To add about the distro framgentation, and particularly:

If I run into a software I need and it specifically indicates it’s for another flavor of Linux than the one I run, how likely is it that I can get it to work on another distro without any real trouble?

You might have. Some software is distributed as a portable binary and can run on any distro. However, many installers are distro-specific (or distro family-specific, since they’re made for a specific package manager). For example, a software packaged for Ubuntu as a .deb file would install fine on Ubuntu or Mint, and probably install fine on Debian, but if you want to install it on Fedora or Arch you’ll have to manually re-package it.

Most distro-specific software usually ships debian or ubuntu package - so you might go with that for that reason. Or Arch/Endeavor: while you’ll rarely see an official Arch package, most often someone will have already re-packaged it and put it on the AUR.

That said, for the major distros, the desktop environment makes much more difference than the distro.

I’m not sure where the Linux kernel part comes from, but if I open the article and search for “linux” or “kernel”, there are no matches…

Technically, “enforced pay it forward” is called credit. Your debt would then be “the amount you still have to pay forward”.

Of course, this defeats both the spirit and the purpose of a pay it forward scheme.

I don’t know - but I’m willing to get the instances where people were saved weren’t calls from anonymous voip numbers.

“Just works” is not a mentality imposed by Microsoft, and has nothing to do with loss of control. It’s simply (a consequence of) the idea that things which can be automated, should be. It is about good defaults, not lack of options.

I’m confused - why is Microsoft trying to - or expected to, by the article authors - patch a vulnerability in GRUB?

In September the NixOS constitutional assembly should finish their work, and the community will be able to elect governance. I’m guessing that’s when the drama will start getting resolved.

In the meantime, there are multiple maintainers that have left because of the drama - which is more troublesome than the board members leaving - but nixpkgs has a LOT of maintainers, and there are new ones joining all the time. It’s still healthy and won’t implode so quickly.

They are major concerns, but they aren’t the only reasons people would use Linux, and also not everyone who uses Linux does it for these reasons. For example, while I care about them, my most important reason for using it is utility features such as my tiling WM.

That only works if the main reason someone uses Linux is personal privacy.

The biggest issue is that there isn’t a universal agreement on what causes harm. There is agreement on the basics - murder, violence, etc - but they’re already illegal anyways, no need to ban them by license.

However, it also uses halium and libhybris. That means you can’t just install your favourite distro and upstream tools. Everything that needs GPU acceleration needs to be patched for libhybris. For example, that means no upstream wlroots - and the latest patched version I think is 0.12 or so.

Actually, no, this seems to work on a very different principle.

Not really. It seems to use a very different technology from termux.

Good point. I’d try to grep for something like [Bb3][Ee3]g[Ii1][nη]\w+<and so on> but I just know I’ll miss something

Oh, in that case we don’t need to read either - just run a simple grep!

Finally, presumably if anyone added some malicious code in a their program, it would be sneaky and not obvious from quickly reading the code.

On the one hand, doas is simpler. Less code means less bugs, and lower chance someone manages to hack it and gain admin rights. On the other hand, sudo is more popular, and so has a lot more people double-checking its security. Ultimately, I don’t think it matters - when someone unauthorized gains admin rights, usually it’s not due to bug in sudo or doas, but other problems.

AI that can auto generate all those command line arguments I keep forgetting? Sure.

Closed source terminal that requires account? No way.

I see there an access violation…

Because it’s not a very easy case. In fact, there is no real case.

1. It’s not just a stretch, but a huge leap, to claim that using “he” or “she” counts as “instruction […] on sexual orientation or gender identity”.
2. And even if you did manage that, you also have to argue that it’s also “not age appropriate”.
3. And if you managed that as well somehow, you have the problem that judges can take into account things like the intent of the lawmakers, and what’s reasonable, not just the raw text of the law.