Welcome to the Dull Side.

I bought a Lenovo about 2 years ago that I’ve been really happy with. I wanted something with a metal shell because I carry my laptop around sometimes and use it balanced on one hand, and my previous Dell (plastic) started flexing and having weird issues with the TouchPad as a result. The Lenovo has been solid. I’m running Kubuntu on it, but my plan is to go Debian at some point.

All these comments, and I’m wondering who would ask someone about their height like this…it’s pretty easy to estimate someone’s height just by observation.

Yeah, I think you’re right. I forgot to add that there’s no mucking about with drivers and all of that, it really just works. Older scanners usually aren’t a problem with Linux, but Vuescan almost certainly supports them as well.

I paid for Vuescan. There are a ton of Linux scanning apps, but pretty much all of them require editing all pictures to some extent after the scan. Vuescan applies a useful set of defaults that work for most pictures, speeding up the work flow. I had over 4,000 pictures to scan so anything to simplify that was worth it.

That is, ummm, interesting. Can their installed system do anything, though? There are so many restrictions, it seems like it would be a difficult installation to daily drive.

And some of the justifications are really confusing. I realize some are probably typographical errors, but I can’t figure out what a few of them are saying at all. It reminds me of the people that invent their own lexicon and just expect everyone to understand what they are saying.

I’ve had better luck at a real lumber yard, instead of the big box stores.

I have Kubuntu installed on my desktop, been using it for years. I had disabled snap Firefox and used a Deb version, but the other day I discovered that Kubuntu reinstalled the snap Firefox.

I’ve been planning to switch to Debian on my desktop, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. This little incident is reminding why I want to in the first place.

Hell I have the app on my phone, but yesterday, I received a ticket for an event, accepted it, and downloaded it to my phone without using that app at all.

I think OP is misunderstanding what is happening. The code changes every so often, probably to prevent people from passing around a screen shot and trying to get in that way. You can get the ticket without the app.

We haven’t rewritten the firewall code lately, right? checks Oh, it looks like we have. Now it’s nftables.

I learned ipfirewall, then ipchains, then iptables came along, and I was like, oh hell no, not again. At that point I found software to set up the firewall for me.

Found Dr. Tanenbaum’s account!

I think it’s more like they thought they were supposed to do that. I’m guessing they had no idea what to do, and putting an object in trash or recycle is something everyone understands, so that’s what their brain told them to do.

Back in the early 1990s, I worked at a small-town hardware store chain (nuts and bolts, not computers) that was computerizing. A few weeks after we rolled it out, a customer came in with two gift certificates to purchase one item.

It seems pretty basic now, but using two gift certificates to purchase one item was simply not a requirement anyone had thought of. The system had no way to ring it up. The assistant manager of the store did the smart thing and rung it up as a gift certificate plus cash for the balance, so that the customer was good to go. They had to do some adjustments on the back end for that one sale and then update the software to allow for that situation.

I always remember that when I’m working on requirements for systems, wondering what obvious things we’re not thinking of…

An interesting idea, but it might be overkill for a home setup.

Data and configurations.

If you have the space, software is nice because it’s easier to get the system going again, but the data (your files - music, documents, pictures) and system configuration files (/etc for example) are the most critical. If you have databases set up, learn about their dump commands and add that.

You don’t have to use the same method for everything. My pictures are backed up to another side in a second computer and to Amazon Glacier for $2/month (I’ll have to pay to download them if I ever need it, but I’ll gladly pay if I’m in that situation - those should only be needed if I have a major house fire or something like that). My weekly backups are my /home directories, /etc, /root, a database dump, and maybe one or two other important things.

I am not familiar with that. From a quick glance it looks like the new HURD. But I think even there you’re relying on the work of others.

The xz issue might not directly affect an anti-virus, so maybe in this specific case, it would work fine. But it wouldn’t be hard to come up with another library that would make the anti-virus moot. And even in the xz situation, doesn’t it affect systemd?

All bets are off when you can no longer trust low level software like this.

Also, the Ken Thompson Hack comes to mind.

I’d add that if one of the basic libraries is compromised, you can’t trust the anti-virus or really any other program on that system.

Well said. I originally compiled my own kernels because I thought it was something you just did to use Linux. I also compiled hundreds of them, probably. Now it’s stock kernel all the way. Not worth the effort and time and headache.

Slackware in the late 90s. 3.x version. “If you want to know how Linux works, ask a Slackware user” used to be the mantra back in the day.

I’ve been using Kubuntu on my desktop machines for at least a decade now. So, I’ve completely lost track of some of the things going on, like docker, flatpak, and so on. Which is actually a good thing: Linux has gotten so good, I no longer need to know how to administer my Linux system. I can just use it.

I currently run Debian on my server and intend to switch my desktop to Debian as well. Haven’t gotten around to it…been busy. I also have to figure out how best to set up the nvme drive I have for it - GPT partition tables? Do I need a FAT32 partition? Etc.