LinuxFork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along...
Edit: To address whether it is likely that this change will affect users: Gnome is planning a stronger dependence on userdb, the part of systemd where this change is being implemented. https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/
Has anyone even looked at the PR? Why is there such a big stink about adding an optional birthday field to a JSON schema? It's opt-in and can't be validated in any way.
That's like saying OpenSSL is the thin end of an anti-encryption wedge because they provide FIPS compliant modules. Or complaining that it puts your privacy at risk when you generate an SSH key and it asks for your address.
The problem is the laws getting passed, not with software that gives people a choice about whether to comply.
The problem is the laws getting passed, not with software that gives people a choice about whether to comply.
~~OK, but the law didn't even get written.~~ That asshole decided to open up and deepthroat the boot before it even entered the room.
the law didn't even get written
https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1043
Current Status: PASSED
Ummm… what?
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954#issuecomment-4032221990
I'm Jeremy from System76. We are in talks with legislators and there are likely to be amendments to the age verification bills, as well as conflicting requirements in different jurisdictions. It may even be the case that open source operating systems are exempted entirely. I detailed this on the xdg mailing list here:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2026-March/014797.html
I have other concerns about this specific implementation. By relying on systemd, which is decidedly unportable to non-Linux operating systems, and not used across all Linux operating systems either, it will force at least one alternative implementation to exist. If these implementations end up having to collect jurisdiction specific requirements, that makes it much harder for compliance.
IDK, I read about this bullshit like last week, and it was always presented in future tense. I saw this post from Jeremy from System 76 today in the goddamn Git thread, so excuse me for not understanding the current state of the problem.
Just think of all those Azure and AWS VMs needing age verification as they're spooled up, destroyed and receated every few minutes...
…Practically, what does this even mean for a systemd user like me?
What app would use this? And If anything actually uses the field, can't I just enter a random date, like I have across the internet forever?
Self reporting has long been honored as the gold fucking standard for honesty! How dare you sully that with your very discrete scrolling to a random year, and not even bothering to select a date! Our data mining overlords will be displeased.
They implemented part of the the low level works needed to implement birth date verification. Commercial distros like Ubuntu, RHEL and SteamOS might use it for law compliance. It'll very likely be as easy to bypass as it can be since no one really wants this.
You mean tied to IDs or something?
Commercial services would’ve just implemented that anyway. And yeah, likely with “absolute bare minimum effort.”
I’m still a bit confused. This thread is acting like this is a slope to systemd distros requiring an ID check, if I’m reading it right.
You mean tied to IDs or something?
Anything goes, ID is one way to do it.
This thread is acting like this is a slope to systemd distros requiring an ID check, if I’m reading it right.
The post itself is phrased like that for engagement.
We graybeards tried to warn you about systemd but you acted as fools.
It does not help that non insignificant amounts of systemd criticism comes from Lunduke and gang, often ignoring the actual technical problems with systemd and turning into culture war.
I don't mean you, just my thoughts.
Guilty as charged xD
I know the debate around systemd is going on for quite some time, I understood the basic reasoning behind it but I don't have the technical knowledge required to truly decide for myself, so I just didn't pay too much attention to it and followed what my distro of choice does.
The good thing about this "new development" is that it's not just a tech debate anymore, it has such wider implications that it'll be much easier for people to decide where to be.
i'm going to start dyeing mine so that people won't just keep ignoring me like some old man yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. lol
I didn't need one more reason to hate systemd
It's so hilarious that the most recent thing that's happened on this shitty PR is a request for Claude to review their code.
@grok is this bug free
i think it's really wholesome that a lot of 126 year old people use linux
While I think it's amazing that not only are 95% of Linux users 56 years of age, but they even share the same birth date!
Yes, the Unix epoch is the obvious choice of birth date here
We should all agree on a common birthday, until operating systems enforce ID upload
https://xkcd.com/221/
you missed the joke I think: Thu Jan 01 1970 00:00:01 GMT+0000,
UNIX timestamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time
I never cared about the systemd debacle, now I do. I don't want that shit on my PC.
