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from the resistance-is-futile.-/home-will-be-assimilated dept.
Good News:
Linux home directory management is about to undergo major change:
With systemd 245 comes systemd-homed. Along with that, Linux admins will have to change the way they manage users and users' home directories.
[...] Prior to systemd every system and resource was managed by its own tool, which was clumsy and inefficient. Now? Controlling and managing systems on Linux is incredibly easy.
But one of the creators, Leannart Poettering, has always considered systemd to be incomplete. With the upcoming release of systemd 245, Poettering will take his system one step closer to completion. That step is by way of homed.
[...] let's take a look at the /home directory. This is a crucial directory in the Linux filesystem hierarchy, as it contains all user data and configurations. For some admins, this directory is so important, it is often placed on a separate partition or drive than the operating system. By doing this, user data is safe, even if the operating system were to implode.
However, the way /home is handled within the operating system makes migrating the /home directory not nearly as easy as it should be. Why? With the current iteration of systemd, user information (such as ID, full name, home directory, and shell) is stored in /etc/passwd and the password associated with that user is stored in /etc/shadow. The /etc/passwd file can be viewed by anyone, whereas /etc/shadow can only be viewed by those with admin or sudo privileges.
[...] Poettering has decided to make a drastic change. That change is homed. With homed, all information will be placed in a cryptographically signed JSON record for each user. That record will contain all user information such as username, group membership, and password hashes.
Each user home directory will be linked as LUKS-encrypted containers, with the encryption directly coupled to user login. Once systemd-homed detects a user has logged in, the associated home directory is decrypted. Once that user logs out, the home directory is automatically encrypted.
[...] Of course, such a major change doesn't come without its share of caveats. In the case of systemd-homed, that caveat comes by way of SSH. If a systemd-homed home directory is encrypted until a user successfully logs in, how will users be able to log in to a remote machine with SSH?
The big problem with that is the .ssh directory (where SSH stores known_hosts and authorized_keys) would be inaccessible while the user's home directory is encrypted. Of course Poettering knows of this shortcoming. To date, all of the work done with systemd-homed has been with the standard authentication process. You can be sure that Poettering will come up with a solution that takes SSH into consideration.
Older articles:
- Pack Your Bags – Systemd Is Taking You To A New Home
- Systemd-Homed Merged As A Fundamental Change To Linux Home Directories
Will systemd be considered complete once the kernel and boot loader have been absorbed into systemd?
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday May 01 2020, @11:11AM (89 children)
... why not expressing your discontent by boycotting this story? I hate *this* change, so I'll keep shut.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday May 01 2020, @11:19AM (30 children)
I really doubt that boycotting will help because homed will not be his last territorial demand in Linux.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @12:27PM (10 children)
Boycotting each and every distro that is infected with LP's malware is a good idea though.
http://www.slackware.com/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 01 2020, @02:48PM (9 children)
Little bits of systemd are creeping into slackware to accommodate Plasma 5. Once they and Gentoo get swallowed up, I will have to decide which BSD is best.
By the way, which BSD is best?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @03:06PM
OBSD used to be pretty good, but I'm afraid the licensing killed it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @03:12PM (3 children)
I've heard that "little bits" of systemd are creeping into slackware line for years but as far as I know this is a misunderstanding. There are a few shims that stand in for systemd in the sense of returning an expected answer when a stupid program attempts to invoke it, but that's not really the same thing. I'd rather see the crap programs fixed properly of course; but PVs time is limited, and when he sees a way to simulate systemd without actually importing any of its code or vulnerabilities and save a lot of time it makes sense to use it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @04:38PM (2 children)
Maybe he's speaking of things like https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Elogind [gentoo.org] where distribution developers re-implement a systemd service as a standalone daemon. Its a requirement for things like Plasma 5 and Gnome which depend on those systemd services now.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @05:02PM (1 child)
But that's not Slackware. Slackware hasn't shipped with GNOME in years.
