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[Guest]

usability and security are two different things. XP was a cesspool security-wise even when it was supported. Using it on any device accessing the internet is retarded.

Sure it is a cesspool security wise, both in exploits and virus spread. However, I had a local virus scanner, a network virus scanner, and a proper firewall. And even if I never did, it's kind of dumb of people to lose sleep over obsessing about making me upgrade. The point here is that if they care enough, let them upgrade their own operating systems and not bicker about mine.

For the record, I am playing the devil's advocate myself. I have luks encyption even on my swap partition, two hardware firewalls hiding behind them is my router and them my PC and laptop. My PC has iptables running an clamav periodically scans my system for virus infections. But I still believe this is all a waste of time and energy and that it is completely acceptable to sacrifice complex measures such as luks encryption and more importantly flatpak for usability and common sense.

I was only hit once with an infection in Windows XP was either Blaster or something around that period in 2003. I don't recall which virus or worm exactly but I remember MS assured us that SP3 protected us. And the infection happened only because I was behind ISA proxy along with over 900 other computers in the same network.

[starshipeleven]

Sure it is a cesspool security wise, both in exploits and virus spread. However, I had a local virus scanner, a network virus scanner, and a proper firewall.

And all of that was completely useless because XP was a cesspool security wise.

Mind me, malware attacks are not really a common thing for random users, it's around as common as a HDD failure. Every once in a while you encounter some malware.

Especially if you have moderate IT skills and apply your "IT sense" when operating the PC.

For the record, I am playing the devil's advocate myself. I have luks encyption even on my swap partition, two hardware firewalls hiding behind them is my router and them my PC and laptop. My PC has iptables running an clamav periodically scans my system for virus infections.

Luks on swap is irrelevant for malware, the firewall (internal and external ones) is also irrelevant for the usual malware attack vectors, Clamav is an antivirus to detect Windows malware so it's 100% irrelevant on Linux.

I mean, ok, you make as much sense as debianxfce, I guess it's not surprising if you still think XP is worth using.

I was only hit once with an infection in Windows XP was either Blaster or something around that period in 2003.

Modern malware has different goals. The most common modern objective is to make a botnet, or to track/gather info about users.

Stuff that fucks up your system is not the most common kind anymore. So yeah, chances are that you won't even notice your system was infected, as the malware won't make it obvious.

[Guest]

That's different. Debianxfce has an unhealthy obsession with Linux which you obviously do too. And I admit that at one point, I did too. I used to waste effort updating my Arch Linux machine daily and interrupting my work for rebooting with kernel updates and such. When I stopped caring for security and found a setup that just works, I stuck to it. I'm sure that, by now, my Linux machine is riddled with security bugs. But do I care? No. I don't. My computer does the job. My computer serves me. I don't work for *it*.

[starshipeleven]

That's different.

No you are the same. You both think in absolutes like that. You are just on opposite absolutes than him. Does not make you better.
You also both think that doing irrelevant things can protect you from malware, debianxfce for example thinks that his LTE connection is protecting him from malware from the Internet.

I used to waste effort updating my Arch Linux machine daily and interrupting my work for rebooting with kernel updates and such. When I stopped caring for security and found a setup that just works, I stuck to it.

You either update everything religiously or you don't care at all. That's bs. There is a lot of gray area between the two absolutes.

You also chose a high-maintenance bleeding edge distro, which is again a bad choice if you aren't into it.
Same stupidity of debianxfce where he is using Debian as a base, which is a LTS conservative distro, then adding a ton of high-mainteneance bleeding edge crap on top to make it basically an Arch-lookalike.
You could be running OpenSUSE Leap or even Mageia or other distros with a sane "1 major release per year + reliable system upgrades to next version", even Linux Mint is fine. Basically no mainteneance burden on your side, and you are still secure.

I run OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and update it weekly or so, and I wait for updating if I have important stuff to do or things I'd rather not break with an update. OpenSUSE can rollback updates in case something goes wrong. So far (a couple years in) nothing broke.

I also do the same on Windows. Blocked auto-install of updates with registry settings so I have control over when the damn thing is updating. I also have disk cloning set up automatically so I can restore in case a "major update" screws up something.

Do I actually need to intervene to fix shit actually? No I didn't. Even on Windows nothing requiring intervention happened so far.

My computer does the job. My computer serves me. I don't work for *it*.

Knowing how to maintain properly your tools ("properly" means both effectively AND without exhausting yourself in the process) is an important part of life. Updates are a part of maintaining a digital device in a modern, connected world.

If the device is disconnected from the Internet and doing the same tasks it always did, then who goddamn cares. It can be running Win95 and I'm fine with it as long as it is still doing its job.

That said, you are free to do whatever you want in the darkness of your little room.
What I am going to react to is when you try to justify it in public, and say that what you are doing is OK and human and sensible. No it is not. Don't spread bullshit.

As I said running an unsecure system is not terribly likely to affect any specific individual as malware isn't as fucking prevalent as antivirus manufacturers want you to believe, BUT someone will be affected and it will be bad for him.
Same as leaving the your home's door unlocked. Unless you live in a shithole this is not going to affect you for a long while, if ever. Is this a good advice to give to everyone? No it is not.

[Guest]

What I am going to react to is when you try to justify it in public, and say that what you are doing is OK and human and sensible. No it is not. Don't spread bullshit.