So, declare your system users' birthdate as Thu Jan 01 1970 00:00:01 GMT+0000 and get on with life.
You did care, or else you wouldn't be having this meltdown.
You must be the most dramatic person in the universe, calling that a "meltdown".
I am !
What part of "now I do" you didn't understand?
As usual, poettering is a piece of crap.
Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.
None yet
Time to move to Guix !
https://guix.gnu.org/
Has the lack of software ecosystem improved much lately?
Kinda. What I want is there now (niri, helix, relatively recent Gnome apps, librewolf), but it's not Nix. If you want the latest wlroots bling, it's likely not packaged. The guix pull time has not gotten better, it actually feels worse than I remember.
Why would anyone on Linux, having free choice of all Linux OSes, choose one that actively compromises your privacy?
This is why Linux should never be a corporate, paid-for ecosystem. The nerds that keep all this shit running for free will not be interested in maintaining spyware OS.
Problem is, most distros use systemd, if they accept this implementation, distros will inherit it.
I don't know what it would mean for distro maintainers to revert this change, but I guess it wouldn't be easy.
I'm personally just happy sysvinit distros still exist, hopefully sysvinit won't cave like systemd seems to be doing.
Very true, and this is a good argument for the importance of diversity in everything Linux.
The fact that there are distros not using it at least means there's room to fuck off to those if this gets out of hand.
Y'all are making a mountain out of nothing. There are already userdb fields for the real name and location. I don't think anyone ever gave a fuck what you enter there, if anything at all. Why should DoB be different?
Adding another data field alone does nothing unless:
- Entering it is forced
- That entry is somehow verified (which would be the invasive part)
- The systems accessing userdb actually use it for anything (which would require it to be filled out and verified to be anything but performative)
As it stands, it's a performative gesture to avoid law enforcement crackdown, which I think is perfectly reasonable for a private person with limited funds to fight a legal battle with. That doesn't mean they can't also fight that battle privately, but expecting volunteers to put their necks on the line over adding data field seems rather entitled to me.
If Gnome (or any other program) decided to implement age verification (beyond just "enter your date and please don't lie"), using that field, the blame for that would fall on Gnome.
This is more like adding a field in the cookie of an adult website to store whether the user has clicked "Yes, of course I'm 18", without even implementing the disclaimer for the user to click that button, let alone actual age verification.
dude, can you send me a picture of your government ID? I just wanna see?
Nope. I'm John Doe, living in Nice Try, Atlantis, and my email is "who@car.es". But I draw the line at being asked for my birthday (which is 1970-01-01).
The userdb already has fields for other information. Nobody enforces putting anything there, nor verifies the contents. Why should DoB be different? And why should that be on the userdb?
Because this design does not come from the project, it is bowing down to a fascist funded movement.
is perfectly reasonable for a private person with limited funds to fight a legal battle with
Are you saying corporations like Red Hat sponsoring the development of systemd are thinking of "poor private devs" of whatever distro when taking such a decision than impacts the majority of distros?
Red Hat probably could afford to go to court over those laws. Maybe should, too. Maybe just passively ignore them until someone drags them to court for it. But all of that would be independent of this change.
impacts the majority of distros?
And just what is that impact?
"Here, you have a space to write stuff down." So what? If I'll never read it or verify the contents, what difference does it make?
And just what is that impact?
That every distro will inherit a field containing a birth date, whether they want it or not.
“Here, you have a space to write stuff down.” So what?
That "stuff" is a personal information that not everyone is legally equipped to deal with. In EU there are specific laws protecting storage and usage of personal information.
Your "stuff"can potentially create more problems than the ones it tries to solve, assuming good intentions.
That "stuff" is a personal information that not everyone is legally equipped to deal with.
You mean like email address, real name, location? Because those fields exist already. I'm not aware that they have ever caused any issues, even though real name and location should be more critical in a doxxing or surveillance context than "just" the date of birth.
