IRC: #techbytes @ FreeNode: Sunday, March 14, 2021

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-soylentnews.org | The Ongoing Raspberry Pi Fiasco - SoylentNews

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canopic jug writes:

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Developer Gavin L Rebeiro has posted[*see note below] a five-part article series at Techrights on how to deal with the ongoing Raspberry Pi fiasco by salvaging existing hardware with a replacement operating system.

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Part I: Acknowledgements

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Part II: Introduction

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Part III: Fundamentals

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Part IV: Doing The Task

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Part V: All The Rest

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He covers the background, the technical principles, some methods for mitigation, proposes using NetBSD in place of the GNU/Linux, Raspberry Pi OS. Finally, he walks through installation of NetBSD.

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We don't want to be spied on; what happens when we're faced with an operating system that spies on people? We throw it in the trash where it belongs! I am boycotting the Raspberry Spy myself (you're free to join me in doing so) but I don't want people to waste hardware that they already have. So we're going to walk through an interesting path of installing a different operating system on the Raspberry Spy; I want to show you a few

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things that will empower you to take greater control over your computing.

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We'll gently walk through and explore the following: how to install an operating system on an embedded device (a Raspberry Spy, in this case) over a USB-to-UART bridge (UTUB). This is the main project we've got on our hands. Don't worry if you've never touched embedded systems before; everything here is accessible to people with a modest set of prerequisite knowledge and some basic apparatus.

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We'll delve into things with more depth as we move forward with our project; if you don't understand something when you first encounter it, just keep reading.

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NetBSD might be a bit of a leap for some, so it should be noted that there are other GNU/Linux distros for the Raspberry Pi which do not include the problems addressed above.

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The focus of the series is on individual privacy, but a parallel threat exists for institutions because, after the recent changes, any use of Raspberrry Pi OS will show up at their most hostile competitor, Microsoft. The company has had a do-not-lose-to-Linux-at-any-cost attitude for decades and has various slush funds available to fund attacks. EDGI was one such program which did a lot of damage around the world and has been described

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in fair detail in the Comes v Microsoft case.

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[* Ed's Note (2021-03-12): The author has let us know that his original article is available as a PDF, as techrights' version wasn't faithful. -- FP]

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Previously:

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(2021) Raspberry Pi Users Mortified as Microsoft Repository that Phones Home is Added to Pi OS

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Needs a better title (Score: 5, Informative)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:08PM (#1121540)

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You have to read too much of this post to determine that this is related to the update to Raspberry Pi OS which added the PPA for Visual Studio Code. This title might be appropriate if someone was running the 'Fiasco' micro kernel on a PI, but its just not very specific and way too opinionated. I suggest the title "Guide for migrating to NetBSD in reaction to Raspberry Pi OS adding MS PPA".

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If you want to stick closer to the current title, do with "A response to Raspberry Pi OS adding the a Microsoft PPA".

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We want the title to indicate to reader that this is related to the Microsoft PPA, and Raspberry Pi OS. When I initially read it, I assumed this story was covering some new issue related to the Raspberry Pi hardware. Even now I'm not sure this article is actually about the PPA issue, or something else from the summery here.

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Full disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee, and a long time desktop Linux user. I have biases on this subject. I do think adding the VS Code PPA via meta-package and not via silent install would have been a better approach, however I think we need a bit of Hanlon’s Razor here. I don't think the Raspberry Pi intended to spy on anyone with this change, and it would be better to work constructively on educating people on better ways to do

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things than saying "Raspberry Spy", "salvaging existing hardware", "fiasco" etc. While I'm happy to have a guide for setting up NetBSD, could be be more educational and constructive, at least in our titles and summaries here on Soylent news?

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Reply to This

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 5, Insightful)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:32PM (#1121549)

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》 I don't think the Raspberry Pi intended to spy on anyone with this change,

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Correct, it's Microsoft who intended to spy with this change.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 5, Informative)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:32PM (#1121550)

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Not only is the TFS (and presumably TFA as well) unnecessarily inflammatory, I believe it to be incorrect as well.

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"any use of Raspberrry [sic] Pi OS will show up at [...] Microsoft" - no, the specific act of attempting to obtain the list of available updates (via apt update or similar) will show up at Microsoft, unless you first modify the apt sources list. There are plenty of uses of the Raspberrry Pi OS that don't involve checking for updates. The way it's written makes it seem like there are currently rootkits installed, that all mouse

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movements or keypresses are all sent to Microsoft - which to be fair, with their apt source in there, they could totally push out an OS update containing such a rootkit due to the way that apt sources are trusted. But call a spade a spade, not a lethal weapon - yes you could use a spade to kill someone but the escalation in language isn't conductive to being taken seriously.

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A lot of things should have been better. It should have been opt-in, and it should be clearer for how to disable once added, and the response by Raspberry Pi staff could have been done differently to not fan the flames. But this kind of escalation doesn't seem helpful either.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 09, @01:38AM (#1121582) Journal

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unnecessarily inflammatory,

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Um, this is Micro$erf we are talking, here. The greatest pre-Google source of evil on the planet! They enslaved billions, hobbled what could have been greatest liberatory technology humankind has even invented! They stole their networking stack. They killed DRDos! And what about Stacker? And even now, an Italian still has to sue to not pay for their defective operating system! And finally they are subverting the Raspberry Pi,

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after failing with the SCO gambit. How could it possibly be "unnecessarily inflammatory"? If anything, rather understated.

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Runaway: Mentally Unfit!

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 3, Touché)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @01:47AM (#1121586)

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I also saw them kicking puppies.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @01:58AM (#1121589)

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No it was clubbing at the seals club.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 1, Funny)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @02:12AM (#1121594)

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Worse! They standardized letters for disk names and borked file systems, and did not distinguish between upper and lower cases, and limited file names to 8-characters? What sort of evil organization does such things?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @02:53AM (#1121610) Journal

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You're obviously trolling, but I can't find anything untrue or deceptive.

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...

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...

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....

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....

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....WTF?

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Who are you, and what have you done with arirestardichus?

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 0, Insightful)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @03:21AM (#1121630)

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Ari does not troll. He does mock in an exaggerated manner that no one over the age of 9 should mistake for anything serious.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 09, @04:53AM (#1121662) Journal

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But all the mocking is quite true, so it is not mocking from the position of the mocker, only from the position of the mockee. Sucks to be a mockee.

