5 ms·
Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default
- righthand 2y agoGlad I left for Debian + make/checkinstall. Manjaro is one of the messiest distros I’ve used.
- anonym29 2y agoHow confident are you that systemd isn't sending telemtery from your machine?
- righthand 2y agoFairly as I don’t use systemd.
- perihelions 2y agoThe Debian project would patch that out if it were ever implemented. Here's a list of package telemetries they couldn't, or wouldn't, disable: https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues#Privacy_issues_in_Debian_packages https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues#Privacy_issues_in_Debi... ("Privacy issues in Debian packages")
- scheeseman486 2y agoIf you want easy Arch, there's EndevourOS. It's rolling instead of "stable" but in my experience Manjaro's actual stability is overrated, an update straight up trashed the bootloader once.
- I_am_tiberius 2y agoIn addition to that, my experience is that Manjaro is terribly slow. No idea why.
- benob 2y agoBeen using EndevourOS after stability issues with Manjaro...
- xelamonster 2y agoI like RebornOS, also got frustrated with Manjaro I didn't have it installed more than a day. Immediately ran into package conflicts trying to set up because their repo hadn't updated with versions AUR packages depended on.
- saintfire 2y agoI've had a manjaro update break an install 3 times in a several year span. Ironically, given the vetted package system, it was the only Linux distro to ever break an install for me. Since switching to endeavour a couple years ago I've never had an update break anything.
- devit 2y agoThey and can should count users only by updates. Make a package that is required and only changed upon each release (containing for instance /etc/os-release) and count how many distinct IP addresses download it.
- jeroenhd 2y agoThey don't host all of the mirrors themselves so they'd be missing out on most of the data that way.
- devit 2y agoThey can host all the default mirrors themselves, either by serving the actual data (with a CDN) or by redirecting requests to a 3rd party mirror by GeoIP.
- jeroenhd 2y agoWhich would be an insanely expensive way to collect very little usable information. Mirrors are run for free by volunteers, a worldwide CDN to replace free mirrors would be prohibitively costly for a relatively small distro like Manjaro.
- hx8 2y agoWouldn't the cost of the service scale basically linearly with the user base? So a small distro would have smaller costs? I agree with the core point that tracking users via package updates is a bad idea, but I don't think this specific argument is very great.
- devit 2y agoPresumably they can use Cloudflare or similar for free or relatively cheap, or perhaps find someone willing to gift CDN service to a Linux distribution. Redirecting the requests to the closest existing mirror also obviously drastically reduces bandwidth requirements and should presumably be doable with a few (for redundancy) colocated dedicated servers running efficient server software.
- PicassoCTs 2y agoEvery shitty move, no matter how bad for all involved - is blindly copied by open source. If Google decided to distribute heroin and spoons to all developers, cause thats "what sherlock did" - one day later all of open source would chase the pink dragon.
- jeroenhd 2y agoBased on this thread, it seems like the initial idea was 'just enable it by default and let people disable it' but that quickly changed after the first objections came in. Whatever step the proposal is in right now seems to be focused on making a system to gather telemetry first, I can't see any definitive decision on opt-in vs opt-out (though opt-in through the installer/welcome screen seems to be the best solution I've seen). This is not unlike Debian's telemetry collection, which also asks nicely if you'd like to share your information with the project.
- Alcatros552 2y agoAsking for it and not enable it by default is the only way to abide by European and South American Data Protection laws..
- hx8 2y agoManjaro doesn't have region specific isos, so it sounds like this will end up being the global policy. However international compliance isn't something every developer is aware of so it may take time before the project is releases a compliant version.
- jeroenhd 2y agoIMO asking for consent (or not collecting data at all) is always the right move, regardless of legal obligations. Might as well just ask everyone for consent.
- protonbob 2y agoThis is the morally correct thing to do but it does result in selection bias for any statistics gathered. It's hard to figure out a way to get good data but users rights must be respected.
