Future of KDE, Kali Linux, Kaspersky Virus Removal & more Linux news

[@mangodude-nq6su]

The thing with flatpak is classic Linux ecosystem UX issue. They just need to add a warning when you install an unverified app "Have you checked the application? Are you sure it's a real one?" Because EVERYONE will flip that switch in settings to install Chrome and forget about that

[@gmt1]

I like the "Unverified Flatpak" thing on Mint. It continues LM's theme of being user-friendly and easy to recommend to new Linux users and older tech illiterate folks.

[@the-answer-is-42]

I don't mind another AV tool, malware definitely exists for Linux (it's just typically targeting servers and not desktop, iirc), but I won't use Kaspersky.

[@tablettablete186]

What about MS Defender? (yeah, it exists for Linux lol)

[@the-answer-is-42]

@@tablettablete186 Not sure, I would have to think about it and look into it.

[@zxuiji]

To any librem members that happen to read this, we don't need another apple. Make the prices reflect the hardware already.

[@louisfifteen]

I think Purism should be investigated by the authorities. I never fell for their act back in 2017. Firstly because their hardware sucked and I had this gut feeling about them. It just sounded too good to be true and when Gardiner Bryant recommended in like an almost religious way, I know it was a hoax.

[@jan_harald]

tbh, I don't think it's hard to get such a recommendation, lol you make a product that fits the person's ideals, then sponsor them, and boom

[@louisfifteen]

Kaspersky is russian and under the grave circumstances with war on Ukraine, I would not touch with a witches broom and it is free makes it even more questionable. I recently ditched win11 for Ubuntu 24.04 and I'm still happy with my choice only My favorite game Forza Horizon 5 will not run in Steam. The installation path is too long it says, but all my other games are installed in the same library, so I am not experienced enough to move it to another, shorter library, anyone???

[@jan_harald]

honestly, more trustworthy than most usa companies especially since they've worked to increase transparency, e.g. not keeping your data in russia, but in swizerland, or opening multiple transparency centers to allow state agencies and and government experts to examine the source code (though it's certainly possible to be extra cleaned up, it'd take a lot of effort) if you're not specifically pissing off russian secret service, then you've got nothing to fear, not any more than from any other company

[@louisfifteen]

@@jan_harald It is still not open source, right?

[@jan_harald]

@@louisfifteen yeah, while they have some open source repos, none of the malware-detection stuff is open, makes sense why, too, if it was open source it'd be way easier to specifically design your malware to be undetectable, at least with any degree of certainty

[@louisfifteen]

@@jan_harald Are you saying that closed source software cannot be penetrated by mallware?

[@knghtbrd]

Kaspersky was one of the best companies for anti-malware for awhile. Problem was, a few years ago their software was caught phoning home with information from the computers of selected targets… The company is located in Russia and they likely weren't offered a choice in the matter. Nonetheless, I won't be running anything from Kaspersky until the political situation demonstrably changes.

[@jan_harald]

honestly, more trustworthy than most usa companies especially since they've worked to increase transparency, e.g. not keeping your data in russia, but in swizerland, or opening multiple transparency centers to allow state agencies and and government experts to examine the source code (though it's certainly possible to be extra cleaned up, it'd take a lot of effort) if you're not specifically pissing off russian secret service, then you've got nothing to fear, at least not any more than any other companies, I'd still trust them over e.g. mcafee, lol (which also has a linux version, which sux hard)

[@yusky03]

I basically never get a prompt for the Steam Survey but this time I got one for all 4 of my Linux machines so that is +4 machines for me. "I'm doing my part." Kaspersky is a Russian company. That should have probably been mentioned. KGB could force them to do nefarious things.

[@espertempo]

That’s exactly the same case for US or any other app. We only get to choose who steals our data.

[@lmnk]

Kaspersky is not tied to Russia for years now, really...

[@avyam7509]

I think the CIA is more nefarious than KGB LoL.

[@lyfja64]

KGB was dissolved 32 years ago

[@4upikov]

there no kgb in russia

[@Thurgenev]

About flatpaks and Mint warning message... it's a good feature. It doenst apply to distro repos because distros shares it's reliability to their repos packages and mainteiners, while unverified flatpaks are on top of what ? The great feature of flatpak is it's portability, and thats all. Portability is not related to reliability, so reliability has to be discussed separately, and honestly. I sincerly dont understand this love for flatpak. Portability is great indeed, but it's only portability. Dont make it reliability base in your love for portability.

