this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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The developers of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on the basis of Arch Linux and aimed at beginners, announced the beginning of testing a new service MDD (Manjaro Data Donor), designed to collect statistics about the system and send it to the external server of the project. The author of the MDD intended to enable telemetry by default (opt-out), but the decision has not yet been approved and, judging by the objections of some developers and users, it is likely that telemetry will be offered as an option requiring prior consent of the user (a request to enable telemetry is proposed to be added to the greeting interface after the first download).

The report includes data such as host name, kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information, network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers, disk partition data, information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.

The sent data is stored on the project server in the ClickHouse database and visualized using the Grafana platform. The IP addresses of users are not stored, and the hash from the /etc/machine-id file is used as the system identifier.

Аccording to the code https://github.com/manjaro/mdd/blob/master/mdd.py#L40 sends everything.

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[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Why do they need half that data for a derivative of a distro? Fuck off. I don’t care if someone collects the model number of my GPU or whatever but that sounds like personally identifiable tracking data, not basic “telemetry” data to set development priorities or whatever.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)
  • users can be identified
  • probably Opt-out (still in discussion)

Two nogos combined makes nonogogos. Why do they need host name, MAC address and disk serial numbers? Why can't people set how much they want to send in, like KDE Plasma does? Will the data be shown to the user before its send in? Steam does that perfectly (show data and its opt-in) and that is even a proprietary application. Telemetry is okay if its done right, without user identification, opt-in and not hiding whats sent, preferably in multiple levels of what is being send.

I used Manjaro before and switched to EndeavorOS because I was not happy. Now I am. Manjaro can't stop being stupid (not the users, I'm not attacking any user here, only the maintainers or developers of Manjaro).

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 5 points 2 days ago

The way I read it, the developer wanted opt-out but it's likely it will be opt-in. I'm find with opt-in and vehemently against opt-out for telemetry.

I would prefer the information was statistical only. Rather than hostname (making the assumption they only want hostname to be able to somehow separate the data to follow changes over time), a much better idea would be some kind of hash based on information unlikely to change, but enough information that it would be unlikely possible to brute-force the original data out of the hash. So all they know is, this data came from the same machine, but cannot ID the machine. Maybe some kind of unique but otherwise untrackable unique ID is created at install time and ONLY used for this purpose and no other.

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 5 points 2 days ago

Another reason to hate manjaro.

[–] HornedMeatBeast@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I tried Manjaro last year and I hated it.

Something about the distro would lock up my PC, it would freeze from time to time.

I disabled the standby/sleep function, but allowed my monitors to go into standby. But if I left my PC for an hour or two my screens would not wake up, different types and brands. I had so many issues with Manjaro and while speaking with a friend I told him I had moved over to Nobara but he was still on Manjaro. But then a few weeks later he mentioned he was running Nobara. Seems he also ditched it.

[–] Evilsandwichman@hexbear.net 0 points 2 days ago

My brother's been injecting himself with Linux? jesse-wtf

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