Of course users are free to port what they want, how they want. And if I needed GNOME I'd certainly rather have it like this, with the necessary bits in a standalone package, than the alternative.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @10:23AM
(Score: 2) by cockroach on Friday May 01 2020, @06:48PM (1 child)
There is also Parabola [parabola.nu] with OpenRC [parabola.nu] if you're more into Arch (it's a fully-libre Arch fork). I have been using it on machines where I'm too lazy to keep yet another Gentoo installation updated all the time...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @05:43AM
There's another Arch based Systemd-free libre GNU/Linux distro you can use which also uses OpenRC and is a long term distro (not a rolling release) Hyperbola [hyperbola.info].
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday May 01 2020, @11:10PM (1 child)
OpenBSD, because of their BDFL's attitude.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 01 2020, @11:27PM
Ah, the same as Slackware.
I remember the wristwatch with a lifetime guarantee, guaranteed for the life of the watch
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @12:44PM (18 children)
Any encryption of home folders, or any other folders, has been just one more thing to screw up - in my experience.
If you engrave the password on the case, then it won't get lost, but also then what's the point? And, beyond user error, these things tend to "fail safe" which means dysfunctionally. I prefer it when my computer failures continue to function 99.99999999% properly.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @01:33PM (17 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @02:38PM (14 children)
Yep, but for marketing purposes encrypting the whole thing is the equivalent of nuking it from orbit - now you're "sure" that no sensitive data will leak.
They swear they've improved, but my 2006 MacBook Pro bricked itself because of a combo of an encrypted home folder and a bad driver that prevented graceful shutdown. After about 10 bad shutdowns (and all the shutdowns were bad because of the shitty driver on their bespoke hardware), the home folder ended up permanently encrypted preventing login - only solution was a complete re-install of the OS from DVD, and turning off file locker so that shit NEVER happened again.
Now, 2006 was a long time ago, but the time I screwed around with encrypted drives before that was about 1992, and at that time I walked away for similar concerns about losing stuff and never getting it back - you'd think they would have it figured out after 14 years, wouldn't you? I think some of the problems are inherent to the design, and as you said: borking your ability to login and therefore your ability to unlock is failure by design.
I like the theory: encrypt it all, then they won't know where the secrets are... but, there's the flipside that any data that's encrypted is under the sword of Damocles - any data I have invested time/money in I prefer to keep open and multiply backed up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Friday May 01 2020, @03:05PM (8 children)
Some things have changed but the underlying principle is still about the same.
Stacker effectively encrypted your partition, sure it was compression aimed at reducing the bytecount rather than preventing unauthorized reads, but it amounts to the same thing as it's relevant here.
Stacker was actually a useful product, used correctly. And by used correctly, I mean to compress a data drive. If you're working all day on documents that are highly compressible, on a system that typically has the cpu idle while waiting for the HDD, you could not only fit more documents on the same drive this way, you could significantly speed up read and write access as well. 10x compression was effectively 10x more buffer memory on the disk, at the cost of a bit of cpu time.
The WRONG way to use it was the way it was usually used, however. Compressing the boot drive or anything needed to start the system often ended in catastrophe.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @10:58PM (7 children)
Encryption and Compression are the same thing, period.
They both replace N-bits with a symbol of M-bits, using some key. Sometimes N and M are equal, other times they are not. Actuall all modems work the same way. Compression the algorithm and starting key is known. Encryption they are generally at least 1 is not known.
That's it. Nothing more fancy than. So yes Stacker and homed's poor thought pattern are same. My guess the best way to setup a new user spaces is a linking directory. So nothing in that rat hole can affect you.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:03AM
I would argue that is not plain text. Go ahead and try to decrypt it.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @12:18PM (5 children)
So you're contradicting yourself mere a few sentences later. Let us keep in mind the whole point of the exercise. Bits aren't being replaced with bits for the thrill of it. In the case of compression, it's done to store information in a smaller format. In the case of encryption, it's done to prevent other parties from accessing the information. These very different goals also show up in reverse engineering. It's fairly easy to reverse engineer compression algorithms. It ranges from extremely hard to mathematically impossible to reverse engineer encryption algorithms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:45PM (3 children)
You are over thinking it. You are trying to say the intent is what defines it, but the base function, remains the same: symbol replacement.
One of the best an easiest in encryption method is ZIP files, with a simple password. Why the "compression" function makes the texst unreadable and then add a simple xor over the space makes breaking very hard. But this gets down to simple again simple processes.
