eugenia

eugenia, 2 months ago

I’d go with Mint. They have thought out 99% of the things a user might ask for in a DE, along some basic admin configuration stuff you might need. It’s the best out of the box distro.

eugenia, 2 months ago

My Pixel5a from google store has it, but my other phone where I installed Murena e/OS (which is based on LineageOS) does not have it.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I will tell you my secret. I have two phones. Two identities. One that has a normal google phone with facebook messenger and instagram, to keep in contact with family, and to have bank apps. And one, where the Murena e/OS is totally de-googled. Where you will only find FOSS apps, from Lemmy to Mastodon and Pixelfed. That second identity is my real one.

The mistake people make when they write about “moving to Linux” (or similar), is that they try to fit themselves into a box where the modern life doesn’t affords them to. The wiser option is to play on both sides. You have an unassuming, clean-cut identity on one computer and phone, and you have your real self on the other, where it’s ultra-private and secured, and often IP-spoofed if required. And it’s not some kind of closeting thing, or illegal thing or anything, it’s just private. How I would like things to be by default in a Utopian system.

On top of that, I believe that Murena’s e/OS has a modified g-services app so full fledged Android apps, including bank apps, get fooled so they run. But I don’t personally run them on that phone. That phone is FOSS only.

eugenia, 2 months ago

Actually, both Ubuntu and Mint didn’t have wifi drivers for my late-2014 Mac Mini (Intel based). I had to plugin ethernet so I could actually download the drivers. Also, the version of Windows you might have installed might have been older than your PC, so no drivers would naturally be in it (e.g. Win11 is already 2-3 years old).

eugenia, 2 months ago

No, it’s not the shittiest hardware in existence. The wifi in question was just Broadcomm, not Apple. The Apple-based Macs are just PCs, with a modified UEFI firmware, nothing else. Only the Silicon-based ones are more Apple-based.

eugenia, 2 months ago

Most laptops won’t allow you to update parts, especially at that price. I think you’re better off getting a cheap laptop that has good reviews and you verify that Linux works in it. Personally, I’ve converted a few chromebooks to linux (making sure first that the CoreBoot BIOS/firmware works on these laptops).

eugenia, 2 months ago

There are a lot of help posts on the MS and other windows forums too. Computers and OSes will always have issues because of complexity and incompatibilities between hardware and software. No matter if you install Windows, Linux, or MacOS. The machines that are least buggy because each manufacturer is doing extensive tests, are the mobile OSes, iOS and (most) Android. It’s not as possible to do the same on a desktop OS. So cut your losses, and install Linux Mint, which is I believe it’s the best for newbies.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I don’t like short form video, or ultra-personalization. I prefer reverse-chron posts, and content that is useful. That’s why I use Mastodon and PixelFed, and even long form youtube (via my Sub page). I avoid IG these days, or anything that’s pure recommendations. So if they ban tiktok, I won’t be that unhappy…

eugenia, 2 months ago

I think Mint is your best choice. Mint is not Ubuntu, even if the underlying base is based on Ubuntu. It doesn’t have snaps for example, and a lot of the ubuntu fluff and slowness has been cut out. For example, Mint Cinnamon uses 1.2 GB of RAM on a clean boot, but it uses 1.9 GB on Ubuntu-Cinnamon. It’s a cleaner system.

eugenia, 2 months ago

The same in Greece, where it has 11%, it’s because some government agencies use it, and the whole of the Greek military is on Linux Mint!

eugenia, 2 months ago

Very nice looking, but judging from the screenshot, the app window seems to be massive? It doesn’t fit on my Macbook Air, and I’m sure won’t fit on my various 1366x768 Linux laptops. Or maybe the app creates scrollbars automatically? Also, does it have a light theme, or is it only dark? (I have a lot of astigmatism, so dark themes aren’t readable to my eyes). Other than that, it looks great!

