After the first year fully immersed in Linux, I would say most would agree with that statement "One can turn any distro into another", at least in what matters to them.

To any newcomer I recommend to choose the environment (The tendency is for the tech-minded that come from Windows is to choose KDE, less tech-minded or straightforward thinking choose Cinnamon and exclusive Mac and Android users tend to choose Gnome).
The second thing to select is your stand on Stability vs Cutting edge. The rest of features are far, far less relevant and you can easily fine tune to your like and these is what people mean with that above statement (even the environment and stability could be customized too but most would not be able to do it).

At the end, the distro is a choice where you pick the first two parameters and the exact distro you pick is more based in convenience and/or philosophical criteria.

My case: I played with 5 environments and KDE is my cup of tea. Then, I choose a distro in the middle of the road with updates (OpenSuse Tumbleweed) and while extremely happy two updates within 8 months gave me two hiccups (nothing mayor) but I decided I needed more Stability. While I consider Fedora to be the "best" distro by just a hairline, since it has the most resources, but philosophically I am against due to IBM being its main backer, not to mention, US may cause problems "exporting" in a near future... yes you can fork, but you still being dependent in the main source for a while, not to mention supporting IBMś aims. So I am Debian (MX Linux actually) all the way now. However, I recommend to most Mint (for the most conservative) and TuxedoOS (for those looking for a more contemporary look) to most people I encounter.

The rest of distros, or are just niche (for instance Deepin and Kylin cater for Chinese language, Cachy for gamers, etc) or are distros with far less resources to do it properly, but I passionately applaud their existence since they all are contributing with the good cause.

This is actually critically! I love little distros, but it does break my heart that they cannot give the same reassurance on potential malware as Mint would. Many here we are anti-AI but FOSS could benefit a lot from it... it can automatized checking for malware on peanuts. DistroWatch, Flatpak store, Debian backports, etc should be using AI already across the board to check for malware and that would level dramatically the plain field for all.

As I mentioned more in detail in other post, Proton is not the pro-MAGA many had misinterpreted. It is just sloppy at the marketing campaign and its leader makes statements that can easily misunderstood too.

That said, Proton has decided to aim for the masses, which has proven to be a winning business formula here. However, in that quest, it's natural that concerns from top-tier privacy users (Linux users, those wanting non-Google push notifications, too-many-eggs-in-a-basket, etc.) get relegated in favor of the bulk of their primary target customers, the regular Joe who simply wants to move away from email and web traffic scraping. We should all applaud that decision, but we also recognize the limitations and big risks of having a single company holding some 80% of this privacy market, both for us and even for Proton. It would be better to foster a healthy, diverse, and more equitable privacy ecosystem.

Three things on Proton:

1. Proton mail has been in a rampage with sponsor YouTube channels and, in my opinion, that is a mistake. I would have kept it an organic growth, but that is me... a nobody, and Proton has become far more successful than no other email provider in the privacy world.

2. Considering even that, Proton is not vetting who is sponsoring. This is a fiasco. For instance they try to sponsor the channel "The hated one" that never takes any sponsors and even constantly criticizes channels that does it. That is a mayor blunder for Proton, there is no scrutiny at all with their marketing deployment. By the way, we learned that that youtubers get a juicy amount by Proton in these sponsorships (I think was $70 per subscription).

3. Proton, for years, has been aiming for the masses, not the most serious in privacy (for instance, androidś Proton email still uses Google push services). That is not bad per se, I still recommend Proton to many. But those with a more ideological approach to privacy or those requiring top notch on it, should be aiming for other service providers.

Of course they would get GrapheneOS phones but does not make user a suspect, they also carry cash rather than credit cards, but not all people with cash should be a suspect!

The mayor problem in Barcelona is being the pickpocket capital of the world and the unregistered Airbnbs! Both are relatively easy to address (in conjunction with the legislative and judicial system), but are have not been tackled for 2 decades already. And please, don't start suspecting guys with Nike sneakers and cross bags as pickpocketers now too! There are plenty, plenty of genuine methods to go after the bad guys than cheeking their phones or shoe wear... gosh, even civilians are tired of pinpointing at them to end up being completely ignored by that police!

Who does not have the visual of the movie 300's when Leonidas throws his spear at Xerxes face to prove his mortality?! Yemen and its people will continue to suffer but they will be remembered for their fierce conviction.

First thing first, the Pakistani PM does not have any authority and overwhelming of Pakistanis detest him. Pakistan is being rule exclusively by the military after the imprisonment of the leader who undisputedly won the elections, Mr Khan.

Now this conflict puzzles me. I don´t think Trump could care much about the region so probably not behind it. Israel certainly likes the current military rule in Pakistan so probably will use its resources in Washington to stop it… Israel for sure would not allow Imran Khan to take the Pakistani leadership again.

