this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
66 points (89.3% liked)

Linux

47994 readers
1554 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

It is against the rules but but what is it exactly?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Deckweiss 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Digitally sign a PDF with a couple of clicks.

So far, I have spent about 6 hours (sporadically over the past 3 years) trying to set up a way to do this, yet ultimately it didn't ever work at all. And every time I end up using some online third party service just to get it over with.

I did it on Windows once and the setup was a simple 5 step wizard. After which digitally signing a document just works with a couple of clicks.

Bonus round:

  • on Linux there is only one PDF viewer that implements tripple click for selecting a whole line AND can invert the colors of the document (which helps some partially blind users). That viewer is Atril and it has no way of even attempting to digitally sign a PDF. As soon as you want to do the signing, you lose those one of the two features and people with impairments can't do their work properly.

  • the screen readers have voices from the 90s and setting up anything modern with them is above my skill grade - as again, I fucked with it for days and didn't manage to get a natural sounding voice to work. On Windows it is way simpler, including working well for mixed language documents - for example German text with technical terms in english or latin.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

TBH the problem is the PDF format. It was created as proprietary trash. It's just more adobe software so ofc it doesn't support linux.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Yes, but still, it' something that may be commonly required, and Linux can't do it >!(according to the comment above, I never tried to do it so can't comment on how hard or easy it is)!<

[–] Deckweiss 5 points 2 months ago

PDF was a proprietary format controlled by Adobe until it was released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008, at which time control of the specification passed to an ISO Committee of volunteer industry experts.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Okular can digitally sign, invert colors (poorly hidden away so you need to customize the toolbar, but it has multiple ways, which is kinda cool).

TTS yes, but there seems to be progress. There is speech-dispatcher which could be used with piperTTS

[–] Deckweiss 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Okular has no tripple click for whole line selection.

Other than that, setting up digitally signing with Okular never worked for me. Do you have a guide that worked for you?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Oh, read "select a word"

No idea how to setup digital signing.

[–] maxwellfire 2 points 2 months ago

I've setup okular signing and it worked, but I believe it was with a mime certificate tied to my email (and not pgp keys). If you want I can try to figure out exactly what I did to make it work.

Briefly off the top of my head, I believe it was

  1. Getting a mime certificate for my email from an authority that provides them. There's one Italian company that will do this for any email for free.
  2. Converting the mime certificate to some other format
  3. Importing the certificate to Thunderbird's (or maybe it was Firefox's) certificate store (and as a sidequest setting up Thunderbird to sign email with that certificate
  4. Telling Okular to use the Thunderbird/Firefox certificate store as the place to find certificates

I can't remember if there was a way to do this with pgp certificates easily

[–] netvor 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then again, it's not about Linux, it's just about your-favorite-few-click-program not being available for Linux.

There's nothing technically preventing Adobe from making Reader & Acrobat for Linux (they actually used to, around 2007 I even worked in a L10N company and we tested it.) It's just a business decision.

Once you start asking questions of why eg. Photoshop is not on Linux while eg. Firefox, VLC or GIMP are on all platforms, you will learn stuff about the world, which has little to do with Linux per se.

[–] Deckweiss 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Technically you are absolutely correct.

Practically, people need to get work done. And if they can't do it on Linux, they will use another OS. No matter whose fault it actually is.

[–] maniii -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No one in the Linux community wants to force users onto Linux. If they do that, then they are morons and should not be listened to.

Windows is blatantly forced on users through monopolistic practices and underhanded dealings going back decades.

I know what I actively will choose. Also it is my choice. It doesnt have to be your choice or even the right choice. Choose what you want and what you need. No one in the Linux community can or will force you to switch to Linux.

[–] ratemisia 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think your heart's in the right place here, but it comes across as an over-generalization to say that no one in the Linux community will try to convert you. Whether they have any valid points or will be successful in doing so is a very different matter. I'd argue that much of the FSF's official website is dedicated to exactly this, and even they can often come across as endorsing the attitude of moral superiority that Linux users are often mocked for IMO. (I'm a Linux user, but I believe this is a serious issue in our community that we need to take seriously.)

[–] maniii 1 points 2 months ago

Evangelists exist in all communities. I was simply stating that people whose agenda to convert you to Linux may not always have other peoples best interests at heart. Clearly I don't have that agenda. I would prefer people made their own decisions and choices based on their own needs. Not forced into an untenable situation.

I like how upvote/downvote does not matter on Lemmy.

Its about free speech as in beer. And not censorship. We can have our opinions without fear of being the unpopular opinion.