elagost

> what deficiencies does Elementary OS have compared to Windows?

From a regular user's perspective, every answer you'll get boils down to "the bugs aren't in the same places as Windows". Most Open Source/Free software these days is as good or better than its proprietary equivalent.

Been using syncthing as a dropbox replacement since 2017 - It scales from a raspberry pi with a USB disk, to a docker container on my NAS. It even works if the devices aren't on the same network via relays.

It has very low system load, there are basically zero dependencies, and you can run it on your android phone too.

Every year, it becomes more and more obvious that Apple cares far greater for money and numbers than developers or customers. Any criticism thrown at the company goes into a void, they don't communicate about any issues or feedback, and they continue to take away useful features and replace them with either nothing, or something nobody asked for. I used to really like this company.

"user-installed packages totally separate" from the system is more or less how the BSDs work. OpenBSD provides user packages via pkg_add and pkg_delete, and the system updates with syspatch/sysupgrade. FreeBSD uses pkg update/pkg upgrade for user-installed packages, and freebsd-update for system updates. Maybe you'd like those systems better.

Guess I'm wrong then! Thanks for the correction.

"one of React's dependencies"

Which one? There are... several. (someone posted this here a while ago, and it's lovely to look at)

http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/react-native

I've got a complicated proxy setup to contend with and have to build via Jenkins on some older Linux boxes, so it's just trial and error. You have a build script you'd be willing to share?

At work we have to compile everything from source because compliance, and Grafana is one of the harder ones to get right. There used to be good documentation for it a few versions back but I can't seem to find it lately. Is there any good documentation on how to get Grafana compiled from source?

They do indeed upstream patches. Here's an example: https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/10/8/851

A heavy criticism of a lot of these ubuntu-based distros is "ubuntu + a custom PPA", but system76 does actually put in a lot of work into a custom kernel and some neat UI tweaks that make the OS on their hardware really well. They also have a firmware updater for their systems built into the settings program. The whole experience is a lot more refined than Ubuntu, I believe. It's a great OS for their machines, as well as any laptop with hybrid Intel/Nvidia graphics.

These are resources/dependencies for other snaps. The .deb packages for Gnome and your GTK themes stick around. You can safely remove the snaps and not see any real noticeable difference.

Is GNOME the only desktop environment going forward with wayland at this point? Wayland has been the only way I can enjoy tear-free, config-tweak-free video on Linux for the past few years, and that leaves me stuck with either GNOME or something like Sway. Mate would be a great middle ground but I don't want to have to mess with compositors again.

Makes sense, given Chris Lamb, former Debian Project Leader, is heavily involved. https://reproducible-builds.org/who/

This is fantastic to see. Reproducible builds adds yet another layer of trust on top of open source software. The wiki page is also classic Arch Wiki-style, with all the detail one would expect. Every OSS project should strive to be this helpful.

Having used both, in a personal and professional capacity, I don't think they occupy the same "real estate". If you have a bunch of Windows systems to admin, sure, PowerShell works great with all the Windows built-ins. In fact, it works with SCCM pretty well. If your systems are Linux-based, you can use shell scripts to interface with something like Chef or Rundeck. Use something that works natively and is designed for the platform you need to orchestrate.

I've used it several times to chat with family members all over the globe, and I use Zoom at work. Jitsi's great - I don't perceive a difference.

As I paged-down to start reading, I got four words in ("Mindlessly checking social networks") before four social network badges animated in from the left. Seems a little ironic.

Regardless, it was a good read. Your idea about dumbphone+SIM-less smartphone is something I've not heard before and might try.

We've been using a Wacom Intuos (CTL-490, I think) tablet for several years. It was about $60. It's literally plug-and-play on Ubuntu and there's a section in the settings for it. I assume the newer entry level ones have the same level of support.

The exact model I have hovers around $30 on eBay these days.