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Runaway: Mentally Unfit!

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 1)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @05:17AM (#1121668) Journal

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But far too many of your recent mockeries.

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Have been like bathwater; faintly smelling of scaly knees

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faintly stänkte; old feces.

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Peeeeeeeeeeew.

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You say it sucks - to be the mockee

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You know in your guts - you ain't no maquis.

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You

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can't

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bring

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down.

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https://youtu.be/BPfkK7bcyfE

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-www.youtube.com | Suicidal Tendencies - You can't bring me down - YouTube

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 09, @05:35AM (#1121675) Journal

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Already down you are, Arik, with the monospace. Try to realize the truth, there is no spoon. And then the bathwater will smell of roses. I promise.

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Runaway: Mentally Unfit!

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @06:31AM (#1121703) Journal

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No.

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The monospace is the Upfull. The True Fine Love.

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Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts, please.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2)

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by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 09, @06:09PM (#1121904) Journal

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You should have stopped right there. Added the part about Microsoft's support of SCO. Then you wouldn't sound too over the top. Arguing to not trust Microsoft's ability to later maliciously "update" software with malicious code would sound more reasoned. (even though it is absolutely true.)

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For the record: I haven't trusted Microsoft since about 1982. I can't pinpoint an exact year when it happened, but I don't trust Google. (by "don't trust" I mean suspect of working against my best interest and computing freedom.) There was a time I didn't perceive Microsoft or Google as being against my best interest and freedom. Microsoft was a harmless software vendor who provided BASIC interpreters, development tools, and

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Adventure ported to micros. Google was an internet search company who didn't own YouTube.

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Reminder: March is national procrastination weak.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 5, Insightful)

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by https (5248) on Tuesday March 09, @05:17AM (#1121667)

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There are plenty of uses of the Raspberrry Pi OS that don't involve checking for updates.

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I am sure such uses exist, but it is hardly abnormal to have them connected to the internet. If you're not updating regularly while connected to the internet, then Bao Than is the proud new owner of the pi.

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Microsoft has long ago mastered the art of "this major change should look minor to people who can't study it for several months". If you are not suspicious of them, you are not to be taken seriously. Escalation, as you put it, is a reasonable response to Microsoft sticking their noses into any endeavour.

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So bugger off. I smell MS shill fuckery.

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Offended and laughing about it.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 3, Funny)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @12:23AM (#1121563)

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Full disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee

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I'm so, so sorry. Do you even know what evil you did in your previous life that required you to suffer so much penance in this one?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2, Interesting)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @02:24AM (#1121599)

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I get paid a huge amount of money (over 20x my cost of living) to do work I enjoy, and even get to opensource a lot of it and get great benefits. Working for a large tech company is a huge privilege, not a punishment. I easily make enough money I could take 10 years off to find a new job if I wanted.

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If you want to meme about Microsoft being evil, I suggest implying I'll suffer in my next life rather than implying my choice to work for them is punishment: that would fit the narrative much better.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 4, Interesting)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @02:50AM (#1121606) Journal

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"Working for a large tech company is a huge privilege, not a punishment."

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This is where you are mistaken. Because karma.

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"I easily make enough money I could take 10 years off to find a new job if I wanted."

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If that's true and not a lie; if you're a human being and not a cabbage in drag; then do it.

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Take 10 years off to make something that helps humanity, instead of destroying us to put more dollars you will never use in the bank. For your heirs, I suppose.

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Who your heirs be my brother? How much of that loot do they need? If you were really in it for the people all along, then you spread that loot out to the people, capisçe? What do you need? A shirt on your back and a belly full of stew; and a muse. A reason to work, that's all you really need, isn't it?

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So take 5 years off and hire someone to help keep you on track and producing something. Or, you know, use math from there. Fractions. That's still math, even if they quit teaching it.

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"If you want to meme about Microsoft being evil, I suggest implying I'll suffer in my next life rather than implying my choice to work for them is punishment: that would fit the narrative much better."

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The only difference is the presumption that you have a conscience. If you have a conscience, then showing up to work is a punishment as well as a source of income.

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If you're a psycho/sociopath; then yes we must wait for the next life, or else a catastrophic failure from your dice.

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If you have a guilty conscience, if your $opathy wavers... well then you just might wind up confessing.

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Confession /is/ good for the soul.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 1)

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by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday March 10, @01:46AM (#1122099) Homepage Journal

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No, not because of karma. Because you're working for a big corporation. It wouldn't matter if they saved an endangered species every day and sequestered all the man-made carbon from the atmosphere weekly. The job would still suck compared to deciding your own future.

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Name one time in human history where the group banning books and censoring speech were the good guys.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 3, Funny)

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by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday March 09, @06:01AM (#1121689) Journal

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I easily make enough money I could take 10 years off to find a new job if I wanted.

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But, of course, you will not. You will never have another job. Do you imagine that any tech employer, seeing the Mark of Cain, and the NDA upon you, will even give a second interview? Not going to happen. Instead, you will have take your ill-gotten gains and apply them to your own interests, like transfusions of blood from Younglings (Thiel) or pretending to be a philanthropist (Gates), or hosting Parler after they get

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booted from polite society and taking pictures of snowflakes, like Nathan Myhrvold, the Bane of Aasgard. Karma, it comes around. No amount of money can save you from it.

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Runaway: Mentally Unfit!

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @09:47PM (#1122019)

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20x your cost of living? I gotta ask, what do you make and/or where do you live? I hate Microsoft as much as the typical Linux fanatic, but my monthly mortgage + property taxes + utilities + groceries is ~$3k, so 20x that is $720k on an annual. I'd sell my soul to the demons in Redmond for that kind of money, I could pay my kids' college costs and retire in well under ten years.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 1)

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by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org> on Wednesday March 10, @01:58AM (#1122101) Homepage Journal

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Mine's about $700-750 with a roommate, so I make somewhere between 4-5x cost of living over a year. I try and plan it out ahead of time and then turn down any work that's likely to push me up over 5x. Time's worth way, way more than money beyond enough to fund necessities and sufficient entertainment+hobbies.

