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antonyh

386 karma · joined January 4, 2012

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antonyh··on Linux From Scratch ends SysVinit support
All I want is init scripts and X11, but the horizons are shrinking. I've already compromised with systemd, and I don't like it. I see BSD in my future, or at least a linux distro from the list here https://nosystemd.org/ - probably Gentoo. Nothing to stop me, absolutely nothing at all. I just need a few days free to backup/wipe/reinstall/reconfigure/restore_data and I'll be good. Better make that a few weeks. Maybe on my next machine build. It's not easy, but I build machines for long term use.

As for Linux from Scratch - This is something that's been on my radar, but without the part I'm truly interested in (learning more about SysV) then I'm less inclined to bother. I don't buy the reason of Gnome/KDE - isn't LfS all about the basics of the distro than building a fully fledged system? If it's the foundation for the other courses, but it still feels weak that it's so guided by a future GUI requirement for systemd when it's talking about building web servers and the like in a 500Mb or less as the motivation.

antonyh··on Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage
I was kind of hoping this would let me have ads that I get paid for.
antonyh··on Ratchets in software development (2021)
One would hope code reviews could pick up these deceptions, but then again they would spot the use of forbidden functions too albeit much later in the dev cycle than is optimal. Breaking the build early is a solid idea, before it's even committed to source control. No different to applying PMD, CPD, Checkstyle, eslint, yamllint, other linters, but with a custom rule. I really want to use this pattern, there's semi-deprecated code in so many codebases.

For more control and to close that loophole, it could be possible to put annotations/comments in the code to `/* ignore this line */` in the same way that eslint does? Or have a config that lists how many uses in each file, instead of one-per-project?? There's always refinements, but I'm sure that for many projects the simplicity of one counter is more than enough, unless you have devious developers.

antonyh··on Amazon cuts 16k jobs
Amazon UK is the only reliable source of Pentel Energel 0.7 Green rollerball pens. For everything else, there's other places.
antonyh··on Tesla ending Models S and X production
Any other car company would create an S / X MkII.
antonyh··on Amazon cuts 16k jobs
I'm outside the US, and boycotting Amazon for anything I can get elsewhere (which turns out isn't everything, but best efforts and all that). The shift towards AI is either a very bad thing (as per Microslop and the raft of recent articles about quality dropping), or just a cheap excuse to replace expensive staff with cheaper people.

Alternatively they may be using AI in HR as part of the decision making, and it's made the determination that these folk can go "because of AI" based on past firings and performance since then.

antonyh··on Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
The only tools pinning me to Windows were photo editing apps (Capture One, Adobe), and some music apps (Reason, a whole bunch of other apps) that I barely used. Cut over to Debian about 4 years ago when my laptop started having thermal issues and Covid encouraged me to buy a tower desktop machine. Haven't looked back, it's been so much more productive. The strange and toxic-to-me design choices in the Win11 UI helped motivate the rapid transition.

The only thing that's caused any issue is power management, I'm fairly sure it's not optimal, but it's still better than Win11. That's purely down to lack of effort on my part, and basically setting it for max performance because it's not important to me for a desktop machine. Everything (and I mean everything - sound, video, wifi, bluetooth) else is 100% out of the box working on mid-range commodity hardware, albeit with excessive RAM for my needs. Some of it is a bit clumsy looking in places, but it did look weird on Windows too with some of the apps.

When I did have trouble, it was not like I could get support from Microsoft as the community forum is a joke, but with Linux at least I stand a fighting chance of working around any potential problems.

Is there anything on Windows I miss? No.

Is there anything on Mac that I miss? Yes, there's a few things that I like about MacOS (pre-glass) but I have a MacBook Air for those which is good for occasional use but not as a daily driver.

antonyh··on Devuan – Debian Without Systemd
It should have been an option, even dumb old CSV if it needed structured data. I didn't bother trying to natively ship and used promtail instead, to get it into Loki, so I could query via Grafana.
antonyh··on Devuan – Debian Without Systemd
Wow what an idea, that would work so well and give me a trivial way to build apps to do alerts, monitoring, shipping to remotes, and whatnot in virtually any language.
antonyh··on Devuan – Debian Without Systemd
Love/hate systemd as I might, it's been rock solid everywhere I've used it, and I've used it heavily. It has it's quirks, as does the init-scripts that came before, and launchd on OSX (not sure what the modern equivalent is for MacOS).

However, the systemd journal raw format is binary data and would much rather a plain text log. All things being equal I'd rather deal with human readable files.

antonyh··on Proton spam and the AI consent problem
I got the same email on the same date. Unsubscribe told me it was from the 'important announcements' list - I fail to see how this could possibly fall into that category.