I assure you, I don't have my email, real name or location stored in my userdb. Nobody makes me enter them. Nobody cares. Nobody would verify if I did. What's stopping me from entering 1970-01-01 as my DoB, if I enter anything at all?
If I'm the one storing, transmitting, querying and processing PII, I'm responsible for it. If my distro were to require email verification, proof of identity for the real name, records of my place of residence or employment to ensure the location is accurate, that would be an issue, and that would make the vendor liable for handling that data.
That is what the GDPR and related laws are actually concerned with, not the exact format or place they're stored. Otherwise, you'd have to ban me from creating text files: I might store someone's phone numbers in there.
Because those fields exist already
I've been using Linux for many years and not even once I've seen those info being requested by the operating system.
Otherwise, you’d have to ban me from creating text files
There's a huge difference between YOU putting your info by your own accord wherever you want (look at what people do on Facebook) and an operating system requesting those.
In case you didn't notice, this whole ordeal is pushed by Meta to avoid being accountable for the shit they do on their platforms, they're trying to shift the responsibility to operating systems of all things, and that's not acceptable.
being requested by the operating system
Is it though? As best as I could tell, this PR is literally just adding the field next to the others, not requesting shit.
In case you didn't notice, this whole ordeal is pushed by Meta to avoid being accountable for the shit they do on their platforms, they're trying to shift the responsibility to operating systems of all things, and that's not acceptable.
Absolutely. I just disagree that this particular addition (particularly considering all the fuss about making sure it doesn't show up in logs and dumps and what not) is a problem. I don't think this is the hill that battle should be fought on. Adding or not adding it to systemd doesn't make the OS / distro built on top of it any less responsible for their handling of that data.
It does provide a standard and (somewhat) central place to implement the security aspects of it though.
Everbody look at bro, he's glowing!
?
QUESTION: if I run my own system with local accounts, full root access, and no remote accounts... why should I care about whether systemd "MAY BE ABLE" to store someone's date of birth?
Sounds to me like, for all I care, they could add fields for ethnicity, religion, d size, political orientation, colonic maps, or whatever else they want.
If it's to build systems shared with underage family members, schools, or other public system... I personally DGAF.
you can say dick on the internet
Because the loss of control is never done in one move. It degrades, slowly. It is a slippery slope.
Today its this, next year something else that is slightly more controversial but, same as this, will likely be adopted.
5 years down the line law comes in with KYC - Lennert, that shitweasel, implements it, same as this. It blocks your services without activation. What then? Will you be more upset then?
What about a few years after that when you browse some website that is against the "administration" and you get flagged, next morning ICE drags you out of bed, kills your dog and you dissappear?
Will you give a shit then?
Maybe this is all exaggerated, but so was saying that ICE would off people in the streets a few years ago, yet its reality, today. The world isn't what it used to be, you got to fight, constantly, otherwise your freedoms get eroded.
If the whole story was the addition of this change with no other context, I'd agree. But if you read the PR description you'll see its more than that. The laws in question are specifically called out. This suggests that whether or not the legal interpretation of compliance changes (the law could require more than just DOB entry, aka DOB verification with government ID), systemd is planning to comply rather than join the legal battle against these invasive requirements.
Yes, I get that they may want verification with government ID... but unless they do it at a firmware level, anything above a FOSS Linux kernel on my own unlocked hardware, is fully under my control.
So far, it sounds to me like "age verif theatre" as applied to single user "jailbroken" systems. If they added this on a locked down Android system, as a requirement for network access (note: this is an actual proposal being floated around) then that would be of some concern... but systemd? 🤨
Theatre is all you need for proof of concept. Later it can be reinforced by making it a requirement for access to banking websites et al.
Just write a shell script that changes the birthday every few minutes lol
Or an alternate implementation of the API that fetches it to flag any programs that call it.