Now, I am sure US arms industry wants conflict in South Asia to compensate the winding down in Ukraine and the US establishment is excited to drive India more dependent in the US’ weaponry for safety and away from China (that has a stake too in Kashmir.)

One possible theory is that Israel thinks it can provide intel to India about Pakistani nuclear weapons and then for its operatives to get rid of Mr Khan before gets the legitimate power back… but I find it too risky...who knows. I don´t think even the Pakistani nuclear weapons are in working condition with the current Pakistani government that US fully vetted before it took power.

Pretty good!! I agree with 95%.

Loved the "As seen on TV" category!

I agree that Tuta is more secure than ProtonMail.

Some are blended like Tor, that should be in Activist if used in secured computer.

Was not aware of the existence of Coincarp (logo by GrapheneOS). Is a crypto price tracker used by Activists? I left crypto a couple of years ago but though Activists just don´t trade much and stick for the long haul and use Monero for purchases.

It is a trend started that started a decade ago (ironically with Obama!) but the transition is now complete; Americans with a skin color, let alone if naturalized, are not considered "actual American" therefore no longer news worthy. At least, they still give a conditional pass to those darker skins conforming with the ideology of the presidency that happens to be ruling at the time.

"Debian - older stuff for stability. Arch - bleeding edge rolling release. Fedora somewhere in the middle." Very true. I would add that then there are a bunch of others that fill the gaps in between. For instance, Ubuntu makes Debian easier and Mint makes Ubuntu more open and TuxedoOS makes Debian/Ubuntu far more up-to-date. Then, CachyOS makes Arch more easy and gamable while Manjaro tries to make Arch more stable. Fedora is a perfect blend but those those that have a beef against Redhat/IBM (USA), OpenSUSE is a perfect blend too of the philosophies of Debian and Arch.

For visa holders and green cards they have been doing that for a decade at least, I wonder if it is optional for them too.

Regarding opting out, we should. It is inconvenient, we get faces, but we should.

1. The more scans they get of your face (age, expressions,...) , the more accurate their profile of you will be...
2. To make an statement. If we just accept these things, they will keep pushing for more.

After been in 5 continents in 30+ countries and living in 6... the best for your requirements is Spain. Spain, even the opposing parties are unlikely to touch most of those protections since it has wide support among the population. Now, Spain is not panacea, it still has stigma against Gypsies, older people face job discrimination, etc.

Regarding privacy is OK, more due to inaction than protection but far better than most neighbors in the north.

On corruption... the 'perception' is that there is plenty but no more than I witnessed in countries like Germany, UK or USA... the difference is that corruption in Spain is highly exposed by rival parties/media while in the other countries it is no so sensationalized, that is why of the increase 'perception'. By the way, Scandinavia, that I used to admire, above local governments, I don´t see it much better on corruption levels, specially since late 2000s.

Regarding foreigners, Spain has many offers in certain jobs, where English is a requirement, but not easy at all for more common jobs where the local language is what is mostly used, even if you dominate it well. Now, you will be surprised how many companies are moving jobs to Spain since it is easier to attract talent to Barcelona or Malaga than to Berlin or Grenoble... and they save in salaries.

Now, if you put less emphasis in sexism and LGBTQ, certain countries in Latin America like Mexico or Uruguay, or across the ocean others like Malaysia may be more appealing, it is not that they are expressively against those groups, it is just they demand a more quiet sexual expression from you.

Lastly, countries like Australia, New Zealand and the like have become so corrupt at high level and against privacy and freedom of expression in certain topics, should be disregarded if you emphasis on that. Ireland, is the only exception in the Anglo world, now, like Switzerland and Norway, they are floating in money o every one is okay while economies are good... the test comes, as always, come in challenging times. Till, then, consider those three too.

We don't know and, let us be frank, due to the nature of the community, it is impossible to know... Distros could report the downloads but if it became a KPI, it will be abused right away.

Fedora is well funded and probably the best overall. Now, its ties to US and IBM/Red Hat will keep it constrain in growth.

OpenSUSE is a second contender in funding and best overall, but German branding has taken a deep these last years... I know the government actions should be separate but, in reality, is that SUSE as a company will be constrained in growth too, therefore OpenSUSE. Its community need to be more global too.

Debian is king still. Much of development depends on the previous 2. However, in spite of huge progress lately, still not the best for new Linux users. That is why Linux Mint, Ubuntus, TuxedoOS still exist, but their growth won't be much as Debian gets better and better, but always a step behind the corporate funded ones. For today

The Chinese Linux offerings are becoming well funded are very interesting... but there is a bridge to cross that most of the world still not ready to cross... partly, because there are reasons to be skeptical since the community developing it is highly regional, partly is just plain racism. It is a pity, because these would have the biggest potential for a mayor breakthrough with all that money and human capital pouring from different companies, but I don't see it capable of breaching that regional aspect.

