LTS, security, maintenence and some new guys questions

[Kabelbaum]

Hello Kubuntu members!
I am quite new to this and installed Kubuntu some weeks ago. I also followed most of the Tips from here. So I am curious about some things I wanted to ask here because I read different things about this.

General *buntu questions:

Are there things in terms of staying safe to do in general? Besides using the firewall and keeping everything as up-to-date as possible? I read a lot of negative feedback about Snap but snap has a strong sandbox and it is controlled by Canonical so Browser/Mail should be very safe as a Snap. Why do people want to remove Snap in general? Is there a different reason? Should you just not use it or not install further Snaps?

In general my concept would be to install my GUI apps as a Flatpak/Snap and only if necessary as a deb to keep the system neat and benefit from newer software than on the *buntu servers. Good idea or is it better the opposite way?


More KDE related:

I am on 26.04 now and it is the LTS. It will get at least 2-3 years of Updates for security (no feature updates for KDE or other software). Is it in general safe to use it for the time until the EOL or is KDE a problem here because vulnerabilities do not get patched (because it is frozen)?

The usability of Kubuntu (KDE) is very good in my opinion and even for somebody with not so much knowledge it is easy to use for basic stuff.

I would like to use my gdrive to mount it in Dolphin. Is rclone the only way to do it? And is it safe to do so and put it on automount when the system starts? It feels kind of weird or insecure for me. Is there maybe another way to use gdrive or would you recommend a different cloud service which is better integrated in KDE and if so which one?

Whenever I try to download widgets or themes directly through the built-in system settings store, it feels very unstable and frequently runs into errors or fails to load. Is the store generally known for having problems, or is this just an issue on my end?
As a workaround, is it completely safe to download the files manually from store.kde.org and move them into the corresponding folders myself, or can this cause security issues?

Thanks for reading and have a good day!

[claydoh]

I also followed most of the Tips from here.

I will point out that these things are not actually necessary, but that depends on you. I myself do not do many or most of these things, unless I actually experience any issues across my 3 very different systems. And my systems are very often far from stock at the system level. But these are common things people do, for various reasons, and won't hinder or do any harm, even if some may not actually help one one's specific system.

Besides using the firewall and keeping everything as up-to-date as possible?

This is always Step One, anyway. Firewall use of course, depends on if you are behind a router or not tbh. Turning on the UI for the firewall gets in the way in this case.

Why do people want to remove Snap in general?

It is seen as a closed ecosystem, and as bloat, plus it is de riguer to hate on anything *buntu these days. Warranted or not.

(Linux discussion areas tend towards being hatefests when it comes to suggestions and recommendations, as if things they don't like are pure evil. You need to have some filters in place when going to Reddit and other places sometimes, depending on the topic)

(also it is funny that there really are no many third party flathub repos, and those that do exist seem to suck (Fedora!!), and all the flatpak fans tell you to just stick with the One Flathub )

Good idea or is it better the opposite way?

This is 100% perfect for you. So do it
Some may argue that using all three is not neat and tidy

But I install my Flatpaks as --user, which I find very tidy, and in my case recently (multiple recoveries and reinstalls over a couple of weeks due to physical hardware issues) I find having all my flatpaks easily restored when copying my $HOME backups/snapshot or having a separate $HOME partition. It reduces the heck out of the things I need to actually install after a clean install. So it suits me. I still tend towards native debs, particularly KDE things unless there is a specific reason. But being on an LTS, any useful and well-used application can be current while riding on that stable OS setup I have.

I would say that Snaps are less common, may have lower usage numbers, but do offer things that Flatpaks cannot do very well, like servery things. Jellyfin and the like. So my preference leads to Flatpak + debs usually, in terms of tidiness.

Is it in general safe to use it for the time until the EOL

Generally yes. Security updates are dependent on KDE fixing anything found, and/or the ability to backport a patch to older versions. There is no LTS version of Plasma, so that does put security support as an important factor, for sure. There has not been an issue that I am aware of, ever in Kubuntu that has happened after KDE stopped support for a version, but I may be wrong on that.

