I used to think the "th" sound is hard because it is uncommon in my language, we do not use our tongues to hit the top teeth like that. But then, it became 2nd nature after living abroad for almost 20 years.

Recently i happen to work with a lot of architects and designers and 1 word comes up which I think is the most difficult to pronouncr: AESTHETIC.

It sounds very simple but if you break down the syllables, your tongue needs to do a bit of work.

For the British English version, the "t" in tic is pronounced quite strong, as in "tick". Mostly, your tongue only needs to worry about the "THE" sound, i.e. ES-THE-TIC.

In US English, the "t" is most often pronounced as a soft "d". This means "TIC" will sound like "DIC". So your tongue needs to flick up for the "THE" sound and then immediately flick down for the "DIC".

This gets even harder if you consider the adverb: AESTHETICALLY. A lot of tongue gymnasium involve...

Any other words or phrase that you think is dificult?

I know the US is a shitshow right now but please im looking for sensible answers.

I have some documents from a bank that need to be mailed. PDF is not an option and no matter how much i push for a secure email option, they still stick with slow turtle mail.

I live outside the US and this slow mail process has been very frustrating. And not just banks, any other business if you request some form of paperwork, their answer => MAIL.

That is very weird consider to mail the document, they need to type out an electronic version then print and mail it. So why waste too many steps?

And i just discovered today theres a thing called mailforwarding service..... Aka you buy a US mailbox, letter gets sent to that mailbox then they help to forward those internationally.

In contrast to when I am in China and Singapore, EVERYTHING is digital. It is so much better that the only thing i carry is my phone.

I have a lemur pro from sys76. That thing is very lightweight and has quite a bit of flex in the middle of the keyboard. It runs very well but i try to be very careful with it, to avoid scratches.

Beside applying a custom skins, does there exist a custom casing for laptop too? Or for that we need our own 3d printer lmao...

I read how most laptop vendors nowadays force S0ix (Modern Standby). You can no longer pick S3.

On Linux the names for these policies in the kernel are:

• deep, aka the S3 sleep or suspend to ram

• s2idle, aka the new Modern Standby or S0ix or suspend to idle.

I am thinking of getting the new Framework laptop, but after talking with their CS, they mention that all Framework will run on S0ix and will not support S3 sleep.

There was a video of LTT bashing S0ix/Modern Standby years ago and he was correct. I had a Thinkpad and it defaulted to S0ix: resume and suspend were very unpredictable. Luckily that laptop also supports S3 so i can just switch to it.

Is resume / suspend getting better on Linux with this forced S0ix? Or i better hold on to an old laptop with S3 lol?

BTW, those with Framework, is resume/suspend reliable? Almost Mac like?

I'm getting a new laptop with hardware that supports Linux very well. Although my old thinkpad is still working, i need something with better CPU and higher RAMs (when i am able to afford) for work. I could get a new Thinkpad too but recently Intel made suspend/standby in Linux to be unreliable.

I notice that for the Linux first vendors, there are 2 types: ones who design their own chassis (Framework, Starlabs), and those who use an existing ODM design and put their own software tweaks on (Sys76, Tuxedo, Novacustom).

For the ODM, these vendors usually go with either Clevo or Tong Fang. From most comments i read, Clevos are criticized for being flimsy, weak hinges and the batteries can get swollen.

Anyone with laptops from these vendors? How is the quality? I heard great things about coreboot, but if the hardware sucks then theres no point.

I'm seeing a very strange issue on a System76 Lemur Pro (lemp11).

What I've observed:

Fresh install of Fedora Silverblue → system boots with the wrong date/time.

The issue also occurs on Secureblue (which is based on Silverblue).

chronyd is running, but the system is sometimes not synchronized after boot.

Resetting or changing the DNS configuration causes the clock to immediately jump to the correct time.

The confusing part is that I can't reproduce this on other distributions. The same laptop behaves normally with Fedora Workstation and Pop!_OS.

I haven't been able to reproduce it on a ThinkPad X280/T480. The clock on those work fine post install.

That makes me wonder if this is something specific to the Silverblue/Atomic boot process or service ordering on this hardware, rather than a failing RTC or CMOS battery.

Has anyone seen something similar, particularly on System76 hardware? Any ideas on what to investigate next or which logs would be most useful?

I'd be happy to provide more details or run additional tests.

I have so many questions for yall lol.

So for the letter t, do you just keep track in your head to write the vertical curve first then remember the horizontal dash after? For longer words, do you sometimes forget these final touchups?

Also does signing a signature come natural for you, i.e. due to the non stop motion?

