Am I in the right place?

[Chrisgayle]

The way I understand it is that Linux and programs are all opensource. That means you can change things, personalize it. From what I've read, only a few are developing proprietary soft ware. The rest of them are something they wrote to meet their own personal needs. They share the code so others can build on what they wrote and personalize it for themselves. I think of it as a template.

Also, there is A LOT in the repository. Many programs have the same end goal in mind. Keep looking around for something that you like. I am far from versed in code, bit I've never had problems disabling things I don't like.

Yes that is really a good thing about Linux, we can see or check whats in my system, there is nothing locked.

 

[Chrisgayle]

@Chrisgayle

It sounds like your a security and privacy junky just like am! I understand your concerns so I'm passing on what I've learned. Nothing is foolproof, but so far I've never had any problems.

With the exception of my VPN, all of the extensions I use with Firefox are opensource. The few times there have been any issues, Firefox disables it for me. The issues nearly always have something to do with stability.

Thanks sir, nice suggestion I do the same. Actually it's really hard for me to trust some big giants company who hide things, because of few things happen to me in past by big companies (Google). So please don't mind my overexaggerate.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

Thanks sir, nice suggestion I do the same. Actually it's really hard for me to trust some big giants company who hide things, because of few things happen to me in past by big companies (Google). So please don't mind my overexaggerate.

I never really trusted them, but when Microsoft literally hijacked PC's to push out Windows 10 my trust dropped to zero. Ever since, I was constantly having to undo things they downloaded to my system. I installed program that prevent the constant pops tricks. When Windows 11 came out, their tricks got REALLY bad. I have always set Windows Update to check for them but to let me download and install them. That was after their antics with hijacking PC's.

After they said there would be NO MORE updates to Win 8.1, I kept finding new "updates". Every "update" caused problems in my system. Uninstalling fix the problems every single time.

So I changed the settings to not even look for updates. They STILL installed their so called updates. I would remove them. Then they started installing hidden "updates'. I uninstalled those. Then they find other ways to mess with things. I had to search the internet solutions. BTW I'm not the only one who was having these problems.

I had been considering Linux for a long time, dabbled a little and then the final blow came. I can't say for sure it was the the Giant, not yet anyway. Curiously I don't have any problems with my monitor anymore. Now I'm here and don't plan to go back. Ever!

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Chrisgayle :-

Let me ask you one thing.....just out of curiosity, like. You complain about these higher authorities/big companies saying - in effect - "We know better than you what's best for your system, what's better for you to use"......and you, the user, not knowing what the server is actually giving you. OK; I can see your point, I guess, but let me ask you this:-

I don't know what your degree of comprehension is with regard to code.....but if you were presented with every last bit of the source code for whatever app you were interested in downloading/installing & using, would you really know what you were looking at?

Could you actually read it, and understand, line by line, what the software was in fact doing?

Don't be so quick to "diss" the system until you understand a bit more about it..! For instance, Canonical have been building Ubuntu & making it publicly available to use, absolutely free of charge, since 2004. That's 20 years of experience; I, for one, would find it hard to believe that they haven't learnt at least a few things about what works best during that period.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

We in the 'Puppy' community don't have "repos" as such. The Puppylinux.com domain has an a/c at Ibiblio, which various Puppy releases share between them. This is basically used for the ISO and development packages'n'stuff. The Puppy community really IS a 'community' in the truest sense of the word; we create/script/code/build & package most of our own 'Puppy-native' software between us, and many members have their own cloud-hosting a/cs - me, I have three of 'em! - which are used to host software packages for the community.

Yes, you COULD argue, once again, 'Oh; how does any other member know for sure what they're getting when they download something from one of my a/cs?' I'll just say this; I've been building/creating Puppy-native packages, including a whole range of self-contained 'portable' apps, for almost 10 years. I take a pride in producing stuff that people can download, install, click on and it just 'works'. A good reputation takes years to build-up.......but it takes very little to lose one, and, once lost, takes a long time to regain the trust of others again.

