So my #arch#linux just catastrophically self-destructed. I was using arch with the yubikey full-disk encryption package, when the machine hung and crashed during a system update. The machine crashed exactly after the old initramfs files were cleaned up, and before the new ones were written to disk. Since the yubkikey fde thing stores the seed ("challenge") for the luks key in the initramfs, all copies of the seed are gone now, and the data on that disk is unrecoverable.
Update to the update: The creators of the #arch#linux yubikey full disk encryption thing have responded to my bug report with what is essentially a shrug emoji and the line "I hope you had [a backup]".
I don't think that's an appropriate reponse from the maintainers of a critical piece of software like this. I think if you choose to release software like this, you have a responsibility to either make it good or to at the very least warn users that it's bad.
Saturday desktop and laptop #arch#linux updates complete. Now to relax and figure out what to do for the rest of the day. I was thinking it was going to take all day to help my friends move and we knocked it out in - literally - 20 minutes.
How to quickly check if your #linux system may be affected by the recent XZ utils backdoor.
Update: (thx @scy) I've been advised not to run "xz --version" because the full extend of this backdoor is still being researched. Instead use your package manager to check the version, i.e. for apt that would be:
apt list liblzma5
very bad: versions 5.6.0 or 5.6.1
5.4.6. or earlier - probably ok, no one knows for sure right now, keep an eye out for updates
@chris Hi. Fwiw, whist using the xz --version string will suffice for many distros, it's inadequate for #Arch based ones, as here the important detail is revealed by the 4th significant figure, whereas version only reports the first 3.
I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit...
I assume that Manj follows #Arch and doesn't improvise on sys dependencies. Definitely not poor.
Arch-archives by date, means you can build a system exactly as it was fully upgraded on a specific date, and the system works just like it used to.
Other systems that may carry 3 versions of the same library because different sw use different versions are the ones with the problem. Except for redundancy and space the system is not very coherent..
(Constructively) What is your least favorite distro & why?
I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit...