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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Have you used Windows past the 8.1 days?
Yes, I find Linux terribly unusable on my laptop, way too many driver issues, hard to get into a secure state, and I miss apps like signal (no official build) mpc-hc (the replacements are all trash) and a functional version of thunderbird (lol at the tray icon third party implementation that just doesn't work). Etc, etc. I don't have a ton of unique needs but I do want theto work
^and this is of course with KDE, gnome is all that but with just a trash user interface. How many gestures do I need to use to make my computer treat me like an adult ffs.
It's still of course on my server (an old laptop which ironically can't be used as a laptop because at some point after some random update the login service broke and won't accept input from the keyboard lol) and other headless devices I don't have to actually use, thank god.
Signal has a Linux client though? I literally use it myself
The signal org produces a debian-compatible package and an apt server. I suppose there are hoops to jump through to make that work reliably on other distros but by that point my interest in using Linux was dwindling. (I actually moved for the performance benefits which didn't materialize I think due to linux' piss poor memory handling -- I have a pretty low end laptop with only 16 gb of ram. the above we're all just issues along the way).
It's also in the official arch repositories, so any arch-derived distro has an easy install. I don't know about other distros however
If you care to trust random strangers with your secure messenger that's a choice you can make (admittedly the desktop isn't particularly secure to begin with but even more reason to use the actual org's build imo). I'm sure christian heusel is very reputable.
And you also need to trust your OS not taking screenshots of your apps or recording the text displayed onto your screen
There's plenty of links in this chain, there's a lot you need to be aware of if you're going to those lengths. Pick your battles
My os does not do that
I don't consider "wanting a secure app to be installed through first party means" to be particularly unusual. I know in Linux it's standard to just install random stuff from the internet with root. I've obviously done that myself, but for secure stuff I want first party. Making a flatpak wouldn't be hard (they probably just need to review someone else's work -- it's like an intern project)
So I went and looked it up, and signal-desktop is listed as a reproducible build, so theoretically you should be able to go and check that it conforms to the source
https://reproducible.archlinux.org/
But this isn't anything I've looked into myself, so feel free to look into it