Take just the simple rotate encryption method and make a minor change. Start with a list of 256 characters filled so that element 00 is filled with x00, 01 is x01 and so on. Now look up each letter in the table and spit out the replacement address. Then move the found letter to the 00 position and shift others down. So EEGEG would be replaced with E,x00,G,x01,x01. You call that encryption. But is also a precursor to improve compression, since it heavily coverts a lot of text to a heavily weighted "left handed character steam, so it improves the compression algorithm. IF it outputs a number stream asc(E),0,asc(G),1,1 then we get down to 11 symbols to compress 0-9 and ",". Even better compression can be preformed. Just using the initial list the decoding will work in reverse. See Dr Jobbs from earily 80's.
Now make one more change the original list instead of seeding with x00,x01,x02. But a random string of non-repeating characters, using some "pass key". Then stream is not clear text readable. but the patterns are same, so all the other work just the same. all the other benefits are present highly compressible. Just without the "pass key" seed the list again, the stream is junk. But yes, you could make hundreds of runs crack it so the over all encryption is weak, but still encrypted.
I used this method in the 90's to improve storing signatures that had to be sent via cellular modem. Took a 70k "B&W" signature picture and compress to under 768 bytes. was very conversion on 386 table of day and quick send over modem (2400 baud), also fairly secure since 3 symbol replacements methods were used together transform the data giving both reduction in size and human readability.
So again the only difference between encryption and compression which are both symbol replacements is what is known and not known. Compression everything is known, starting key/pad/list and methodical. Encryption at least starting key/pad/list is not generally known.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @03:58PM (2 children)
I'd say "succeeding at". You can abstract any human activity (just the phrase alone does it) to a level where you're not distinguishing the differences. But once you abstract enough that you lose track of why the activity happens, then you've gone too far.
Here, not only have you lost track of the differences between encryption and compression, you've conflated it with a bunch of other human activity. Such as the very generic activities of communication, translation, and recording/logging.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @12:07AM (1 child)
Another Trump ID-10T was just heard from. Scientists are liars. The world is flat. Get me my metal hat to keep the rats out.
Remember base learning.
A=B, C=B there for A=C Simple math.
Encryption is translation, Compression is translation, a translation is a translation, period. The only thing missing in one to but not in the other is the base key.
PS: Learned have used these facts, outside of Chicago, working inside a big circle. With real scientists that dealt with number theories and military encryption. That was their specialty. Its wonderful who you can meet and talk with for hours in the intersection between MENSA and LUGs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2020, @12:15AM
Except, of course, when A!=B or C!=B. Simple math. The problem here is not simple math. It's the use of an equivalence relation that is too general.
Facts which were irrelevant to the thread!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:52PM
While there is a distinction, it's a fine one. When your PC won't boot and you fire up the disk editor to figure out why, you aren't going to be able to process what you're seeing, whether the data was encrypted to prevent it from being read, or compressed to make it smaller may not be apparent or even important. Either way, what you're seeing isn't data you can make sense of and repair. Either way, the data is locked behind a complex substitution cipher AND THEN corrupted in some way, and how are you going to spot the corruption if the whole thing was enciphered first?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday May 01 2020, @07:51PM (1 child)
No your system was not "bricked" in any way. You had to re-install the operating system. Unless you had to desolder the bios chip or break out the JTAG programmer your system was not bricked.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @09:21PM
O.K., not a brick, a useless rotting apple.
Seriously: the only good thing about that experience was that it happened within 2 weeks of getting the laptop, still trashing all of my setup and development work during the period (because: backups don't really backup installation of tools).
Until the appropriate DVDs were secured, the laptop was as useful as a doorstop, or a brick. A brick with an expanding battery pack at that.
Yes, there is one stage worse than a full OS reinstall, and we didn't reach that one, but the loss of data was identical to bricking - worse because a bricked (by your criteria) system often can be resurrected with a hard drive transplant into a new shell.
