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KISS Still Active

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  KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-28 20:15 +0000
    Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-28 22:16 +0000
      Re: KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-29 01:57 +0000
        Re: KISS Still Active jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-07-29 11:51 -0400
          Re: KISS Still Active The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-29 18:16 +0100
            Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-29 18:56 +0000
              Re: KISS Still Active c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-07-29 23:45 -0400
                Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-30 04:20 +0000
          Re: KISS Still Active Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-29 23:15 +0000
            Re: KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-30 02:38 +0000

#89168 — KISS Still Active

It's good to see that KISS Linux is still active:

<https://kisscommunity.org/>

We need people like Dylan to spread the word that GNU/Linux
does not require a billion dollar corp to produce a functional
distro.

GNU/Linux is amazingly simple and accessible to even a solitary
individual.


-- 
Gentoo/LFS: Is there any-fucking-thing else?

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#89170

On Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:15:34 +0000, Farley Flud wrote:

> It's good to see that KISS Linux is still active:
> 
> <https://kisscommunity.org/>
> 
> We need people like Dylan to spread the word that GNU/Linux does not
> require a billion dollar corp to produce a functional distro.
> 
> GNU/Linux is amazingly simple and accessible to even a solitary
> individual.

https://kisslinux.github.io/

1. The Official Repositories - An extensible base including a fully X110 
less Wayland environment, modern web browser, media player and everything 
needed for this system to rebuild (and update) itself (in under 120 
packages).

You can't always get what you want.

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#89173

On 28 Jul 2026 22:16:35 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> 
> https://kisslinux.github.io/
> 
> 1. The Official Repositories - An extensible base including a fully X110 
> less Wayland environment, modern web browser, media player and everything 
> needed for this system to rebuild (and update) itself (in under 120 
> packages).
> 
> You can't always get what you want.
>

It does not matter.  As KISS demonstrates, GNU/Linux is amazingly
simple and any single person can create his own "distro" with
ease.

Liberate yourselves.  Start studying.  Ask questions here.

Otherwise, prepare for a future of servitude, a la North Korea.



-- 
Gentoo/LFS: Is there any-fucking-thing else?

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#89186

Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> writes:

>> https://kisslinux.github.io/
That's a project that requires Linux to install a Linux-like
environment. (Item #6, https://kisslinux.github.io/install ). It's only
"simple" because it pushes off the most complex things onto the user. It
says this about the kernel:

"This step involves configuring and building your own Linux kernel. The
Linux kernel is not managed by the distribution and is instead the
user's sole responsibility."

How many people reading this can configure and build a kernel from zero
by themselves? No looking at /proc/config.gz. No looking at
/boot/config*. No 'make oldconfig'. Just start with a blank config and
walk through the 10,000 options therein. You do know the chipset in your
USB ethernet, correct? Do you want support for Southern Islands in your
GPU? Thoughts on setting CONFIG_TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING? Hint: if you have
an older Ryzen, you'll have to dive into the RCU Subsystem menu. 

> It does not matter.  As KISS demonstrates, GNU/Linux is amazingly
> simple and any single person can create his own "distro" with
> ease.
Untrue. And you're not creating your own distro by compiling someone
else's packages or ricing Ubuntu. Even doing LFS/BLFS is a massive
task. Then you have to keep it updated, which is way harder. Update
glibc... oops, a, b, c, and d won't compile anymore. Do they have a
patch?  Probably not. Perl loves to chop its own legs off at each
update. This goes double if you used 'cpan' to install stuff. Best to
just delete /usr/local/lib64/perl5 (or really anything under /usr/local
that even mentions Perl) and start again. Don't ask how I know
this... cough...xmltoman ...cough. OpenSSL major version jumps are fun
as well.

Then there's the care and feeding of shared libraries.
ldd /usr/sbin/smbd | wc -l
147
I think the above speaks for itself? One hundred, forty-seven shared
libraries for just one of the Samba daemons. 

Let's not forget the 5^H6 Linux audio stacks, revisions, "frame works"
or whatever we're calling them: OSS, ESD, Alsa, Gstreamer, Pulse Audio,
and Pipewire.

You know what the next programming language I'm going to learn is? NFT,
so I can configure my firewall. It's pretty C-like, so I'll have a
headstart: I can't see it taking more than 2-3 months. 4, max, if it has
pointers to structures and linked-lists. For those that think I'm
joking:

NFT example:
flush ruleset

table inet my_table {
	set LANv4 {
		type ipv4_addr
		flags interval

		elements = { 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, 169.254.0.0/16 }
	}
	set LANv6 {
		type ipv6_addr
		flags interval

		elements = { fd00::/8, fe80::/10 }
	}

Now a C example:
bool validInput( int num, ... ) {                                                                                   
        va_list arguments;
        int i;
        bool valid;                                                                                                 
        int chkValue;
                                                                                                                    
        va_start( arguments, num );
        valid = true; 

And don't get me started on these massive desktop environments that are
basically their own operating systems both in scale and scope. Then
there's the managerial overlord system known as systemd (which is really
its own operating system that decided to cannibalize Linux instead),
seats, polkits, consolekit (are we still using that?), udev and message
buses. Then we have pixbuf, DRI, Mesa, and the whole extended clan of
graphics drivers, libraries, firmware, and toolkits. Your
middle-of-the-road desktop machine can't even compile QT6 on account of
being so massive. You get the idea. The words "simple" and "Linux"
should never be used together in the same sentence. If you want simple,
best start with the TX-0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TX-0) and work
backwards.