[@miku]

3rd Place in the Steam HW survey goes to the Flatpak version? damn those peolple have a deathwish. or a lack of drives.

[@jan_harald]

I definitely like the smash button!

[@stamy]

Giving Russian administrator rights to our devices is stupid. Remember the NSA contractor incident in 2017 that led to a loss of classified data? It was already Kaspersky.

[@jan_harald]

honestly, more trustworthy than most usa companies especially since they've worked to increase transparency, e.g. not keeping your data in russia, but in swizerland, or opening multiple transparency centers to allow state agencies and and government experts to examine the source code (though it's certainly possible to be extra cleaned up, it'd take a lot of effort) if you're not specifically pissing off russian secret service, then you've got nothing to fear

[@VallThyo]

I can see the appeal of immutable distros, but a arch based one? And funnily enough I had more issues with immutable distros because dependencies breaking/mismatch than with normal arch. But we're getting so many of them lately, it's must just me using it wrong I guess.

[@michael_tunnell]

SteamOS for the Steam Deck is also an immutable arch based distro 😎

[@eps-nx8zg]

the thing is a lot of immutable distros are kind of new/hype train stuff, I would always recommend sticking to something that has been around for a long time and have good support like silverblue or nixos.

[@MichalSmolinsky]

Install our KGB malware tool

[@ocularpatdown]

Kaspersky is Russian. There is NO way in hell that goes anywhere near any of my tech.

[@avyam7509]

I think my data is more safe in Russian hands than the US lol.

[@DCM777.]

@@avyam7509 Amen.

[@firebird687]

@@avyam7509 Why don’t you move to Russia right away?

[@romany8125]

@@avyam7509 cause russia is economically strong, freedom oriented, liberal, and progressive state 🤣😅😂😛🤪😄

[@jan_harald]

@@romany8125 freedom? in EITHER of those countries? progressive? lmfao, what a jokester you are

[@louisfifteen]

Oh, and thank you Michael for another great and informative show.

[@QueeeeenZ]

I'm hoping KDE will improve the design UI

[@northof-62]

NixOS install stopped at 46%

[@cxa24]

Impossible for this to be a tunnel

[@nou712]

Kaspersky is never what i want to use on my freaking desktop. It's proprietary and it demands root right away. It also has ties to a particular government and its security apparatus. Do not run that thing.

[@SimonJackson13]

Modi?

[@mazdaxc90]

You never will need it. There are few viruses on linux, and as longas you have a decent amount of tech literacy, you will not get a virus.

[@lemonadeforlife]

​@@mazdaxc90Awareness is more than enough to prevent virus

[@DrewTNaylor]

​@@SimonJackson13 Russia.

[@Mohojo]

Yep I’d never run that on my system.

[@Lavashyk]

I will never put russian software (such as Kaspersky) on my computer. Another telemetry from russian gov.

[@epieursvelte13cirertrollferpur]

what about american software?

[@ocularpatdown]

@@epieursvelte13cirertrollferpur what about it, Ivan?

[@epieursvelte13cirertrollferpur]

@@ocularpatdown Van Darkhole?

[@Lavashyk]

@@epieursvelte13cirertrollferpur American is fine, just avoid telemetry and it will be ok. But using the russian one without telemetry is still amoral, tho.

[@jan_harald]

@@Lavashyk not any more amoral, lol do you support flat out invasions and rule-breaking, or do you prefer keeping up the pretense of freedom and following rules you've made yourself, while doing it? no real difference ;P

[@laylasmart]

No word about Zorin 17.1?

[@michael_tunnell]

I covered Zorin 17.1 3 months ago kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpSmc6FjnrKCi7s

[@laylasmart]

@@michael_tunnell Cool... Thanks. Did you covered by chance running Windows third party audio and video software using both bottles and wine? Some software do not have a Linux version and Zorin looks like a promising thing in that, but we lack the experience with make it working. A video that teach that will be good.

[@michael_tunnell]

I did not cover specific usecases. I covered the news of the release. What you are asking is a very broad request so the best I can say is to search for support or tutorials on the specific software you are wanting. Since you didnt list what the software is, I dont have any advice to share.