- dmitrygr 2y agoSomehow, before the wide availability of constantly connected Internet, software got made. Perhaps constantly collecting data on your users is not required after all.
- JonChesterfield 2y ago> Until now what has been done, was counting systems via ping.manjaro.org 11. These pings are sent from Manjaro systems via the NetworkManager. I really hope that's not the default out of the box behaviour.
- squigz 2y agoIt sounds like it is. What's wrong with that?
- jeroenhd 2y agoMost operating systems do this. Ubuntu uses http://connectivity-check.ubuntu.com http://connectivity-check.ubuntu.com, the Arch wiki suggests http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt (used to default to http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt), Debian uses http://network-test.debian.org/nm http://network-test.debian.org/nm if you install `network-manager-config-connectivity-debian`. Of course Apple, Google, and Microsoft have servers of their own. You can disable the check, of course, or upload a text file somewhere you control to maintain the connectivity check without sharing your IP address with your distro.
- zootboy 2y agoTo be fair, Arch's base NetworkManager package does the same thing: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NetworkManager#Checking_connectivity https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NetworkManager#Checking_con... Though Arch has a decidedly more privacy-friendly stance on their ping endpoint: no logging at all.
- Alcatros552 2y agoIts simply illegal in many countries to make an opt-out. For such data comming from your OS you need an OPT-IN!
- throwup238 2y agoI’m curious, how does that apply to open source projects? Who would they go after for redress in large distributed communities like Manjaro?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoI'd guess that they'd target the system that collects the data as usually that isn't distributed (I'd be more concerned if telemetry was collected and then available for anyone to peruse rather than just the Manjaro organisation itself).
- UweSchmidt 2y agoIs it though? Microsoft .NET has telemetry that you always have to opt out always. Dark patterns like this setting not sticking but being overridden after an update, and of course the shell command that you kinda have to google each time, where you set a parameter to "1" and get no verification that you have indeed successfully disabled telemetry come with the territory (of software vendors not respecting the user much)
- VoidWhisperer 2y agoIt does seem like this collects a lot of unnecessary information. I know it may be useful to know some of the statistics and I don't think there is a problem with the general statistics persay (i.e. kernel version, cpu, gpu - things that are common enough that they won't easily identify a user). However, it looks like it also records a bunch of information on installed packages which, given how uniquely people set up their systems, could easily be an identifying value point. I think this might've been an easier sell if they kept it to general data and used it for the purpose they stated they wanted to originally - counting the number of users of manjaro - as the depth of information they send is unnecessary for that
- Retr0id 2y agoThe less I know about users of the software I write, the better. > we need at least some data about how Manjaro is being used by so many people around the world in order to show that the project has a future and also to plan for that future. Charitably, this implies they want to plan around things like infrastructure scaling. Why can't they just look at present demands on their infrastructure? (i.e. why bother with a proxy metric when you have the real metrics right there?)
- codedokode 2y ago> we need at least some data about how Manjaro is being used No, you don't. It is my computer, not yours.
- michaelmior 2y agoAnd it's their software, not yours. They are free to require telemetry if they choose to do so. You're also free not to use their software if you don't like it. FWIW, I think it should be opt-in by default, but I think it's reasonable (aside from adhering to necessary privacy laws) for a project to choose the policy they want.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago> And it's their software, not yours. Arguably, the point of open source software (or at least GPL licensed software) is that the owner of the hardware gets to "own" the software and can do what they like with it.
- lsaferite 2y agoIn that scenario they certainly can. They just have to take the source, modify it to suit their needs, and recompile it. They are 100% within their rights to do that.
- lars_francke 2y agoThis can also be useful if you are looking for funding e.g. grants etc. to show how relevant your project is. Just to add a different interepretation: To me this does not imply planning on infrastructure at all.
