Friends don't let friends run Chrome.

I get it.

I don't love Snaps either.

However, a thing I try to remember and wish others would as well is simply this: Canonical is a company. Their goal is to make money. They are not out to create the ultimate free as in freedom Linux distribution.

This does (to my mind) not make them evil, and ESPECIALLY doesn't make the folks who work there evil. It makes them participants in the great horrible game that is Capitalism, and expecting anything else from them is going to lead to heartache, as you've seen.

If you want a Linux distro that shares your preferences and won't try to jam snaps down your throat, you might consider giving Debian a whirl as many others have.

Continuing to ride the Ubuntu train and raging against the dying of the light when it continues chugging in the direction it's been headed for YEARS seems ... futile :)

This project just warms the cockles of my nerdy old heart :)

Bringing a crappy CRAPPY old protocol to life with awesome, secure, new 100% FLOSS technology so boatloads of homegrown art and culture can be saved?

YES PLEASE! :)

Fun meme, but honestly I think the only folks it's gonna be a bad year for are AAA game devs, who I already sympathize with.

I think indies are gonna keep rocking some outstanding content. Content made with and for love will always beat content made for money IMO :)

Couldn't agree more.

For what it's worth I think Brett Cannon wrote one of the best posts ever on the social contract of open source and how Not To Be That Guy :)

https://snarky.ca/the-social-contract-of-open-source/

Should be required reading IMO for anyone ever on Github :P

I think by far the biggest problem with open source is that the user community fundamentally mis-understands the nature of the transaction involving them and the developer(s) of the software they're using.

I think if we could make everyone sit down, take 10 minutes and just read The Social Contract Of Open Source a lot of people would keep developing OSS software.

Brass tacks: You are being given a gift. The person who gave you that gift owes you NOTHING because.. They gave you a gift and by using their software you chose to accept it.

I see it all the time in the open source project I co-maintain, and I have it SUPER easy beacause ours is really just a bundle of configuration files for Neovim.

I keep hearing this, and I KNOW it's true at the enterprise level, but I've been running my home LAN IPv6 native for the last - 6+ years? Ever since I learned Comcat would vend it to you from their stock router.

Works great. No problems. Didn't used to be that way, but these days most (more?) of the stack bugs have been shaken out.

Github

All the benefits of the network effect without the crippling reliance on a single MegaCorp to keep the lights on and not turn hostile like the owners of SourceForge, Reddit, and Freenode IRC.

Would also solve a problem I'm not hearing anyone at all talk about - what happens when the Gitlab / Gittea / whatever instances projects are hosting run out of money and go dark? Those sources are lost forever.

Long shot here: Donate to charities which help people in need in predominantly Trump held districts.

Less of a long shot: Volunteer for organizations like Vote Forward to try to reach folks. We're all human beings at the end of the day, and appealing to people can't hurt.

It's great!

The single biggest problem i see is the lack of network effect.

We need more people to use Lemmy and create and participate in communities. I know part of that is actually using and participating ourselves. so I will try to be better about seeking out active communities already here and patronizing them regularly :)

Post pandemic, this kind of ID "verification" is SUPER bogus, but it's quite common unfortunately, and, tbh, I can't think of a better way to handle it that isn't either in person or via snail mail.

Not great for sure, but most likely not racist, or at least not purposefully so (not that that matters).

I met my wife at 37 and married at 39. Best decision I ever didn't intentionally make :)

But looking back, I had a TON of growing up to do before I was ready to seriously commit to marriage the way I personally view it. Pair bonding for life. Sure, people, things and desired change, but I've watched far too many god awful divorces to ever want to go through that, so I wanted to be really sure and I totally was. It's been an awesome 16 years.

A thing I wish more Linux enthusiasts were more up front about: And prepare for PAPER CUTS! Because they're there. Most Linux folks ^1 probably do 5-6 things a day that new folks would find confusing or infuriating, just because they Get Used To It.

A perfect example: My Linux desktop is a System76 Thelio-r2 running Manjaro KDE latest, which I LOVE. Every time I boot it up, if I want to use my BT speakers or headphones ^2 I have to go into the BT settings panel, wonder why it says "Bluetooth Disabled - Enable Bluetooth", click the button, and move on with my day.

Turns out this is because of a kernel bug in the latest kernel versions with Intel bluetooth hardware. The driver times out at system boot, and thus the system is disabled by default. By the time you're fully booted, that time out never happens so if you just click Enable, you're good to go.

And these things are additive. They pile up and increase frustration for end users who aren't savvy enough to know which forums to search on or what search terms to pump into their search engines.

This does not mean you shouldn't try Linux. Please do! It can be a life changer and a serious power up! But be aware that the path will have many small roadblocks that need to be traversed, so just set your expectations accordingly, explore and have fun!

^1: I use Windows, Linux and Mac as need dictates. Let "tool to task" be the whole of the law :)

^2: Perfect example: Many Linux users wouldn't use Bluetooth speakers! They'd get wired ones or one of those RF thingies that has long time Linux driver support. But if you're new, you don't know that!

Good. The more they abuse their user base the more people will look for alternatives. Hello Lemmy! :)

I blame the tinfoil hat infosec crowd for not understanding that the world they inhabit is not the same one Regular Users live in.

Is there risk in keeping all your passwords in one place, whether it's on your hardware or someone else's? hell yes! Is that risk stastically speaking ANYTHING LIKE the risk you take when you use 'pencil' for all your passwords because you can't be arsed to memorize anything more complex? OH HELL YES.

Sure, if you're defending against nation state level agressors, maybe using a password manager isn' the wisest choice, but for easily 99% of computer users, we're at the level of "keeping people from drooling on their shoes". So password managers are probably a GREAT idea.

Interesting assertion, but is it really?

The Linux kernel is a single software product produced by a single entity and ultimately controlled by a small cadre of highly trusted people.

It's not Tuta but I adore Fastmail.

No BS. No gimmicks. Just privacy aware, protocol conformant E-mail at a reasonable price.

Glad to hear about the "opt in".

Partially blind guy here who struggles to use computers these days because EVERYTHING IS FREAKING TEENY TINY TEXT YOU CAN'T CHANGE ESPECIALLY MOBILE AAAAAH IT HURTS.

Ahem.

Yes I'm a bit bitter :)

I think everybody's different. I mean, there do exist 23 year olds who are incredibly mature and fully formed as human beings, capable of making that kind of a Big Decision, but from what I've seen they're pretty darn rare :)

Gamer culture in one :)