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Cake day: July 7th, 2026

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  • Unsure how I should respond to that 😅.

    Anyhow, just to be clear, yours truly was responsible for every single letter, word, sentence, paragraph, punctuation (and whatever else I might have forgotten to explicitly mention).

    LLM/AI was literally not involved in any part of the writing. Nor in the thought process*.



  • While the landscape of ‘atomic’ distros may look thriving, we can distill the amount of mature projects to just NixOS, Guix System and Fedora Atomic (and their derivatives).

    Most of the other projects found e.g. here are unfortunately not worth your time in most cases.

    As for which one to go with, that definitely depends on what you desire out of it (in alphabetical order):

    • Do you want something that’s relatively easy to start out with? Then go with Fedora Atomic (or a derivative[1]). From my personal testing, this one also seems to be the friendliest in terms of taking away many footguns.
    • If two of the following strike a chord with ya, then you should heavily consider Guix Systems:
      • Enjoying/liking[2] Lisp
      • Being passionate about F(L)OSS
      • Enjoying NixOS as a model, but being discontent with something[3] that happens to be (better) (re)solved on Guix Systems
    • NixOS is the OG[4]. As such, there’s a lot of cruft. But within that mess, somehow, ironically, it holds the potential for setting up the cleanest OS. As you can guess, without a shred of doubt, it is the most mature and most powerful out of the bunch. So, if you’ve got exotic places you’d like to go with your distro, then -in a lot of cases- this is the only viable destination.

    1. The images found under the umbrella of uBlue (which includes Bluefin) are even easier. ↩︎

    2. Or, at least finding it intriguing. ↩︎

    3. Including, but not limited to, Documentation; DSL vs actual programming language; project governance. ↩︎

    4. To be clear, it’s almost as old as Ubuntu. ↩︎


  • older computer

    What are the specs?

    Is there a way to just reset and do everything over like by repartitioning and installing something like Fedora or Ubuntu?

    You mean wipe everything on your HDD/SSD and install something that can make use of all of its storage capacity? That’s basically included on every distro installer.

    I can’t get Ethernet or my VPN working

    That’s definitely not expected behaviour.

    I want to be able to download “app” “installers” like you do with PC or MacOS.

    What do you mean? Is it either one of the following? (Perhaps both are fine with ya?)

    • Download software from a website and install it?
    • Use a app/software store application in which you can find and install apps/software? This is basically what’s found on modern phones.

    What do y’all think of Zorin, should I still migrate to something more ubiquitous and longer-running?

    Zorin OS should be fine~ish. The problem with asking the community is that they’re often more interested in laying out their favorites rather than what would be closest to the objectively best option 😅. If, however, your problems with ethernet persist on Zorin OS while another distro’s live ISO doesn’t have that problem, then I suppose it would only make sense to switch.


  • That depends.

    If this is a Linux guest on a Linux host and both are just your average distros, then it’s fine~ish. It’s not 100% safe as some malware is able to escape a VM, see this for a recent example of this.

    Doing your shady stuff within a disposable air-gapped[1] VM on a RISC-V powered Sculpt OS host should be pretty safe, though.


    1. In this context, I just mean it has only had the least amount of possible privileges/capabilities during its lifetime. ↩︎


  • in general: for my personal daily use pc. I download 🏴‍☠️ files and software for websites around the internet, so it would be nice have an antivirus

    Aight. Understood. Thank you for the clarification!

    So…, now it becomes a question of how paranoid security-sensitive you are 😅. I suppose relying on a distro with pretty decent security defaults (like e.g. Fedora or openSUSE) makes sense for a start. Furthermore, definitely commit to best practices[1]. As for the scanning part, other comments have already touched on that.

    If the PC you’re doing this contains sensitive information OR you’re not satisfied with the provided “probably good enough” solution, then consider going “the extra mile”. Which would involve the use of specialized OSes, relying on VMs and whatnot. But I digress…

    in specific: i want to self host services in my home server, so i want it to be secure and protected

    Unfortunately, I’m not confident talking on servers specifically. It’s simply not something I’ve put serious thoughts to yet. I hope someone else will touch on that 😉.


    1. A lot can be said on this, but it would dominate this text if I’d try to touch on it. ↩︎


  • throwaway403@programming.devtoLinux@lemmy.mlIs clamav a good antivirus?
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    9 days ago

    OP, I’ll be honest with ya: if you’re looking for something akin to M$ Defender but on Desktop Linux (and free), you ain’t gonna find it.

    A quick look at your Lemmy history suggests that you’re security-conscious. In that context, it’s worth noting that ‘Linux’ does provide you. However, depending on your situation and/or threat model, this might come at the cost of expertise.

    If you never download random stuff from the internet, then your average distro might be sufficient as long as you commit to the most basic set of best practices.

    However, if you do download random stuff from the internet OR if your situation and/or threat model warrants a more conscious approach, then things might change substantially.

    But before subjecting you to Qubes OS, we’d have to know more about your situation. So, first of all, could you elaborate on your use case of ClamAV? Or, perhaps even what you intend to do in general?




  • I don’t agree with the sentiment that Linux Mint is underrated either. As you note, it is quite popular and is mentioned a lot in the discourse.

    However, I don’t think that CachyOS and Linux Mint are the most popular distros; that undoubtedly goes to Ubuntu. And, if anything, I’d think that Linux Mint is more popular than CachyOS.

    Yet, if we’d limit it to the distros used by gamers, then CachyOS probably does take the crown for most used distro (aside from SteamOS). At least, there are metrics that suggest as such.


  • Aight. We seem to have found the culprit. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.|

    I mean why would it say a stable image has a testing id and bootloader if its not testing

    I’m not familiar with the Bazzite Update Tool. I tried to find it on GitHub, but failed 😅. But, if I’d have to guess, it looks at the same wrong place that fastfetch does.







  • Aight. Understood. Thank you!

    In your case, I’d propose something like NixOS then. As your full system configuration can be contained within a (set of) config file(s), the very same ones you use to install/config stuff, a reinstall just becomes very easy. Heck, if you’re willing to embrace the Erase your darlings-lifestyle, then I don’t even think you’d ever feel the need for a reinstall. Because, frankly, the clean slate is just a reboot away.

    EDIT: Perhaps Guix System is also worth considering as an alternative to NixOS*.

    EDIT2: If you still want to explore other distros, then it’s worth noting that nix, i.e. NixOS’ package manager, is available on most distros and offers a lot of the benefits already. Like, you could configure your system using it, and then use that config on another distro to get your config back. Good stuff.



  • Could you please explain a little more on what X11 and wayland are?

    Not the one you asked*.

    But, to put it simply, there’s a piece/suite of software that’s actually responsible for displaying stuff. Even your Desktop Environment is contingent upon it. X11 and Wayland are the two most popular ‘options’ for that and (to be frank) the ones that are ‘actually’ in use. The former is the OG and was for the longest time pretty much your only option. But the latter has come a long way and is a superior option for most.

    In the context of Cinnamon, its Wayland implementation is still relatively immature. Heck, only with its next release will it become non-experimental. But, even then, it is possible that switching will make a difference here.

    How can I find out the information you are looking for?

    Invoke echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE within a terminal. It will return whichever you’re on.