Debian has a good page on it and how their set up works:

https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot

Edit: Ubuntu is derived from Debian and then Mint from Ubuntu, but they may have their own differing approachsnto secure boot.

If your linux OS supports secure boot then it does help improve security.

The differing opinions on it are often because it can cause issues in some set ups and in a default set up its only a marginal security gain.

It will add a layer of security at boot by preventing 3rd party unauthenticated processes / software from running and creates a secure boot chain from your BIOS up to the OS. But the default set up also means other authenticated OSes like Windows can be run, so its not as secure as it could be.

To really secure it you could create your own keys and then only your OS could boot. But as a linux newbie thats likely way more than you need and there are risks if you fuck up, to the point of accidentally locking you out of your own machine

So your choice is really just the default set up being on or off. On is a bit more secure but if you experience any issues then turn it off and don’t worry about it.

Its not doing nothing. Linux uses a Microsoft provided key for initial BIOS authentication and then has its own tree of keys that it uses for security. So it does have the benefits of locking out malicious code/processes even in a default set up.

Using your own secure boot and TPM keys is certainly more secure, but it doesnt follow that secure boot with the default set up is doing nothing to help secure your system at boot.

Linux supports secure boot so if a distro supports it it’s worth using it.

Linux can use a key signed by Microsoft in a preboot loader and then itself perform its own key authentications for all other processes and software (a shim), forming a secure chain from the BIOS up during boot. You dont have to play with creating your own keys.

So if your OS supports secure boot it is worth using it for added security at boot. Its far from perfect in this set up (as there are plenty of windows OS that also have permission to boot) but it is better than a free for all without it even if the risk is low for most desktop users.

You can go further and generate your own keys and use secure boot and TPM together to lock down the system further but you dont have to to get some benefits from secure boot.

If youre new to linux, then I’d say Linux Mint is the place to start. Use it with XFCE if light weight is what you want.

Not having cutting edge packages is a red herring - you really dont want bleeding edge as thats where the errors and breakages happen. Mint is reliable and secure which is what you need when starting out. You dont want to be a beta tester. Dont confuse latest packages for most secure on linux - plenty of packages have stable older versions which get security patches.

Mint is also very popular, with a huge range of easy to find resources to help set it up the way you want it.

Wayland is also a red herring - its the future but its just not really ready yet. Yes its more secure due to how its built but the scenario you’re using linux in the particular security benefits you’re hearing about are not really going to impact you day to day. And the trade off is that Wayland is still buggy, with many apps still not working seamlessly. Most apps are designed for X11 and x-wayland is an imperfect bridge between the two. I’m not saying Wayland is bad - it’s actually good and is the future. But you dont want to be problem solving Wayland issues as a linux newbie. Dont see Wayland as essentialnfor an good stable and secure linux install.

Personally I wouldn’t recommend Fedora - it has a short update cycle and tends to favour newer bleeding edge tech and paclages. Thats not a bad thing but if what you want is a stable, reliable low footprint system and to learn the basics, in wouldn’t stray into Fedora just yet. It has a 13 month cycle of complete distro upgrades and distro upgrades are the times when there are big package changes and the biggest chances of something breaking. The previous version loses support after a month so you do need to upgrade to stay secure. Most people won’t have issues between upgrades but with any distro when you do a big upgrade things can easily break of you’ve customised things and set up things differently to the base. It can be annoying having to fix thongs and get them back how you want them, and worse can lead to reinstalls. Thats nor a uniquely Fedora problem, but the risk is higher woth faster updating and bleeding edge distros. And in fairness there are lots of fedora spins that might mitigate that - but then you risk being on more niche setups so support can be harder to find when you need it.

For comparison the latest version of Mint supported through til 2029, and major releases also get security patches and support for years even after newer versions are released. There is much less pressure to upgrade.

Its interesting - the article has taken one view of this as the the target being Palestinian children.

However reading this, the target actually seems to he the “prank” victims. Young people are goading older israelis into showing how angry, biased and racist they are when asked to help Palestinian children, and then sharing that and laughing at them?

It feels like Israeli children are mocking Israeli adults. Its a bit crass but the targets aren’t really Palestinian children. If anything its showing just how racist Israeli adults are.

Of course there is also the disturbing element of Israeli children seeing this all as just a joke, and not seeming to care about what this means about their parents and the country they live in. To see people get so viscerally angry when asked to help starving children is shocking yet I don’t think the Israeli youth seem atnall disrtubed by how hateful the people they’re talking to really are.

