[sf-lug] Audacity brouhaha, the Flintstones meta distro

Tue Jul 6 07:58:54 PDT 2021

On 7/5/21 10:39 PM, aaronco36 wrote:
> Besides Bobbie S's SF-LUG post at [01] with the link to 'Audacity is 
> now a Possible Spyware, Remove it ASAP' [2], there are now also at 
> least these webpages concerning the current ongoing brouhaha with 
> Muse's Audacity:
> - Audacity's Desktop Privacy Notice from this Friday July 2nd, 2021 [03]
> - The Register's 'Not for children: Audacity fans drop the f-bomb 
> after privacy agreement changes' [04]
> - Reddit's latest 'Audacity and all related' meta link [05]
> - At least Reddit's 'Audacity spying on me' [06], '4 Solutions for 
> Audacity's New Privacy Policy (Data Collection/Sharing/selling) On 
> Linux' [07], and 'Open Source Audacity Alternatives' [08]
> - Audacity's PR spin 'Clarification of Privacy Policy #1225' on GitHub 
> [09]
> - GitHub's 'New privacy policy is completely unacceptable! #1213' [10]
> - GitHub 'temporary-audacity / audacity' project, a.k.a., 'Audacity 
> Fork without any Sentry Telemetry or Crash Reporting' [11]
>
> Anyone else want to add anything more on this?
>
> ---
>
> Latter 1/2-title is alluding to the Town of Bedrock of the 1960's 
> animated TV series The Flintstones [12].
>
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> from [13]:
>> Well you can read this review of Bedrock Linux at the following URL:
> <https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20210705>

     I think the reference is Geological rather than TV Cartoon comedy.
     This is more like the One Ring in which all other Linux distributions
are absorbed into the Strata overlaying the Bedrock Linux.
     Fascistic Linux would be unpopular so another name was chosen.
     Sauron Linux would not be either maybe Ring Linux and call them
Settings or Bands rather than Strata.
     <https://bedrocklinux.org/0.7/basic-usage.html>
Is part of the pages I searched thru and read a good deal of but where
I did not find .iso or .img files.

>>
>> Bedrock ain't ready for prime time yet but it is an interesting attempt
>> to deal with Linux distribution fragmentation.   It takes an installed
>> Linux and converts it to it own special format adding a division called
>> strata.  Then you can add strata until you have every tool you can
>> find of interest from every distribution which you install to subsequent
>> strata.  Seems to be systemd dependent from the list of compatible
>> distributions but maybe that could be overcome.
>
> Now quoting Comment 8 from DistroWatch [12] 'Bedrock Linux sounds cool 
> but...' (by Bobbie Sellers on 2021-07-05 06:32:06 GMT from United 
> States):
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> It is interesting I but is it ready for casual use? I rather doubt it.
> If it was easy to find as a download I might even try the beta in 
> VirtualBox but I did not spot the .iso file or .img file in much too 
> long an exploration of its site reading introductory material but 
> finding no image.
>
> By the way I have tried Qubes but I found it confusing as I lose the 
> ability to multitask a bit more every day.

     That is me, not my computers or PCLinux,  losing multitasking.
>
> Better news is the fresh release of PCLinuxOS 64 2021 iso files.
> But will get back to you on that.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> In any case and re: "the fresh release of PCLinuxOS 64 2021 iso 
> files", it seems from references [15] - [18] that PCLinuxOS is in a 
> sense continuing to mirror more popular distros such as Linux Mint by 
> having two pretty-desktop ISO offerings and a single lightweight 
> desktop offering; KDE,Mate,XFCE for PCLinuxOS and Cinnamon,Mate,XFCE 
> for Linux Mint.
>
> -Aaron
>
         No those more popular distributions picked up having multiple 
Display Managers from Mandriva
and the KDE PLasma 5, the Mate, and XFCE echo that pretty well.   On 
Mandriva the second choice
was Gnome which is now Mate, a fork of Gnome 2.4.  I used that Gnome for 
several weeks yeas ago
and not impressed and happy to return to the use if KDE 3.x.x. That was 
a large download and
just fit on a DVD.  But you can pick and chose, if you use a 64 bit x86 
computer from the
list at 
<https://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/64bit/>

     Now the community PCLinux offering are LXQT, and Trinity, a fork of 
KDE 3.5.9 , and OpenBox.
the Trinity in 2 sizes as is the OpenBox.  At the URL below they are 
neatly listed for download.
<https://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/community/>

   The big difference from Mandriva is another 10 years on from the last 
release of Mandriva
which would not run on my machine (of the time) and that Mandriva 
smushed all the
Desktop Environments onto one disk  and clever folks who paid attention 
to the on screen
  instructions could chose.   Also they got all the supported locales 
onto the same disk.

     PCLinuxOS 64 separates the Desktop Environments and pulls in the 
locales other than
Engish via download from repositories.
     One user in Brazil publishes a of Brazilian versions of PCLinux but 
hasn't been around
lately.

     Maybe the best thing about PCLinux is the user Forum where the 
people who contribute
to the distro and who are having problems with it come together in 
amicable fashion.
IF DSL was still being developed and discussed here Rick Moen comes to 
mind as
he was a moving force in that distribution.

Just for fun:  how is a coffee drinker like a Mentat.
<http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/071004.html>

>
> =================================================================
> REFERENCES
> =================================================================
> [01]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2021q3/015327.html
> [02]https://fosspost.org/audacity-is-now-a-spyware/
> [03]https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/
> [04]https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/audacity/
> [05]https://www.reddit.com/r/audacity/
> [06]https://www.reddit.com/r/audacity/comments/oddxxv/audacity_spying_on_me/ 
>
> [07]https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/odthun/4_solutions_for_audacitys_new_privacy_policy_data/ 
>
> [08]https://www.reddit.com/r/audacity/comments/odwuvn/open_source_audacity_alternatives/ 
>
> [09]https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225
> [10]https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213
> [11]https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity
> [12]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053502/
> [13]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2021q3/015329.html
> [14]https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20210705
> [15]https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos
> [16]https://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=10
> [17]https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint
> [18]https://linuxmint.com/download.php
> =================================================================
>
> aaronco36 at sdf.org
>
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     Bobbie Sellers - needs some Spice and I don't mean coffee