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Name one time in human history where the group banning books and censoring speech were the good guys.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @11:30AM (#1122221)

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That's smart. I've got four kids. I've already started telling them they should only go to college or trade school if they have a specific career plan, and unless they get great scholarships they should use state colleges. And of course, I need a house or apartment for six people and a lot of groceries, and we use a lot of power just for showers, dishes, and laundry. Plus we're in a pretty good school district for my

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kids' sake, and as you know in the US that means housing is expensive here.

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If I was single, I'd be trying to live a lifestyle as efficient as yours too.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, @12:29AM (#1122512)

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God willing, you'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 4, Insightful)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @01:02AM (#1121572) Journal

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Your first three paragraphs were very well written. Helpful. I would encourage you to volunteer.

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"Full disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee, and a long time desktop Linux user."

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I, too, am truly sorry for you. And everyone that has to share a universe with you.

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"I don't think the Raspberry Pi intended to spy on anyone with this change"

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Intention really doesn't matter in this sort of thing though. Whatever the motivation, the effect is irrevocable. The damage cannot be undone. If there was no intent, there was at the very least gross misconduct. Gross negligence. And a complete and utter breach of trust.

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"it would be better to work constructively on educating people on better ways to do things than saying "Raspberry Spy""

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If the hobnailed boot fits, wear it.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 3, Informative)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @01:48AM (#1121587)

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I don't think the Raspberry Pi intended to spy on anyone with this change

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No, the PI is not. But Microsoft is not to be trusted, ever, and this gives Microsoft a way to inject spyware at a later time whenever they want to.

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So the reaction is valid. This should never have gone into the PI OS, ever. And it should be removed just as fast as it was added.

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Re:Needs a better title (Score: 2, Informative)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @02:58AM (#1121615)

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...could be be more educational and constructive, at least in our titles and summaries here on Soylent news?

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The mere existence of Windows 10 and its associated spyware, compulsory upgrades, and deceptive conduct during the "free updates", combined with the merciless execution of Windows 7 (the version most people actually wanted) is enough that Microsoft's actions should be considered malicious by default. The Pi Foundation's conduct in the wake of this is telling as well.

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So, yes, it's a fiasco, both in terms of Microsoft's involvement, as well as the Pi Foundation's exceedingly poor and suspicious conduct surrounding the subject.

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Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 5, Insightful)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:20PM (#1121546)

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It appears to me that the author is a bit confused and mistakes Raspbian, the 'official' operating system for raspberry pis, with Raspberry Pi, the hardware. The name-calling of it being a 'raspberry spy' is unwarranted and uncalled for to say the least. It looks like someone wanted to drive a little bit more traffic to their obscure blog by being sensationalist, methinks.

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if Raspbian OS is such a big problem, why not use https://raspi.debian.net/ [debian.net] which is as pure a Debian as you'll get for a Pi, or any other one of the GNU/Linux distro's that run on the pi? I've been running that on my Pi's for almost an eternity and you don't hear me kicking up a stink like the author does...

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-raspi.debian.net | Raspberry Pi Debian images

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I'm no big fan of microsoft (anymore), but the whole "boo hoo, they added a repo for VSCode and it are the WORST!1!1!eleven" is a bit over the top. You don't like it, go ahead and remove that repo from /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and quit your whining. It's a 'tinkerer device' anyway so go and fucking tinker with it... The worst that can happen is you having to reflash your sd card.

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Was that whole adding of an MSFT repo ill-advised?

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Was it badly communicated? Yes

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Was it dealt with badly? Yes

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But remember: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

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And thus: is it an underhanded attempt at secretly taking over the world and spying on your every move on your precious Raspberries? C'mon man, gimme a break...

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Question (not a complaint) for the SN editors: Where the heck do these link to? Part 1 (http://techrights.org/2021/03/05/raspi-paper/) claims that there all sorts of outbound links to nefarious things done by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and by Microsoft, but for the life of me, I cannot find those links. That page literally says "The following links go over some of the news coverage from TR:" and while I see a listing of items, they ain

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t links.

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-techrights.org | How To Deal With Your Raspberry Spy — Part I: Acknowledgements | Techrights

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Reply to This

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 1, Troll)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:35PM (#1121551)

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You Microsoft shills sure are verbose today. You got caught... own up.

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Re: never attribute to malice that which is adequa (Score: 4, Insightful)

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by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08, @11:55PM (#1121557)

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except perhaps when the named vendor has stuck their dick in thousands of worthwhile projects over the years, resulting in reduced functionality, maintainability, and servicability for millions of users.

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Maybe, just maybe there are players who don't deserve the benefit of the doubt eh?

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Re: never attribute to malice that which is adequa (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @12:03AM (#1121559)

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I'll give you that, but that doesn't make them any less stupid. Sure, vigilance is warranted, especially given the player, and the company got called out, quite rightfully. And yet, that still doesn't make the article much more accurate. It's still a bunch of crazy arm swaying in the air crying "the world is ending, the world is ending".

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That being said, if microsoft was only half as competent as some people try to make them out, they'd be ruling the world by now and there wouldn't be anything but windows. Perish the thought!

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So sure, you are correct: some players need more scrutiny than others. In this case, said player received the very warranted scrutiny and the shenanigans were called out. So... the system (and scrutiny) worked???

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Re: never attribute to malice that which is adequa (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @03:30AM (#1121631)

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The whole point of the pi platform was to drive down development costs. Lower development costs is something that Redmond has ALWAYS interfered with. So I understand the reaction. And no, I don't have a problem with extreme hyperbole when it comes to this vendor, or extreme paranioa about their actions. They have earned it.

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Thousands of developers have invested an aggregate millions of dollars in a development cycle, and many of them had proprietary internal business secrets exposes to the most malevolent corrupt corporate institution in tech. Of course they are pissed. It is there livelyhoods we are talking about!

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 5, Informative)

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by Pav (114) on Tuesday March 09, @01:06AM (#1121574)

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Microsoft is the company that not that long ago shifted their European headquarters from Berlin to Munich, some would say as sweetener to encourage the Munich local authority to suppress/end the Munich Linux desktop project... which was basically a LDAP based deployment and management platform for Linux/MS/etc... clients/servers/networks. (One of the successor projects is called FusionDirectory by the way... it's worth a look). You

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DON'T think this latest thing won't be used to identify large deployments of RPi's, and to embrace/extend/extinguish? BTW, Google has their fingers in certain Debian packages also... which phone home without the users knowledge (and I'm not just talking browsers here) - can't remember which ones off the top of my head.