I’m not aware of an alternative TV App for android tv. On my android TV live tv is also wrapped within the android interface but other sources like HDMI inputs are not.

If you can switch to HDMI sources outside the android apps then maybe the best thing to do is get a separate basic satellite tuner device?

It seems shitty that google are effectively hiding your inbuilt tv tuner behind an app with all their advertising and other crap.

For your second question, a window manager is the specific system that controls the placement of windows on an X11 desktop.

On a X11 based system, X11 is the windowing system (interacting with the video card) and a window manager is a system sitting on top of that laying out the windows and interacting with the user and other programmes. It is a separate programme on top of the X11 system, and communicates with X11, and X11 is the programme that communicates with the graphics card.

On Wayland, instead of 2 separate systems there can be 1 combined windowing systen that is both the window manager but also directly communicates with the hardware in a standardised way using the Wayland protocols. This is called a Wayland compositor.

Meanwhile a desktop environment is the whole desktop - that includes a window manager or compositor but also lots of other tools and software that together make a full desktop experience.

An example is KDE - KDE is a full desktop environment. It uses its own x11 window manger called kwin (and also able to be a wayland compositor), but it also uses a whole range of other tools alongside that to give you panels, widgets, desktop icons, a clock, menus, settings etc collectively forming Plasma desktop. And then on top of Plasma there is a whole range of bespoke programmes that form the full deskop experience - like Dolphin (file manager), Kate (text editor) and so on. All that software is designed to work seamlessly with the KDE family of tools and systems. The window manager, the desktop tools and the other programmes together form the whole desktop environment. But other desktop environments software will also work - for example Gnome based software can also run with KDE without issue and vice versa.

Gnome has its own window manager/compositor, and it’s own widgets and tools to make a desktop, and it’s own bespoke software to make a whole desktop environment.

And there are many others.

So in summary:

• Window Manager - the specific system that controls the placment and look of the individual windows talking to X11 which then talks to the hardware

• Wayland Compositor - the system that controls the placement and look of windows, using wayland protocols to speak to the hardware

• Desktop Environment - the whole desktop including the Window manager but also lots of other programmes and tools that form the basic desktop (such as a panel, menus, desktop icons) and the whole environment (other software like a file manager, text editor, calculator etc). KDE and Gnome are examples of popular desktop environments

You can use “about:memory” to run a tool in Firefox to reduce memory use in a session. I’m not sure how helpful that will be.

Unfortunately the next best answer i can offer is probably “close tabs and use bookmarks” but I douht that is what you want.

No, because it suits Reddit to not have people leaving Reddit to another social network via links.

Sorry I originally posted around permissions as I misunderstood; deleted that. The solution is below:

If it’s a user installed flatpak you should find the config files in:

~/.local/share/flatpak/overrides

Edit the document for the flatseal app. Thats where flatseal or the flatpak override tool makes it’s config changes for user installed flatpaks (including env overrides). You can also delete the flatseal file (which will be the name of the flatpak - com.github.tchx84.Flatseal) "to set back to default.

There will only be a few files - files are only created when there are overrides set. Anything running default permissions/config won’t have an override file.

EDIT: For completeness, for System wide flatpaks all the files are in:

/var/lib/flatpak

Just to explain why they’re stored there: you’re trying to change the config of the sandbox itself not the app. Flatpak manages the sandbox and it is flatpak that needs to know what permission an app should have. Any files in “~/.var/app/…” pertain to the app itself inside it’s sandbox.

deleted by creator

So from what I’ve seen on Lemmy over the last year is that the quantity of posts and variety of topics feels like it’s going up. I certainly enjoy engaging on here.

Will it stagnate? I’m not sure. It might be that the monthly user levels stabilise but thats not the same as stagnate. If people are engaged and enjoying their time then it has value.

My feeling is that Lemmy will slowly grow over time. I don’t see it becoming a huge platform like Reddit anytime soon. Its feasible but it feels like for now it will remain niche.

But I also dont want to it suddenly become huge. I was on reddit for a long time and I saw it evolve from being something small and interesting to a behemoth and enshittification to make money. Small is sometimes better, and small or stable in no way means stagnation.

Why does it matter? All that matters is that plenty of people do use Linux - literally millions of people. There is a healthy vibrant ecosystem of distros, and devs working on Linux.

I don’t care if people aren’t interested in Linux. I’m much more interested in ensuring those people who choose Linux are happy because that is good for all.of us.

And the best thing anyone can do is donate to the projects they care about. That helps projects fund development and support. It’s much more useful than trying to convince people to try Linux when they have no real interest in it.

This was a new one for me and I’ve been playing with linux for years. Also really enjoyed her video style so delved into some others.

Thanks for sharing!

You have so many options because your system has a lot of audio output options available. Presumably your mother board or your graphics card display outputs given the “Navi” label.

As others have said, from that section of the settings you should be able to click on the “proaudio” drop downs on the right and disable any you don’t want to see.

The Navi outputs are the audio available via your hdmi and display ports - you may want to keep those on if you ever want audio from the screens directly but if you don’t ever use audio from your displays you can disable the audio outputs. Most people don’t use screens with integrated audio output but some may plug headsets into their screens via 3.5mm cables so may want it. But that’s an usual use case - most would plug into the PC itself.

The starship/matisse HD audio is your audio jack on the front of the PC (often USB provided) - I’d keep that one available if you ever plug in your headphones. Personally I have my noise cancelling headphones plugged in via audio jack - you get perfect uninterrupted audio and longer between recharges as the headset doesn’t have to use Bluetooth. However may not be desirable if you’re using a mic on your gaming headset too.

You then have your Bluetooth device itself which is the gaming headset.

The other devices below that are your microphones. Again you will have multiple inputs which you can disable if you don’t use them.

Just remember in the future if you ever want to plug in something that you’ve disabled these devices here.

Disable the Firefox Color extension to use the light/dark themes.

Or use Firefox Color itself to change the colour scheme to what you want/

Yeah this looks right. The program is launching other tools, in this case when it gets to CEF (chromium embedded framework) it is looking in the default path it’s picked up when the .desktop file is launching it. So it’s essentially looking directly under /home/werecat/ instead of where the /Greyjay programme is running from.

So if you specify the path in the .desktop file it should fix the problem.

An alternative route of that doesn’t fix it might be to edit any config files (if it has them) to ensure they explicitly point to the correct Grayjay directory.

I’m using OpenSuSE Tumbleweed and can recommend that. It’s user friendly, especially with the powerful Yast tools for configuring a lot of things. I’m using KDE but it does have a good Gnome spin.

All of the tools you’re using will work without issue, and I have an Nvidia 3070 which I’ve set up without issue with the official Nvidia drivers. I game a fair bit with steam and everything works well.

If you’re not a fan of rolling release then OpenSuSE Leap is the same but point release.

OpenSuSE has good official repos and large variety of community repos, plus Flatpak if you need it. The only difficulties I’ve had are with Python which is installed in a weird way to allow multiple versions to be installed for devs - it can be fiddly installing python software dependencies into the right places, especially if they want you using pip.

Also you said you use VirtualBox - I used to use it but have switched to KVM and strongly recommend it. Guest systems - particularly Linux guests - work better in KVM. Worth exploring in your next system - in OpenSuSE it’s been a doddle to set up but should be in most systems.

I see people recommending immutable desktops - I’d be cautious about switching your desktop to that if you don’t have experience of that kind of system. They have strengths but definite drawbacks too. I’d try another distro not too disimilar to Ubuntu before exploring the world of immutable distros.

Maybe try an immutable system in a Virutal machine. I’ve played a bit with them and they’ve not been for me - too locked down and if you like to tinker or try niche things you’ll find yourself fighting the OS. Also Flatpak is convenient but it’s not the ideal or most secure way to be running all your software, and lots of software isn’t available as Flatpak.

And for Nix, it is very good but can be used on many distros. You can get another traditional distro and try it out - if you like it by all means switch to NixOS but you don’t have to use NixOS to use Nix. Again it seems too big of a leap to go all in to that on your main desktop. I’d make a smaller change unless you’re open to reinstalling your main desktop a few times trialling bigger shifts.

There is a world where this guy is mentally ill - schizophrenia for example - and this is yet another example of the mentally ill falling through the gaping cracks in the US health care system.

To not dispose of the weapon or the fake ID, and continue wearing the same clothes suggests irrational behaviour.

Unfortunately the US legal system only seemingly regards mental ill health as a defense if you’re very rich and lawyered up.