@MechMK1 > Windows is just as secure as Linux is, depending on how you set it up. The fact that most malware targets Windows stems from the fact that 3 out of 4 desktop PCs run Windows.

I disagree. Although Windows may be secure, once you add the "depending on how you set it up" qualifier, Linux can be made much more secure due to its configurability.

And "most malware" is better off as "most desktop malware".

@J-- remember I bought some switches to try to fix my 'spare' chinese mechanical? They were listed as "cherry blue"

they're some chinese brand called B-Sun

ouch

@forest naw

I was actually expecting them to be fake, and they were cheap

Why would you buy them then, and not the real stuff?

@forest uh... to repair a keyboard with dodgy offbrand switches... ?

oh

Which I don't really need but soldering can be relaxing :D

Soldering used to be relaxing to me too, but then I burned myself.

Oh that happens some times

also these cost about 15 cents a switch

I don't even think its worth complaining :D

I just buy one good keyboard and use it forever.

Oh I have a nice keyboard

this is a very much a "how bad could it be" project

haha

Like keeping a car running even when it's falling apart.

hmm

Not a bad analogy

or walking into a car lot, and buying the modern day equivilent of a trabant, when you have a perfectly good, reliable car

so you can mess with it and not worry about blowing up the engine

uh

I have a 80 dollar windows tablet here somewhere

runs windows 8 great, dosen't have the storage for the 'latest' windows 10, and runs like molassus on the last verion that would run :D

I obviously don't that that all the time. I have a budget for these things :D

Wasn't there a project someone did which got Linux to run on an Intel 4004 or something equally insane? They wrote an ARM emulator on the tiny MCU and it took something like 12 hours to boot and several seconds to display the prompt again after a command finished executing.

(An emulator because obviously there's no gcc build target for 4004...)

I vaguely remember this :D

But don't forget, I'm mainly a desktoppy person :D

I'm a servery/embedded devicesy person. :P

(Though I do use *nix on the desktop too because screw Windows)

well some of my projects are 'server'y but running linux on a dead badger and the like is beyond my ken

>not porting TempleOS to your t-shirt

pleb

@J-- You may like this: github.com/GrapheneOS/hardened_malloc/blob/main/…

Since you were talking about GrapheneOS.

(that's strcat's hardened malloc implementation)

@forest Yeah, you're right about the Windows/Linux thing

But the idea that Windows is inherently insecure and a breeze to hack into, while Linux is this incredibly impenetrable fortress just isn't true

@MechMK1 well also MS as a company can often be... not very savory

There's lots of reasons to choose to use an OS - not all of them security related

100% agreed

they can be ideological, or even cause its simpler

The only reason I use windows is because of videogames

I tend to run my servers on ubuntu cause I'm familiar with it as a server platform

(which is apparently the same reason SE runs on windows :D )

Servers, absolutely. Windows Server is horrible

lol

You need to know how to wrangle the beast

everything is terrible

former/future work uses oracle on solaris and... its an unreliable dumpster fire at times too

A french kit, but no german kit?

@JourneymanGeek nope, look at those: pcgamesn.com/playstation-keycaps

PS2 keys.... but it's a group buy, and looks like one-and-done

I'm not the super custom keyboards guy :D

^ he is :D

I saw those on my phone and thought "the guys on DMZ will like those"

they are really very nice, and got me searching for mechanical keybs

but first I need to upgrade my cpu and cooling

@J-- and delivery times...

so take an astronomical delivery time and dial it to 11...

I should set a group buy down here, charge in BRL, and buy a dozen, let them ship to a PO Box in Miami, fly there, grab them, fly back home...

people do that when buying iThings...

it's cheaper to fly to Miami and buy 2 iSomethings than buying them down here

the problem is that the PS2 keyb costs as much as a month's wages

and if I put a markup over it, it goes from expensive to "wth?"

our month wages paycheck is R$ 1050, and the keyb without taxes and shipping is R$ 650... shipping is around USD 30, so R$ 160 more... Taxes are 60% on the total, so R$ 490 in taxes... total R$ 1300.

yes, it's huge... because in some places, you spend a week with 500 dollars living like a king

there's too much destruction of wealth here. I was talking to my wife yesterday about a company that paid college for all his employees, no questions asked. after 10 years doing so, the Workers Court came to his door telling him that paying college was "hidden income", fined him and asked him to pay tax on all those 10 years of college

he had to close the company and fired everyone

a personal friend worked on a small cosmetics company, and they were all very ethical. they almost closed the company because the fire department wouldn't give them a fire permit unless they paid a bribe... every time they came to inspection, they said "this window is on the wrong wall, put there or we won't release the permit" until they came next month and said the opposite...

company owner refused to pay the bribe for an year and was fined every month until he gave up and paid.

he was between closing down for good and paying the bribe, and said he was very sad about doing so, but he had to keep his employees earning money

@J-- I am applying to move to Canada, but I got caught on a catch-22 situation: I need a job offer to get a visa, and I need a visa to get a job offer.

I check every box on the immigration form EXCEPT the job offer. and I have some companies interested on my curriculum, but they cannot offer me a job unless I have the visa.

they can hire foreigners, but they have to prove to workers dept that they tried for a long time and couldn't find a Canadian willing to work, and the dept can dispute the claim even a long time after

so they don't want to risk unless they are really in need

Svalbard is like that...

but there aren't that much job openings there

and the living costs are really astronomical

that would be nice, but aren't going to work because of economics

there aren't enough "good places to live" for everyone, so some will get there, some won't

even if those on the good places will want to share their place, they will end up putting rules to not lead to the "disaster of the commons" kind of problem

and that will end up leading to borders and access control in the end

"this is a pristine beach, so it's forbidden to bring dogs", and that's a border... "this is a nice park, so no littering and litters will be banned" is another border... "my father and his friends spent a decade planting this park and cleaning it, so me and his friends' family have priority here"

and if you don't have those borders, those doing good things just give up and the world turns bad for everyone

@MechMK1 Yep that's absolutely correct. Windows actually has some really neat mitigations that Linux lacks. The biggest reason Linux i a win for security in my opinion is that it is configurable. You can strip it down and remove insecure drivers/code/etc, and patch it yourself.

@JourneymanGeek Why do you use Ubuntu and not Debian? I was under the impression that Ubuntu was better for desktops but that Debian was always a win for severs. How do they really differ?

@forest newer packages, at the time, more predictable releases for major versions/ "LTS"

ah