Fork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along…
I 0man on using my McLovin ID for all this verification shit.
I literally have the same plan if I ever need to.
What is the alternative to systemd? I’m sort of a linux noob when it comes to this deeper level stuff.
SystemD isnt exactly a program but more of a group of projects, the only “core” SystemD software on most distros is the init system… Which you can run completely without SystemD’s UserDB system (the part being talked about in the post).
Basically this means you as a user dont have to do anything but switch away from projects that depend on SystemD’s UserDB (like Gnome), not SystemD as a whole
However if you do want to move away from SystemD as a whole you can replace your init system with another one, gentoo’s wiki is a good starting point for learning a bit more: wiki. Personally I love using openrc but of you have no need to touch init files… Dont switch
Thanks for explaining it a bit more. I moved from Windows 11 to CachyOS (limine bootloader and kde plasma DE) sometime last year and that may be a bit above my paygrade right now. Based on what I’m seeing in the Arch Wiki it would seem that quite a few systemd components are in use for my distro.
Does KDE also use UserDB?
mine doesn’t appear to be? it says installed but disabled. unless i’m looking at the wrong service which is entirely possible.
It appears to be active (running)
KDE is commited to keeping the desktop itself SystemD agnostic. Their new login manager does depend on SystemD, but you can run KDE Plasma from any login manager
Basically this means you as a user dont have to do anything but switch away from projects that depend on SystemD’s UserDB (like Gnome), not SystemD as a whole
You can also just… not put your PII into UserDB. It can store clear names, mail addresses, postal addresses and now birthdates… but it can also just serve as an interface to
/etc/passwd. Which conveniently also works with LDAP accounts (unlike your hand written/etc/passwdparser) if you’re an organisation that uses LDAP.This is the entirety of what UserDB knows about me:
userdbctl user --output=json $(whoami) { "userName" : "sky", "uid" : 1000, "gid" : 100, "homeDirectory" : "/users/sky/home" "shell" : "/run/current-system/sw/bin/fish" }I don’t expect that to change with this PR.
Most distributions use systemd but there are still distros and other unix-like operating systems that are using something else. However, they are not “user friendly” and will probably not be what most people are looking for.
Slackware uses its own init system and never used systemd but it has the reputation of being difficult to use. Gentoo also lets users choose between systemd and OpenRC. Alpine Linux uses OpenRC too. There’s more than a dozen distros not using systemd, but again, probably not what most people want to use. It’s also possible to replace systemd with OpenRC on some distros, but it possibly, probably, might cause some quirks.
Otherwise, there are other unix-like operating systems. Debian GNU Hurd also has its own init system but it’s not using the Linux kernel, so it’s a different beast. OpenBSD and FreeBSD also have their own init system, but not Linux. And AFAIK there’s no such thing as modern gaming on those.
There are ways not to use systemd, but realistically speaking, it will probably not be worth it unless you’re really militant about this. I started with Slackware at the end of the 90ies, I know how to compile a kernel, and tried GNU Hurd at some point, but I will not change something unless it’s really implemented deeper into the general software. It’s frustrating that the systemd devs are “collaborating”, but we’ll see what happens after a few rounds of updates.
Alt-init distros exist but it’s only a matter of time before either they’re screwed or age-gating goes down to firmware or hardware level.
Just use something simple with systemd. The Linux community is its own worst enemy, in inviting people to come to Linux because it’s so simple and beginner friendly, then the trap snaps shut and they tell you to pick a distro and all you have to do is decide on either gnome, plasma or cinnamon, and between arch and debian and ubuntu, and between snap and Flatpack, between Vim, Emacs, nano, and micro, between Wayland and the other one, between systemd and violent self-fellagelation, and whatever you choose, make sure it’s FOSS and exactly what the next person on the forum used and as pure as the driven snow or you’ll be bullied, belittled, and trolled by egomaniacs, elitists, and gatekeepers until you fawn like a thrashed housewife who ‘only gets hit when she fucks up’, or you give up and install windows again.
Just use whatever works for you, makes your life easier, and avoid the Linux purity circlejerk. When it stops working for you, use something else. Go your own way.
