have no idea who signs his paychecks, but no, none of the announcement about the RHEL Sources affects Fedora in any way, unless Nobara is pulling sources from RHEL (which it isn't) this doesn't affect it at all. Nobara isn't an official Fedora, or RedHat product or project.

  • Is Nobara tied in with all the Redhat Drama?
  • No, nothing RedHat is doing affects Nobara. Nobara is based on Fedora, which is upstream of RedHat. Nothing is changing.

  • How many people here have actually used XMPP?
  • That's XMMP different thing =P

  • How many people here have actually used XMPP?
  • It's still around. I'm using it right now, in fact. Makes for a pretty damn good phone service as well, in conjunction with JMP

  • Can someone ELI5 the situation with Red Hat and CentOS?
  • No, this doesn't affect Fedora in any meaningful way. Fedora is upstream of RHEL.

  • Can someone ELI5 the situation with Red Hat and CentOS?
  • RedHat creates a product called RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) that is a paid support product, mostly targeted at businesses (and things like Academia/Laboratories/etc).

    At one point, there was a Wholly seperate product, created outside the RedHat umbrella, called CentOS, that quite literally took the sources of RHEL, removed the RHEL branding, and rebuilt it, allowing folks to "mostly" be able to use RHEL, without paying RedHat for a support contract.

    In 2014, the CentOS Project/Product was "purchased" by RedHat, and then in 2020, RedHat decided that CentOS would no longer just be a "rebuilt" RHEL, but instead would become the development space for RHEL, called CentOS Stream. This made many people very unhappy, and they decided to start the Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux projects to provide roughly the same product that prior versions of CentOS had provided.

    Additionally (I don't actually know exactly when), at some point, Oracle started doing basically the same thing that CentOS had been doing, and rebuilding the RHEL sources, and selling it, as "Oracle Linux"

    So net effect of what this means, is that RHEL sources will no longer be publicly available at git.centos.org, and will only be available to RedHat customers (i.e. you must have signed up for an account/license with RedHat for RHEL). This may make things more difficult for Rocky, Alma, and Oracle, to provide the same "Bug for Bug" compatible product to RHEL.

    Most of what people are upset about, is because they're willfully misreading the GPL (GNU Public License) which covers an awful lot of the RHEL sources.

    The GPL requires that if you distribute software, licensed under the GPL, that you also must provide the folks that you distribute that software to, with the sources you used. It doesn't specify how you have to provide them, you could make them available for download, you could mail folks a DVD with all the sources on it, (honestly, I think you might be able to just print them all out and send them on dead trees, and still be compliant).

    What most of the folks are upset about, is there is a clause within the GPL, that says something about providing the sources "without restriction on redistribution" or some such. And they view that RedHat can choose to terminate your license to RHEL, if you redistribute RHEL sources/software as violating the GPL. But the GPL cannot dictate business relationships. Redhat cannot stop one of their customers from distributing sources that they are licensed to have. But they are well within their legal rights to terminate that license, and provide no further access, if you distribute them. (i.e. you have an RHEL license, and version 1.0 of a library is covered under that license, you redistribute that source, and RedHat must allow that, but they're under no obligation to continue that business relationship, and provide you continuing access to version 1.1)

    That's a rough rundown on the history. What does this mean for the average linux user? Nothing, really. Unless you happen to use Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, or Oracle Linux. It doesn't affect Debian, or Ubuntu, or openSUSE, or Arch, or anybody else. RedHat will continue to contribute back upstream to projects like the linux kernel, or GNOME, or what have you, they will continue to sponsor and hire developers, they just will no longer be providing free and open access to the RHEL Sources.

    It's not a question of legality really, but more one of an ethical nature. It sort of depends on you, as to whether or not you're bothered by RedHat doing this or not.

  • What's an innocent misconception about your hobby/profession that drives you up the wall?
  • Sort of. Open Pit mining can be incredibly dangerous, the dangers are just different. I haven't ever seen any numbers from MSHA breaking down the incident rates (I haven't looked to see if they even publish them, in a broken down form like that), but you can really get your ass in trouble in an open pit mine, if you're not cognizant of the highwall, keep track of the very large equipment, Not paying attention to blast times or barricading, or not paying attention to the Shovel Cables, and where the approved crossings are.

    I'd suspect that the numbers of overall incidents are probably higher underground, but I'm not sure about actual deaths. I spent about 20 years working in/around/as a vendor to both open pit and underground operations, and just completely anecdotally, I mostly remember most of the underground reportable incidents to be less serious than the ones I saw in the pits.

  • SFaulken SFaulken @kbin.social

    openSUSE Developer/Maintainer/Member/Whatever. I do things with openSUSE. Not that I'm particularly good at any of them =P

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