Two weeks of work at a startup that's 8 months from buyout/sale is far more valuable than the price of any notebook PC.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @09:08PM (1 child)
ZFS does encryption, reliability, and backups very well...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @09:25PM
I have long been tempted by the Z... might take an experimental dip with Ubuntu 20.04, but not on my daily driver - been burned too many times before.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:36PM
I decided to store all of my hard won porn in an encrypted folder. Biggest mistake ever. It's gone :(
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:31AM
And while we're moving shit around, can we please give the damned config files their own place, instead of using /home as an all-purpose garbage dump?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:32AM
There's a reason FDE is recommended over partial encryption.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @11:25AM (3 children)
What, you don't like this change? But they way it is managed now is clumsy and inefficient!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @02:14PM
Chinese Troll Farmer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)
With a name like Peter ring, why did ANYONE ever take him serious?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday May 01 2020, @04:15PM
I thought it was "puttering".
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @11:46AM
I think you have it backwards. It does get tiring when people drag in tired systemd references into unrelated computer related stories, but this is exactly the story where the hate and vitriol, and support, should be.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 01 2020, @11:51AM (18 children)
Why would I do that when I can mock him for reinventing kerberos, poorly? No, that's unfair. He reinvented kerberos and a couple lines worth of login scripting, poorly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 01 2020, @12:44PM (17 children)
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 01 2020, @01:22PM (13 children)
A) My login/uid does exist on that computer if it's networked and using kerberos. Just like yours does on dev now that I got rid of the second entry for you that was confusing kerberos.
B) I've never had to deal with a situation where I needed my home directory wagged to an air-gapped computer but booting from the drive I'm already wagging along isn't an option.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 01 2020, @01:36PM (7 children)
Only on that network.
How do you take a portable drive to a computer NOT on that network and have it install itself so that you still have ownership and access control over all of your files? What if your UID is already in use on that computer? Who would have ownership then? You, or the owner of that UID on the new computer?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 01 2020, @01:55PM (1 child)
How many admins do you know that want people without a login (either networked or local) having access to a box? It's certainly not an end user feature.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:37AM
And conversely, how often do you want documents important enough to encrypt to become accessible to a strange computer? If you're not willing to make your home directory world r/w and share it on a public network, you won't be too thrilled to plug it in on a strange computer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @09:12PM (3 children)
If you're root, it's not a problem. If you're not root, you can't mount the drive anyway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:11AM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @12:54PM (1 child)
That's Ubuntu defaulting to unsecure, not surprising. None of my systems automount anything.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday May 03 2020, @07:11AM
So if a computer user wants to back up his user area to a thumbdrive or portable disk on your system does he need to go and find an administrator? That doesn't seem very sensible to me.
On ubuntu the drive is mounted with the same permissions as the user, so the system is still protected posing no more risk than that user has rights to do anyway..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @09:56PM
Let me introduce you to encrypted containers on NTFS or ExFAT. Portable. Secure. If you can mount it you can access it. Look into Veracrypt and it will solve your problem without fucking up everything for the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 01 2020, @01:39PM (4 children)
Saying that you don't have the need is not solving the problem for those that do. Just because you don't need it doesn't mean nobody else should need it either.
So I ask again - what is your kerberos and scripting solution, or any solution at all, to that problem?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 01 2020, @01:56PM (3 children)
That's kind of the point. It's a problem that does not exist.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by janrinok on Friday May 01 2020, @02:51PM (2 children)
Not for you - but there are many who do have this problem.
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 01 2020, @03:25PM
Are there? In what situation would any admin want someone who specifically does not have a login (either networked or local) to a system not only able to log in but to bring arbitrary files along for the ride?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @11:17PM
It doesn't exist for anybody. If people need to have their various IDs matching on different systems, there are multiple solutions to that already. If, you're logging into random computers where your UID and GID aren't matching, you're doing something very, very wrong. Modern systems have various ways in which they can keep UIDs and GIDs consitant across different computers. Try using one of them, they don't require the abomination that is systemd.
As has already been mentioned, Kerberos is a thing, you can also opt for mounting some or all of /etc over the network with a local backup as failsafe. Ultimately, The developer of this crappy software is either incompetent or an egomaniac. Or, probably both, none of the "problems" he's solving are real problems and they certainly don't require the kind of software kludge he's made.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DECbot on Friday May 01 2020, @01:45PM (2 children)
Here's why some of the systemd haters will hate, take that portable disk and plug it into a system without systemd, will it work? Will systemd-homed work with other init systems? If not, it is a broken design that should not be on a linux box. What if kerberos must be used for technical reasons or if you are using a PAM/LDAP solution for managing password authentication, how would you access that drive? All of my servers are headless, ssh needs to be thought out, and putting those files outside the home directory just trades the shadow & password problem for a known_hosts & authorized_keys problem. Also, how do you manage per-machine group access? On your laptop you may be trusted with sudo, but on the file server, you're just a normal user. Where does that get managed?