I have no intention of losing that good reputation. So I won't produce crap, or package up any "funny stuff"; rather than being one of those semi-mythical "developers" up in their ivory towers, I'm just an ordinary user.....like many of us. I simply like doing my bit to help out our community, and package creation turned out to be something I was rather good at.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Most distro developers won't give users direct access to the repositories, because the majority wouldn't have the first idea about what to download or where exactly to find all the bits & pieces. That's the whole idea of the package manager; it's written to not only be able to find the package itself, but is also coded to automatically resolve all necessary dependencies as part of the process........and it can do this a whole lot faster & more efficiently than you, the user, searching and downloading
for stuff one item at a time.

The 'system' has been in evolution for over 30 years. By & large, it's become pretty good at what it does.

Mike.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

@Chrisgayle :-

Let me ask you one thing.....just out of curiosity, like. You complain about these higher authorities/big companies saying - in effect - "We know better than you what's best for your system, what's better for you to use"......and you, the user, not knowing what the server is actually giving you. OK; I can see your point, I guess, but let me ask you this:-

I don't know what your degree of comprehension is with regard to code.....but if you were presented with every last bit of the source code for whatever app you were interested in downloading/installing & using, would you really know what you were looking at?

Could you actually read it, and understand, line by line, what the software was in fact doing?

Don't be so quick to "diss" the system until you understand a bit more about it..! For instance, Canonical have been building Ubuntu & making it publicly available to use, absolutely free of charge, since 2004. That's 20 years of experience; I, for one, would find it hard to believe that they haven't learnt at least a few things about what works best during that period.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

We in the 'Puppy' community don't have "repos" as such. The Puppylinux.com domain has an a/c at Ibiblio, which various Puppy releases share between them. This is basically used for the ISO and development packages'n'stuff. The Puppy community really IS a 'community' in the truest sense of the word; we create/script/code/build & package most of our own 'Puppy-native' software between us, and many members have their own cloud-hosting a/cs - me, I have three of 'em! - which are used to host software packages for the community.

Yes, you COULD argue, once again, 'Oh; how does any other member know for sure what they're getting when they download something from one of my a/cs?' I'll just say this; I've been building/creating Puppy-native packages, including a whole range of self-contained 'portable' apps, for almost 10 years. I take a pride in producing stuff that people can download, install, click on and it just 'works'. A good reputation takes years to build-up.......but it takes very little to lose one, and, once lost, takes a long time to regain the trust of others again.

I have no intention of losing that good reputation. So I won't produce crap, or package up any "funny stuff"; rather than being one of those semi-mythical "developers" up in their ivory towers, I'm just an ordinary user.....like many of us. I simply like doing my bit to help out our community, and package creation turned out to be something I was rather good at.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Most distro developers won't give users direct access to the repositories, because the majority wouldn't have the first idea about what to download or where exactly to find all the bits & pieces. That's the whole idea of the package manager; it's written to not only be able to find the package itself, but is also coded to automatically resolve all necessary dependencies as part of the process........and it can do this a whole lot faster & more efficiently than you, the user, searching and downloading
for stuff one item at a time.

The 'system' has been in evolution for over 30 years. By & large, it's become pretty good at what it does.

Mike.

I suspect that like me, he's been rather abused if you will by the Giant. I check out every single thing I download from the internet. Generally not from Firefox extensions though, unless it's brand new or a good number of the reviews are questionable. As someone who can't read code, that's the best I can do. I guess it's like having PTSD!

I read a lot about (Ubuntu?) and Linux before trying anything out. I've also known and still know a few people who use it. That made it a little easier for me to have more trust. I watched a documentary recently on the evolution of Linux too. Those people are as weird as me! Most people probably wouldn't "get' the funny things they say. I relate to what they said. That made it a lot easier to trust jumping into something completely new.

But just think about it for a second and I'm NOT questioning you!