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @03:37AM (#1121633)

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Not just debian, but many many others. And don't forget to mention how much of the consumer news media on the Internet is owned by them, or has them as a major stockholder.

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The scope of their influence over consumers day to day lives is at least as big as googles, it is just structured as different kinds of assets.

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @01:14AM (#1121575)

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OK, educate me, is there no link between them?

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Was it not the moderators on the official foundation affiliated forum that banned people for objecting to this?

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 4, Informative)

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by RedGreen (888) on Tuesday March 09, @03:47AM (#1121635)

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It certainly was them scummy bastards that banned me for telling them it was me who gets to decide what goes on my computer not them, it is my PROPERTY...

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"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @03:00AM (#1121617)

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...never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

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Windows 10 and the bullshit that comes with it is more than enough to assume malice here, and just about anyplace that Microsoft is involved.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 5, Touché)

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by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <{axehandle} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday March 09, @05:42AM (#1121680)

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...But remember: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity...

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Nice thought, except that no believable amount of stupidity can adequately explain microsoft's past behaviour; but but a believably large amount of malice can.

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It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Fiasco... what fiasco? (Score: 1)

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by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday March 09, @08:42AM (#1121718)

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I've run out of mod points. Yes, I agree. Unbelievable amounts of stupidity, or easily believable amounts of malice. Which is a shame.

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Reply to This Parent

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"Raspberry Spy" - absurd (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @02:43PM (#1122264)

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I read a forum discussion in which a bunch of vegans were bashing other forum users for eating meat. One vegan slammed the other vegans: "Do you people want an exclusive vegan club, or a vegan world?"

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I don't care what you think about veganism, my point is that elitism and attacks on outsiders are going to hurt your cause instead of help it. I know more people that have and use Raspberry Pis than I know people that run Linux or *BSD on personal machines, Raspberry Pi is shockingly popular. A few of the Raspberry Pi users I know don't know or care what FLOSS is. If you start a conversation with someone that isn't already a FLOSS

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fanatic and throw out the phrase "Raspberry Spy", you just took any opportunity you had to start them on the path to FLOSS fanaticism and euthanized it.

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I'm not saying the complaints in the original article are invalid. They're valid. But if the writer wanted to persuade an audience that didn't already include people who hate Microsoft, they failed utterly.

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Reply to This Parent

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Next Raspberry Pi CPU Will Have Machine Learning (Score: 4, Interesting)

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by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday March 08, @11:35PM (#1121552) Journal

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Next Raspberry Pi CPU Will Have Machine Learning Built In [tomshardware.com]

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At the recent tinyML Summit 2021, Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton teased the future of 'Pi Silicon' and it looks like machine learning could see a massive improvement thanks to Raspberry Pi's news in-house chip development team.

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[...] The last bullet point hints at what the future silicon could be. It may come in the form of lightweight accelerators possibly 4-8 multiply-accumulates (MACs) per clock cycle. In Upton's talk he says that it is "overwhelmingly likely that there will be some other piece of silicon from Raspberry Pi".

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[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

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Reply to This

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Re:Next Raspberry Pi CPU Will Have Machine Learnin (Score: 2)

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by RamiK (1813) on Tuesday March 09, @12:17AM (#1121562)

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If advertising, how about open hardware? https://beagleboard.org/beaglev [beagleboard.org]

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-beagleboard.org | BeagleBoard.org - BeagleV

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compiling...

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Reply to This Parent

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What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 0, Disagree)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @12:08AM (#1121561)

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Don't know. Don't care. Raspberry Pis are off the table now. Can't trust them.

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Reply to This

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Re:What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @12:26AM (#1121564)

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What's left to trust?

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I really wish I hadn't sold my Amiga.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 2, Interesting)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @01:25AM (#1121578)

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That makes you as stupid as the author of the article, in that you're conflating the hardware with the software they supply to go with it. You've always had the opportunity to run an alternate OS, and still do. The author even acknowledges this, as the article is about *running an alternate OS*. I used raspian for about 10 minutes before realising it was worse than debian, so ditched it instantly. And when debian became worse than

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prior debian, I ditched that for devuan, which runs fine on all my Pis now.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @02:31AM (#1121602)

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You've always had the opportunity to run an alternate OS, and still do.

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Until Microsoft finds the one Ring, the one to gather them all, and in the darkness bind them.

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In the land of Redmond, where the shadows lie.

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We have the opportunity, but it is not from a lack of effort by the aspiring software monopoly that is Microsoft. FUD? Assimiliation? OEM exclusive contracts? Why can I not, at this late stage, buy a "naked" laptop, and why do I have go through hoops just to disable UEFI, so my other OS will even boot? Microsoft has earned my undying hatred, forever.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 2)

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by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 09, @02:48AM (#1121605) Homepage Journal

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Purism laptops are pretty close to naked.

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They even have the Intel Management Engine disabled by default.

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Reply to This Parent

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Purism (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @03:45AM (#1122131)

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The mention security but use Intel processors. That's a big 'nope' right there.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:What will they try to sneak in next time? (Score: 2)

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by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 10, @01:08PM (#1122241)

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I ditched that for devuan, which runs fine on all my Pis now.

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Its not super well documented; actually thats sarcastic, its barely documented it all. You can't toss that kind of quote out there without more details, sounds pretty interesting.

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FreeBSD on Pi is pretty well documented and worked for me.

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Reply to This Parent

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Went with (Score: 5, Interesting)

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by RedGreen (888) on Tuesday March 09, @12:27AM (#1121565)

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Debian after the scumbags at the Pi foundation pulled off their garbage, good riddance my machine is a good 10C cooler and has a load of next to nothing now. It runs headless and with the bastardization of Buster they use it was always running at a load of at least one.

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root@buster-raspi:~# uptime | cut -d ',' -f 4-6 | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//'

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load average: 0.04, 0.07, 0.08

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root@buster-raspi:~# vcgencmd measure_temp

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temp=46.0'C

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Now that is what I like to see a machine doing next to nothing with a load of next to nothing, impossible to achieve with the PiOS as they now call it, the temperature would be north of 60C with their crap.