Finally we have Arch. I see it better positioned for future than Debian TBH, but we are talking 5 years down the line. It won't be Arch though, it will be some new variant like CachyOS is doing today that brings Arch to the public... maybe KDE's new bet?!

Thanks for the info and all references you do in Lemmy. I don´t consider myself with a similar ideology as you, but indeed I am learning lots of info from your posts.

True. Apple would need a category on its own, but if i have to choose would place it on "As seen on TV".

It is fairly private and they quite give a fight about maintaining that status. There are no cases I am aware off they comply to open the system for authorities publicly and if so, they do not claim encryption anymore (as per UK.) Now... the key word is publicly; If I were a zealous top intelligence agency I would not force Apple to break an account for me so to obtain evidence on an individual so I can present it to a judge... for me Apple or Protonmail (or any other popular encrypted service really) would be far more valuable a place where I quietly could obtain intel on tens of thousands of targets and with that find other ways to find evidence if need be. It is a good sacrifice for the sustainability of the scheme.

Of course, this is just a thought and no evidence has been brought up. Apple is a large company and some whistleblower could easily popup if that were the case... yet again, having the right tight team is easy to keep it undercover, specially in a closed sourced software. The fact that the US is eyeing so many encrypted SaaS but Apple, with its omnipresence reach, is almost always left alone is a bit odd.

For those of us that despise Red Hat, sorry, but increasing the user base of Fedora, dramatically helps Red Hat's marketability and profitability (and IBM's). These companies not only make decisions bad for the FOSS community but way too happy to do business with a country massacring kids as we speak too. Now, I still recommend using Fedora since, as you say they are not straight IBM and they are at the vanguard, yet, for those with a conscience on these matters, there are as equally comparable offers out there.

The official Israeli CBS cites 50% of Israeli Jews having their ancestry in Europe, primarily Ashkenazi and post-Soviet groups.... but of course, with DNA test ban in Israel is hard to know for sure... Being 75% of the Israeli population Jewish, that places it as 2/3 of Jews in Israel are from European origin... and that is their own stats. I would even say more are.

Ok, so of the 7 Billion hike (of the total 64B he aims at!), what is the business case?

Has anyone seen it? Is it 3B for troops and 1B for French made equipment and 3B on American made? Or 6B on American equipment and 1B on troop readiness? What percentage is for contingency? (American made stuff, very easily and practically instantly Trump can make them grounded), is the 7B hike for France defense, or to buy American to directly ship to Ukraine? That, and many others, are question you will never see the media ask, and until there is an answer and accountability, it is just money laundering ... pretty much just like shipping airplanes full of sacks of money to Baghdad and expecting desirable outcomes.

Of course, nobody is going to have evidence here, if there was any the cover would be lifted. But one can guess chances here:

Proton: "Unlikely"... but there is a but. They never cater for the ultimate privacy and they make typical blunders of a company wanted to growth really fast. Now, that they want to be a behemoth in Privacy makes it more vulnerable to requests from law enforcement. Also, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have it easier to penetrate within Proton massive headcount growth.

Tuta: "Very Unlikely". The people behind started very young and had a sustainable growth. The people are very visible (unlike Crypto AG) so least likely to be working for an "agency".

Mullvad: "Very Unlikely". I think their story is similar to Tuta (haven´t followed it that much though).

GrapheneOS: "Very Unlikely". But in the last year I have raised some minor concerns, but I haven change my rating yet....

/e/: "Very Unlikely". I know the dude behind for 2 decades, he wouldn´t. However, /e/ never claimed full privacy and from the beginning says he would comply 100% with "lawful" requests, but it is not a honeypot, not that would make much difference to an intelligence agency if they wanted it.

Signal: "Potentially"... yes, yes... audited, solid privacy code... but still does not make sense to me many aspects; financially solvent from day one, the extreme unquestioned massive and vast support from launching till today... if i have to bet in all of these providers, this platform would have been my take as potential compromised one. I still use it to communicate with family since I trust better than WhatsApp, but I would not use it for critical journalistic info.

I see the huge appeal for Framework laptops and kudos for them to make themselves a niche in this tough market.

I stick to used Thinkpads for now though but if Framework (or any other) makes them reasonable upgradable (5-8 screws are fine) a bit waterproof, open BIOS and the Pointing stick, I'll pay dearly for it! And I am sure I am not alone. Tuxedo, Slimbook, come on... make a bold move here!!