There are smart ways of doing this. I am not confident the systemd group is the best one to address these because of the past management, interoperability, and portability of systemd. Yes SysV needed an overhaul that all the distros could rally around to improve the standardization of the linux ecosystem--however, like what happened with pulseaudio, I think they all bet on the wrong horse. Systemd-homed will further complicate what should be simple and easy.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday May 01 2020, @02:50PM (1 child)
How do you manage that now? If you want to have full access to groups then you will need the assistance from an administrator of that computer - just as you would do today. But you could connect your own data and still have the appropriate user control over your own data. You wouldn't have to log on as an existing user of that computer who might not have the appropriate access permissions for your data, nor do they have to create a new user identity just so you can access your drive. It's not for everybody but nothing ever is.
I understand and accept your other points - you would have to solve them just as you do today. You probably wouldn't want to have random drives plugged into your secure network. But that would apply to any computer/laptop/device you wanted to plug in to that network. Have you tried plugging a LUKS encrypted drive into Windows? Doesn't work there either.
If someone has a better solution - I have to ask why they haven't produced it yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @11:21PM
You load it over the network with group permissions being used for anything that the end user can reasonably expect to do without admin approval. This is the same sort of ignorance that was pushed for years about how great Active Directory was and how essential it was. But, even at the time, there were ways of making it work, it's just that it wasn't a single tool and required that you actually know what you were doing. You could load the relevant files in /etc over the top of the ones of the local install and address a bunch of the issues that people are talking about in this comment section.
Back then, it worked just fine, provided you knew what you were doing. And, if something wasn't working well, there were multiple ways of achieving the same thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gtomorrow on Friday May 01 2020, @11:59AM (27 children)
Says who?
I just recently commented in another article saying how systemd leaves me neither hot nor cold. Not anymore. I guess the new rule is "keep fucking with Linux until even the systemd supporters can't defend it." Keep encroaching on user territory until it's Windows...or Android.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @12:02PM (4 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia [wikipedia.org]
Use a superior kernel.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Friday May 01 2020, @05:46PM (3 children)
I'm sorry, anonymous idiot. Maybe you didn't get the gist of my message.
After I'm saying that I was systemd "agnostic" and now systemd wants to control my /home directory (which I just can't justify), why would you suggest my looking straight into the Heart of Darkness? Spite? Is it because you're an idiot? Or are you saying, "you think systemd has its nose in your bidness? Look at what the masters have been cooking up! They can see up your neighbor's ass from looking up yours!"
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:15AM (2 children)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gtomorrow on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:55AM
Dear janrinok, as someone in this record-breaking comment-fest has already said...
History regarding similar moves (in not only computing) has bore this hypothesis out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:39PM
That sounds like what Firefox and Chrome say about their shitty changes to the browser UI.
Or is this just another variant of 'pray I don't alter it any further'
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @12:47PM (3 children)
Fuck Android. I mean, really. Every time I look at it and think: "gotta get me into this ecosystem, so much potential in the hardware" I just get mired in their special ways of doing everything - and that's O.K., until those special ways get revised every year into other special ways no longer compatible with the last 3 special ways you had to implement just to port a simple app from the desktop into the handheld.
I thought MS DOS/Windows was a treadmill, but Android is a fucking hamster wheel hooked up to a jet turbine.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 01 2020, @12:55PM (1 child)
It looks like it's slowing down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_11 [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 01 2020, @01:10PM
Don't let the 11 fool you, it's the 18th version - at least.
I bought a SIM card holding Android 8 based smartwatch thinking I'd use it to make a tracker app. Got as far as putting pins on maps that tracked me around, but got mired in trying to have it chirp the current location data out to a MQTT server. That was a year ago. Looked back at again last week, and everything has literally changed again for 9 since I last touched it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @12:58PM
This.