They want to store the actual birthdays (not just a boolean stating it complies with an age bracket). And using claude to review PRs… fucking systemd
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.
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.
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.
They bought a second computer so they can ask Claude for twice as much code.
This is some sick early April Fools thing right..? RIGHT?!?
You mean they're complying with the meta age verification at OS level lobbying?
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
Ofcourse the project run by a microslop employee wants to force this on almost every distro as soon as possible.
same thing with manifest v3, just some mega corp goon doing the work no one's asked for
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
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.
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.
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.
This is the first time I've cared about the whole systemd debate, so that's something I guess. Not interested in anything that kowtows to this age verification nonsense
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 systemd thinks 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?
Come on, you know it's going to be 1/1/1970 most of the time.
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.
1/1/1
every linux user is jesus confirmed
Everyone knows Jesus was born one 0001-12-25
Exactly. This is a massive overreach, and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
He thinks that systemd is desktop linux.
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.
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.
https://itsfoss.com/systemd-free-distros/
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.
https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/
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.
Unless it is fought, this corporate-driven rot will burrow all the way down to the sub-processor TEE/TPM and all the way up to the web browser/app.
DRM writers love this too.
how do you think this can be most effectively fought?
Unless first worlders get out of their comfort zone and fight back, nothing can be done.
so much for making our own tech!
🤷
In a few years, we may be smuggling in contraband Chinese RISC-V computers.
Only to be backdoored by the Red instead of the Orange.
Someone call Dr. Strange, he fucked up this timeline real bad.
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 war cry, I cheesed it, spurred on by the sky-high promise of reading a 'potentially offensive' Wikipedia article, in private.
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.
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 $
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
By implementing it all in the most brain dead, user space writable fashion
Damn that's crazy. It'd be a shame if someone not beholden to California law just forked the code
Meta's lobbies reach really everywhere these days.
@skyline2@lemmy.dbzer0.com @linux@lemmy.ml
Brazilian here. I'm neither a lawyer nor a specialist, just someone who has read the Portuguese text from the Brazilian flavor of the ongoing worldwide age check set of laws.
I must note that the Brazilian age check law (Lei 15.211/2025) specifies "vedada a autodeclaração" (English: "self-declaring is forbidden"). This means that this kind of implementation, where age or birthday is an user input, wouldn't be compliant to Lei 15.211/2025, because it requires the age information to be assessed independently from the user whose age is being assessed. This means face biometrics, government-issued ID (in our case, CPF, CNH, Passaporte and similar) or "behaviorial analysis"... Anything but a "yes I'm 18" or "I was born in day month year", for those are self-declared and the Law says it's "not enough".
Someone should warn the systemd maintainers of this "Brazilian jabuticaba".
(Cross posting this reply of mine because the post was cross posted to two different Lemmy instances)
I believe this only stores that information. It's not a system of declaring an age
@ominouslemon@sh.itjust.works @linux@lemmy.ml
The git PR specifically mentions a birthDate, a data struct that feels like it could easily be tampered with (therefore, far from "confiável" (trustworthy) as explicitly required by "deverão ser adotados mecanismos confiáveis de verificação de idade" ("trustworthy age checking mechanisms must be adopted")).
Thinking of age checking as some kind of OAuth flow, one would ideally store the authz token from whatever age checking provider validated the user's age, instead of some plain data which, depending on the provider, wouldn't even be handed to the application.
I can sort of imagine the following, hypothetical flow:
- Human tries to access the system for the first time
- System asks for human consent to proceed with age checking
- Human (is compelled to) accept going through age checking shenanigans
- System redirects human to 3rd-party age checking provider interface (e.g. Persona).
- Provider proceeds with whatever means necessary for the human to upload ID and/or selfie, who does whatever is required from them by the provider interface.
- In case of IDs, the provider talks with gov databases (e.g. Receita Federal do Brasil for CPF "Cadastro de Pessoa Física") in order to attest the validity of the ID. In case of selfie, provider communicates with a facial recognition model/algorithm/platform.
