Notices by nixCraft 🐧 (nixcraft@mastodon.social), page 2

Windows User: My computer froze again. I have to restart it for the third time today

Linux User: That’s rough. My system has been running for 3 years straight without a single crash

Windows User: Wow! What have you been doing with all that uptime?

Linux User: Trying to get my usb ink printer to work 😅

Here is a small pro tip: To find whether a file is a text file, executable, or some other type of file, use the `file` command on your Linux, macOS, FreeBSD (or any *BSD), Unix, or Unix-like systems:
```
file /bin/ls
file /etc/passwd
file /dev/null
file some.png
```
See inside a compressed file and determine the file type inside:
```
file -z file.zip
```

Find the MIME encoding type of a file:
```
file foo.jpg
```

Lmao. This is funny.

Self hosting a Postgres or MySQL/MariaDB database is often treated like a horror story told around a campfire, a narrative carefully created by big cloud providers over the last decade. But is it actually "terrifying," or just a lost art of Sysadmining? This post talks the reality of self hosting versus managed cloud versions like AWS RDS, cutting through the marketing to look at the actual trade offs for both IT pros and developers.

https://pierce.dev/notes/go-ahead-self-host-postgres

The search giant Google claims SerpApi is running an "unlawful" operation by using hundreds of millions of fake requests to bypass security and scrape search results at scale and selling that data to OTHER AI companies for profit. 😅🤣 https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/

Biggest web scraping/LLM company in the world is suing a web scraping company for web scraping its content obtained illegally without paying for it. isn’t that something? It is not like that Google does something like that.. oh wait a sec..

By age 40, a Linux user stops trying to install Arch on a toaster just to prove they can. They finally settle on Debian Stable or Mint because they realize they no longer have the "mental bandwidth" to spend 6 hours configuring stuff or fix broken systems just to check their email or watch Netflix. 😊

Microsoft Teams is experiencing issues, with thousands reporting problems sending messages, including delays 🤣

There are two types of software devs in December end:
1. Those who respect the Code Freeze.
2. Those who spend Christmas Eve or rest of the holidays stuck in their childhood room, trying to SSH into a production server over their parents' ADSL while their better half stares stares at them with pure annoyance from the hallway.

Which one are you gonna be? 🤔

Linux Kernel Rust Code Sees Its First CVE Vulnerability

https://www.phoronix.com/news/First-Linux-Rust-CVE

Danish head of government IT (left) hands over the first "microsoft-free" computer to the head of Danish Traffic control, December 2025. They are testing Linux as the primary OS, with open source alternatives for stuff like office, on peoples work computers in government agencies. Traffic control gets to be our first test subject. This is gonna be put in the hands of somewhat tech-illiterate people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1pohupu/danish_head_of_government_it_left_hands_over_the/

The EU is slowly becoming tech independent from *big tech* :)

The new Mozilla CEO says he could block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that it would bring in another $150 million, but he doesn't want to do that. Lmao. This guy has really lost the plot. Is he issuing threats to the users of an open-source project? Boy, what a disaster.

https://infosec.press/brunomiguel/is-mozilla-trying-hard-to-kill-itself

People use ad blockers to protect their computers from scams and malware because Google and other ad companies have failed to do so. They put profit above everything else. I can't believe this guy is on a mission to kill Firefox by the end of this year. People who use ad blockers are also less likely to buy your product if you bug them too much. I can't believe Mozilla has fallen to this level, where the CEO openly issues soft threats for a product that has little market share left.

RE: https://chaos.social/@danimo/115729293506504456

Sam Altman strikes again.

Mozilla has a new CEO and he just announced that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser. This is a good example of how management doesn’t understand its own user base and why they go out of their way to install Firefox on Windows, Android, iOS and other devices.

Full blog post https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/leadership/mozillas-next-chapter-anthony-enzor-demeo-new-ceo/

WTF? 8 million users' AI conversations sold for profit by "Privacy" extensions https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conversations-data-collection

1 Desired an extremely lightweight and thin laptop
2. Found and bought such a laptop, even though it cost 600 bucks extra
3. Soon realized that many essential ports were missing
4. Threw another chunk of cash at a multi-port dongle the necessary, ugly tumor attached to my sleek new investment
5. Still unhappy, so spent another 250 bucks for a full blown docking station
6. The formerly 'thin' laptop is now permanently attached to a bulky peripheral hub and cluttered as the one I replaced! Perfect

Good.

AI slop (AI generated code) will be not allowed in GNOME shell extensions: "At this point, we have to add a new rule to the EGO review guidelines. So the packages with unnecessary code that indicate they are AI-generated will be rejected."

Read blog post: https://blogs.gnome.org/jrahmatzadeh/2025/12/06/ai-and-gnome-shell-extensions/

We are going backwards due to increased RAM prices: 4 GB RAM default in mobile phones and 8 GB default in laptops. SSD prices are likely to go out of control as Samsung halts production. Don’t even ask about gaming console. Thank you sam altman and tech bros for ruining everything that is fun 😏

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/109337/samsung-halting-sata-ssd-production-says-leaker-warns-of-18-months-of-ssd-price-pressure/index.html

This is a paid partnership disguised as a privacy feature that Mozilla is pushing on everyone. I can’t believe how much they have fallen from their days of fighting against IE. On a related note, the Linux Foundation is getting pretty cozy with AI these days. Is this another Mozilla in the making? You decide.

Meanwhile, on the App Store, Firefox claims to champion privacy is now advertising AI partnerships as a new feature 😏 it is turned on by default but you can turn it off. Overall the future of Firefox is not so bright.