eugenia, 2 months ago

I would personally install Linux Mint on it, or any other modern distro. That’s a CPU that has ~3000 points on Passmark, which means that most DEs work fine with it, but I think that Cinnamon would shine the most with it. I personally use XFce/Mate for anything between 500 and 1200 points, Cinnamon from 1200+, KDE 2000+, Gnome 2500+. I use LXQT or a WM on anything below 500. I “save” old computers of friends or cousins by installing Linux on their old machines, and that’s been my experience so far.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I usually install Debian Linux on old Chromebooks that have only 16 GB SSD, and then gift them to my cousins or their kids. Flatpacks are out of the question, since pretty much every app I checked is between 500 and 1 GB of size. I only have 7.5 GB of free space in there after the base XFce Debian installation is done, plus 2 GB of swap. I find flatpacks to be space eaters, and I avoid them even on my normal, higher SSD size laptops.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I installed Linux Mint last night on a 2011 Macbook Air. Unfortunately Debian (which was my first choice) was reproducibly crashing during downloading updates, during the installation. It also was not supporting the touchpad during installation, had to use a mouse (I’m sure it would work after installation though as it would use a newer kernel then). Mint worked without a hitch in all levels.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I’ve tried LMDE in the past, it had the same bugs as Debian, as it’s based on it.

eugenia, 2 months ago

Where exactly is this downloadable? I read the blog post and followed the links and still haven’t figured out what to do.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I think someone had estimated recently that Linux has about 50 mil desktop users. I think that sounds like a lot… I’d personally put that number to about 10 mil tops. I think the higher number we’re seeing these days is related to Steam OS.

eugenia, 2 months ago

You need to make sure first that the MrChromebox.tech uefi firmware works with the chromebook model you are going to buy. Otherwise, you will just end up with an old chromebook.

eugenia, 2 months ago

Some of these apps can’t work as flatpaks at all, because they require more access to the system, e.g. Davinci Resolve. AppImage allows that. I mean, heck, even Ubuntu runs a virtual filesystem in order to allow its Snap Firefox to access the Dictionary that lives “outside” its sandboxing. So, yes, there are cases where AppImages do serve a purpose. Not most cases, but a lot of cases.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I have astigmatism, so I can’t work with dark themes. I can’t read correctly when everything is black around. For me, the perfect theme is the one that has a black window manager, gray variations on specific widgets, and white windows (the background desktop image I prefer it to be blue-ish). Basically, to work properly, I need a mostly light, but mixed environment that provides contrast. Not all white, and definitely not all black. So far, I haven’t found such a theme, because no GUI environment allows for such specificity in theming for the various widgets. Although the default Gnome theme ain’t too bad.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I’ve been thinking along the same lines lately. A fully open source hardware and software architecture and implementation, to replace the closed “old world”.

eugenia, 2 months ago

I had a similar problem with a DELL laptop that used to be a Chromebook (and I later installed Debian): no audio out of the speakers, OR if there was audio, it was in slow motion. I installed a gazillion of Debian distros, and nothing worked, except the Ubuntu-based ones, that DID work. Basically, it was a either a bug or missing feature on the older kernels that Debian-based distros used (ubuntu uses newer kernels). I had tried everything, and I mean, everything. Every alsa, pulse or pipewire trick, and nothing had worked, because ultimately, it was a kernel support issue. When Debian upgraded to kernel 6.1 recently, the issue was fixed by itself (well, 90% of the way, not completely). So if you’re not seeing any progress despite all the things you tried, it’s probably a kernel support issue, and you might have to wait for the next few kernels down the line to see fixes for it. Sometimes, it’s how it goes.

eugenia, 2 months ago

If multiple distro families don’t work, might be a case of the hardware not being supported yet.

eugenia, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

I think the last decade has about 10-15 classic songs (e.g. rolling in the deep, get lucky etc), but that’s nothing compared to the '80s, where the classic songs measure upwards to 700. There is cultural stagnation in the last 10 years, particularly after the death of the indie music as a vehicle for innovation (i.e. the Pitchfork golden era of 2008 to 2012 where indies became the next hot thing). I could say the same for movies. For me, the highest point of cultural significance, was 1984 (more precisely, the last 3 months of 1983, the whole of 1984, and the first 6 months of 1985, ending with the Live Aid). That’s the most classic, highest point IMHO for both music and movies, where pretty much what was getting released, was becoming an instant classic. Basically, most of it was good, rather than bad with exceptions. There are a few articles online talking about the same thing as I did here, and there’s also a couple of books, all recognizing 1984 as THE year of culture. Today, we’re running on fumes.

eugenia, 2 months ago

there’s a choice on the bottom of the page somewhere