- LinuxBender 2y agoIf they just want to count unique installs, then the comment on that thread I believe partially works: set -x stat / | grep -i "birth:" | awk '{print $2}' Then use the output piped to md5sum to make a user-id. And then finally use an opt-in on demand ephemeral instantiation of Tor to submit the results so they can not get the real IP if they wanted to. In my opinion all telemetry should be opt-in and provide a text/plain preview of what is going to be submitted ahead of time. This gives the system owner a chance to back out of posting the telemetry should they see something sensitive. set -x to show an audit trail for what commands were executed in plain text.
- Retr0id 2y agomd5sum /etc/fstab might be viable too, for GPT systems that contain randomised volume IDs (don't think mine's changed since install). Although then there's a chance it could persist between installs if someone decides to re-use their existing partitions, which would be creepy.
- codedokode 2y agoThis is so user-hostile. I do not want a spyware in an OS. All telemetry should be opt-in and voluntary. Also, what would be the use of the telemetry? Find a reason to close a bug report with WONTFIX?
- _heimdall 2y agoI agree it should always be opt-in, but there are plenty of reasons this data could help them make Majaro better. Their install process likely gives them data already on things like user hardware, Intel vs AMD for example. Telemetry could help find performance issues though, like if one processor type is always slow to boot or if AMD graphics cards have frame rate issues with certain tasks.
- codedokode 2y ago> but there are plenty of reasons this data could help them make Majaro better Then they should ask for a permission first. > Telemetry could help find performance issues though You don't need to have telemetry enabled for everyone, just find volunteers who are interested in contributing data, or make a performance test app and let users submit the report. Also, as I understand, they don't collect framerate in current version.
- _heimdall 2y agoI don't disagree, it should be opt-in. > Also, as I understand, they don't collect framerate in current version. That seems reasonable, I haven't used Manjaro for a couple years so I didn't take the time to see exactly what they want to track. That's just an example though, they wouldn't bother collecting the data if there is actually no value to them collecting it. I haven't seen anything about them selling data, so I'd expect the value is in improving the product.
- troupo 2y agoData collection from users used to drive decisions like UI/UX and product development. Because companies were actually interested in how people were using their products. These days, however, I don't trust any telemetry even from the most trusted companies.
- nixosbestos 2y agoI will never, ever understand how Manjaro has the audience it has, including SBC manufacturers, etc. They don't work with the community particularly well, have a horrible, awful track record of distro stewardship. And now this.
- talldayo 2y agoBecause Archinstall is scary, even if you could train an elementary-schooler to use it. Manjaro just repackages the same thing with a harder-to-use and more confusing GUI which people are more willing to give a spin.
- lolxnn 2y agoArchinstall fckd up my EFI partition for dual-boot. Had to reinstall windows. It was probably my fault, but Manjaro just worked first time.
- dingnuts 2y agoI first used Arch over ten years ago and nobody told me about archinstall until a few weeks ago! I was using Ubuntu out of laziness because I was tired of manually installing Arch every time I got a new machine (until now, I use Arch (again, btw)). I wonder how many Manjaro users are like me, and just don't realize that Arch ships an installer now.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago> I first used Arch over ten years ago and nobody told me about archinstall until a few weeks ago! It wasn't really an official option ten years ago; https://archlinux.org/news/installation-medium-with-installer/ https://archlinux.org/news/installation-medium-with-installe... puts it in 2021 (though that's just when it was added to official install media; I assume it was available in some capacity before that)
- timbit42 2y agoIsn't EndeavourOS quite a bit better? It's ranked higher on DistroWatch.com and its Visitor Rating is 8.48 compared to Manjaro's 8.07.
- whalesalad 2y agoManjaro has been a trash arch fork for some time. https://endeavouros.com https://endeavouros.com would be a better choice these days.
- jeroenhd 2y agoWhat makes it better? I have yet to notice any differences between the two.
- Attummm 2y agoI don't think the project will be able to survive the decision to turn on telemetry by default. There are many different distro's just like Manjaro.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]