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"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen

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Reply to This

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by Marand (1081) on Tuesday March 09, @02:41AM (#1121604) Journal

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with the bastardization of Buster they use it was always running at a load of at least one. [...] a machine doing next to nothing with a load of next to nothing, impossible to achieve with the PiOS as they now call it, the temperature would be north of 60C with their crap.

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If that's the case I think maybe you messed something up with your setup or didn't quite make it as minimal as you think you did. I've got a Pi 400 that's not even headless, got it attached to a small display running i3-wm, and it's currently idle (0.00 load reported) at 36C (reported by vcgencmd). I don't know what was wrong with your PiOS setup that led to it having constant load like that, but it's definitely not normal, at least

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not with the minimal image I started with.

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Maybe it's because I treated it like I do Debian installs: grab the smallest command-line-only image possible (netinst in Debian, "Raspberry Pi OS Lite" being the closest PiOS equivalent) and install what I want from there, because anything else just ends up installing crap I don't want. Distros tend to offer more user-friendly software bundles as their default images to be more approachable to beginners (which is good, make the

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default the safe choice for people that don't know how to choose) but I'm not a Linux newbie and prefer to start minimal and build from there.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 3, Insightful)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @03:07AM (#1121621) Journal

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"Maybe it's because I treated it like I do Debian installs: grab the smallest command-line-only image possible (netinst in Debian, "Raspberry Pi OS Lite" being the closest PiOS equivalent) and install what I want from there,"

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Yeah, maybe it's because you did it right.

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Always a good hypothesis. And sounds perfectly plausible.

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Here's the thing though;

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"Distros tend to offer more user-friendly software bundles as their default images to be more approachable to beginners (which is good, make the default the safe choice for people that don't know how to choose)"

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That's just wrong, and shows you aren't even taking into account the information right in front of your face, "TFA" itself!

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Everything that they tell you is "user-friendly" is actually "user-hostile." That's not completely true; but it's a lot closer than the inverse. The safe choice for people that don't know what to choose has always been very different from the default, and over time the variance has only increased; to the point that a 'safe choice for people that don't know what to do' is now practically, if not literally, impossible. Sensible

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settings in google chrome, for example, will break most popular websites instantly.

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It's exactly the people that can't figure out how to do it right that are failed most spectacularly by this system of wide-open defaults. But even larger than that; it's the entire species. Insane defaults have created an ad industry, they buy lawyers, and they also buy Senators; and even the Judges too.

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And one of the worst things a society might have to deal with; a corrupt judiciary.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 3, Touché)

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by Marand (1081) on Tuesday March 09, @04:09AM (#1121645) Journal

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That's just wrong, and shows you aren't even taking into account the information right in front of your face, "TFA" itself!

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No it doesn't, it shows that I'm talking about something completely different with that remark: making the default beginner-friendly by not assuming they know things like what a desktop environment is and how to choose one, what packages are needed to enable USB automount, how to configure and install Xorg, what to install to get working audio, and so on. You want the default download of your OS (distro) to cover all the

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bases because a beginner doesn't even know enough yet to have an idea of what the extent of things they don't know is, so you provide (possibly unnecessary) extras and more user-friendly optional things that not everyone needs, but enough people will likely want that you should include it just in case.

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With a Linux distro you can start from there and try to remove and swap out things, but odds are you're going to have a lot of unnecessary extras to fight with, so while it's a good choice as the default installation option because it provides the easiest path for potential new users, it's not a good choice for someone that wants a more streamlined or customised experience. Even distros like Debian do this, with the desktop

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media providing a lot of potentially unwanted junk to make it easier for beginner or intermediate users to get started. The Raspberry Pi, though, is intended primarily as an educational and tinkerer's device, targeting people who will primarily be first-time Linux users, so the Pi OS defaults are aimed even more toward beginners and rightly so. That means it'll potentially end up with things that someone wanting a slim, headless server

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installation won't want, possibly sucking up extra CPU cycles and memory, but that's fine because that person isn't the intended use case and should be using a different image.

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And this is not just an OS thing, "safe/friendly defaults but let people do something else if they want" is a good design strategy in general. Beginners typically take the path of least resistance, trusting that someone smarter and more knowledgeable than them made good decisions on their behalf, so you want to make that path the smart one for them. When you fail to do that you end up with footguns, like how the Lua

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programming making all variables global by default, leading to new users (of which Lua sees many because it's often used in gamedev for modding) making mistakes and getting confused by something that would have been easily avoided if the language had local scope be the default. Languages like C get a reputation for being unsafe and error-prone for similar reasons, because the default path tends to be riddled with landmines that you

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learn to avoid with experience but should never have been the default.

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Anyway, the point is that you're talking about something different than I was with the random aside I added to my previous comment. You SHOULD be adding extra, possibly unnecessary things to a distro for people that don't know better yet, while giving them the ability to stray from that path as they learn enough to do so responsibly. Considering the increasing popularity of VS Code, that's even arguably true for including

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the MS repository into Pi OS. The problem with that wasn't that they did it at all, it's how they did it. It should have been added only to their default, prominently featured download, the one labeled "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software" but left out of the "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop" and "Raspberry Pi OS Lite" images, and absolutely SHOULD NOT have been added retroactively to existing installs the way they did it

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It makes as much sense (arguably more) as the recommended image including Mathematica, which is available but not provided by default with the "Lite" image. It was a mistake in process, not intent.

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I do agree that a lot of times people use default selection in a user-hostile way (like Microsoft foisting mobile games onto users after new installs and sometimes upgrades), but that's a counter-example: things like that are bad defaults exploiting the lack of knowledge of some users. That kind of thing sucks, but most of the decisions made to decide "good" defaults for things don't fall into that category, especially in

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the FOSS world; instead, they're usually well-intentioned even if sometimes dumb decisions.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 2, Interesting)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @04:52AM (#1121661) Journal

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"No it doesn't, it shows that I'm talking about something completely different with that remark: making the default beginner-friendly by not assuming they know things like what a desktop environment is and how to choose one, what packages are needed to enable USB automount, how to configure and install Xorg, what to install to get working audio, and so on."