Stop moving everything. Firefox is egregious at this too - the entire knowledge base of about config hacks, add-ons and userChrome.css gets erased every 2 years. For what? Nothing. Some new menu is even smaller and harder to launch than previously.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rigrig on Friday May 01 2020, @01:13PM (17 children)
I always figured it was "keep complicating Linux until everybody needs a Red Hat support contract to use it"
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @04:14PM (16 children)
I've posted this elsewhere and I'll repeat it - I work with a team of sysadmins that were running fleets of Linux servers before systemd. The switch to systemd was painless, and we use CentOS. No support contracts, and no headaches related to the init system.
The systemd learning curve is less than two days, really, and the man pages are really good if you forget something.
Holy hell, if 3% of the energy put into systemd bashing was put into non-systemd Linux distributions, Gentoo or Void or whatever would have conquered the fucking world by now.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Friday May 01 2020, @05:40PM (10 children)
Hey, anonymous coward sysadmin! Defend this encroachment on /home. Where's the (better-be-enormous)benefit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @06:44PM (8 children)
different anon here. i don't give a shit about this "encroachment". i use systemd for almost everything and i like it too. use a non-systemd distro if you don't like it.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Friday May 01 2020, @09:31PM (7 children)
Hey, anon coward. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to enlighten us all on the subject at hand.
Oh, wait...you didn't.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:22AM (6 children)
Well you might not like people disagreeing with you, but not everybody has has a problem adapting to systemd, and some people actually like it. I assume that you don't use a systemd distro? So what is you problem with other people using it?
This is an OPTIONAL facility that will only affect those using systemd and who chose to activate it. By all means criticise it from a technological point of view but you shouldn't expect everyone to have your opinion too. Just because it is TWO different ACs making their views known doesn't devalue their opinion - or have you missed all the efforts that we have taken to make this place AC-Friendly?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gtomorrow on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:47AM (5 children)
Do you have a problem with me? Did you not read my comments regarding my personal opinion on systemd or are you getting up the sphincter of anybody that doesn't agree with you (me just being a lucky target)?
Regarding the two poor little Anonymous COWARDS, they were replying to me and not you. I asked two different and simple questions. One genius points me to the Heart of Darkness and the other responds, "works for me, you stink na na na-naaa na." I'll responding accordingly, thank you. Anonymous-Coward-friendly my hairy ass. Gee, I hope they're all right, poor things.
A largesse for your non-existent short-term memory and to avoid any confusion in the future, I'll repeat and even elaborate:
I don't (actually now, didn't) care one way or another regarding systemd (Ubuntu user since...8.04?). It, up until now, didn't affect my computers, my output or my wonderful life. I had no skin in the game beyond having to learn a few new commands and un-learning others. I'm pretty adaptable in regards.
I stood aside listening as the eggheads here (and elsewhere) debated and disputed the benefits and improvements of this no-longer-new init system, the admittedly strange inclusion (read: "surrender") to it by most of the distros, and this self-appointed (benevolent?) "dictator"'s method of handling the "community" of users and programmers that were in no way a minor part of making Linux as an operating system what it is today (my take:"my way or the highway.").
Now I, mere Ubuntu (systemd) end-user, learn that systemd wants control, yes, control of my /home folder and it wants it today, with the distinct possibility that things will go pear-shaped if using an encrypted /home folder (which, look at that, I do!), with even its creator says it's not working as advertised and so magnanimously makes it an "option"...for now. And you're advocating this?!
There are reasons I use Linux, one being a modicum of privacy not afforded by the commercial OSes available. If Linux, for whatever conspiratorial reasons that can be named, is ultimately being groomed to become Windows with its arcane registry, security nightmares, constant user spying and whatever other joys that come with being Windows, I have a more-than-slight problem with that, sir. Linux used to be an island away from that nonsense. I don't need some script-kid to open my DVD-drive via HTTP.
And you're fine with all this? Wait...don't answer that. I don't think I want to hear from you again for at least today and at least regarding this article as you have shown your true colors proudly. This is a big, big virtual forum...go sit somewhere else.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday May 02 2020, @12:43PM (3 children)
As for my 'true colours', I can only point out the claimed advantages [linuxreviews.org] including enhanced security of a user's data:
As someone who does encrypt all of his data the security benefits are of interest to me but, of course, these may not be of interest to everybody. And the use of homed is entirely optional by using 'systemctl mask homed' which prevents it from ever being started even if another service depends upon it.