You and other developers have the skills it would take to do the same things Giants and twisted people who mess with things for fun or profit like gaining access to your identity, banks, collecting information.... Any number of things. The Giant collects information even when your off line. They actually hijacked computers several years. That can be a little intimidating and make it difficult to trust a community who give things away, just like some hackers do.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

Yes that is really a good thing about Linux, we can see or check whats in my system, there is nothing locked.

I only have one warning about this statement, "Nothing is locked". Having used Windows for more than 20 years, I know how to find things, tweak things, get rid of things.

But Linux is set up different. There things I haven't figured out yet, like finding devices. I don't believe for second this means they are trying to pull a fast one on me. The only reason I can't find them is because I haven't figured out how to find them.

So don't be surprised if you run into something like this.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

Another thing...

Just about all the opensource software I've ever used is in GitHub. It's developers forum. I've seen software that was removed for violations. I think someone else could explain this better than me. I found it useful to check out GitHub

@Chrisgayle

Forget that bit about GitHub. I just found out in another thread it's owned by Microsoft!

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Sherri is a Cat :-

Hm. I'd hesitate to apply the word "developer" to my own meagre efforts. My 'coding' essentially revolves around Bash scripts.......and the 'portable' applications are basically "officially-available" .deb (or sometimes .rpm) packages, extracted and broken-down to their component parts.......then the essential parts are re-assembled into a dedicated directory, dependencies added (where necessary), and everything tied-together with a couple of Bash scripts that makes it all functional and keeps the app AND its config files self-contained and running from one single location (instead of spreading everything across the entire file-system as is normally the case).

The beauty of this way of doing things is that, so long as you format it to a Linux file-system - no FAT32, 'cos sym-links won't work! - you could, if you wished, run all your apps from a flash drive. I invested heavily in the Windows 'PortableApps' eco-system for my final re-install of Windows XP, many moons ago - set the entire thing up with nothing BUT portable apps, in fact - and it transformed the OS. That last year was the smoothest & most glitch-free I'd ever had for the whole 13 years I'd been using it!

I've been trying to re-capture that method of running apps - Puppy 'PortableApps', if you like - ever since I started with our Pup a decade back. With "a little help from my friends", I finally achieved what I'd been chasing a couple of years ago.......and the 'Puppy-portable' eco-system has just gone from strength to strength ever since.

Linux does HAVE 'portable applications' (after a fashion). Like AppImages. But although you can move them from one system to another, and they'll still run, they have this nasty habit of leaving a bunch of config files behind.......necessitating having to set everything up again in the new OS (and so on, ad infinitum, every time you move them). This way, you set them up just once.......and then you carry your settings with you, wherever you go. When applied to something like a browser - like any of the Chromium-based clones, for instance - it does away with the need to 'sync' your a/c across multiple devices.

(I CAN understand where you're coming from, re; giving stuff away for free. It does make many people ask themselves, "Where's the catch? Surely, this can't be right.....summat smells 'fishy' here..!" But that's just the way the Linux community approaches everything.

Believe it or not, money ISN'T "everything" to some people. Some actually ARE altruistic, and just like doing stuff to help others.....hard as that might be to believe.)


Mike.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

@Sherri is a Cat :-

Hm. I'd hesitate to apply the word "developer" to my own meagre efforts. My 'coding' essentially revolves around Bash scripts.......and the 'portable' applications are basically "officially-available" .deb (or sometimes .rpm) packages, extracted and broken-down to their component parts.......then the essential parts are re-assembled into a dedicated directory, dependencies added (where necessary), and everything tied-together with a couple of Bash scripts that makes it all functional and keeps the app AND its config files self-contained and running from one single location (instead of spreading everything across the entire file-system as is normally the case).

The beauty of this way of doing things is that, so long as you format it to a Linux file-system - no FAT32, 'cos sym-links won't work! - you could, if you wished, run all your apps from a flash drive. I invested heavily in the Windows 'PortableApps' eco-system for my final re-install of Windows XP, many moons ago - set the entire thing up with nothing BUT portable apps, in fact - and it transformed the OS. That last year was the smoothest & most glitch-free I'd ever had for the whole 13 years I'd been using it!