- Provider gets the information necessary for age-bracketing, appends it to their own DB with a signing hash, then returns the digest of said hash as a token to the system.
- System receives the authorization payload and confirms with the provider whether it's a valid token.
- Provider replies positively, perhaps with some kind of checksum, regarding validity of the token.
- System stores the token to hand it to whatever subsystem (for OSes, a software; for online platforms such as social media, a module/route) requesting age info.
- Subsystem allows or denies human access.
Some age checking models (such as EU) seems to be doing a similar thing to what I hypothesized above: the EU Digital Wallet returns a token, instead of PII. A token that can be checked against the Digital Wallet API for validity (theoretically) without disclosing who the user is (in practice, it'd be another, pretty reliable piece of traceable data despite any "anonymity")
I'm not sure whether a similar thing will be implemented here in Brazil (we got an official gov app, gov.br, which can already be used for "social log-in" by 3rd-party platforms, but I don't know whether it's ready for age check provisioning).
As far as I know Brazil and Brazilians, it's highly likely we'd end up with dependencies on Microsoft or Google services because Brazilian gov can't help but handing its own sovereignty to US tech corps, which adds to the dystopia.
I must make something very clear: I'm far from agreeing with this dystopia, I deeply despise this whole "age check" thing going on worldwide; I'm just thinking as a DevOps would.
Why do they need the age after all. What are authorities going to do with it?
It's Meta pushing for this to avoid accountability and fines.
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
It’s important to tell the Children apart because they are very sought after
Control what content you see and add some extra detail to fingerprint you.
If they can get this simple age verification done from everyone, it's not going to be hard to add "new requirements" in the future
Either this or block access to people living in hostile places. Currently it is a parental control with no verification of the thruth. You can put 01/01/01 there, if you want. If it turns into identity verification we will see what we can do.
They (politicians) are obsessed with control.
To my understanding, it's also Meta that is lobbying for this. Basically pushing the responsibility elsewhere to the operating system vendors
But how would they know I have been truthful about my age? I mean I am never putting my real age when registering on websites.
I guess they want this law to fall back on in case an underage individual is presented with mature/inappropriate content. Then they can just say that you lied about your age and that is not their fault.
Yes, so pretty much they don't want to be held responsible. And the government is bending over to comply with the tech bros.
I'm afraid so....
"Protect Children" !
Can someone explain how they do this verification?
Not at all for now. Its just about storing the birth date in a way that the system can use it.
The Californian law doesn't require being temper proof (yet)
Great that California allows us to be angry about it.
Colorado too and some other states have similar plans.
The EU plans go in a different and worse direction.
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.
echo "18+" > ~/.age_rc
Am 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.
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.
So what? I am (g)root.
what a fucking bootlicker
Does BSD use systemd? I always wanted to try it and if this keeps up I might take the plunge.
There's systemdless Linux distros! I used Artix Linux with no issues.
Artix (Arch w/out systemd) supports many inits. I'd recommend dinit (which is very easy to use) or s6 (which seems more stable on Artix, but less user friendly helper tools). Both are very fast, faster than the other inits.
- There is also Chimera Linux which uses dinit and is very clean imho. A very modern take on making a traditional Linux distro which does things well and uses clean and simple OS software stack.
- Void Linux uses runit
- Devuan (Debian w/out systemd) you can use sysV, OpenRC, or runit
- And obviously there is Gentoo, which supports using OpenRC, with unofficial community guides for some other inits.
I guess not, https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?init
Nobody is forking systemd, especially over something like this. People have no idea how much work it is to maintain software like this.
You're right and there's actually no need to fork systemd since sysvinit distros still exist.
That is why we use other init systems.
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
I hope the alt inits or even the hardware itself aren't targeted next.
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?
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.
Heard will be diving into all of this tomorrow, thanks for the info
Use a home dir on a separate partition and use nix or flatpak or some other distro agnostic package manager
Nix is very heavily tied to systemd though
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 from NixOS) 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 /home is its own partition, or even disk, the distro hop if you want. You can also have in your ~ directory an apps directory 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.
