Hi all,

I'm doing my first round of distro hopping, looking for something stable and falls into the "just works" category. I'm not looking to tinker. Trying to see if something will tempt me away from Mint, and would like the added security of a rolling release.

I'm testing out OpenSuse TW in VirtualBox and the second thing I tried to install was Google Earth Pro, which I do use regularly enough that it's maybe not a dealbreaker, but it's a check point for testing out a distro.

Short version is that it's a mismatch of repos and libraries and the flatback says no-go because of a bad executable stack. I've spent days off and on trying to reinstall and fix in a way that works based on rare and meager instances years ago of people running into the same problem. Nothing works and I'm apparently not advanced enough of a Linux user to wrap my head around how to approach this other than stumbling down a few paths that don't work.

Is this something to be expected with TW? Or is this somehow unique to Google Earth Pro? Or is this a VirtualBox issue? (it shouldn't be).

Any help is appreciated.

Based on a recent post now deleted from !privacy@lemmy.ml, which was itself based on this article, it sounds like there's some misunderstandings and misconceptions about how Wifi Positioning (WPS) works, and how to mitigate it to the best of one's ability.

First off, Apple and Google are the primary culprits here. Every time someone who has not adjusted their settings on their phone and has location data on connects to a wireless access point of any kind, Apple and Google collect that data and location data.

This is 100% different than wardrivers, who go around scanning and mapping SSIDs and BSSIDs.

After research from the University of Maryland showed how deep the WPS database goes, they suggested the following ways to mitigate having your wifi mapped:

-Rename your network to end with _nomap, so like "FBISurveilanceVan_nomap" would be how to do that. Larger WPS operators honor it as an opt‑out because these are automated systems. This cuts you out of many crowdsourced location DBs. This is not foolproof, but it will handle 99.9% of any use cases from anyone here.

-> This doesn't prevent wardrivers from indexing your wifi. This prevents your Mother in Law or cousin that has their iPhone or Android phone with all the original settings and bloatware from letting either company index you by using the location data on their phones.

Next...

-Turn off SSID broadcast if you can. This cuts down on lazy wardrivers scanning unhidden SSIDs.

-Change the name of your SSID and router's MAC/BSSID regularly.

-> This doesn't prevent sophisticated wardrivers from indexing your wifi. It prevents lazy ones from indexing it, as well as any personal devices that index wifi signals based on simply seeing the broadcast SSID, which is a thing.

If you plan on hosting family for the holidays, now is a great time to do this.

This NOT a 100% invisible wifi network solution. This is a "best as we can get" solution. If you want truly invisible internet connections, get shielded RJ45 cable like you live in a radio blackout zone.

How to check if your wifi has been indexed? https://wigle.net/ is a good starting point. I've never had a wifi network appear on there, so apparently I'm doing something right.

Screenshot of my partitions. Partition 1 if EFI, Partition 2 is Mint Boot sector I believe. Partition 3 is everything else.

I'm looking to give OpenSUSE TW and Fedora a try specifically. HD is encrypted from install, and I didn't know to put /home on its own partition.

Plenty of storage space to play with. How should I approach hopping with the least amount of pain and cleanup when I finally figure out where I want to land?

Y'all, I'm a big fan of Lemmy, and looking to get out of the walled gardens and into the fediverse as much as I can.

I'm wondering about a few things, so let me know before I go signing up for everything if I'm doing this right or what.

I'm looking for some sort of blog/html hosting site, and I think that Hubzilla is appropriate for this, but I'm not sure. Primarily, I just want some space for some webgames and assets. Nothing crazy. That might also be Codeberg (OSS, not federated AFAIK), but I'm not sure about Hubzilla since it seems to do everything. Federating from Wordpress won't work because they seem to have their direct HTML editing access locked down to the point that it's not what I need.

I understand that pixelfed is the IG parallel (I don't use IG more than seeing what my spouse and 1 friend sends me), but are there multiple options for FB replacement? Or just Friendica? I genuinely don't think I'll have any IRL friends on Friendica if I go look, but I'm not going to have to provide an ID. But hey, there's always my 500th overlapping Linux enthusiast group to join.

Thanks in advance - all advice appreciated!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/35487250

I'm looking at self-hosting SearXNG. I have an old Win 11 machine and figure this might be the only way it can be useful.

Two questions I haven't seen answered so far:

1. I would be hosting on my own home network, which is on a VPN 24/7, but for added privacy my devices are sometimes on VPN connections to other IPs. So I need to know the external IP of the instance to be able to find it. Are there any added measures I should put in place to prevent randoms looking at IPs or port scanning from finding the instance and going to town?

2. If this is on my home network anyway, are there any risks of data leaking or triangulation of, say, referrals or image searches that would just point back to my home network?

My threat model is for big tech to leave me alone, so it's not exactly huge stakes, but I also don't want to bother self-hosting if added complexity makes it not worth it.

Y'all, the UK's law about needing an ID to be on any social media platform over 10,000 users is the canary in the coal mine. Similar laws have already been proposed by US states and other countries. On a long enough timeline, this is coming for us all.

So, with that in mind, I want to get in early with some good old fashioned forum sites. You know, the kind that have no app and don't need my Fing ID to let me sign up.

Any topic welcome as long as the community is active and strong.

You can cut your wild-ass eyebrows!

I love Charger8232's idea of a Privacy Flag. However, I don't love the design they proposed. In their post, I explain my disagreements.

As a form of vexillographical discussion, I would like to propose another design as the flag under which we anonymously toil in secret (I wish).

First off, nods to Charger8232's design - 1400x900 dimensions, and use of EU's Dark Power Blue (#003399) color. Love it.

Where we differ:

Designs

A shield, representing how we must actively guard our privacy. A lock, obviously, to show we want security with our privacy, and a dove showing that we just want to be left the F alone and peacefully not be subject to a mass surveillance state. We're not trying to be sketchy or do illegal stuff, we just want to be peacefully left the F alone.

Colors

Again, same use of Dark Power Blue, representing freedom and a nod to the GDPR. White representing peace. Black representing how I don't want people to see me. Color of field: Redacted.

Extras

Stripes to make it a bit more visually interesting. A lack of EXIF and meta data as the subtle fait accompli.

The color scheme is similar to that of Estonia. While Estonia is a leader in the EU's digital governance space, this is unintentional. As much as I liked Espresso Macchiato in EuroVision this year, there's no direct nod to Estonia.

I didn't want to just say "uh, I don't like it" and complain without doing something. So here you go.