I guess I can't have important announcements from Proton in the future if it's polluted with these low value messages.

antonyh··on JPEG XL Test Page
Epiphany (aka Gnome Web) on Linux shows this correctly, as expected for a Webkit-based browser.
antonyh··on Gnome and Mozilla Discuss Proposal to Disable Middle Mouse Paste on Linux
Thanks for confirming, I look forward to one day getting Wayland to run properly for me, but that's a whole different story. I'm just glad that middle click paste works and that it's not really an 'X11-ism'.
antonyh··on Gnome and Mozilla Discuss Proposal to Disable Middle Mouse Paste on Linux
Wonderful, another default I'll have to change to have the correct behaviour for me.

However... "This is an X11ism, originally an xsetting 1 which frequently results is in unexpected behavior when people pressing the middle mouse button."

Does this even work on Wayland? I'm still using X11 for many reasons, including highlight/middle-click-paste.

antonyh··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)
Nothing on the scale of most the things mentioned here, but I'm trying to assemble the first version of my digital garden to publish online a bunch of notes I've collected over many years. I'm also trying to put together a workable system to catalogue and index hundreds of thousands of digital images scattered across multiple devices so I can deduplicate them and collate them effective. Digital Librarian is not a hat I ever thought I'd end up wearing, but I refuse to buy more 18Tb HDDs and still not have any means to locate pictures in a meaningful way.
antonyh··on Wayland Nvidia
I can run 99% on Linux + AMD + X11, on Ubuntu 24. The only problematic one is Witcher 3 which insists on Wayland which breaks everything else. Even the UT5 titles work well enough, but then again our gaming is not your gaming and you might be more demanding that we are.

I'm trying to recall how NVidia behaved for games, but my daily driver is an old 1050 Ti that's been rock solid for years now, also X11.

Maybe the problem is Wayland not NVidia?

antonyh··on Wayland Nvidia
Having failed to get Wayland working on Debian Trixie with a 1050 Ti as an upgrade from X11, I've given up for now and will try again when I switch to AMD. This is a workstation not used for games so it'd be good to have Wayland working right but I'm not wasting time fighting it, and it'll get the GPU from the gaming rig when it becomes due nullifying the problem.

What I don't get is if these are proscribed steps (and they do read as such) why are they not automated with the module install? Why are we still fighting these issues if the 'workaround' is linear and well described? Is it as flimsy a reason as "write-an-article, collect-advertising-revenue" rather than contribute code to the installer?

antonyh··on Games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton
Implying that Linux gamers have to play with cheaters. It may as well not be playable at all.
antonyh··on Cloudflare Global Network experiencing issues
Maybe not, but they are approaching it. I wouldn't use it for anything funded with my own cash, I no longer recommend it as a first choice, but I'm not suggesting it gets replaced yet. It's somewhat in the 'legacy tech' category now in terms of how I perceive it and deal with it.
antonyh··on I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla
How much is BigAI paying Moz to integrate these things? I has to be about the dollar surely?
antonyh··on Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
OS/Xamp, pronounced Oh-sex-amp :o)
antonyh··on Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
If it doesn't run on Windows, how can it call itself Winamp? Macosamp makes more sense.
antonyh··on Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
It's a clone with a stolen name, and given that it's not been abandoned it's likely they'll come down on this like a bag of hammers.
antonyh··on Winamp clone in Swift for macOS
Apple Music would seem the obvious choice.
antonyh··on Steam Machine
Absolutely is fragmented. Even though I own a Wii I've never played Zelda or any Mario games, and I don't think I know anyone who owns a modern Nintendo. We all live in bubbles. And we change bubbles occasionally; I no longer play Fifa or CoD mostly because of the kernel anti-cheat. I got bored of CSGO. I play less gory games now because of family. We play less Lego games because we grow up.
antonyh··on Steam Machine
The problem for me was more a software issue than hardware or cost. It (Quest 2) just felt awkward, the software selection was meh, IPD bad for me, resolution only so-so, but most of all it felt isolated from the rest of my gear. I've been planning to give it another go recently but don't have much enthusiasm for it, but a Steam headset with my collection is something I'm very keen to try.
antonyh··on Checkout.com hacked, refuses ransom payment, donates to security labs
Probably, I'm not sure it's not https://gcscc.ox.ac.uk/

I don't think it's https://www.infosec.ox.ac.uk/

There's also this AI security research lab, https://lasr.plexal.com/

It looks like Oxford are quite busy in this space.

antonyh··on Steam Frame
I have a Quest 2 that I don't care for, so it's caught me somewhat offguard how much I want this. The whole set please. I thought I'd just want the controller, but everything here looks exciting to me.
antonyh··on Steam Machine
Rumour has it that after the Crowdstrike fiasco future versions of Windows won't allow kernel level modules. I can only hope this is true if it kills off the main reason titles don't work on Linux as a side effect. I'd have bought BF6, some version of EAFC, and more.
antonyh··on Checkout.com hacked, refuses ransom payment, donates to security labs
I don't think they meant OXCIS, that seems to be a centre for Islamic Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Centre_for_Islamic_Stud...

I can't quite work out who they donated to - it seems there are a number of Oxford Uni cybersec/infosec units. Any idea which one?

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