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Name a single linux distro that's been vaguely popular in the past 20 years that didn't do all that.

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Name. One.

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"You want the default download of your OS (distro) to cover all the bases because a beginner doesn't even know enough yet to have an idea of what the extent of things they don't know is, so you provide (possibly unnecessary) extras and more user-friendly optional things that not everyone needs, but enough people will likely want that you should include it just in case."

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Nope. Quite the opposite actually. Usually a long reply means someone really cared, but you don't seem to be paying attention at all!

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I want the default "download" of my OS (distro) to give me "just the axe, ma'am" and then wait for instructions like a good little computer.

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It's an /Operating System/. It provides the /Tools/ to /Operate/ the /System./

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"(possibly unnecessary)"

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No, no, no.

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There is no such thing.

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It's necessary. Or it ain't necessary. Pick one.

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"Beginners typically take the path of least resistance, trusting that someone smarter and more knowledgeable than them made good decisions on their behalf, so you want to make that path the smart one for them."

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Yeah, that's well-intentioned, and a good part of the problem.

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But let's state it plainly. You just don't want the denser examples finding your number and calling you day and night.

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You know, you can actually block numbers, in 2021?

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Anyway, you took a lot of time to type in a lot of text that basically repeats the same propaganda I've been hearing my whole life. No idea who actually wrote it, but kudos on the legs at least.

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It's just a combination of overblown and flat false. Yes, it's good for noobs if the os install gives you some decent, concise summary of terms etc. But it's got to be concise, and point to other resources. Ultimately, the OS install isn't supposed to be where you learn "basics of computing; what are puters, and does it have anything to do with magnets?"AKA CS000100.-994x

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No. If you don't understand what you're doing, back out, go read the docs again.

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The very WORST thing about MS with their OS is not the product (well wait in 2021 so it might finally be the product after all) but the ridiculous suggestion that they marketed it on to get to this point. That you could be not just "not technical" but positively computerphobic and without any sort of study or learning whatsoever you could now administer a computer.

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Well, now they've finally gotten there. They administer your computer for you. And if they don't *currently* monitor every keystroke you enter in near-realtime, well it's only an update away.

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What a high price to pay for such a thin illusion of convenience. They still won't read your mind and figure out how you made the screen go black, or tell you how to get it back.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by Marand (1081) on Tuesday March 09, @05:18AM (#1121669) Journal

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Thanks for the reminder of why I usually ignore your comments and have them collapsed by default. I attempted to actually talk to you for a change and all you did was insult me, making claims of "propaganda" and suggestions that I'm repeating some party line (presumably paid shilling?) just for having an opinion that doesn't fully match yours. I don't quite get if your insane remark about "No idea who actually wrote

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it" is supposed to be implying I'm shilling for MS or Raspberry Pi or what, but it's pretty fucking offensive that I made the effort to actually discuss something just to be casually dismissed and told I didn't write it just because it wasn't what you wanted to hear. And all because I suggested that defaults should cover the majority of use cases and be accessible for people that won't know better, with more advanced options still made

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available for the people like most of us here that won't benefit from it.

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Well, good job continuing to be the same unlikeable, holier-than-thou cunt you were when I first demoted your comments to -1 purgatory. Even on the rare occasions when you say something vaguely sensible it's not worth engaging with you and dealing with your obnoxious attitude. Who knows, maybe I'll try again in another five years when I have another lapse in good sense.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @06:08AM (#1121694) Journal

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Hey!

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"Thanks for the reminder of why I usually ignore your comments and have them collapsed by default."

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Umm, you're welcome?

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Yeah, you're welcome. I'm going with "you're welcome." Final answer. <kick>

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"I attempted to actually talk to you for a change and all you did was insult me"

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Wait wait wait, wait, what?

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Insult you?

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Nah I just went back and reloaded and checked. I gave you props. Why you be trippin, yo?

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"No idea who wrote it" - nah it's a meme, it's not you. You probably picked it up in childhood, before you remember maybe. We all swim in a sea of memes, the ones we absorb most deeply are the ones we have the hardest time to see.

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That was no insult; to imply you're human? Chill. Here.

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___

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(__ `-._ _____

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`-._ `-._ .' `.

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`-._ `-._ .=========.

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`._ /`-..- .

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`-._ .

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`-.._______.'

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"Well, good job continuing to be the same unlikeable, holier-than-thou cunt"

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Oy, oy, oy oy oy oy!

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And he's done it. He went and called me a bloody c*nt, he did.

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Marand; sir or madam or otherwise encharicaturated as your preference and circumstance might suggest or constrain;

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purely at your own preference.

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I assume you are a speaker of a variety of English well outside of direct US influence; of /ENGLISH/ English or perhaps a really old Aussie or Kiwi or something?

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Yeah, you can't call anyone the "c word" mate. It's just not done.

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Not in the US, not even in Canada. Gotta step over the line into Mexico, if you want to get away with that shite over here in the New World.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYaKUzax8xY

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-www.youtube.com | You Can't Say Cunt in Canada - YouTube

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"Unlikeable"

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/UNLIKEABLE/

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I never asked you to like me.

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NO ONE EVER ASKED YOU TO LIKE ME!

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Cheers!

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 1, Funny)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @07:19AM (#1121707)

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This is a new intensity of autism from you. Or is it your Microserft brain implant malfunctioning? Either way, it is entertaining.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 1)

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by Arik (4543) on Thursday March 11, @01:30AM (#1122540) Journal

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"new"

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Just how long have you been watching, that you think you have a baseline?

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"it is entertaining."

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You're welcome.

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You should make an account so I can remember who aren't.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: -1, Troll)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @01:45AM (#1122097)

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Marand has always been touchy this way. Was back in the day when I used to insult him for fun.

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But, he came back. Glutton for insultitude, evidently! Marand! You are a doo-doo head! (Watch! The reaction should be fantastic!) How much does Micro$oft pay you to say such things? (Oh, that should make him blow! ) Hey, Marand, your whining has contributed nothing to the conversation. Even Arik is more of a Soylentil than you are!