I've been trying to re-capture that method of running apps - Puppy 'PortableApps', if you like - ever since I started with our Pup a decade back. With "a little help from my friends", I finally achieved what I'd been chasing a couple of years ago.......and the eco-system has just gone from strength to strength ever since.

Linux does HAVE 'portable applications' (after a fashion). Like AppImages. But although you can move them from one system to another, and they'll still run, they have this nasty habit of leaving a bunch of config files behind.......necessitating having to set everything up again in the new OS (and so on, ad infinitum, every time you move them). This way, you set them up once.......and then you carry your settings with you, wherever you go.


Mike.

Um... That was WAY, WAY UP HIGH ABOVE MY HEAD!

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

@Sherri is a Cat :-

Hm. I'd hesitate to apply the word "developer" to my own meagre efforts. My 'coding' essentially revolves around Bash scripts.......and the 'portable' applications are basically "officially-available" .deb (or sometimes .rpm) packages, extracted and broken-down to their component parts.......then the essential parts are re-assembled into a dedicated directory, dependencies added (where necessary), and everything tied-together with a couple of Bash scripts that makes it all functional and keeps the app AND its config files self-contained and running from one single location (instead of spreading everything across the entire file-system as is normally the case).

The beauty of this way of doing things is that, so long as you format it to a Linux file-system - no FAT32, 'cos sym-links won't work! - you could, if you wished, run all your apps from a flash drive. I invested heavily in the Windows 'PortableApps' eco-system for my final re-install of Windows XP, many moons ago - set the entire thing up with nothing BUT portable apps, in fact - and it transformed the OS. That last year was the smoothest & most glitch-free I'd ever had for the whole 13 years I'd been using it!

I've been trying to re-capture that method of running apps - Puppy 'PortableApps', if you like - ever since I started with our Pup a decade back. With "a little help from my friends", I finally achieved what I'd been chasing a couple of years ago.......and the eco-system has just gone from strength to strength ever since.

Linux does HAVE 'portable applications' (after a fashion). Like AppImages. But although you can move them from one system to another, and they'll still run, they have this nasty habit of leaving a bunch of config files behind.......necessitating having to set everything up again in the new OS (and so on, ad infinitum, every time you move them). This way, you set them up just once.......and then you carry your settings with you, wherever you go.


Mike.

That's mostly gibberish to me!

That's why it's scary and intimidating to people who been abused by the Giant for 20 years! I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to finding ways around the never ending things they did to my system. It got to the point that I was having to go to the command shell (Command application), enter commands I didn't understand exactly as they were in the web page. It's overwhelming to have to figure it all out when I don't have time to understand what I'm doing and running from the Giant, trying to break the chains they use to keep yanking me back!

All that code looks to much like the commands I blindly entered to save myself!

 

[KGIII]

@Chrisgayle

Forget that bit about GitHub. I just found out in another thread it's owned by Microsoft!

Before you scoff, Microsoft is on the Linux Foundation and easily 50% of the software you're currently using is housed on GitHub.

So far, they've been good stewards of GitHub. There are a bunch of reasons why it's as popular as it is - and that's not from being first because it certainly wasn't the first online version control system with FOSS at its core. It wasn't even remotely the first.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

Before you scoff, Microsoft is on the Linux Foundation

Whew!

The only reason I even know about GitHub is because so much of the opensource software I've used is linked to it.

 

[KGIII]

Whew!

The only reason I even know about GitHub is because so much of the opensource software I've used is linked to it.

The thread you read was me being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Yes, they're owned by Microsoft. So far, MSFT seems to be doing a good job with it. Even the Linux kernel uses GitHub - as they should. I'm pretty sure Torvalds invented Git.

 

[Sherri is a Cat]

I'm pretty sure Torvalds invented Git.

