jcarax @ jcarax @beehaw.org

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3

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342

Joined

2 yr. ago

In my experience, it's usually power users or basic users with very specific application requirements, who have trouble moving between operating systems. There's usually a FOSS alternative to those applications, but often requires reworking a workflow or upskilling more than they want to. But they're still basic users so it's more a speed bump than a road block.

So yeah, most people can switch to MacOS without an issue, and the vast majority of those can switch to a distro like Fedora or Ubuntu and quickly feel comfortable.

Power users get stuck in this situation where they've learned how to do advanced things in Windows, have things tweaked to support more complex and peculiar workflows, but often don't understand the actual concepts behind them. And even if they do understand the concepts, they still have to learn the alternatives in a new OS, and rebuild their workflows. Now, there's a lot more ability to learn behind the scenes about the why and how with Linux and BSD, so I'd argue they'd be better off to just suck it up and get started, and they'll be better off before long.

I'm with you. I've never really liked the look of QT, but I think I'm going to go for it anyway. It's always felt more plasticky and artificial, compared to GTK feeling more grounded and earthy. Plus, KDE has always felt cluttered in every way they can clutter it. So I was into the boxes (I was partial to fluxbox) and XFCE back in the day. Played with Gnome 3 a bit, had a cyclical love and ultimately hate relationship with it, but got hung up on Gnome as the best option when I wanted to switch to Wayland.

I've been using Cosmic since January, and I like it, but I'm left wanting more out of it. I was thinking of spinning my own environment with LabWC, but... meh. It's a lot of work, and I want something more integrated.

I've been using KDE in Asahi on my Macbook Air a bit, and I guess I could use it more. But I don't really use that machine a ton, either. Mostly for it's better speakers than my Thinkpad, and I have it connecting a VPN automatically until I can be bothered to switch from iwd/systemd to network manager on my primary.

God I wish Gnome would change it's tune, and stop being so militantly simplistic. The idea of extensions is great, but using a rolling release distro is rough when you're relying on a bunch of extensions to make your DE suitable. I really like their approach to UX at it's foundation. Cosmic is showing a lot of promise, and has that configurability built in, and I do look forward to where it goes. but it's going to have this problem where a lot of the software that looks best in it is libadwaita, which enforces drastically different UX.

Ah, now I remember why I bought the Macbook.

I did a stint on Mint Mobile for 2 months while I was experimenting with jmp.chat, ported back to US Mobile on Verizon last week. As a bonus, Graphene got Verizon's visual voicemail working while I was away, still can't get T-Mobile's working without their crappy app.

There are huuuuuuge gaps in T-Mobile in the north woods, which honestly, I'm kind of ok with since I'm looking to start using my phone mostly through KDE Connect. But visual voicemail has been a sticking point for me for awhile. Satellite is interesting to be sure, but it's going to double my US Mobile bill at $10 for 2GB if I remember their pricing correctly. That's not a huge deal, but for something with very limited capabilities at the moment... eh. Also, fuck Elon Musk.

I'll see what happens with Graphene's phone, or if I give in and buy a Fairphone. I really want an SD card for music. I'm less than thrilled with DAPs, and might just get a Fairphone with a dongle running Lineage for that, while I continue using my Pixel 8 on Graphene as my phone for now. I'd love to merge the two, though.

Also considering an Xperia to run Sailfish, but I'd have to go back to I think an Xperia 10 OG version to get band 13 and Verizon support. That's a 6 year old phone, and only supports 512GB SD cards. Might actually be able to mount larger, especially in Sailfish, but... I'll see if I can get one cheap maybe.

Man, I really hope they're the manufacturing partner GrapheneOS is talking about, or they at least include Verizon support on future models. T-mobile just doesn't do it for me out in the middle of the forest.

I know, but it's looking more and more like there won't be an alternative for long. I'd rather have a consortium of interests united in moving a fork forward as the core for all of their own OS's.

Honestly, I don't know if having play services running in a profile that can be deleted would pass that standard for certification. Probably not, I guess.

As for being a fork, I mean the larger community of Graphene, Lineage, Calyx if it continues to exist, and probably a couple Chinese manufacturers who rely on AOSP to manage a fork that is collaboratively developed going forward, that no longer relies on Google's maintenance of the project.

That seems to be their mid-term strategy, release their own certified device. That should have some interesting implications on safetynet attestation, too.

I still think we need a fork of AOSP, before the community atrophies any further.

I don't know, a true conservative should be opposing attacks on the institution of our government. And any gerrymandering is an attack on that institution. But I haven't followed him, has he come out with any proper long term solutions? Seems to me, at a federal level we need to do things like lift the artificial cap on number of representatives, limit surface area to volume of districts, and limit concavity of district lines.

But I also recognize the urgency of the moment, and I respect that Prop 50 has limited the blast radius and time in effect.

I guess my major issue is that unifying discussions shouldn't be behind closed doors, and it certainly shouldn't be around anything and everything one person or group of people says. Both of those things are dangerous, and it's partially in contrast to those dangerous forms of unity that Democrats seem so disjointed.

Another part of it is that the Republican party has been going off the rails for decades now, and that's brought the Democratic party further right as people jumped ship to it. With the party representing such a large spectrum, it's understandable that there's more diversity in opinion. Two parties are already not enough, but when you cram more of the political landscape into just the one, well, here we are. It makes it even harder to stand up to what caused it in the first place.

Though that still pales in comparison to the problems of money in politics and lack of term limits, and many other things I'd consider in different layers.

On the one hand, a totally unified party is clearly a problem. I don't particularly want the Democrats to be united on everything, we can see from the Republicans that is a recipe for authoritarianism.

On the other hand, it would be nice if they could fucking unite against authoritarianism.

I think we call it a Democrat.

Evolution being just a little bit clunky is a massive improvement from the Gnome 2 and early Gnome 3 days, for what it's worth.

Their core - brain rotted boomers.

Avocado farmers in shambles.

I started dabbling in around 2000, getting sick of the instability of Windows, and it seeming like the next logical step of geekdom.

I tried a LOT of distros. Mandrake, Connectiva, Red Hat to Fedora Core, Slackware, Debian Woody, Crux, etc etc. I drifted in a Debian-centric circle until I finally landed on Arch. Lost my way for a bit during my IT career, supporting Windows I ended up just using that. But I'm back to Arch now as my daily, Debian for some networking projects, and a bit of Fedora from time to time when I need to spin something up quick.

You're a lot more likely to find something at a local second hand store or garage sale, at least you would be in the US. Things online will usually have a markup, whereas locally you're likely to find something someone just doesn't know it's worth a damn.

Not really for the purpose of this thread, since pretty much anything can do what OP is asking, but any idea how the Juno Tab compares to the Starlabs Starlite in regards to build quality, cooling, and what not? I noticed the other day that the Starlite has been updated with an N350 CPU. Though it is up to a $765 starting price...

Once or twice a year I start thinking it would be nice to have a tablet. Then within a month I wonder wtf I want a tablet for.

Yeah, though I'm looking more to have it as a home phone with my music and downloaded maps and stuff. I've gotten used to not having much of any cell service where I live, so I moved my number to jmp.chat (considering voip.ms instead), and don't even turn on data most times I leave the house.

Graphene is great, I've been using it for a few years now. But I started wanting more storage, so looking towards the Fairphone and Shiftphone, which would require a move to Calyx or Lineage. That got me thinking about the state of AOSP, seeing Google being rather abusive towards FOSS, and I think Sailfish attracts me more that Ubuntu Touch at the moment. It seems to get a lot more development effort, and has the C2 as a more guaranteed first class citizen.

Now getting one to the US, that's another question.