If you don’t know what systemd does and you aren’t affected by this, use it. If there’s closed source software you wanna run, run it. If you want to install a snap, do it. If you like using VS code, install it on your Linux, it works great. You will never be pure enough to satisfy the Linux community.
Okay but not really? Systemd does not really provide that much usability that any other init system + elogind doesn’t. The benefit to the FOSS environment is that we, as users and developers, can starve out bad actors.
Want Nix but don’t like systemd? Guix. Want Arch but don’t like systemd? Void. You know what “compile” means and don’t want systemd? Gentoo.
I’m just gonna keep using systemd
This is hilarious and super on point. Thanks for the laugh :D
Final Edit: The PR has been merged into main.
Fucking hell. All he had to do was fucking nothing, the bastard.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/revoluciana-facing-fascism-sabotage
Sabotage sounds spicy. It sounds dangerous.
And yet, the underlying concept is simply this: inefficiency.
I told you last time, make every inch have its cost.
Resistance does not have to be violent, and that’s not something I’m advocating here. Resistance is the word no. Resistance is standing in place. Resistance is pushing.
Resistance is the albatross around the neck of your opposition. Resistance is the anchor that drags along the sea floor.
Here are some incredibly mundane but effective examples from the manual:
Make mistakes with purchasing travel tickets
Make engineering mistakes
Make long speeches and waste time
Act ignorant, or ask a lot of questions: if you’re not familiar with the concept of sea-lioning, you should really learn it
Take longer to do your work
Even if you’re terrified of doing more, this is simply a place to start.
You are someone and you have a responsibility to do something.
You cannot make it easier for the fascists to achieve their goals. You can’t do it today, and you can’t do it later if they claim authority. You must stand in the way of oppression.
This is fucking horseshit. I’m turning against fucking systemd , and I had no fucking opinion before, now it’s completely clear they’re a bunch of 1940s IBM wannabees.
EDIT : What a surprise, the fucker that wrote the PR works for IBM and “A Medical Malpractice company” and the one that merged it works for Microsoft.
The origin of inefficiency as resistance comes from people in concentration camps deliberately doing poor jobs at forced labour as a form of resistance. If you’re posting on Lemmy right now you can do a lot more than inefficiency. The people who had to resort to inefficient slave labour as resistance could only dream of what you can do.
ok great. can you tie it back to the discussion please?
Conversations move through different topics.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.
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how do you think this can be most effectively fought?
Email your legislators telling them that parents already have access to network block tools, these laws won’t stop the problem anyway (run through a vpn), they’re a free speech nightmare, they’re collecting more data on American citizens when America has data breaches losing data every few days, and Congress literally studied this twenty years ago and decided it wasn’t a good idea then, what makes it a good idea now?
uh…$? same reason the majority of US politicians vote anyway on anything put in front of them.
the only thing sacred in the USA is $
Unless first worlders get out of their comfort zone and fight back, nothing can be done.
so much for making our own tech!
Honestly the only way to fight all the corporate and govt data collection is to end the dictatorship of the Epstein class by overthrowing then. Until we can unite against them, they will continue to limit our speech in an effort to quell efforts to organize a resistance
it’s the only way i can truly think of. revolution feels so incredibly far away though.
there must be a way to resist this shit in the meantime.
I’ll never buy a computer that can’t be run without this shit. If that means I run what I have until it breaks and then never have a PC again then that’s what I’ll do
The last computer I bought (a couple of years back) was a decade old PC, the price was €10 or so. I needed to add RAM, SSD, and used it for a couple of years as a Fedora Workstation desktop. It was plenty powerful for most of my needs. I’m not too worried about it. I think I can survive on a machine like that.
You won’t be able to afford RAM and SSD though.
What if users are redefined as context? Now the is does not have users anymore. That’s not a ‘root’ user, it’s a ‘root’ context. And that’s non root context with supercontext privileges
The least effective way is whining on a Lemmy community about open source projects.
Go talk to your lawmakers, not the people complying with the law.🤷
In a few years, we may be smuggling in contraband Chinese RISC-V computers.