Does the Giant know that?

I saw (I can't remember his name, he likes to call it "free software", not open source) anyway, he was talking to a pompous jerk who told him he worked for Microsoft. When that guy ask (what's his name) what he did, he said, "I'm your worst nightmare".

 

[KGIII]

Does the Giant know that?

Well, they paid him a zillion dollars for GitHub, so I suspect they do.

(You can use Git without GitHub. For example, other online versioning systems.)

 

[Chrisgayle]

Could you actually read it, and understand, line by line, what the software was in fact doing?

Hello sir,
Well let me be honest I know basic of coding, and I make few softwares for practice only but reality is that majority of time I steal the codes from others application and put in my app, but I only make that apps just for practice and learning only I didn't publish or give it someone.

And regarding about big companies,
You didn't understand what I try to say, I didn't say the developer like you make something fishy app and give to users,
I say that the product you made and give that to official authorities which they give to users how do you know they give the same things which you make, maybe they attached some trakers with it, and as a user think that you make this fishy app.
When I first post it I didn't know that much about the whole system. But later in night I read some material and know lot about this.

I say now that yes official Linux repository control by big company like canonical are not do any tampering, because if they did it, developer and user shift or make different os based on root kernel because it open. Also the market is small too.

But trust me sir they are also human, and human are hungry of power,
they hide there server, decide themselves what is ok to put in there repository, when they get bigger user market they will change, world force them to change, government force them to change, otherwise they crush them.

And it's not all about money, big companies like google and Microsoft also give apps for free too,
Because they want complete dominance and it's more important than money,

For example let me tell you about what happen to me. we all hear that Google drive is secure, encrypted, private right. One of my Google account get banned why they say there is harmful illegal criminal content in my Google drive, I challenge then prove me or show me, they didn't reply just it say against our policy.
Actually there is a video in my drive which I download from YouTube which is expose video of Google security, they removed it from YouTube but they also removed it from drive too.
Tell me isnt this violation of my privacy.

If you see in world there is conflict between 2 countries and west is with country 1 so they removed or shadow all apps and programs of 2nd country from the world wide web, is this isn't power harrasment, where the open society, open internet goes, what difference remain between that 2nd country and west then.

Doi you think if canonical grew bigger and get huge market share, US, EU, UN doesn't put a leash on them and doesn't force them to monitor everything, invade privacy etc ,

Maybe right now you didn't believe me, but when that time come, you will see that big company remove your developed pakage because it violate there terms and conditions, there is malware in it. But in reality you just belong or live in a place which those high authorities (US, EU, UN) doesn't like.

 

[Chrisgayle]

.But just think about it for a second and I'm NOT questioning you!

You and other developers have the skills it would take to do the same things Giants and twisted people who mess with things for fun or profit like gaining access to your identity, banks, collecting information.... Any number of things. The Giant collects information even when your off line. They actually hijacked computers several years. That can be a little intimidating and make it difficult to trust a community who give things away, just like some hackers do.

I am also didn't say about developer, or community people, you, they are awesome,.
I also didn't say big Linux company do something fishy, I am just say there need to be complete transparency, if not then when angel turn to devil nobody knows.

Like YouTube when it's new it says you anyone can put videos in it it's open to all.
But now a big movie company allowed to show gunfire, missile fire, but a small user not allow to show a toy gun (against there policy).
Google allow cringe video from one country people, but not allow scientific video from other country, (against there policy).
This will happen without transparency transparency, if you grew big. I didn't say they are wrong only, actually people in more high power force them to do it (like EU, UN, etc), thats why mainly companies keep monitoring user activity

 

[Chrisgayle]

Before you scoff, Microsoft is on the Linux Foundation and easily 50% of the software you're currently using is housed on GitHub.

So far, they've been good stewards of GitHub. There are a bunch of reasons why it's as popular as it is - and that's not from being first because it certainly wasn't the first online version control system with FOSS at its core. It wasn't even remotely the first.

WOW it's new to me.