this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/1261651/ageless-linux-emerges-to-protest-os-level-age-verification-laws

And thankfully, it's more than just a Linux distro without age verification.

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[โ€“] magikmw@piefed.social 60 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I mean, it will work out the same as browser DRM. It just wont work and wont allow you to connect. I for one can't wait to not be able to access facebook on os level.

[โ€“] pglpm@lemmy.ca 28 points 6 days ago
[โ€“] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Iptables was already there. Or the hosts file if you're feeling lazy

[โ€“] magikmw@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago

But that isn't malicious complaince :(

[โ€“] CaperGrrl79@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Ah, but what else won't you be able to access?

[โ€“] a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My parents love or respect.

[โ€“] fartographer@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Don't worry, they don't love or respect me either. I even waited to ask them until they had a free moment and were relaxed, but they just kept screaming from the moment I woke them up.

They are real dicks that way. Sorry.

[โ€“] j_elgato@leminal.space 42 points 5 days ago (4 children)

"Ageless Linux Emerges" sounds all cosmic-horror for some reason?

...In the house of R'lyeh, Dead Tux lies dreaming

[โ€“] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 17 points 5 days ago

Ia! Ia! Torvalds fhtagn!

I would honestly love to see a non-Euclidean desktop.

[โ€“] pglpm@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

@randamumaki@lemmy.blahaj.zone @barbarian@sh.itjust.works @j_elgato@leminal.space

Damn, thank you. Reminded it's time to re-read!

[โ€“] pglpm@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

๐Ÿ˜‚ That's true! Cthulhu rules! ๐Ÿ™

[โ€“] FishFace@piefed.social 13 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Meanwhile the enlightened will protest it by... Not filling in the age field accurately.

[โ€“] oatscoop@midwest.social 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

^creating a script to periodically change it to a random number between 25 and 120.

We have to fuck with the jackasses using it for fingerprinting too.

[โ€“] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Yes, this is perfect!

[โ€“] Atlas_@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Inb4 it becomes "upload your passport to boot"

[โ€“] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

ID verification brought to you by Wegets Hakktalot. Where information security didn't make it to the budget.

It's linux, there would be a million walkthroughs telling you how to patch or recompile it out within a day. I like that these distros are taking a stand but it's not really going to move the needle much.

What should worry us is these policies coming to hardware. It's much more difficult to modify firmware than an open source operating system.

[โ€“] FishFace@piefed.social 2 points 5 days ago

At which point the enlightened will protest by... using a different distro.

[โ€“] x00z@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

They should just give the middle finger and not implement any age verification. Let those stupid US states suck it.

[โ€“] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I would like a package you could easily install on any distro that patches age verification out of the system. I'm not switching distros (yet) for this, as much as I also am not on board with the concept of OS-level compliance with mass control and censorship.

[โ€“] pglpm@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 days ago

I'm sure someone will come up with that. Also, I think it's important that we make clear to the devs of our favourite distros that we're going to ditch their distros if they don't take a stance.

[โ€“] parzival@lemmy.org 5 points 5 days ago

That's what this actually is, it's just a batch script that changes your etc/os-release to ageless Linux, and adds a noncomplience statement

[โ€“] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

A lot of distros (most I've used at least) require user creation before installing. The age verification should be there as my understanding of the text. You can't install the packages before, so this will be effective only for existing installs, unless you patch the install disk prior.

[โ€“] s38b35M5@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

That's a really good point. At that point, we're just talking about a voluntary answer, right? I'm more concerned about the API exposed to the world, so patching that away was what I was thinking.

[โ€“] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

Had installed it yesterday, but then later Ubuntu told me that ageless Linux has crashed. Anyone with the same issue?

[โ€“] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Put default birthday as date of installation. Proper verified claim. Problem solved.

[โ€“] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

except now everyone is under age and can't sign into their email because spam had the word "penis" or "sex" in it.

[โ€“] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

oops I meant age 18 birthday as date of installation.

[โ€“] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Set default birthday at 1970-01-01.

[โ€“] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

proud unix tradition.