The correct things that you should have said here is "justify it in public in a technology" related forum. because no one cares outside technology forums. The accounting office that does our papers has 40+ machines running Windows 8 (all 5th gen core i7) and connected to the internet with people inputting vouchers from 9AM to 6PM without ever being updated. they run the virus scanner that ships with windows 8 and the definitions are likely out of date. Those computers mean nothing more to them than an old casio desktop calculator. I found that to be eye opening. I worked for a few years in the past in the NOC department of a holding company and they used debian stable and it was a disaster trying to make sure no little change broke the world.
I'm not saying it is wrong to maintain computers. I've maintained networks of over 500 machines running centos, ubuntu, and debian. I just don't see the over obsession anymore with doing so on my own computers because Linux is a tool, not a hobby or a community.
Go to starbucks or any cafe. Do you think any of the kids there with their laptops every manually maintained their computers?

[cybertraveler]

starshipeleven - your advice in your post above is so obviously correct, that I'm left wondering if hussam is simply trolling. Notice in his follow-up post he doesn't concede to your points, he just states that other people don't do what you suggested and that he "maintained networks of over 500 machines". What the hell kind of response is that?

Hey hussam: 2 + 2 = 5. I know that because I've seen other people write it. Also: I've written it thousands of times over. So it's true.

I think any technical-minded, reasonable person will read your post, starship and know it to be true.

Hussan - if you're a real individual expressing your real opinions, please consider getting in touch with the thing inside you which is truthful and non-egoic. I think we are all capable of doing that. You'll feel much better and (assuming you care) you will appear less foolish to others.

[starshipeleven]

because no one cares outside technology forums.

That's why Windows 10 forces the updates on people and also autoreboots to install them.

Those computers mean nothing more to them than an old casio desktop calculator.

Yes, a computer is a tool. I don't worship my PC or Linux either.
I use Linux because it gives me more control and I can very easily have it do what I want it to do, and it has a better GUI than Windows.

I'm not saying it is wrong to maintain computers.

I'm saying you are maintaining your computers wrong if it's so excruciatingly painful that you decided to not do so anymore.

I lose like 10 mins a week for the updating and "mainteneance" (I'm not looking at the screen while it is doing it, I'm just giving the command and then coming back at the end), backups and stuff is all done automatically.

Same for the maintaining I do at my actual job. Most is automated or run on a schedule. I don't interact that much with it.

The parts where I actually need to intervene is to troubleshoot issues a client brings me.

Go to starbucks or any cafe. Do you think any of the kids there with their laptops every manually maintained their computers?

No they don't. But when shit breaks or they can't use their PC anymore, they come here and pay for a tech to fix it. I have cleaned up so many PCs over the years. You know, it's part of my job.

Does it mean that each of these kid's laptop will break? No it does not. But some of them will have issues and lose all their data, many will have a very crappy experience as their PC is overloaded with crap and will be slow to do anything, some will have to pay many 100$ to someone to get their laptop in working condition again and so on.

Do note that this applies the same to cars, houses, pets and even other people (having kids or relationships). They are still complex systems.

The point is, are you capable enough to actually avoid the potential future issues without overdoing it and becoming obsessed about avoiding the issues and burning yourself out? Apparently not.

Does that make your choice the best for you? Absolutely. It's better to risk something down the road than burn out yourself in a relatively short time.

Does this make your choice the best advice to give to people, especially on a technology forum where people comes to get good advice about technology? No it does not.

[starshipeleven]

Hussan - if you're a real individual expressing your real opinions, please consider getting in touch with the thing inside you which is truthful and non-egoic.

You really need to put down the books and go out to interact with actual people with the intent to actually know them.

Hussan is well within the human baseline, and his reasoning makes perfect sense from his own point of view.

Just as it does for debianxfce, which is also within human baseline.

They are already listening to the "thing inside them". The issue is that the view from inside differs from the actual reality so it can't be truthful.

[cybertraveler]

You really need to put down the books and go out to interact with actual people with the intent to actually know them.

Hussan is well within the human baseline, and his reasoning makes perfect sense from his own point of view.

Just as it does for debianxfce, which is also within human baseline.

They are already listening to the "thing inside them". The issue is that the view from inside differs from the actual reality so it can't be truthful.

You don't know me.

There are people who are genuinely like how Hussan has been behaving. There are also trolls (people who deliberately try to upset others or cause drama & disruption) who will take on certain roles in order to get the effect they want. If you are unaware of that latter type of person, you will likely fall victim to them many times over. They will either cause you to feel disturbed or they will simply waste your time.

Note: I acknowledge that it's quite possible you are trolling me right now to waste my time. I am once again making the (possibly false) assumption that you are being genuine.

I'm not going to tell you what you "really need" to do (as you told me), however it is my suspicion that you have come to false conclusions about the range of entities out there, probably due to your unwillingness to let go of a particular model of humanity and reality that really doesn't fit the data. Data which I am sure you have been exposed to.

Trolls exist.

There are also groups out there with a specific goal of causing disruption, division, drama and upset within various communities. I'm not going to expand on this now. It's easy to find data in this topic. Those with eyes to see, will find it.

I specifically used language in my comment (that you quoted) which allowed for all eventualities.

[Danielsan]

The main point of breaking api and abi is to maintain the leadership on the Linux Desktop. For example for a slow project Like Xfce4 the switching from the GTK3 and GTK4 will be quite soft, they will presumably wait for the stable release until to port to GTK4. But for other desktops that aim to be bleeding edge like Pantheon or Cinnamon that can be be a very pain, those projects doesn't have the same resources behind like Gnome, probably most of those project will end up to QT to avoid this issue.