I keep a small Win11 partition on my 2022 gaming laptop in case I need to take a cert exam or use a gov website, and I booted it for updating for the first time in 6 months. It took over 6 hours and 6 reboots to update! At one point, it was going bu-ding every minute from random notifications so I had to mute it.
Meanwhile, my 2012 Thinkpad T420 needed a full Fedora version upgrade, and that finished in 15 minutes.
Ha! Oh, if you think that’s dumb… There are certain key sections of the IRS website that only function during business hours. Imagine if more sites worked like that. “Dang, it’s after 5PM, gotta do my Amazon order tomorrow.
Serbia for example have it’s gov suit and drivers only for windows. You can’t login using your personal identification card on linux, afaik (like, even if you extract encrypted key from plastic card). Can’t even scan it to obtain profile pdf. They do have “consentid” app for android tho, that can be used to log in.
Russia also falls in same category, also they don’t have plastic cards for identification, only regular passport. Digital key (basically a regular encrypted cert) can be issued thru government department responsible for taxes and again, will only work on windows for login, due to required software. It should be possible to install certificate on linux, but to login on government site you will need to use browser in wine.
Dunno about other countries, only lived in those two. I heard some African countries also have same/similar system, don’t remember which one.
Not knowing much about Serbian smartcards, but I had done quite a bit with smartcards in Linux before.
Have you seen this project? https://github.com/ubavic/bas-celik … looks to be cross-platform and do what you’re saying. Though you’d probably need pcscd, pcsc-tools, and possibly other similar packages, depending distro.
Wow, thank you. No, I was not aware of it, sounds like together with srb-id-pkcs11 it should do the trick, it will be wonderful to finally move my auth from windows vm.
Yes, smart card reader itself should work, the only problem is encryption of key on card and use of that key with website. That module mentioned above exactly the thing that required it seems.
Still, my point stands, cause project was created just two years ago and isn’t official in the first place. Unfortunately, government itself have no desire to support other platforms. :c
Ah if you want to use it on their website or in a browser you’ll probably also need a mini card driver like OpenSC.
And if you’re using firefox, you might have to go into settings to add a pkcs provider and tell it where opensc-pkcs11.so is.
There’s lots of generic info out there on smartcards in Linux if you were so inclined to “figure it out”…but I don’t blame them for not “supporting” Linux…that’s kind of a minefield.
Still, that’s the fun of Linux…realizing that “not supported” doesn’t mean it won’t work…just that they won’t help you.
I have a machine in my garage that gets used for music and the random football game. Starting it up after being down even a few weeks starts the churn of updates. It’s annoying.
Just in case you don’t know, unless it changed last time I checked, some organizations like Comptia didn’t allow computers with dual boot to be used to pass a cert exam.
I keep a small Win11 partition on my 2022 gaming laptop in case I need to take a cert exam or use a gov website, and I booted it for updating for the first time in 6 months. It took over 6 hours and 6 reboots to update! At one point, it was going bu-ding every minute from random notifications so I had to mute it.
Meanwhile, my 2012 Thinkpad T420 needed a full Fedora version upgrade, and that finished in 15 minutes.
No wonder MS is losing users
Thinkpad is the tank of laptops.
… You need Windows to use government websites? What kind of dystopian nightmare is this
This is still the case for many South Korean shits, tho these days you can also use a (Googled) Android or iOS device with some shitty app.
wait till you find out companies that operated in South Korea had to support Internet Explorer until 2020
Ha! Oh, if you think that’s dumb… There are certain key sections of the IRS website that only function during business hours. Imagine if more sites worked like that. “Dang, it’s after 5PM, gotta do my Amazon order tomorrow.
Honestly would be kind of great.
🤨
Serbia for example have it’s gov suit and drivers only for windows. You can’t login using your personal identification card on linux, afaik (like, even if you extract encrypted key from plastic card). Can’t even scan it to obtain profile pdf. They do have “consentid” app for android tho, that can be used to log in.
Russia also falls in same category, also they don’t have plastic cards for identification, only regular passport. Digital key (basically a regular encrypted cert) can be issued thru government department responsible for taxes and again, will only work on windows for login, due to required software. It should be possible to install certificate on linux, but to login on government site you will need to use browser in wine.
Dunno about other countries, only lived in those two. I heard some African countries also have same/similar system, don’t remember which one.
does wine or waydroid work for the serbia one?
Not knowing much about Serbian smartcards, but I had done quite a bit with smartcards in Linux before.
Have you seen this project? https://github.com/ubavic/bas-celik … looks to be cross-platform and do what you’re saying. Though you’d probably need pcscd, pcsc-tools, and possibly other similar packages, depending distro.
Wow, thank you. No, I was not aware of it, sounds like together with srb-id-pkcs11 it should do the trick, it will be wonderful to finally move my auth from windows vm.
Yes, smart card reader itself should work, the only problem is encryption of key on card and use of that key with website. That module mentioned above exactly the thing that required it seems.
Still, my point stands, cause project was created just two years ago and isn’t official in the first place. Unfortunately, government itself have no desire to support other platforms. :c
Ah if you want to use it on their website or in a browser you’ll probably also need a mini card driver like OpenSC.
And if you’re using firefox, you might have to go into settings to add a pkcs provider and tell it where
opensc-pkcs11.sois.There’s lots of generic info out there on smartcards in Linux if you were so inclined to “figure it out”…but I don’t blame them for not “supporting” Linux…that’s kind of a minefield.
Still, that’s the fun of Linux…realizing that “not supported” doesn’t mean it won’t work…just that they won’t help you.
yeah some government sites, regardless of what browser you’re using, think that you’re some “1337 Haxors” for using Linux Mint.
I use Qutebrowser on NixOS and sometimes it’s…yeah they don’t like that.
Can’t you trick it using a user agent switching? Been a long time since I’ve fucked with one so I forget it you can change OS on there.
tbf if you didn’t update fedora for 6 months you may aswell downlaod a new iso and they also do the windows reboot screens for no reason
I have a machine in my garage that gets used for music and the random football game. Starting it up after being down even a few weeks starts the churn of updates. It’s annoying.
Just in case you don’t know, unless it changed last time I checked, some organizations like Comptia didn’t allow computers with dual boot to be used to pass a cert exam.
I assure you my (virtual) machine only has windows on it.