Good call on vms, thanks again
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.
That's it! >:-( I'm going back to init. /s
This seems to be an opt-in, user-supplied field that apps can use to implement parental controls easier. If you're gonna do birth dates at all, this is the way.
But IMO it should be more granular: there should be fields for WWW access, social media access, sex/nudity/violent content, and apps should respect those individually. Then parents can choose what is appropriate for their child at their development level.
i think i gonna switch to sixOS systemd is corporate shit
Guix comes with shepherd btw
The only reason I still have a Microslop account is Minecraft. I have to assume that's one of the reasons they bought it.
How about any open source alternative e.g. https://www.luanti.org/ or Minetest or Terasology or Voxel.js or...?
Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried minetest, but I'll have to take a crack at she others. If it was just a game I played by myself, I would absolutely use those alternatives. I've played on a string of "civilization" servers for a decade or two now. Hundreds of people forming nations and interacting with real economies, diplomacy, and wars. A few key mods create the conditions of scarcity and balance destroyability/defensibility of the buildings. All of it is perched on a stack of custom mods. I'm not sure how hard porting them to Minetest would be. Some of these relationships are longer than my IRL friendships at this point.
When I started, we were using FOSS tools like Mumble to communicate, then they used Reddit and Team Speak, then eventually most nations moved to Discord for voice and text. I HATE discord. Maybe it's because I'm too old, but I can't follow a conversation for shit on there. At least everything is Linux compatible.
If I could find some interested devs to make the mods compatible, I'd gladly pitch in to help run a fully FOSS mineman civ server.
While the players can span all ages (a few grandparents on there), most are Gen Z and for some reason, Gen Z seems to care less about FOSS and open software. They've been propagandized fully by the proprietary web 2/3.0.
Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately I'm no expert in the matter. I bet that some mods are compatible, I bet some aren't. I bet some open source client/server pairing implementation might give more freedom but aren't necessarily as popular. I have no idea how that impact culture or the size of projects. I imagine that the community of each project, e.g. Minetest, would know better if the limit itself is technical, e.g. mod compat, or not, e.g. network effect and thus a lot of people "sticking" to the "original" proprietary implementation not because it's better but solely because their in-game friends are there.
Stripped down to the bare essentials, those are similar. But surely you realize, that the sheer amount of content that was added over the years, and the enormous amount of mods, and the entire community, aren't remotely comparable, right?
This is less of a Photoshop for drawing vs Krita and more of a Photoshop for image editing vs GIMP situation, and even that comparison is kind of unfair to GIMP.
the sheer amount of content that was added over the years, and the enormous amount of mods, and the entire community, aren’t remotely comparable
Are they compatible though? Like can I load content, connect to open source servers, uses mods on any client? Please don't presume I know anything about the topic, I'm genuinely trying to understand exactly why alternatives are not good enough.
I'll just assume you're serious and not trying to be a troll. Those aren't launchers or different clients for the same game, they are different games. It's the same as how Tux Cart isn't compatible with Mario Kart. It's just not the same thing. You also wouldn't assume a Teardown mod works in Minecraft, just because both are voxel-based, right?
There are open source Minecraft launchers like Prism, those are cool and useful, and frankly way better than the official one, but they use a Microsoft account too, as your ownership of the game has to be verified, and you can't connect to servers without one.
Yes I'm serious and I'm not a troll. I don't know what in my questions or suggestions make it sound like that but feel free to dig deeper.
Anyway, AFAIK Minecraft has an official client which connect to official servers.
It's possible to replace clients, as listed earlier, but they might still rely on official servers with their accounts as you pointed out. There are though, AFAICT, compatible servers too, e.g. https://glowstone.net/ so one could connect an unofficial client to an unofficial server and thus have a similar experience with no reliance on anything related to Microsoft, no?
Shepherd!