Huh, we really do live in a cyberpunk novel…
I’d done it, I’d smuggled in one of those RISC-whatever boxes. The hardware that doesn’t require a live-scan of your irises and your digital ID to interface. This baby can visit websites without even scanning your brainwaves. I don’t know what country it came from - You’re not allowed to know about foreign countries before you’re 40, the computer blocks them, it’s something about preventing “unauthorised gooning”.
Just as I sat down, I heard it - the info-chopper, they knew. I grabbed my illegal CPU just as the door was bust open, “INFORMATION PROTECTION OFFICER, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND TELL ME YOUR BIRTHDATE!” You see you’re only allowed to hear certain parts of our rights depending on your details, it’s to protect you from dangerous information. Even seeing his face might evoke corrupted thoughts, but I didn’t care anymore.
I quickly, but pointedly, looked over, and saw him, cool leather jacket, gun, one of those brain-interceptor helmet things, like a hockey helmet made of cushions and diodes. “NO” I cried, “I WANT TO PLAY SNAKE WITHOUT PROVIDING MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!”. With that, I cheesed it, spurred on by the sky-high promise of reading a ‘potentially offensive’ Wikipedia article, in private.
The fact that this shit sound like a dystopian future trope…
Only to be backdoored by the Red instead of the Orange.
Someone call Dr. Strange, he fucked up this timeline real bad.
By implementing it all in the most brain dead, user space writable fashion
It is possible that California law will be changed. But similar ideas are popping up in other contexts and it’s unlikely that they’ll all go away. This implementation is fairly generic and useful for other things besides age verification, so we shouldn’t decide whether to merge it or not based on a single law in any jurisdiction.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954#issuecomment-4032355482
yep, it might be needed or not, let’s invest valuable dev time into it, it will open the door for user tracking based on age bracket now at least, nobody asked for it, but let’s do it anyways. Fuck Systemd for approving and merging this.
In my opinion, storing a date is pretty much irrelevant unless there’s a process that validates the supplied date, otherwise every Linux user was born on 1/1/1, if not, an administrator can “fix” that
Furthermore, that
systemdthinks that it’s the place to store such information is in my opinion beyond absurd.Who appointed that project the source of age truth in the Linux ecosystem? What discussion was there, who was consulted and where was the vote?
You’re right that asking a user for a date is next to useless. However, that isn’t a reason to not fight this stuff. Asking the user for the date is step one to getting people accept it. After that they’ll point out that people were lying, and they’ll need our government ID to verify (and link us to activity). It’s all a step towards a surveillance network tracking every move you make on your computer.
I understand your point and agree that this is the thin end of the wedge.
What we’re doing here is discussing the phenomenon and I’m highlighting some concerns.
I believe that this is how you get a dialogue happening which will effect change, which is what we’re both advocating.
I think that age verification is about surveillance rather than protecting children and I think it should be fought at every level.
This is me contributing to that fight.
Come on, you know it’s going to be 1/1/1970 most of the time.
1/1/1
every linux user is jesus confirmed
Everyone knows Jesus was born one 0001-12-25
They haven’t fessed up yet that that’s part of their plan. I expect to hear from them after they’ve passed the first half.
Exactly. This is a massive overreach, and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
Not familiar with him then?
it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this
You’ve, uh, seen systemd, right? Cmon; this is just one more section for the cancer to eat.
I would say the majority of objections to systemd pertain to perceived overreaches of the project (perceptions I generally share). So in that sense, it is kind of on brand.
He thinks that systemd is desktop linux.
This change is mostly in the userdb code which is a sub-component of systemd that stores user records. It isn’t in the PID1 process. But I could see an argument for having it be part of the desktop environment in GNOME or something like that instead.
what a fucking bootlicker
Nobody is forking systemd, especially over something like this. People have no idea how much work it is to maintain software like this.
That is why we use other init systems.
with this PR merged, I am already reading guides on how to replace systemd, that shit is defective by design and this PR just proves that systemd is another corpo bullshit
You’re right and there’s actually no need to fork systemd since sysvinit distros still exist.
echo "18+" > ~/.age_rcAm I compliant with California’s law now? Apps can use the POSIX API to access my age.
