Someone mentioned commet as a discord like matrix client the other day. I’ve trialled it using my matrix setup, and it looks and feels very clean, I definitely prefer it to element.

Unfortunately as the tale always goes, it’s not quite on par with element in features (it claims to have RTC support using livekit, but I couldn’t find the group call option), but it’s definitely one of the more interesting clients to come about recently. I really like the separation of spaces and personal chats, and the multiple accounts feature is useful from a sysadmin perspective.

Once they manage voice channels with RTC, I think matrix will finally have its discord alternative that could see some adoption with everyday users.

100%. It’s the goto starter distro for good reason. Ux is familiar, and it works ootb.

They’ve also got the LMDE, which is mint based on Debian rather than Ubuntu. Haven’t tried it personally, but I’ve heard good things from people who are determined not to touch anything Ubuntu adjacent for whatever reason, whilst still providing an ootb environment that is stable and ux friendly.

Ubuntu is Debian based anyway, so I’d imagine parts of Ubuntu have been pulled out to bridge the gap between Debian and mint, but given mint are anti snap; that’s something that definitely wouldn’t be copied over to LMDE (and like you pointed out, is disabled in standard mint anyway).

I’ve gone the other way with it. I feel galvanised to try and help the laymen break free from our digital prisons; attempting to migrate people to decentralisation as a concept; as in my eyes it’s the only way we’ll ever move out from under this technocratic structure we find ourselves stuck in.

It’s one hell of an uphill battle, but the hardest part (convincing others to try something new) is becoming easier just thanks to the rampant enshittification in every product. My driving force for most of it has been the desire to see my country break free from reliance on American tech; which if you know anything about the UK; it’s an incredibly pie in the sky ambition… But I remain hopeful.

My advice would be to learn (if you’re not already familiar ofc) containerisation as a concept and spin up services that offer real alternatives to what people rely so heavily upon.

The only way the world can escape the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk, is if people like me and you show them how to implement an alternative.

Using a volla Quintus with Ubuntu touch. It does all I need a phone to do, but I wouldn’t say it’s at the stage ready for mass adoption yet. Usually I’ll need to create web apps for certain services (there are no native fediverse clients for example, so I’m using a web app of blorp), so it’s manageable if you’re a power user (and being able to ssh to your phones terminal is pretty cool if you’re into Linux in general).

Waydroid comes as standard, and UT uses containers to run most desktop apps; known as libertine containers. For UT native apps (which there isn’t a great deal of, hence the reliance on web apps/containers) you can browse here (Webber is your best friend on UT; as it simplifies creation of web apps).

You don’t have the same freedom with environments on UT as you do desktop OS’… I couldn’t even tell you what the env is called off the top of my head, but if you’re asking about my pc; I’m currently running Garuda with KDE (though considering a switch to something like bazzite, as I’m not home enough to keep up to date with the rolling distros, and just want something that runs games when I am back). My laptop is currently running mint with KDE, which I switch to cinnamon when trying to convert someone from windows.

Haha Oops.

Volla Quintus running Ubuntu touch; it’s european made too.

Appreciate the sentiment, but my preference for linux is born from the desire to move away from proprietary American software more than anything else; It’s a subject I feel strongly about (To the point where I’m using a Linux phone over android/iOS, self hosted matrix server instead of WhatsApp etc).

I know I do; because I refuse to use windows.

Badum tss. (Yes, I use arch btw.)

I searched “are we the baddies meme” to recreate it, but this was one of the top results, so didn’t need to:

Getting CUPs to work properly is a right of passage for any Linux enthusiast. You win the cool dad competition.

Back in my service desk days, I used to just request to perform a restart on their behalf. If they said they already had, I’d make up some nonsense about how I had just manually edited a regkey for them remotely, and it not taking effect til another restart or something like that.

In my experience, the majority of the time someone claimed to have restarted; they either did so incorrectly, or for some reason believed it held no relevance and just wanted to get to ‘the actual solution’.

That little white lie allowed them to save face, and me save time and brain cells. It was a win-win.

I’m running a volla Quintus. It’s a bit pricey, but is made within Europe, and offers a preloaded Ubuntu touch option.

It does everything perfectly in terms of what you need a phone for, and can load waydroid; which is essentially an android VM for any apks you can’t do without.

I did order a Jolla phone, but ended up cancelling the order after 10 weeks or so, as I never received any updates even after attempting contact. I didn’t necessarily have a bad experience, it was just a non starter in my eyes, but can’t recommend them due to their infancy as a production firm; they’re already drowning under the demand they have, which doesn’t bode well for future development (imo ofc).

Conversely, I was able to pay for my Quintus with IBAN (avoiding visa & MasterCard’s cuts.) and it arrived in the UK from Germany after around 4-5 days.

As for the user experience, Ubuntu touch does everything you need it to do; I can make phone calls, text people, but it is very light on the app side; you won’t find native apps for stuff like Facebook or WhatsApp etc…  but open source software tends to be more prevalent; an example being the cinny app I use to connect to my matrix server (which I use as a replacement for WhatsApp due to privacy concerns; but that’s a whole different conversation).

The big thing holding Linux phones back (and de-googled android like LineageOS for example) is the lack of banking applications. I don’t know of a bank that offers their own apks, which makes loading them via waydroid pretty impossible too. I’m in the process of switching banks to one of the few remaining UK banks that still offer web based banking to navigate around this; but until mass adoption occurs, I doubt it’s a situation that will change much.

Nobody claimed it was every single gen x? A statement was made that a large portion (in this case a majority) of gen x voted in favour of Trump; which is backed up by exit polls

If anything he can be circumcised repeatedly, surely?

1/1 is also a fraction, but in English dialect the term ‘a fraction’ is synonymous with ‘a small part of’ rather than denoting any possible fraction.

Unplayable? I bought the game at launch and it played absolutely fine.

Was it a barren wasteland with fuck all to do? Sure, but it worked perfectly fine, the last decade has seen HG turn NMS into one of if not the most comprehensive space adventure game.

Since 2016 they have added various additional stuff like VR support, alongside gameplay enhancements (IE: content like building your own fleet, bases, settlements, expeditions, animal taming etc). All for free.

Conversely, larian has repeatedly stated that they do not want to do additional content for BG3; with every patch release it’s “this is it, we’re done with this now”, and when quizzed on additional content, such as dlc, The studio claims the Devs were elated to cancel BG3 dlc in favour of making a different game entirely.

Personally, I don’t consider the latter to be an indication of a labour of love, but rather an obligation to their fans (because larian are a very good studio, who care for their fans).

I love both games, but BG3 absolutely did not deserve the labour of love category imo, there are simply far more obvious alternatives.

Win + r and running gpedit.exe is simply a terminal command with extra steps.

Doesn’t this just prove that the search is inconsistent though… Unless you’re claiming the original screenshot is photoshopped/faked?

The inconsistencies in the win 11 search as well as the forced advertisements on a device that I not only own, but also built is ultimately what pushed me away from windows on all my devices. I don’t need a search bar that gets confused because it also needs to serve ads that are relevant to my telemetry they’ve collected, just find what I’m looking for and return it.

But equally I’m an engineer by trade, so learning a new OS isn’t a daunting prospect for me, I can fully appreciate that these are issues that wouldnt bother everyone/aren’t significant enough for people to want to make a change.

I had the same situation with kenshi. I can only imagine how much worse it would be on Helldivers lol

Me, fighting with using an am5 chipset & nvidia graphics card for Wayland based distros because damn it, who needs a working machine anyway: “Heh, guess I’m not a clown”