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 1, Touché)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @04:26AM (#1122139)

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Luckily they use such an atrocious font making it much easier to just scroll past. Nothing of value will be lost.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by Marand (1081) on Wednesday March 10, @06:41AM (#1122165) Journal

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That was actually what led to me setting him to foe and -6 karma modifier originally. A few of us tried asking him to stop using the code blocks for general comments and his response was basically "if you don't like it change your font". Tried pointing out that we're using the fonts as intended and the problem was that he's misusing code blocks for general text, which forces other people to see the wrong

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fonts at random. He doubled down claiming that fixed-width is the proper way fonts should look and if people don't like it they should override their browser's fixed-width fonts with variable-width ones.

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So he basically suggested that everybody on the site should change their code fonts to be bad for reading code just because he wants to see his text as fixed-width but doesn't want to change his font to do it, which is asinine. So I decided a better solution was to fudge the karma system to collapse his comments instead, because that's the kind of shitty attitude I don't generally want to interact with anyway

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Win/win.

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Every so often he'll respond to a comment of mine and I get a reminder of why his comments are auto-collapsed. I have more pleasant interactions with the ACs at 0 usually.

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Reply to This Parent

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by PiMuNu (3823) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 09, @11:09AM (#1121740)

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10100000101110110010101110001010101001001100011101010000001011100100100100011110110011101001010100100010100101111000000000011111101110101011011011000100011011110000000000111111010010110001011011110010010000011100110100001001110000000111100111100101101001110000111010101110010010011101011110101000111101111000100111011001101010001010111000010001110011010110001000000110110001010000010101010000111001011101100111111110110011011111100111110011

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10110011101010111100011111101010011100100011100101010001010111000100000100011000111010110101001101001000100100011100000101100000010110011010010001011111110110110110111011001010000100011110010101010111001110100110001100000111000001010110100110101110101101001111100011011011110110101101111111110010011100110110011000000101110011010100101110010101001010100100011000010110110010101100111001001010110001100000001000100010101010101110010110101011

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01110111100110011011100011001100011110010000000111111111000110111010100000111101000000011100101100010011001000001110010010011111010100011110111011010110101001111000100101011000101110110000111111011000011000101101101000001001011110111011000000110001111111110010011100100111101110100111100111011010001100010011011100001100010111001110011001001011110111110100000110000001111000001011001011110100101110010011111000110001110010000011010110010010

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01011010100001011011000010000001111100001100011101010110111011101111000011110010100101110101101011100110101010110110011111111001101011000010011001111100001100110110111011000110110011101100101100000000011111110110111010111001110000101100100010001101001000010111111101001111111100101010001101101000101101011110001100111011111001000110011010111010010111001110101110101011110000011101111111110110001100011100010100101101111110010110001000001010

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11101111111100100000110011110000001000001101110011001011100111101010111101001010011001010111011011010000111010000011100100000010111000101110010101011111010001001111110011111001000001000010110110100111100111111100011001000111100111101000000000011000000010001101010100001101110010110100

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(Nb: minimal defaults - I don't bother to include the decompression key)

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Re:Went with (Score: 2)

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by crafoo (6639) on Tuesday March 09, @03:17PM (#1121830)

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Indeed. Your self-interest, your very life is being co-opted, controlled, and tossed out as trash when you are no longer useful. It's good that you recognize this. You may be in a position to protect yourself from the coming Starving Times.

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Trash (Score: 4, Touché)

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by SomeGuy (5632) on Tuesday March 09, @12:30AM (#1121567)

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We don't want to be spied on; what happens when we're faced with an operating system that spies on people? We throw it in the trash where it belongs!

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Please tell me this guy does not own a smart phone.

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Well, ok, those do get thrown in the trash every few minutes. But the key there is not to buy another freaking one. Typically you can't just put whatever OSes you want on those.

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Got root? (Score: 5, Interesting)

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by Rich (945) on Tuesday March 09, @02:22AM (#1121598) Journal

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Mark Shuttleworth once put it bluntly when someone rose a stink about some opportunity for Canonical to mess with Ubuntu installations: "We run the repositories, we've got root anyway. You've got to trust us."

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Now I can't imagine any organization that the average Linux afficionado would less want to grant root on his or her box than Microsoft.

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I'm convinced that this was a deal with the devil. Microsoft wanted a foot in the door, Broadcom/Raspi took the cash and now they have to deliver. If Microsoft wouldn't play foul, they'd be out of (their current) business in a few years. Plus, among English IT people I've met or read from so far, a significantly higher percentage than in other countries were outright arseholes. They don't get the benefit of doubt from me anymore. (

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Whereas, to not generally disrespect the English, people in their motor industry are generally nicer than their international peers; also, the farther away from London, the nicer the people. Must be the City-of-London influence.) Easy prey for MS. MS did that before with other English SBCs (but fortunately no one cares). I wouldn't even be surprised if there eventually is "big" Pi-own silicon and they detach from Broadcom, but if that

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happens I'm pretty sure who foots the bill.

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Weirdly, hardware-wise, BroadPi is already too entrenched, so one might end in the situation that "no one ever got fired for spec'ing a RasPi". On a personal level, I just hope that Rockchip get the RK3588 going soon.

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Re:Got root? (Score: 2)

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by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 09, @03:12AM (#1121624)

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Speaking of "got root?" how hard is it to disable the M$ PPA - after all user pi has sudo with no pass...

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My karma ran over your dogma.

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Re:Got root? (Score: 2)

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by Rich (945) on Tuesday March 09, @09:44AM (#1121726) Journal

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how hard is it to disable the M$ PPA

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It's relatively easy. Instructions on the net involve a bit of text editing in /etc/apt/...

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However, it was sneaked into there by non-standard means, so - trustworthy as they are now - a security-aware user needs to assume that they restore it without consent "by accident" or for some other lame made-up reason.

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Switching to "proper" Debian (does Devuan for systemd-haters work on Raspis?) is a reasonable thing to do, if one doesn't want too much change. It doesn't have to be NetBSD as in the article. (But thank heavens, NetBSD stays around and offers a last-resort choice).

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Re:Got root? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @04:46PM (#1121879)

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I believe Devuan does have a Raspi distribution based on Debian. I would like to switch my deployed machines to it, but a single Raspbian image has run on all deployed versions (1, 2, 3) of the hardware, while I think Debian has separate distros for the CPUs in them.

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Can anyone fill in my blanks? I would have tried myself, but it is still hard going into work and having a test bench.

