The developers of the Manjaro Linux distribution, built on the basis of Arch Linux and aimed at beginners, announced the beginning of testing a new service MDD (Manjaro Data Donor), designed to collect statistics about the system and send it to the external server of the project. The author of the MDD intended to enable telemetry by default (opt-out), but the decision has not yet been approved and, judging by the objections of some developers and users, it is likely that telemetry will be offered as an option requiring prior consent of the user (a request to enable telemetry is proposed to be added to the greeting interface after the first download).
The report includes data such as host name, kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information, network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers, disk partition data, information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.
The sent data is stored on the project server in the ClickHouse database and visualized using the Grafana platform. The IP addresses of users are not stored, and the hash from the /etc/machine-id file is used as the system identifier.
Аccording to the code https://github.com/manjaro/mdd/blob/master/mdd.py#L40 sends everything.
Why on earth do they need to know hostname? MAC addresses?
And disk serial numbers 😟
I’ve defended Manjaro many a time, despite the mistakes they’ve made. The main reason for this, Manjaro is the most stable Linux distro I’ve used.
However, the main reason I ditched Windows as my primary OS was telemetry (and bloat). If Manjaro introduce this, it absolutely must be opt-in.
I actually contribute to the Steam hardware survey as I want to ensure Valve, but more so hardware manufacturers, are aware desktop Linux systems for gaming and creative work are viable. But it’s my choice to contribute.
If Manjaro don’t implement this as an opt-in then I’ll be installing Arch. It will be a pain to configure my software again but needs must.
If manjaro is the most stable distro you’ve used you can’t have used a lot
Yeah the Manjaro devs have a long history of gaffes not to mention the infamous one with PGP keys requiring users to reset their system clock
I mostly used Ubuntu based desktop distros and frequently had issues with the 6 monthly update cycle. Problems with Fedora too. I have not had a single update issue with Manjaro. I often have different distros running in VM’s and whilst Arch has been the most reliable, most are not.
I also setup loads of Linux servers in my I.T. job that I used to have, so I have plenty experience.
The bottom line is Manjaro desktop has been ridiculously reliable for me. Therefore other peoples hate of it washes over me and is meaningless.
Yeah, besides some Nvidia driver problems, Manjaro was stable for me as well
Have chosen it, because it was fast to setup and the base configuration wasn’t too of far off my liking
But, by now I’m considering to switch
With archinstall, anybody can install Arch in 10 minutes nowadays. Why use Manjaro ?
To many options? A new user might be confused, by for example choosing a the correct disk layout.
NGL on pretty much any install, I’d end up looking up pros and cons of every filesystem AGAIN…
… It’s BTRFS now. Simple. Easy. Lol
But it was a lotta research to reach that conclusion. So yeah I get that newbie apprehension!
The report includes data such as host name, kernel version, desktop component versions, detailed information about hardware and drivers involved, screen size and resolution information, network device MAC addresses, disk serial numbers, disk partition data, information about the number of running processes and installed packages, versions of basic packages such as systemd, gcc, bash and PipeWire.
That’s insane
I get the usefulness of technical telemetry such as kernel version, RAM, disk space, processor type, etc… but NIC MAC? HDD serial? WTF?
Those are absolutely ways of covertly identifying your device while technically not counting as “personal information” under privacy laws.
Serial numbers are hardly covert though… but yeah.
The point is that it’s a loophole in privacy laws so they don’t have to outright tell people that they collect personal or identifying information. So they can legally mislead people by claiming it’s anonymous telemetry in hopes that users don’t actually look into it or understand the implications.
Yeah that makes no sense lol. Who needs MAC addresses to debug and fix bugs? No one.
I said elsewhere, I hope this is just some way to track changes over time per user.
But they need to take an anonymous hash of some non changing data or create an install id that is used for this and nothing else (e.g it identifies a unique user but not the person or hardware behind the user).
Too much identifying info is just pushed around like we shouldn’t care, it’s become a real problem.
The first three octets of a MAC specify the manufacturer of a NIC chipset. That could come in handy for driver debugging.
Manufacturers and firmware versions of storage devices? You can make the argument; perhaps it would have helped figure out the SSD firmware bugs years ago.
But stuff like whether or not you have video capture card or your current system temperature stats? Nah… that’s getting into “identifiable information as toxic waste” territory.
Yeah, so take the vendor and device id and be done?
Why should they need my unique ID/MAC?
A MAC address isn’t really unique. Each has six octets, of which three refer to the manufacturer. The other three octets have at most 16,777,216 possible values. That seems like a lot but it really isn’t; a MAC is supposed to be unique on a LAN, not globally. Rollovers during manufacturing happen, and collisions are rare but happen once in a while.
Unique enough with the other hardware IDs
And still, absolutely no reason to go further then the first octets, to have the vendor and device
Or am I missing something?
And I’m currently a happy user of Manjaro since years. But this stuff really isn’t what I want to have on my system …
Just defining the threat model of hardware addressing, as it stands.
I don’t agree with them sending more than the first half either.
I just don’t see a good reason to use Manjaro and many reasons not to.
Friends don’t let friends use Manjaro
Like if you’re going to use Arch btw, go all the way and use actual Arch.
hostname? MAC address? serial numbers? does "partitionx data also include names and GUIDs?
why would they need these? what is wrong with them??
That list about which data they’re collecting is longer than my highschool essay
I don’t get why someone would use Manjaro after so many fuckups… If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re either too new to Linux or don’t care. Just look for “manjaro certificates” or “manjaro drama” and you’ll find out for yourself.
Manjaro is already less stable than arch, now it collects your data involuntarily? Fucking wild how anyone can use it.
clown distro makes clown decision
Dammit, Manjaro. Why you gotta be WEIRD?! I used to love their branding, but they keep doing crazy things that would clearly alienate the userbase that’s left…
Opt-out? I see it’s time for the seasonal Manjaro fuck up.
They’ll find some way to make this change break the AUR again
Opt-out? Seriously? What are the Manjaro devs smoking?
Ad firm money.
Maybe I’m just cynical, but my first instinct when I see stuff like this is they have a secret contract with an advertiser and are selling this information.
Whatever they can get their hands on, including your unique hardware identifiers
Why do they need half that data for a derivative of a distro? Fuck off. I don’t care if someone collects the model number of my GPU or whatever but that sounds like personally identifiable tracking data, not basic “telemetry” data to set development priorities or whatever.
It amazes me it’s still as popular as it is and still own goaling at least once a year.