-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

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#89189

Apropos of all this fluff and bollox, a university colleague of mine
knows how to build NAND flash chips - probably better than anyone else
on the world

At one time I also was custodian of knowledge shared between perhaps
half a dozen people in the world

You have to be extremely stupid to think that everyone is intelligent
enough and has lived long enough to know everything about everything.

Ergo those that think people ought to be able to compile their own 
kernels are extremely stupid.

As stupid as those that think anyone can design a chipset or even a 
board to accommodate chipsets.

Dunning Kruger is the term for people too stupid to realise what not 
being stupid can possibly be like.

Like a girl I once met in LA who told me, as I was pondering the 
socioecomic reality of one of the most extraordinary places on earth that...

  'I can figger stuff out, too'



-- 
To ban Christmas, simply give turkeys the vote.

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#89208

On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:16:23 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> You have to be extremely stupid to think that everyone is intelligent
> enough and has lived long enough to know everything about everything.
> 
> Ergo those that think people ought to be able to compile their own
> kernels are extremely stupid.

I can safely say I've forgotten more (everything TBH) about compiling 
kernels than some will ever know. I do have the distinct memory of when 
Red Hat Linux's homegrown gcc could not compile a kernel. I switched to 
SuSE after that episode. It only took about 20 years before I tried 
anything Red Hat related again.

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#89227

On 7/29/26 14:56, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:16:23 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> 
>> You have to be extremely stupid to think that everyone is intelligent
>> enough and has lived long enough to know everything about everything.
>>
>> Ergo those that think people ought to be able to compile their own
>> kernels are extremely stupid.
> 
> I can safely say I've forgotten more (everything TBH) about compiling
> kernels than some will ever know. I do have the distinct memory of when
> Red Hat Linux's homegrown gcc could not compile a kernel. I switched to
> SuSE after that episode. It only took about 20 years before I tried
> anything Red Hat related again.

   It's all TOO COMPLICATED/DEEP now. Linux
   isn't what it was 20+ years ago.

   Yea, the system is much More Useful now, but
   at a PRICE.

   USED to be that Joe Users could deal, now
   it's a handful of 'gurus'.

   Time for a NEW minimalist system ???

   Hey, how about CP/M-2027 ??? :-)

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#89230

On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:45:12 -0400, c186282 wrote:

>    USED to be that Joe Users could deal, now it's a handful of 'gurus'.

Yeah, Joe User had it easy back then.

https://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R7.7/doc/man/man5/
xorg.conf.5.xhtml

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#89217

On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:51:00 -0400, jayjwa wrote:

> How many people reading this can configure and build a kernel from
> zero by themselves? No looking at /proc/config.gz. No looking at
> /boot/config*. No 'make oldconfig'. Just start with a blank config
> and walk through the 10,000 options therein. You do know the chipset
> in your USB ethernet, correct? Do you want support for Southern
> Islands in your GPU? Thoughts on setting CONFIG_TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING?
> Hint: if you have an older Ryzen, you'll have to dive into the RCU
> Subsystem menu.

So, just say “yes” to everything. The kernel developers themselves do
that as a routine part of testing, so you know it’ll work. Let the
kernel’s own hardware autodetection features sort it out.

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#89223

On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:15:35 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:51:00 -0400, jayjwa wrote:
> 
>> How many people reading this can configure and build a kernel from
>> zero by themselves? No looking at /proc/config.gz. No looking at
>> /boot/config*. No 'make oldconfig'. Just start with a blank config
>> and walk through the 10,000 options therein. You do know the chipset
>> in your USB ethernet, correct? Do you want support for Southern
>> Islands in your GPU? Thoughts on setting CONFIG_TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING?
>> Hint: if you have an older Ryzen, you'll have to dive into the RCU
>> Subsystem menu.
> 
> So, just say “yes” to everything. The kernel developers themselves do
> that as a routine part of testing, so you know it’ll work. Let the
> kernel’s own hardware autodetection features sort it out.
>

Say "No" to all the security options.

Configuring and building the kernel "from scratch" is the best
learning experience available to any GNU/Linux user (not moocher).

All the config options are fully documented.  If one has a basic
understanding of hardware, file systems, memory management, etc.
then configuration is easy.

Every config option can be perused in less than 20 minutes but
once that is done the same options can be used over and over
in the future via "make oldconfig."

A surprising number of options are for security:

 CONFIG_X86_USER_SHADOW_STACK:                                                                  │  
  │                                                                                             │  
  │ Shadow stack protection is a hardware feature that detects function                         │  
  │ return address corruption.  This helps mitigate ROP attacks.                                │  
  │ Applications must be enabled to use it, and old userspace does not                          │  
  │ get protection "for free".                                                                  │  
  │                                                                                             │  
  │ CPUs supporting shadow stacks were first released in 2020.                                  │  
  │                                                                                             │  
  │ See Documentation/arch/x86/shstk.rst for more information.

These are best disabled for desktop workstations that are under
user control.

A surprising number of config options regard virtual machines
and should  also be disabled (unless one operates a public server
farm).

A lot of options regard OS programming:

 CONFIG_X86_BUS_LOCK_DETECT:                                                                 │  
  │                                                                                             │  
  │ Enable Split Lock Detect and Bus Lock Detect functionalities.

On-line research can help with those.

<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/arch/x86/buslock.rst>


Networking options are also quite extensive, but for a desktop
workstation with only an ISP connection only 4-5 options suffice.

The Linux kernel can accommodate many, many different computing
scenarios and it is ridiculous to rely on the "one size fits
all" kernel that is supplied by mainstream distros.

My advice is to spend some time to configure and build the kernel.
For puzzling options just ask questions.  Once accomplished
you, and your machine, will be much better off.





-- 
Gentoo/LFS: Is there any-fucking-thing else?

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