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Re:Got root? (Score: 2)

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by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday March 10, @03:16AM (#1122120)

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Switching to "proper" Debian seems like a lot more hassle than writing a script launched by a daily cron job to just clean M$ out of the PPAs - surprised this hasn't surfaced yet, certainly less disruptive to the community and just as pointed a protest.

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My karma ran over your dogma.

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Re:Got root? (Score: 2)

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by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 10, @01:02PM (#1122238)

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(does Devuan for systemd-haters work on Raspis?)

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Thats a solid "kinda of"

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I would say its a lot less work, and its a lot more officially documented, to get FreeBSD working on a pi.

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I need to point out I've never used a FreeBSD Pi outside of headless mode and from memory the default logins were freebsd/freebsd and root/root

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From memory there was nothing weird about GPIO access or USB support in FreeBSD but wifi was not fun. My app used PoE to power the Pi so I truly didn't care about wifi drama, although I could imagine wifi only people could get a bit freaked out. I suppose you need wired ethernet to download the stuff you'll need to get wifi working assuming you want/need wifi and can set it up.

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Note that there isn't "the pi" there's like three generations now and you get the fun of matching install image to board generation. Not rocket surgery but something to look out for.

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These kind of things tend to only improve over time plus or minus firmware licensing drama.

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dpkg permissions (Score: 2)

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by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 09, @02:51AM (#1121608) Homepage Journal

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Is it possible to prohibit dpkg from installing any executables that use root permission?

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Re:dpkg permissions (Score: 3, Insightful)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @03:16AM (#1121627) Journal

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Yep. Just prohibit it (and a bunch of related stuff) from installing anything at all.

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Otherwise, not so much.

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This is why I instinctively shied away from the thing the moment I first heard of it. The whole premise is you delegate all responsibility over program installation and uninstallation to this /super-cool/ program and from now on instead of remembering how to do it you just ask the program nicely and it does it all for you!

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Not a fan of the concept. Not at all.

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*I* am root. I do not delegate root.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Re:dpkg permissions (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @03:53AM (#1121637)

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"Otherwise, not so much."

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I forget what kind of concatenation deb files use, but yeah, the extractor is one of the normal system tools. So you can extract debs without apt-get or dpkg just fine.I've done this a few times over the years to put libreoffice on non-standard distros. It's been a while so I don't remember which tools.

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So yes there is. Extract the package, edit it, tar it, move it, untar it. Really most of that can be done with a few lines of shell script. Which is really what a lot of package managers are. I know VOID's whole package management system is written in bash. Which I would consider a feature if the author had bothered to comment his code.

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Generally most package managers are about serving distro managers, rather than admins. Which is why they mostly all suck, from a users perspective.

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Re:dpkg permissions (Score: 2)

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by Arik (4543) on Tuesday March 09, @04:15AM (#1121647) Journal

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Yeah, it's like a tar.pkz file; obviously you can extract the contents; not the point. I've used alien, etc. again not the point. The whole idea of Debian package management is to abstract system management so the user never has to trouble his pretty little head.

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The primary problem is this encourages the users pretty little head to remain empty, and when he needs help he finds he's unable to even describe the problem in general terms; eventually he is all too likely to expire from asphyxiation, after the vocal track has been completely submerged in saliva for far too many minutes.

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And the secondary problem is even when the user knows exactly what's happened, and how to fix it, fixing it breaks the package management system. Which either defends itself like a virus, or is Slackware.

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Lord; bless and keep Patrick V.

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If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

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Re:dpkg permissions (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @09:41PM (#1122016)

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VOID scripting is in bash, but the package manager is in C. That's why it's one of the faster ones out there.

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Read all I needed to (Score: 4, Insightful)

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by chewbacon (1032) on Tuesday March 09, @04:46AM (#1121659)

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I am boycotting the Raspberry Spy myself

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Sensationalist shit. I'm with it; and in record time. Grade-A summary.

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Great Crimes of History (Score: 2)

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by AssCork (6255) on Tuesday March 09, @01:50PM (#1121765) Journal

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Microsoft's second-greatest crime was permitting spaces in file/folder names.

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Their first was messing with the Raspberry Pi folks.

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Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.

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Re:Great Crimes of History (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @05:17PM (#1121888)

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Let me tally up MY list of Microsoft's crimes and slot 'messing with the raspberry pi folks' in to i... oh, look at that, the integer overflowed. I guess the pi-crime isn't even in the running now.

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Re:Great Crimes of History (Score: 3, Informative)

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by istartedi (123) on Tuesday March 09, @09:35PM (#1122011) Journal

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You're forgetting "hide file extensions" as a default. This resulted in experienced users like myself having things like document.txt.txt on a new machine because I didn't realize they would do such a stupid thing. It resulted in some users running third_party.txt.exe with sadly predictable results.

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really? (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09, @06:31PM (#1121920)

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Oh my god this guy is really pretentious. Installing an OS over UART because of a software repository for VS Code?

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UART (Score: 2)

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by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 09, @06:57PM (#1121933) Journal

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Installing an OS over UART ...

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You're not lazy enough. UART is the way to go for least effort. So if you are installing a new system it is the obvious choice.

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For the reasons why a new system is required, read the full summary and especially the two links towards the end of it, in the context of the previous article.

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Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.

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You DON'T have to use Raspbian..... (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, @07:41AM (#1122180)

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So, the whole meltdown is because Rasbian is 'spying'. Simple fix, don't use Raspbian...

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SARPi is SO MUCH better anyway-

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https://sarpi.fatdog.eu/ [fatdog.eu]

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This isn't hard guys.

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-sarpi.fatdog.eu | SARPi Project - Slackware ARM on a Raspberry Pi

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Get a life! (Score: 2)

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by bart (2844) on Wednesday March 10, @03:59PM (#1122292)

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What a sensationalist piece of garbage. Put any other Linux distro on the Raspberry PI, that doesn't have the MS repository added.

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Re:Get a life! (Score: 0)

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by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, @12:37AM (#1122513)

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Agreed. I wrote this up-thread, but using "Raspberry Spy" as a label automatically alienates any part of the audience that wasn't already a FLOSS fanatic. I am a FLOSS fanatic, and I want to educate and convince more people - not stay an insignificant minority everyone else views as the lunatic fringe.

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