Linux gives you freedom.

Freedom lets you break stuff.

If, like Windows or MacOSyou just use it as intended by official support, it should be fine. If you start just adding everything and anything from anyone you’re gonna break stuff.

Other stuff is made to be idiot proof, Linux is not.

If what I hear it’s true than once a NixOS user is up and running adding additional packages and up-streaming them appears to be a fairly simple process.

Something like Arch has ~10,000 packages in the main repo and the AUR has ~70,000 packages. It’s hard to get something into the Arch repo, very easy to get something into the AUR. NixOS seems like it may be a middle ground where by the time someone can grok the system they should only be a step or two away from contributing to it.

I’m sure it’s a factor. I don’t use Nix but from what I gather the easiest way to run a package is often to add it, and upstream are pretty accepting. The number isn’t that wild if you compare it to something like Arch+AUR. Also Nix wants to do it all and replace stuff like pyp and other native package managers, I think pyp alone is responsible for >5000 nixpkgs.

If you are counting different versions then it’s hundreds of thousands…and I think you can mix and match them.

Yes, consider popping in an ssd in place of the hdd if you have a few more pennies to spare.

Between Explaining Computers, Jeff Geerling & Network Chuck on Youtube you should be able to get a server up and running on an old machine. You can then install Lemmy via docker or whatever.

A home network server can be pretty safe & simple, exposing that server to the internet should take a little more thought and planning.

Digital Ocean or similar is likely the simplest way to try it.

https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets

Create a $4pm Ubuntu droplet & install Lemmy.

Probably cheaper to run per hour than an old pc and install of the OS is instant and disposable. If you do something stupid or get hacked, you just delete and start fresh…no need to worry about l33t haxxors all in your home base.

Not watched but this sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fzCUEpFnDg

Is that not what the article covers?

RHEL customers can request the source code, they cannot distribute it. If you are a RHEL customer with a license agreement, just ask. I don’t think they will be sending corporate customer requests via microfiche in the post in 30 working days. Where it was once easy for anyone to get RHEL’s source code, going forward it will be a service only for customers who agree to be bound by an IBM legal agreement upon receipt of code or access to the tree.

CentOS was very useful, so they bought it, let it spread and then killed it abruptly. They have since watched Oracle, Alma & Rocky offer solutions to CentOS withdrawal, make decade long promises to their customers and get comfortable before breaking the whole eco-system of decade long ‘binary compatibility with RHEL’ systems.

No.

But Arch supports around 14,000 packages and any branch of Nix has around 100,000 stable and 100,000 unstable packages.

It think it’s more for RH/IBM to test new stuff on the community as opposed to something like Debian or Gentoo that actually has a fairly clear community commitment.

I don’t recall a lot community polling and discussion when they moved to systemd, btrfs or wayland.

Looks like this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

The RHEL approach seems to involve only supplying source code to customers already consuming binaries who will already be under other restrictions as they have agreeded to other T&C’s.

RHEL has been moving towards this for a decade, it seems unlikely they have forgotten about the GPL.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/

The Register seems to think they are acting perfectly in line with the GPL.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/

I suspect if they are not acting in accordance with the law, Oracle’s lawyers will let them know shortly.

Seems unlikely IBM have announced this to the world without checking the GPL first.

I’m not new to linux but the GPL seems quite complicated and I couldn’t even tell you which GPL Redhat subscribe to without going to check.

RHEL may not be going ‘closed source’ but they are closing down the channels to access the code and will prosecute any customers who distribute the code.

Decent breakdown from The Register:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/

Seems they have been quite focused on the embrace, extend, extinguish plan for a decade or so.

37yr old Richard Stallman

You’ve got it!

People just won’t lie about ill gotten gains, tax returns or funding on lemmy instances. The green bar will be truth.

A little, but keeping options open. My Gentoo and Void machines seem like they will survive a Redhat power grab but I’d have to figure out 4k playback elsewhere on my rpi if they decide to break things as that’s my current weakpoint.

I’m keeping an eye on BSD but feel there’s still a lot of potential in linux; musl, toybox & s6 are doing good work. If RedHat manage to break Gentoo everything is fucked and I need to flee to BSD but I don’t think they are capable of that yet.

I’m hoping Discord is passing phase I can largely ignore. I will deal with it if I need to but it seems like world of proprietary crapware.

Slightly faster performance doesn’t seem like a great reason to swallow Red Hat code at the moment.

Reddit was maintained by unpaid mods. It it now being shat on by unpaid mods.

I appreciate the need for funding I just don’t see the ‘funds health bar’ being useful fediverse server feature.