I would like to use my gdrive to mount it in Dolphin. Is rclone the only way to do it? And is it safe to do so

The reason is that Google puts restrictions on Gdrive access and removed KDE's permission. Simply no one has volunteered to go through all the hoops needed, and then continue to do so.

Using rclones' public keys for gdrive access severely limits the speed and iirc amount of data that can be used as a whole from everyone, so it can and will be slooowww.
Setting up your own personal keys will allow better access, and is well documented.
But yes, this is currently the only seemingly solid way to have drive access in Dolphin.
There is
https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-ocamlfuse
https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-ocamlfuse/wiki

But I am not sure how well this works today. It is seldom mentioned, but has been around for ages.
Setup/mounting is similar, iirc.

(I use rclone for years, and set up my own auth keys ages ago for use on my NAS, but I use rclone to sync on the command line, and just use the browser interface as needed. I haven't physically mounted my gdrive in a couple of years, mostly because my bad, metered rural internet was my phone until recently. )

Whenever I try to download widgets or themes directly through the built-in system settings store, it feels very unstable and frequently runs into errors or fails to load. Is the store generally known for having problems,

Yes, very much so. The third-party website is shall we say janky.

You most definitely can manually download files, and use the "Install from File" option. You don't need to figure out where all the file go if you don't want to.

Do note that Global Themes do not actually contain any themeing files, they are just lists of things to be installed, so any manual install for these will not pull in any of those components.
Manually downloading theme components should be safe here, as they do not have any sort of executable software, and ones that do you can't install from the store.

You can also try using Discover, though it probably will have the same issues as using the Get New tools.

[Kabelbaum]

Oh wow, thank you very much for this nice reply!

This is 100% perfect for you. So do it
Some may argue that using all three is not neat and tidy

But I install my Flatpaks as --user, which I find very tidy, and in my case recently (multiple recoveries and reinstalls over a couple of weeks due to physical hardware issues) I find having all my flatpaks easily restored when copying my $HOME backups/snapshot or having a separate $HOME partition. It reduces the heck out of the things I need to actually install after a clean install. So it suits me. I still tend towards native debs, particularly KDE things unless there is a specific reason. But being on an LTS, any useful and well-used application can be current while riding on that stable OS setup I have.

I would say that Snaps are less common, may have lower usage numbers, but do offer things that Flatpaks cannot do very well, like servery things. Jellyfin and the like. So my preference leads to Flatpak + debs usually, in terms of tidiness.

This is a great idea! Usually the Flatpaks are installed in "system" when installed with Discover. But do it with --user sounds good for me.

This is always Step One, anyway. Firewall use of course, depends on if you are behind a router or not tbh. Turning on the UI for the firewall gets in the way in this case.

In witch way is the firewall gets in the way? I guess most of the routers have a firewall included.

Oh I think the token stuff with rclone is to complicated for me 😂 Maybe i will look for some alternatives.

Kind of sad with the "theme store". I guess I would not include it in KDE when it is broken like this. But I kind of do not like to download things from the internet and install it on the system because I do not know what is going on 😂 Maybe I will just copy it to /home.

It is seen as a closed ecosystem, and as bloat, plus it is de riguer to hate on anything *buntu these days. Warranted or not.

(Linux discussion areas tend towards being hatefests when it comes to suggestions and recommendations, as if things they don't like are pure evil. You need to have some filters in place when going to Reddit and other places sometimes, depending on the topic)

(also it is funny that there really are no many third party flathub repos, and those that do exist seem to suck (Fedora!!), and all the flatpak fans tell you to just stick with the One Flathub )

Hm OK. But there is a very neat way to install Kubuntu without snap (minimal install) so there is no script needed. I am running it in a virtual machine for testing and it seems to be a very minimal install (or do it come with a downside?).

EDIT: Oh, I see. The minimal install includes kind of nothing.

[Qqmike]

I guess most of the routers have a firewall included.

On that specific note, I usually think of the NAT capability of many routers:
NAT (Network Address Translation): Masks the private IP addresses of your devices from the public internet.