But how is it a security nightmare? Or did you mean “distraction”, but chose to use “nightmare” for -I suppose- exaggeration (or similar/related reasons)?

doesn’t matter if you downloaded malicious code

Hmm…, please help me understand: say, I installed a flatpak that included malicious code. But, it required some permission to enact upon its maliciousness. Which, it never received. And thus, if my understanding is correct, it couldn’t enact upon its maliciousness. How didn’t Flatpak’s security model not matter in this case? Apologies if I sound obnoxious (or whatsoever)*, but I’m genuinely trying to understand your case.

Thanks for sharing your experiences! As much as I absolutely love and favor ‘immutable’/atomic “Doritos” distros over their traditional counterparts, I can’t but accept the reality that it’s not (prime-time) for everyone (yet). Though, I do wonder what put you off (specifically). Would you mind sharing it?

Anything needing deeper access or only available in package form, I’ve been able to run in boxes.

I assume you’re referring to distroboxes and not to (GNOME’s) Boxes used for running VMs.

Its a security nightmare

How so? Doesn’t its sandbox offer superior security (under most circumstances) over most other solutions? Even in its relative infancy*.

Apologies for my ignorance, but what’s OST?

I was under the impression Arch was more for “hardcore” users, is that an outdated mindset (or was it ever true)?

It’s more nuanced than that.

Arch Linux, the distro Garuda Linux is derived from, is definitely not a distro that holds your hand like e.g. Linux Mint does. It (somewhat) demands you to read extensively through its excellent^[1] ArchWiki.

However, Garuda and other derivatives^[2] are opinionated takes on Arch that try to fulfill a specific goal that its respective maintainers have in mind. This can range from using Arch Linux as a base for delivering:

• a scrutinizingly optimized distro that at (the very) least inches out every other distro in performance (i.e. CachyOS)
• a distro that functions as a glorified installer^[3] for Arch. But with that, remains very close in spirit to what Arch is all about (i.e. EndeavourOS)
• a ready-to-go gaming distro (i.e. Garuda Linux)
• (and everything in between and beyond…)

(Note that the oversimplified descriptions found above don’t quite do justice to the enormous effort that is put into these projects. Furthermore, it has to be mentioned that each of these distros proud themselves on the amazing communities they’ve built.)

Finally, it goes without saying that having an Arch base continues to pose a (potential) maintenance burden^[4] with the constant stream of updates. While some of the above distros include some of the available protections by default, none claim to provide a silver bullet^[5]. Thankfully, problems ‘should’ only act up every once in a while. And (almost surely) deflecting them with a working snapshot provides an evergreen magical experience.

So, to conclude, Arch Linux as a distro definitely is more demanding than e.g. Linux Mint. However, the derivatives mentioned above definitely bridge the gap to a remarkable extent. So much so, perhaps, that you might not even notice much of a difference (besides the constant stream of updates).

As the person in question has remained silent, I do wonder if I could perhaps help out instead. Would you be so kind to vocalize your question(s) as elaborate as possible? Afterwards, I’ll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

I want my apps to be able to talk to each other. So flatpak is just in the way.

This is (at least somewhat of) a legit concern. But is mostly directed towards Flatpak’s limitations in its current implementation.

Also, I don’t see the point of immutable distros. I could boot off of btrfs snapshots years ago. Immutability gives me absolutely nothing of value either

Have you ever wondered why openSUSE started working on (what would eventually become) Aeon while they had previously pioneered the BTRFS + Snapper workflow with Tumbleweed? I believe you may find the point of immutable distros in there 😉.

If you’re still (relatively) new to Linux and are mostly interested in “just works”, then you simply can’t go wrong with systemd. It has (for better or worse) become the de facto standard on Linux and is therefore often assumed to be present. Hence, actively resisting it might be ‘costly’. Therefore, you should carefully consider whether it’s worth straying from the beaten path. Like, what do you hope to achieve?

As for the elephant in the room, what alternative can even put up a fight? While I’d be the first to admit that systemd’s design ethos leaves a lot to be desired; it’s so feature-rich that I’ve yet to find any distro that puts good use to (almost) all of them. But, including everything and the kitchen sink does make it hard for its competitors to compete whenever it matters; perhaps it’s one of the key reasons why systemd is as reliable as it is OR why attempting to replace systemd on Fedora/NixOS/openSUSE is a nonstarter. (Being founded and funded by Red Hat doesn’t hurt either. Nor does it hurt when its main developer is on Microsoft’s payroll.)

Though, even if I don’t see the likes of OpenRC/runit/sysvinit ever compete with systemd in terms of capabilities, I am cautiously optimistic for dinit and s6.

LOL, who am I kidding, systemd will (probably) only be dethroned whenever its PipeWire/Wayland is introduced.

What is the kernel version on your system? On both Linux Mint and Ubuntu*

Penguins-eggs to the rescue.

Your reply is much appreciated, fam! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to return right away. I thank you for your patience! Btw, I’m not native. So, if I misuse any terms/words/phrases or whatnot; my apologies. Usually, I put in some significant effort to alleviate this. Sadly, I didn’t quite have the chance to do so this time. Thank you for your understanding!