Yes, and you can do the same thing to your child’s non-root account. The point of the California law is to allow admins (parents) to do that.
As a teenager I was the only person in the house who understands computers. Naturally I was the admin. All this computer “jailing” is so insane to me.
Yes and that’s fine and everyone freaking out is being dumb.
There are fascist governments demanding genital inspection for playing highschool sports and they’re losing their shit over an accounts API returning an unverified age bracket!
There are fascist governments demanding genital inspection for playing highschool sports
- That is already going on in the very same country we’re discussing.
- “Things could be even worse, so until things are just as bad as that, don’t complain or try to stop it from getting worse.”
If you yell that the everything is on fire, over an API that doesn’t do verification, it’s less effective when you yell the same thing over real issues.
That’s a poor analogy, because nobody is lying, saying things are on fire that aren’t.
We weren’t born yesterday—or at least I wasn’t. We know where this is going, and it’s folly to wait until almost the end before pushing back.
Push back to your lawmakers not the fucking open source projects that comply with the law.
Ah, but how will we know you weren’t born yesterday?
Oh wait, I have an idea…
You are really the dumb one for not learning from the past and for not seeing where is this headed once it’s kicked into motion.
The answer to the PII issues is hence not restrictions in userdb, the answer is proper app sandboxing. And that even already exists in flatpak! It restricts access to $HOME already, and to userdb too! And that’s the way to do it!
I don’t use flatpak. I don’t like it. Linux is about choice and I choose not to use that.
Hence, just embrace app sandboxing! And if you come to me and say “hey, I run all my apps without sandboxing, but i want the birthday hidden anyway” then I can only say, your model is really really broken. Fix your security model first, then come back.
In the words of the great Linus Torvalds, go fuck yourself.
I was ambivalent about systemd up until now. If this gets merged I’m moving to a non-systemd distro. I do not live in California or even the USA. I do not want age verification garbage in my OS.
Consider PCLinuxOS: they’re an RPM-based mandriva (mandrake/conectiva) derivative with really great and wide compatibility in stacks without the ‘modules’ shitfest RH started after no one remembered what ‘alternatives’ was for.
They don’t use systemd, but their installation is a bit shite as it’s a “live CD” installer – they pruned out the proper templatey install that mandriva has. But so far that’s the biggest issue. If they can get off networkManager we’ll be even better off, though.
There’s also Linux MX, Debian based, on their latest release they added systemd as an option, but you can choose sysv at first boot if you want, and that’s what will be installed and used.
Iv not given a shit one way or another as well. But as a Californian I refuse to have this shit on my PC damn be what the law says.
Good news: this is not age verification. This is an optional DoB field on a user profile.
It’s being added as a response to the age verification laws with the intended purpose to provide the age signal.
It’s age verification/attestation.
No. It’s a date of birth. You’re right that age verification comes next, but this is not it. Had this field been present before, none of this would matter.
Contact your representative, not your local FOSS maintainer.
Contact your representative, not your local FOSS maintainer.
They’re not a US citizen.
They also didn’t say they would contact the maintainers. They said they’d just change distro to a non-systemd one.
And you’re nothing but silly trying to act like this isn’t about age “verification”. We know it is, because it comes in response to the new california law
If you’re (or they) not a US citizen (or Brazilian) why would you care if they comply with local laws?
They stated that reason very clearly in their original comment. I suggest you read it if you want to know why.
Yes I can read.
Contact your representative
Right, so that they can ask if I’m stoned or stupid for asking them to affect laws in another country?
Then this doesn’t impact you in any form. (Especially since it’s just a DoB).
You can continue to whine but frankly I don’t see the point then.Of course it does. This particular change may seem innocuous in itself, but the idea of compliance with ridiculous laws like this one, in one jurisdiction, being implemented in a project used globally will result in compromising everyone’s privacy/security, regardless of whether they are even subject to that law or not.
If anything, it’s more troubling for those outside the relevant jurisdiction, since we get 0 say on the laws, and have no actual reason to comply.
What is the most effective way to gather all of my personal stuff within Linux and it be as plug and play with every distro as possible?
