jdev - 2026-03-15

unix/linux is such a shitshow if you need anything from the system whats configured by distributions

> unix/linux is such a shitshow if you need anything from the system whats configured by distributions some platforms (steam, flatpak, etc.) solve that by running the program in a container ✏ ↺

i rather meant stuff like getting the current timezone

ah

on Windows or MacOS thats one method call

on Unix you better check 15 different file locations, then write a algo to merge the results

there is no consistent environment in linux distributions

not unless you ship your program in a container

or rely on a library/framework for everything

for stuff like this also flatpak does not help, because you need something from the host, it can even break it, if it does not symlink the correct locations into the env

i like what they try to do with portals, which is basically a universal API

i have my qualms about portal

like the lack of an API to request permission to access a file you know the host path to ✏

which means if your program works with split files, you have to handle it in the most user-unfriendly way possible

or store it inside your container

you only need the permission if you want to escape the container

what if i'm packaging an emulator in a flatpak, and it works on BIN/CUE CD dump files

i emailed a emudev about this, and they stated this is why they don't use portals for choosing files

im not arguing it cant be improved, if enough applications need this, they probably add more flexibility

yeah, but it's been an open issue in portal's github for years

maybe i should add a issue to get the current timezone :D

python doesn't just have this in stdlib?

> python doesn't just have this in stdlib? `time`? ↺

singpolyma, as every distribution does their own thing, it would be quite the maintenance burden

so the answer is, No

you're looking for the named timezone?

yes

isn't it /etc/timezone always?

https://github.com/regebro/tzlocal/blob/8f4f260846713f2086f16d74901edd7895794dcc/tzlocal/unix.py#L16

> isn't it /etc/timezone always? iirc not on all distros ↺

what distro is that not true on

yeah getting the utc offset is easy but name is a whole thing

favorite comment from that file

``` # For some reason some distros are removing support for /etc/timezone, # which is bad, because that's the only place where the timezone is stated # in plain text, and what's worse, they don't delete it. So we can't trust # it now, so when we have conflicting configs, we just ignore it, with a warning. ```

but yeah, maybe i try to read etc/timezone and the rest needs to put it in manually

i don't have /etc/timezone here moparisthebest

detente: what distro

NixOS

> detente: what distro i don't have /etc/timezone here either ↺

and i'm running fedora atomic KDE

ok so every normal distro then lol