[@laylasmart]

@@michael_tunnell Thanks. I would write to Zorin directly about that, but there's no email address..

[@michael_tunnell]

@laylasmart that’s true but they do have a forum for help, forum.zorin.com/

[@cpuuk]

In 2025 there will be the start of a large migration of Windows Users to Linux. I hope Linux, and 3rd party add-on, will be ready with their solutions.

[@jan_harald]

it will be THE YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP!!! lol

[@firebird687]

Kaspersky is well known malware

[@jan_harald]

not any more than any other antivirus, lol, I'd honestly trust them more than norton/avg, or mcafee most antivirus is a scam anyway, they rarely react in time, and either have way too much false positives, or just fail to recognize and give false negatives

[@Amos_Huclkeberry]

When will we have the first Linux distro built and maintained by AI?

[@greenrocket23]

Maybe RedHat/IBM and Canonical are already working on it. Either way, you won't catch me using any of that fr fr

[@monabuu]

FYI, Kaspersky is a Russian company

[@michael_tunnell]

If this is intended to for me, yes I’m aware and we talk about this in Destination Linux episode. This will be releasing in just a couple of hours

[@DCM777.]

Good!

[@TJ-hs1qm]

Best news show 😸

[@louchitchat]

I support any steps to improve security, baby ste are better than nothing

[@IRDazza]

I like this channel BUT I HATE "G" NEWS! Its "NEWS!" Sorry, long day. Why does everything linux have to be "G" info, "G" news, "G" what the hell? Many Linux users, like myself have an IQ larger than a 15 Y.O. and also work with other systems like "W" windows, and "O" osx. and "U" unix ?!?!?!

[@Wilker_uwu]

i'm a gnews enjoyer, i love gnuwatching my gnweekly source of gnews and be gninformed about the gnews of the gnecosystem. :3

[@michael_tunnell]

Not everyone will enjoy everything, I get that but GNews is not what you think. This is a joke about the nonsense of GNU being pronounced as guh-noo and the people who insist on calling the system GNU/Linux. So the slogan is just a joke in those things. I also only say it 2 times per episode, intro and outro.

[@jesse7631]

Really? I think it's funny, and actually look forward to it. It's not like Michael is using that play on words everywhere. It's just in that one small phrase.

[@pjpodx]

what Kaspersky ??? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations_of_Russian_government_ties

[@rick_mars3599]

7:45 I wonder if BlendOS is as flexible when it comes to declaring the system from a haci file as NixOS, I was curious and now I'm going to take a look at it

[@michael_tunnell]

I’m curious about that too, please report back

[@guilherme5094]

👍As always thanks. And Karsper.... no thanks.

[@discocat2500]

Kaspersky has always had a glowy Russia vibe. No thanks.

[@jan_harald]

honestly, I'd still trust them more than e.g. mcafee or norton/avg, lol

[@thingsiplay]

Nix As you mentioned that Nix packages work on other distros, I wanted to add that Nix packages even work on Steam Deck. And I mean in the wrote protected mode enabled. Valve did integrated Nix package system officially into the Steam Deck file structure and made exceptions, so you can install any software from it. I did not try it out yet, but apparently it works.

[@michael_tunnell]

That’s super interesting, didn’t know it worked there

[@ulkesh99]

Purism is clearly misleading. Time to move on.

[@boyscout399]

I was part of the steam survey this time around, my Manjaro counted!

[@EvanEdwards]

I am in no way a video gamer, but I do like good hardware support, and there's nothing like gamers that drives cutting edge hardware support and Enterprise customers to drive quality, stable hardware support.

[@llomellamomario]

20:36 no benefit of the doubt when they have been taking the amount of money they have been asking for their phones, and when consumers have asked to either a refund or the device they paid off, their only respone was for them to "fuck off". They know very well that statement is not true, because of their policy about the refunds. 21:08 of course I am profitable too if I beg customers for money then proceed to not deliver to them and tell them to fuck off when they come asking for what they paid for.