Like if I wanted to infinitely distro hop to avoid this fucking Trainwreck right here, how would I easily and effectively ensure I can?
Can I take a set of folders?
Is there a backup format of some kind?
Is there a way to do this with installed programs in a way that can be dropped in?
You just setup with the traditional partitioning scheme, so / and /home on separate partitions. You can have as many / partitions as you like with different distros on sharing the same /home partition. You still need to install all the packages you use in each distro, but your setup, personal and config file are consistent and preserved across all the distros.
Use a home dir on a separate partition and use nix or flatpak or some other distro agnostic package manager
Is the idea here that an agnostic package manager will install everything within home as well, and so when that’s ported, and you have one of those PMs installed, it’ll pick up where you left off or is there any specific protocol for importing something like that?
Pretty much what
nix(distinct fromNixOS) is.That being said I would recommend NOT to do that because you most likely need 10 specific packages at most. That should take you 15min tops to install with few minutes paying attention.
Just make sure
/homeis its own partition, or even disk, the distro hop if you want. You can also have in your~directory anappsdirectory where you keep binaries, AppImage, etc.For most people this is not a real concern.
I’ll have to look into that. I’ve been daily driving Linux for maybe about 2 years now, and I’ve learned a bit and have messed around with it on and off for years, but I don’t know it.
I’m at a point though where I know that there’s going to be a time where I need to know to feel secure in avoiding bullshit like this post, malicious packages, general good security practices and what not, so y’all may see quite a bit of questions from me.
Thanks for the info
No worries, if you want you can “test” that via a virtual machine, even a container e.g. https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-webtop/ and see what you would genuinely miss.
It feels like our computer is very unique, very customized, but often it’s done in very few key places, e.g. browser profile data, ~/.bashrc , etc and once you locate those, transitioning to any other system is way easier.
btrfs. aside from useful things like on-the-fly compression and deduping, the thing has subvolumes; think partitions as folders, so you don’t have to pre-size them. so e.g. your root (system) and home (user files and settings) are in separate subvolumes, which a) allows for easy backup/migrations and b) nothing stops you from installing a completely different OS (or several of those) in their respective subvolumes and then mount your home to each of those.
so you can have e.g. fedora and debian and arch, all on the same file system, using the same home, with all your shit available at all times and they don’t interfere with each other.
That is wild. I assume that’s part of the design from the get go with btrfs? That sounds like it would have to be.
I am currently using btrfs afaik, I’ll have to check on this tomorrow.
yeah, e.g. fedora has by default a root and home subvolume. the caveat is, standard installers are either incapable of allowing you to install to a subvolume or are super-cumbersome, as that’s currently not a top UX priority, so, a manual install process (with e.g. debootstrap and the like) is often needed.
Meta’s lobbies reach really everywhere these days.
Ofcourse the project run by a microslop employee wants to force this on almost every distro as soon as possible.
Poettering is not with Microsoft anymore, though
- get top recent commiters with https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pulse
- click on 1st link https://github.com/bluca and see https://github.com/microsoft in profile
Just 2 steps.
Yes Poettering isn’t at Microsoft but seems the person driving the project at the moment is.
Ah, nice catch
same thing with manifest v3, just some mega corp goon doing the work no one’s asked for
Something feels fishy… The user who made this pull request has more than doubled his contributions to various repositories since January (from 20–400 to more than 1100), and this is his first pull request in the systemd repo.
Fishy how? As in a state-level backdooring like was the case with XZ and Jia Tan or are you weary of something else?
That memory surely also prompted this feeling. It’s just that Meta seems to be putting a lot of effort everywhere to push for this. Not so difficult to put, or corrupt, or push, people in dev communities and repos.
This is a big weakness in FOSS communities, hell, in capitalist existence. People with resources can afford to spend their own time or hire someone else to focus on their contributions like a full time job while most honest contributers will be doing it during their free time because they need to pay bills and such.
Very fishy…
That guy is either a massive bootlicker or a fucking plant. Who goes around vulentarily adding birth date fields to EVERY project they can contribute to?
They bought a second computer so they can ask Claude for twice as much code.
