March 2026 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Fedora 43 and X11
by Howard Gibson 06 Mar '26

06 Mar '26

I have just installed Fedora 43 on my old laptop. Fedora 43 no longer provides X11. On the GDM login window, there is no longer a way to select window managers so that I can launch the FVWM I have been running since 1995, I think. X11 support will be phased out of future Fedora distributions. Apparently X11 is buggy, and no one wants to maintain it. I have spent the last thirty years making FVWM behave exactly the way I want it to. Now, I have to figure out Gnome_4, which I do not particularly like. Maybe I should look at KDE again. There appears to be no way to set up GDM to launch alternate X11 window managers. In the distant past, I have used SDDM to work around GDM's antics, but if X11 is being phased out completely... What happens to X11 applications? I am using LaTeX to prepare documents, and I use Xfig to do graphics. Xfig files can be converted to PostScript, PDF, and PNG from shell scripts and makefiles, so it supports web pages as well as LaTeX. I am using Xreader to read PDF files. I used to use Xpdf. Are there any other X11 applications people insist on running? -- Howard Gibson hgibson(a)eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson

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Degraded systems (all of mine, yours too (probably))
by Ron 06 Mar '26

06 Mar '26

For reasons unknown, I ran the following on a machine today: > # systemctl is-system-running > degraded Uh-oh. *All* my machines were like this. Some due to, i.e., `certbot` failing to renew a cert for an expired domain. To find out what's going on, I ran: # systemctl list-units --state failed UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION ● cantonese-milter.service loaded failed failed Rewrite Cantonese Word-of-the-Day LOAD = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded. ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB. SUB = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type. 1 loaded units listed. I was then able to fix the failed unit(s) and now: # systemctl is-system-running running Curious, am I really sloppy, or is it common to have a failed unit on machines? What are your results?

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Fwd: [linux] XDC 2026 in Toronto Sep 28th-30th
by Ron 04 Mar '26

04 Mar '26

If anyone is interested... -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [linux] XDC 2026 in Toronto Sep 28th-30th Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:02:24 -0500 From: Lucas via linux <linux(a)linux-ottawa.org> Reply-To: linux(a)linux-ottawa.org To: OCLUG Linux <linux(a)linux-ottawa.org> Hey all, In case you weren't aware the X.Org Developers Conference is going to be happening this year from Sep 28th to 30th at Daniels Spectrum in Toronto. Which isn't that far if you want to attend! The event is free to attend. For those unfamiliar the event is hosted by the X.Org foundation which manages many of the Linux graphics stack projects like Mesa, wayland, DRM/DRI, X.Org display server and more. http://xdc2026.x.org/ The event is great if you're interested in meeting people working on the Linux graphics stack, want to learn about new developments in the various graphics projects, or if you want to learn how you can contribute to the various projects. I'll likely be attending and presenting about my work in Mesa. If you're planning to go, please let me know. Would be fun to have an Ottawa meetup there! BR, Lucas

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OAuth(2) / OpenID Connect / LDAP / "?" / ...
by Ron 04 Mar '26

04 Mar '26

I was hoping Stalwart would be able to act as my central ID server along with handling email, quotas, etc. via OAuth2 / OpenID Connect. I'm kinda struggling with that in Stalwart though; new concept, new software. I've never been fond of LDAP, so I tried Keycloak. It's *really* complicated, but it does work in the sense that I can configure Nextcloud to "Log in via My Keycloak" and ... it works. I'm not yet sure if it works as managing quota though, without massive headaches. Anyone have experience / opinions on any of the above? I'm not sure I'm even heading down the right path. Goal: One central authority for user IDs / authentication / quota management for email / calendar / contacts / documents & files.

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Off Topic .ca Domain Providers
by Ivan Avery Frey 03 Mar '26

03 Mar '26

I'm asking for a friend. Does anyone have a preference for .ca domain providers? Ivan.

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(off topic) Water heater recommendation
by William Park 02 Mar '26

02 Mar '26

Hi all, My water heater started to leak this weekend, so I'm shopping for water heater. From your experience, which brand is better? - Rheem brand at Home Depot, or - Giant brand at Rona

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Bunnie's Baochip board available through CrowdSupply
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 02 Mar '26

02 Mar '26

This is a really open microcontroller. Kind of like a RaspBerry Pi Nano. Not only is it open (including the circuitry), the software is Rust, all the way down. <https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao> Here's a talk he and Sean Cross gave at the 2025 3c (Chaos Computer Conference): <https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2025/fahrplan/event/xous-a-pure-rus…> The video is somewhere, including on YouTube.

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I have to cancel my Rust presentation for 3/4/2026
by Steve Litt 02 Mar '26

02 Mar '26

Hi all, I'm sorry, but I must attend an in-person meeting that will prevent me from giving the planned Rust presentation on 3/4/2026, and I very likely won't get home in time to attend the GoLUG meeting at all. So I'll need to reschedule the Rust presentation for April's GoLUG meeting on April 1, 2026. You all can decide what to do or discuss at the 3/4/2026 GoLUG meeting, either on GoLUG's mailing list (golug(a)golug.org) or when you get to the meeting, which will still be at https://meet.jit.si/golug . SteveT GoLUG Publicity Coordinator

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California vs. Linux. Anyone interested in a Canada Linux?
by Colin McGregor 01 Mar '26

01 Mar '26

The following is a bit of a rant regarding a law in California that takes effect 1st January 2027 that will require that ALL OSs (yes, including Linux and the BSDs) do age verification on all users. A bad law for a number of reasons. If an 11 year old knows that if they lie about their age there will be some benefit and effectively no penalty for lying, will they lie... Duh... YES. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQLdDR-hJpc It is reported that the MidnightBSD people have updated their license terms, revoking their license in (and only in) California effective 1st January 2027, details here: https://ostechnix.com/midnightbsd-excludes-california-digital-age-assurance… I gather that Colorado is considering a similar law to California. I assume that most (all?) the people on this mailing list live outside the USA, thus the above law doesn't apply to us. But what happens when a distro who has a presence (a commercial presence or just volunteer presence) in California (and maybe Colorado) decides to start changing the distro. to try to accommodate USA state law(s)? So, is it time to consider Canada (or at least non-USA) specific Linux distributions? Colin.

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