And not just "t" and "i", if you do the same thing for letters from other languages like accents from other languages too, e.g. á, à, ü...etc. Then please share your thoughts too.

Swaylock works fine for me. But i prefer something that has password field; can be asterisks or dots, it doesnt matter. The point is if i make a mistake when typing, i can delete a word and correct it, instead of forcing a wrong unlock and try again.

Anything like that and also includes the session lock v1 protocol for Wayland?

I'm pretty ocd so i find it really annoying if the space bar is not exactly in the center. What i meant by "center" is:

• the left and right vertical edges of the space bar must line up (or get pretty close) to the edges of the touchpad. E.g. pretty much all Lenovo laptops.

I had several Macs too and now that i think about it, their touchpad area dont line up with the space bar since.... forever. Instead, they center it by making the touchpad larger, so the edges dont line up with the space bar.

For windows laptop, Asus / MS surfaces also do not have their touchpad / spacebar line up. Gaming laptops are obviously not, because their keyboards need to be bigger to accomodate special keys and sometimes a numpad.

On Android, i usually customize the layout such that the bottom row of the main layout contains no comma or full stop / period. If i want to use those, then i go to the secondary layout.

Recently moved to a new area and i am facing this scenario:

It is raining very heavily outside such that the side mirrors are wet and difficult to see. You cant really roll the window down to wipe without splashing the passengers and the car interiors.

On a normal day, street lights are already dim and hard to see. It is much worse when it rains. Plus, I use these UV films on my windows. I have to use them because it is scorchingly hot during the day.

So under those above conditions, it is very tricky to reverse down a basement. Due to the design, it is better to reverse down instead of going head first.

So what i usually do:

1. Use the reverse camera. I can adjust its brightness settings to show the back clearly.

2. Use the hazard lights. The flashes from these lights can bounce off of the nearby gate. So they can give some sort of "guideline" for me.

That is all i can do. I am literally blinded on the left and right in this scenario. Without any passengers, I can bite the bullet and roll down the windows. But even then, it is tough because of the heavy rain.

Are there any rain guard to put on the side mirrors, to stop the rain coming down? I have no idea if these exist or what they are called.

Appreciate any help

I have like 20+ years of Gmail messages. I want to download all of these messages to my hard drive. The plan is to get my data downloaded first before moving to another email provider.

Sure, I can just forward my Gmail to Proton/Tuta but i prefer to keep those services clean.

I will still keep my Gmail in case some old contacts / subscriptions need to email. But the important part is my 20+ years of data, I dont trust Google to keep everything.

I have several options:

1. Use Thunderbird and download using the IMAP option, so download every thing in every folder, e.g. Sent, Starred, Inbox, Important.

2. iiirc, Google allows you to use the checkout feature to download a .mbox file. Is this feasible?

So far I am on 1) and Thunderbird is taking a VERY long time to download. From my Google storage page , i have like 10 GB of emails. But the downloaded emails from Thunderbird are around 20 GB... So either Google is lying about their stat or Thunderbird is acting up. Still, i can see most of my old emails. It is still downloading though...

Any input is appreciated

I was reading a recent story about a UK based age verification company, Yeti, reportedly banning a user simply for using GrapheneOS. While going through the discussion, I came across the idea of dual wielding two phones: a GrapheneOS device (or any custom ROM or Linux phone) alongside a basic "identity" phone.

Dual wielding seems like a practical way to separate personal data from services that require real world identification. The tricky part, however, is handling SIM cards. In many countries, your primary phone number is registered with the government, so it needs to stay active if you want people, businesses, and official services to be able to reach you.

I'm thinking of putting my main SIM in the identity phone and treating it as the device that represents my legal identity. The identity phone would contain only apps that are directly tied to my real world identity, such as government ID apps, age verification apps, digital identity services, and any other applications that require official identification.

Then I'd buy a separate data-only eSIM and use it exclusively on the GrapheneOS phone. I can even try regular esim with separate number too, but those are rare. Every phone operator wants to know who you are nowadays.

Most people communicate through WhatsApp and other data-based apps these days anyway, so the GrapheneOS phone could remain my primary daily device while the identity phone simply stays powered on to receive calls and SMS messages associated with my registered number.

In theory, dual wielding like this provides a cleaner separation between identity and personal computing. The identity phone becomes a dedicated device for government and identity-related services, while the GrapheneOS phone handles day to day communication, browsing, and personal activities without being directly tied to the primary SIM or identity infrastructure.

Thoughts?

P/S: it's Yoti. My apologise to the Yeti.....