[@michael_tunnell]

Do you have a source where they said that too people? I’d like to reference that in the future. As for the benefit of the doubt, I didn’t really give them any. I just made a joke after that calling them incompetent

[@llomellamomario]

@@michael_tunnell This was covered by Louis Rossman a year ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXzImKCrZbtqa9U They have not said it with those exact words mind you. But when a customer asks for a refund after 3 years of not receiving what they paid for, and they use slimey words that a big corporation would be proud of, just to not refund a customer, they are effectively telling you as a consumer to fuck off. Are they using those words? No, because it is bad PR. It is what they are doing to customers? Effectively, yes, and I don't like to sugar coat it when people have been effectively scammed out of their money. For the record, back then I searched and it did not take me long to find more than a few people complaining they did have similar issues to what Louis talked about in his video. I don't know the status today, it could have changed from a year back to now. But if a company is willing to do that once, what are the odds of them doing it again?

[@michael_tunnell]

Oh yea I know about this stuff. I was asking for a reference to quote that but yea, they have been very sketch for years. The first time I unleashed on Purism was in 2019, kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6aXcoR-r82hgMk This made me curious which other times I made fun of Purism and here's the list lol thisweekinlinux.com/51 thisweekinlinux.com/91 thisweekinlinux.com/98 thisweekinlinux.com/119 thisweekinlinux.com/155 thisweekinlinux.com/168 thisweekinlinux.com/234 and then the more recent stuff. Purism has pretty much always sucked

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

Oh dear, the KDE folk may agree to some of the app upgrades I will suggest, but not so much the amount of work that may have to go into making it happen, and I have some good ones that go all the way into the core and the interoperability of KDE apps in the realm of what one uses for home office/small business, and based on one of the best OS's I have ever tried: BeOS (The 195 version in 1995) It didn't work on anything but the hardware they made or had made for them, and together they were quite expensive, although justifiably so, but way more than I could cough up. There was nothing else like it that wasn't custom made for some huge corporation like a major bank, insurance company... and it was geared toward business and home use and was a fully multi threaded system (Maybe the first commercial one), and it could play 10 videos all at once while working on a spread sheet, and on Win 95 and a 486 you were lucky to watch one without glitches!

[@osbert]

I'm looking forward to the suggestions, interoperability update/upgrades would be a welcome thing. Will be very interesting to see how they can bend (without breaking) wayland to be actually functional and fit for purpose in this regard too.

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@osbert Mostly I have suggestions for their apps as in added functionality, not as much the UI. The problems with Wayland and all those adopting it is that the adopters are newer to it, and Wayland makers still have ways to go to work out all the kinks, but I don't know jack about programming, but I can make suggestions as a power user who could use some new tricks in my OS and apps! It all helps.

[@0versun0]

fucking russia kaspersky come on, seriously?

[@kajoma1782]

verified malware apps are shown

[@Seketsu]

Hope we can now customize parrot os with hyprland

[@nowycwan]

About unverified debs. Packages, such like deb, have build script.

[@michael_tunnell]

Proprietary deb packages are a thing. Sublime Text is an example of a native proprietary deb

[@nowycwan]

@@michael_tunnell and ran it closed-source binary not included in system during installation?

[@michael_tunnell]

I’m not sure what it is you are asking, please clarify

[@nowycwan]

@@michael_tunnell Does install script in this deb file ran binary file not included in Operating System (I mean it unpack executable and ran it as root)?

[@michael_tunnell]

I think I understand what you’re saying now but DEBs are not just build scripts. in fact, they aren’t build scripts at all because compilation is not needed to install from deb. There are binaries included in DEB packages. As for root, every DEB package requires root to be installed. When you install a deb file you run “sudo apt install …” and this gives the file and everything in it root privileges. DEB files do not have any security mechanism built into the format.

[@FengLengshun]

blendOS, from what I've tried and seen of the development, feels really like "We have rpm-ostree at home." There was a bunch of weird bugs and limitations, that in the end just led to them being home-made rpm-ostree. Compared to the infrastructure at Universal Blue and NixOS, it feels rather kludge. Though it is at least more understandable than NixOS and it does come out, unlike the delayware that VanillaOS has become.

[@giveaway4002]

GREAT

[@tomhighsmith]

I just spent a few days installing and trying Linux mint. My findings were negative, very slow startup, everything hangs for no reason? No response to mouse movements or keyboard. It was a somewhat older Asus laptop, but it runs Win 10 very well.