Again, I apologise if I have inadvertently caused you any offence.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:26PM (2 children)
1...2...3...4...5...6...7..8...9...
...and yet, here you are again. Non-comment-reading-yet-still-replying, thread-losing, obtuse janrinok. The same janrinok who I explained in my last reply that my /home folder is encrypted, hence my concern about homed.
I'm no more "offended" by you than by anyone else who butts into my conversation with someone else and then has the nerve to reprimand me. I think "annoyed" is more the word. Thanks for nothing for your "I feel I have to apologize but I'm not sure why" apology. You could have saved yourself the trouble by just not responding.
Don't go away mad...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @01:55PM
lol we can tell who is mad in this thread. But I don't blame you for raging, I blame Poettering.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:05PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:03PM
You think if you post your name all over the internet like a good little slave you're going to get to sit closer to the master at the dinner table? You're the fucking coward who doesn't have the guts to stand up for your own privacy. You probably send your own kids to be raised by the state and fund the IRS too. You probably suck up to pigs too.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday May 01 2020, @11:25PM
It increases systemd's reach.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @07:04PM (1 child)
How nice for you. My experience with SystemD has been very different. Ever since the switch to it, I run in to all sorts of problems that never happened before, and yes, they're all SystemD's fault. Networking issues are a surprisingly large amount of them, including systems not shutting down because they get in odd SystemD loops that never finish. More recently, I had a box that suddenly decided it was going to go into suspend mode after being up for about 5 minutes, and kept doing it. Logs show that SystemD is triggering this, but not why it's doing so. Such fun to troubleshoot this shit remotely.
Lots of the push-back to SystemD is because they want to rework everything else the way they want it to happen, instead of how it's been done in the past. They've very much ignored the unix philosophy, and it keeps getting worse. I've already switched to Devuan wherever possible, but since we have to support clients that use RHEL and Ubuntu and the like, I can't get away from the festering bowl of dog snot that is SystemD.
Oh, and the problem isn't learning new things. The problem is that the new things aren't working. And letting all this be designed by Pottering, who could system architect his way out of a wet paper bag, just makes it look like a bid for service revenue.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @08:12PM
The problem with systemd is similar to the problem with pulseaudio and other replacements to older systems. They make it easier to do the common situations, or at least the developer's vision of "common." But the tradeoff is that once you get out of those situations, things become harder. If your experience doesn't match up with what the developer believes sees as common, good luck to you.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday May 03 2020, @06:39PM (2 children)
On the other hand, I've found that VMs that used to just work every time now occasionally just decide to go into the emergency shell when they're rebooted. There's never actually anything wrong, just systemd deciding it didn't feel like it.
Unfortunately, it's practically impossible to track down since there's literally hundreds of interlocking config files using broken COMEFROM logic and no understanding of the imperitive. No, upping the network interface is NOT optional on a remote server. No, mounting the specified file systems is not optional. Starting Apache on the web server wasn't a suggestion.
If you actually want to have networking, it's best to kill NetworkManager dead.
Now, in your scenario, what functionality was GAINED? That is, what can you do now that you couldn't do before?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 04 2020, @12:28PM
Cuss more skillfully.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday May 04 2020, @08:19PM
You now have a legitimate reason for why you have no fucking clue what caused the VM to break. And now you can blame that on systemd and wait for RH to develop a fix--wait, not-a-bug.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 5, Touché) by Bot on Friday May 01 2020, @01:29PM
Qui tacet consentire videtur
He who shuts up, allows.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 01 2020, @02:09PM (1 child)
I'm genuinely curious. How do you boycott a story?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 01 2020, @02:21PM
Start with about 77 comments and boycott the number upwards.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday May 01 2020, @02:40PM (2 children)
One big red flag I saw with this story was the atrocious writing quality. The author used "it's" multiple times for the possessive version of that word; did they even finish high school?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2020, @05:36PM (1 child)
No, they're just Millennials, where every thing discovered is new, and everything new is better.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by DECbot on Friday May 01 2020, @07:21PM
OK Boomer.
FTFY
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base