I want an email client that can download all of my existing Gmail emails and then i can search for them quickly. I have tried Thunderbird, Mailspring, Clawmail, Geary. Some of them can download all of the emails, but when it comes to time to search, they often freeze. Thus, I would then need to do the old fashion way: open up a browser and login from there.

Is Mutt ok with such requirements? Any other alternatives?

I also use GrapheneOS on my phone. Before I had Fairmail for my Gmail account but the search feature is quite buggy. So.... even though i know it is shitty, I have to use the official Gmail app for my Gmail stuff. It gets the jobs done: i can search for an email 3 months ago or follow up on an old email thread very quickly.

I use Fedora on Gnome.

I often hook my laptop to a dock which connects to the monitor. The dock has all the ports so it is a one usb C cable to connect to my laptop. So i'd have monitor on the left, laptop on the right. Or i can go full monitor and turn off the laptop's display.

Nevertheless, sometimes when I need to packup and unplug the dock's usb c, some applications are still stuck. I.e. the system still thought that they are still on the external monitor.

The only way to "pull" these windows back is to unplug the HDMI, then plug/unplug the dock's usb c cable into the laptop. Using Window key to get to Overview mode in Gnome, i couldnt see the missing the windows. Not even the good old Alt - Tab.

Is there a plugin or something to restore these windows? I even tried to force Gnome to use only 1 workspace, still same problem.

I use Github for many years and want to move all my repos away from it. What is a good alternative, preferably one that is easy to push? Ideally i will be cloning all my repos to hard drive and then just push to whatever service. At first glance, there are many options: Bitbucket, Gitlab, Codeberg, Gitea..etc. I will be self hosting these repos and I prefer longevity, i.e. dont want to wake up one morning to see all repos gone from the site.

I'm testing out the SecureBlue distro, the concept is very cool and I am still learning my ways around it. Anyhow, SecureBlue came with its own hardened browser: Trivalent. It is great and coming from GrapheneOS on my phone, this feels like at home.

But... how the heck do you force a wifi portal to appear when you connect to pubic wifis like malls and hotels? I understand public wifi is not safe but thats another problem. I just want to know how to get online while travelling.

What i tried:

1. go to 1.1.1.1 or neverssl.com like some sites suggested. Nothing happens

2. use my phone wifi hotspot to download firefox. Then unharden firefox via some flags (otherwise firefox wouldnt run). Finally, connect to hotel wifi and use firefox to open the login portal.

3. on sway, obviously nothing happened because its so minimal. .But on the gnome flavor, you can see a pop up to sign in. .On a normal distro, clicking that would open the portal. On this one, it doesnt work.

Any other suggestions? Some dns setting ? Unharden trivalent?

I understand you can use whatever browser you want on Linux, but because Trivalent is hardened i prefer to use just one. Like on Graphene with Vanadium.

Appreciate any inputs.

Job title: easy, you can use your prev job or whatever your expertise is

Company: this one is tricky imo. I saw "Visitor" , "Personal Contractor", "Freelance", "Independent contractor", and also made up name (Bob Inc)...etc.

Usually those places just want you to fill out the info online, then at the event, you scan a QR to get your badge. But in some rare case, they need to call out "Your name + Your company" to get the badges. What do you do? I had to use my prev company title and name.

Note: I am not from the Pop team so this has nothing to do with them. I am just a user who wants shit to work and not distro hop every couple of months.

Not trying to invoke a distro war here, but I recently bought a second hand sys76 laptop. The build is ok not fantastic like thinkpads or macs, but i wanted to try out their distro - Pop OS. It runs pretty great, smooth and very snappy. I really like the best of both worlds - tiling vs floating windows.

That said, I see a lot of hate for this distro. Christ Tirus Tech posted multiple videos ditching this OS like it is garbage. Linus Tech Tips had that self owned moment when he installed Pop and crashed it, so not a good marketing for the OS.

I used Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Arch. Each has its pros and cons but the hostility is nowhere near the ones Pop gets. Did the devs fucked up because they did something stupid to the OS, like Manjaro team when they forgot to renew security certificates?

My family relies heavily on Google One to sync our Google Photos. We have 4 iOS and 5 Android devices. Originally the iOS folks would pay and sync through iCloud. But to simplify the billing process and easy sharing, we switched all to Google Photos. Lets just say there is almost 2TB of photos/videos.

We want to move away from this to a more controlled (self host) and non Google solution. We looked at Proton, their emails and vpns are great. However we dont want to move to a different cloud for photos and videos.

We are not very tech savy to set things up. Can we just buy a big hard drive and somehow hook it to our wifi? This is consider self hosted right? Does that mean medias will only get synced when we are within the house's wifi?

Appreciate any inputs