5 ms·

That explains the unfortunate fact that the raspberry pi foundation silently added a Microsoft repository to their main OS silently a while ago. It makes sense

That explains the unfortunate fact that the raspberry pi foundation silently added a Microsoft repository to their main OS silently a while ago. It makes sense for the educational target of the desktop version, but it would have been nice to keep it packaged inside their own repositories, giving Microsoft the ability to insert themselves into the packaging chain of a Linux distro used by millions is not something I am very fond of.

blibble 6y ago
hmm, that is indeed rather worrying I guess it's time to drop raspbian (or whatever it's called this week) and switch to plain Debian across my pi estate
- fartcannon 6y ago
  Debian is fantastic on the Pi. Same goes for Arch. There's also 'Armbian', which is recommended for some non-RPi boards.
BelenusMordred 6y ago
The shady hacks they had to do to retroactively install it on existing distros all looks so terribly bad. Who signed off on this being a decent idea given their customer base?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
DrBazza 6y ago
The Raspberry Pi is meant to be educational for a people with a range of skills, and they did say in their issue tracker that by adding the repo, it means everyone has easy access to it. I expect they'll be able to add further intro articles and blog posts and make a Pi even more accessible. I suspect it's easier for tech savvy people to remove it, if they really care, and rather more difficult for relatively non technical people to figure out how to add the MS repo, then install VSCode. I'm in the former group. It's easier for me to remove it, than it is for my nephew to add it.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  If your nephew is using VSCode, I think adding a repo shouldn't be very hard? Or perhaps that's the more insidious underbelly being exposed. It's like when schools teach a specific tool, instead of generic tools. The students only know that one thing.
- Jiejeing 6y ago
  To remove it, you have to be aware that it exists first, which is certainly not the case of a large majority of tech-savy people who do not necessarily read all the news regarding their system. I certainly wouldn’t expect my distro to silently add a repo to my already installed system. My point was that they could have added VSCode to their own repositories with minimal maintenance effort, which still provided the software without the need of another repo.
schoolornot 6y ago
Just to be clear, if Microsoft publishes a package with a version number higher than that in the Raspberry Pi OS default repos, does it mean it will get installed? Or is the repository configured in a way that it is only used for VS Code packages?
- jimsmart 6y ago
  May I ask: what exactly is the reason to treat Microsoft as a bad actor here? To my knowledge, they have zero history of taking over packages they do not control, nor any history of messing with repo contents in a misleading fashion.

blibble 6y ago

hmm, that is indeed rather worrying I guess it's time to drop raspbian (or whatever it's called this week) and switch to plain Debian across my pi estate

fartcannon 6y ago
Debian is fantastic on the Pi. Same goes for Arch. There's also 'Armbian', which is recommended for some non-RPi boards.

BelenusMordred 6y ago

The shady hacks they had to do to retroactively install it on existing distros all looks so terribly bad. Who signed off on this being a decent idea given their customer base?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

DrBazza 6y ago

The Raspberry Pi is meant to be educational for a people with a range of skills, and they did say in their issue tracker that by adding the repo, it means everyone has easy access to it. I expect they'll be able to add further intro articles and blog posts and make a Pi even more accessible. I suspect it's easier for tech savvy people to remove it, if they really care, and rather more difficult for relatively non technical people to figure out how to add the MS repo, then install VSCode. I'm in the former group. It's easier for me to remove it, than it is for my nephew to add it.

fartcannon 6y ago
If your nephew is using VSCode, I think adding a repo shouldn't be very hard? Or perhaps that's the more insidious underbelly being exposed. It's like when schools teach a specific tool, instead of generic tools. The students only know that one thing.
Jiejeing 6y ago
To remove it, you have to be aware that it exists first, which is certainly not the case of a large majority of tech-savy people who do not necessarily read all the news regarding their system. I certainly wouldn’t expect my distro to silently add a repo to my already installed system. My point was that they could have added VSCode to their own repositories with minimal maintenance effort, which still provided the software without the need of another repo.

schoolornot 6y ago

Just to be clear, if Microsoft publishes a package with a version number higher than that in the Raspberry Pi OS default repos, does it mean it will get installed? Or is the repository configured in a way that it is only used for VS Code packages?

jimsmart 6y ago
May I ask: what exactly is the reason to treat Microsoft as a bad actor here? To my knowledge, they have zero history of taking over packages they do not control, nor any history of messing with repo contents in a misleading fashion.