That's beside my 'point', but fine. I'm deliberately conflating things for humor, sorry it missed. I'll get serious/stop joking around. I have no interest in administrating this. Especially on a per-user basis (despite that being the only way this 'works', I'm generally opposed). I'd prefer a file to drop in /etc... like one would express preferences over, say, /usr.

It's entirely optional, I get that. I could 'just' not set anything. Spare your fingers. I want to poison it [or loudly opt out] without a lot of effort. This includes running N commands when a file to could effectively disable the signal.

Said differently: I don't want to configure the portal, I want to ~~break~~ mask it.

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NekkoDroid 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Said differently: I don't want to configure the portal, I want to ~~break~~ mask it.

Since this is sd-userdbd we are talking about unless the used backend provides the value it is unset by default. And if you manage your home directory using sd-homed unless you explicitly set it it is also unset by default.

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bravetraveler 4 days ago | parent [-]

I am aware, I kind of want a louder signal than doing nothing [which is a great option, I admit]. I quote myself:

> It's entirely optional, I get that. I could 'just' not set anything.

Why? Telemetry, mainly. I'd rather attestation [or whatever intends to use this] fail and make it apparently deliberate.

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NekkoDroid 4 days ago | parent [-]

Well, to get something to fail you need an implementation that can fail. And since nothing is using this so far there is nothing you can get to fail. In the end something that implements the actual communication would end up probably defaulting to "under 13" or whatever if it somehow fails to retrieve any value (or maybe not, who knows), so I wouldn't realistically see even without this, getting the attestation to "break" would end up unlikely.

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bravetraveler 4 days ago | parent [-]

Hypotheticals are truly exhausting! I had a wall of text and chopped most of it off. This started out as a joke and now it's dead, thanks.

The failure/assumption of under-13 or whatever, as a result of manipulation, is fine. I'm not actually trying to solution something though, jeez.

I find it more compelling to say, for instance, "x% of our users have chosen not to share their information"... rather than "y% have not set it". This category would almost surely be about as 'useful' (useless) as the 'do not track' header... and a concern for something other than systemd or even the portal (to a degree).

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herewulf 3 days ago | parent [-]

I think the loudest way you can protest is to use and support distros that do not have systemd. There are lots to choose from in 2026.

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SAI_Peregrinus 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Stick a service unit in `/etc/systemd/system/` that is a oneshot type with `WantedBy=multi-user.target`, and which runs the appropriate homectl command for each user listed in /etc/passwd (likely just in a shell script).