digdilem

Um, exactly the opposite on all the distros I use. All Enterprise Linux distros, Suse and Debian.

So often the right answer, perl. It's a shame that it's so unfashionable these days.

Perl is a step up in terms of developer comfort, but it’s at the same time too big and too awkward to use.

How do you mean?

It's already on nearly every distro, so there's no core size unless you lean into modules. The scripts aren't exactly big either.

Python is what you want. You can install it on just about any system.

Perl and bash are already there, no need to install anything.

I used it for scripting a decade after everyone else, but even I have to admit PHP is rarely the best choice now.

Perl is already installed on most linux machines and unless you start delving into module usage, you won't need to install anything else.

Python is more fashionable, but needs installing on the host and environments can get complicated. I don't think it scales as well as Perl, if that's a concern of yours.

Perl's core to most distros and will be there already. Python isn't and can be quite heavy - plus some of are are still smarting over the major version change breaking everything and the need for complicated environments.

Interesting thought.

IANAL, but I understand that most successful prosecutions have been for /distributing/ copyright material, rather than /consuming/ it. I think that's quite a big distinction, legally, and watching a dodgy recording is less clearly illegal in many countries and may be entirely legal - even if they could prove that filename = actual file.

In my experience, /most/ people don't care and further, they don't want to care.

Even those that do care have to exist on a sliding scale of compromise in order to function.

since the plain text isnt stored

I'm not sure I'd accept a bet on that assumption.

You're right to be paranoid, it's unrelenting how many and varied are the ways of those wanting to take advantage. I hope you find a good compromise for your dad.

Good call, thanks, although I just use -y normally.

Not a personal fan of flatpacks - I tend to stick to distro packages, but each to their own.