Firstly, I’m glad we can have a civil discourse on this topic rather than resorting to personal attacks and namecalling. I also appreciate the fact that you seem like someone who actually wants to get to the truth rather than defending your stance no matter what.

Thanks fam for the compliments! Your engagement is (I think) (at least) equally commendable!

You’re right. The people in the video are in fact publicly celebrating the 9/11 attacks which took the lives of thousands of innocent people. As you can see, it’s not just grown ass men who are celebrating, but children and women too. If this is the level of hatred they have towards the United States, do I really need to explain how severe their hatred for Israel would be?

Btw, I understood the implied context of the footage. But, it would be intellectually dishonest if I didn’t take into account the framing at hand. Cuz, if we were to be very critical of the footage itself (so without AP’s provided text as guidance), then there’s nothing explicitly there that connects those celebrations to the 9/11 killings; no burning of American flags or anything that would imply it. Granted, I assume neither of us speak Arabic. So that doesn’t help either 😅.

Just to be clear, I’m well aware that this story is pretty much uncontested^[1]. So I’m not actually disputing it. But, with the benefit of hindsight^[2], it’s hard to completely deny any ulterior motives for broadcasting said celebrations.

And to push back: is it sociologically-speaking strange for them to be glad that the biggest support of their rivals has received a retribution?

That’s an easy question to answer. There would be one country and it would be called Palestine.

History has indeed taught us that that^[3]’s a pretty likely outcome. But, I was also curious to hear your take on the other question. Namely, “What would become of the Israeli people?”.

But they will be celebrating.

Likely indeed.

And they will want the whole world to see them celebrating. That’s for sure.

For this, I’m not so sure. But it could be.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphinarium_discotheque_bombing#Aftermath

Ah, another celebration. I’m starting to notice a pattern :P .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWOw7YI7vzo

Another one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xPNTbtUHVc

This video I didn’t pay a lot of attention to as the media outlet didn’t seem to be as reliable as I’d like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-wyW-7iJwU

I think I got the message by now :P .

Again I want to be very clear that I’m not an Israeli sympathizer. I’m just trying to make a point that the Palestinians aren’t the saints that the liberals (btw I’m a liberal myself) often portray them to be.

If sainthood is achieved through suffering alone, then I’d argue they would make a good chance. But yeah, I get where you’re hinting at.

While that’s a good read for someone more technical

I would perhaps put more importance to eagerness to learn. But (I think) I understand where you’re hinting at.

the distro chooser brings it to people of lower technical prowess.

While the distrochooser definitely has a lower entry barrier, I’d argue that if one isn’t willing to read the above guide, then they might as well roll a die and choose between Bazzite, Fedora, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, TUXEDO OS and Zorin OS accordingly.

While your endorsement is definitely well-intentioned, I’m unsure if it correctly reflects the project’s health^[1]. I’d argue we’ve got (a lot) better resources on the fediverse. Like, e.g. this excellent guide: Understanding Linux and choosing your first Linux distro, v2.0

Thank you for providing that video!

I hadn’t seen it before, and I can definitely understand why its content is disturbing.

Granted, as I’m unable to understand the context beyond what AP themselves have provided, I’ll (for the sake of the argument) accept this as Palestinians celebrating an attack on the US.

Then, my initial intention was to dissect the argument and explain why I can’t agree with your extrapolation^[1]. However, to my surprise, your extrapolation might not be as far-fetched as I initially thought 😅. But, this ultimately depends on what you mean precisely. So, please allow me to ask further clarifications:

• With “Israel would simply not exist on the map today.”, what do you mean exactly? Like, what would come in its place? What would become of the Israeli people?
• With “And the Palestinians would be openly celebrating over the dead bodies of Israeli people.”, do you mean something similar like we see on the footage? Or something more grandiose? (And perhaps more sinister?)

Let me know if you still aren’t convinced.

Please allow me to take you up on that offer 😜.

they’ve been apparently working on its replacement for quite some time, so the “news” of its retirement actually comes because of the discovery of its replacement and the chatter around it.

Are you referring to the combination of Agama, Ansible and Cockpit?

Thanks for posting.

It has been my pleasure!

I was worried that it might have been forgotten about

The XZ utils supply chain attack has actually made the community more wary of blobs. Some projects were even prompted to come clean on this matter.

Fedora has also recently made a push towards reproducible builds. In the lwn.net article that discussed that push, one of Fedora’s spokespeople explicitly said that it would help combat supply chain attacks.

So, all in all, I can confidently say that it did leave a mark on the Linux landscape. Hopefully, this specific attack vector will not be as viable in the foreseeable future.

But if Palestine had the kind of military backing Israel does, Israel would simply not exist on the map today. And the Palestinians would be openly celebrating over the dead bodies of Israeli people.

What is this based on? Like, could you (by any means) back up this claim?

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that we didn’t get any alternative in return. Right?

Thank you for the answer! Much appreciated.

Mint has a common issue of destroying itself on updates.

Could you be more explicit? Like, I don’t think it literally deletes itself from your drive. Right? So, what is it then?

It has been my pleasure! Hope it’ll work out for ya!