Most people, I believe, could be served just fine by most "Free" alternatives. Many people, I believe, wouldn't notice if you replaced 1) their desktop OS with GNU/Linux, 2) their browser with Firefox, 3) their search engine with DuckDuckGo, 4) MS office with LibreOffice or FreeOffice, and 5) their various smartphone apps and social media services with webapps and/or Free alternatives.

How is this surprising? As long as it "just works" most people are going to be fine and won't really notice a difference.

I !g occasionally in DDG (which I've been using full time for over 4 years) but have found that Google's results aren't better, just different.

It's been more than 5 years since I've used AutoCAD or other AutoDesk professional design software, but it has this. There's a command line that interfaces very well with its GUI. You can draw shapes entirely in the command line, or you can use it to help you place a second point in a line, for example.

You do have to touch your phone for every desktop client you link, and if you reinstall or bounce between machines, you encounter this a lot. Infrequently, the link just screws up and you have to 'relink' the desktop client, again requiring the phone. No way to log back in without the phone. Really my only complaint with an otherwise perfect tool.

Anecdata: just set my mom's new iPhone up today, and re-registering Signal required she set up the registration lock PIN. I don't personally use that feature yet but interesting that it was mandatory.

So... VDI, but for Phones? VPI? Seems like a cool idea worth some effort to streamline.

These days, it's fairly inexpensive to get a home server, set up a VPN server, and run stuff like a web browser through RDP. Guacamole (https://guacamole.apache.org/) makes desktop apps through a web browser even simpler.

Again, setting all this up is more than trivial, but I believe it's something that could be a "one-click app" for a VPS. See https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/

If I'm to avoid Firefox, I'd like to avoid its forks as well - they don't really improve upon anything meaningful both of those have had more issues than Firefox in the past. I'm thinking smaller than Firefox.

Is there a better alternative to Firefox? Of all the browsers it seems like the "least bad" choice (above Chromium, and other proprietary browsers) and I use it, but is there something safer, simpler, and more secure?

Fastmail is great, but as this list is supposed to be "privacy focused", Fastmail (company from Australia) is not a good alternative. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...

Lots of people in this thread seem to be fighting about whether AirPods (and wireless headphones in general) are a viable product or not. "Wires are not a hassle and provide a better experience most of the time" crowd, vs. "Wires are awful and I'll take all the drawbacks of wireless just to get rid of them" crowd.

Generally, won't people who care about headphones own multiple pairs of headphones? I have a cheap pair of liquid-resistant bluetooth buds for workouts, and they work great for that but sound pretty bad. For walking or home use, I use either a wired set of nicer earbuds, or some wired over-ear headphones that sound amazing.

All of them combined cost less than airpods, too. If you care enough to spend money on headphones and not just use the wired pack-in ones that come with most devices, would one not just do an hour of research before spending almost $200 on something with a very obviously limited lifespan?

And as far as airpods being a platform: the author seems to think "sensors = platform". They're a nicely integrated part of Apple's whole mobile platform, but not a platform themselves. You can't use airpods by themselves, so how does that make them a platform?

I love the concept of using OpenBSD on my personal machine as my primary OS, but it's much slower and the drivers are less stable than Linux these days. I wonder if this move will either shrink or grow the audience of this admittedly small distribution.

This has been the case in Server systems for a while - IPMI[1] has been used for remote KVM, power management, remote mounting of ISOs, etc. on many servers for years. HP's iLO, Dell's iDRAC, and even SuperMicro boards have an implementation. This pattern is pretty standard, but none of it's FOSS.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Platform_Managemen...

It is possible to use an Intel machine without the ME. Since there are constant vulnerabilities and exploits around the ME, many enthusiasts do not like the idea of a vulnerable and secret super-admin computer on their computer. There is the option to disable the ME on supported devices (usually old Thinkpads) using me_cleaner[1].

I personally run Coreboot on my Thinkpad with the ME "disabled" (essentially just broken and stuck in a constant bring-up state), and System76[2], Purism[3], and Dell sell machines with the option of disabling the ME entirely, if one is super-paranoid.

[1] https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner

[2] https://system76.com/laptops

[3] https://puri.sm/learn/intel-me/