👀

Cheers!!

This is effectively saying, “This article is correct but for the wrong reasons”. People aren’t angry about why hundreds of migrants dying isn’t newsworthy. They’re angry that it’s not newsworthy.

I’m frankly surprised that not enough people find it disgusting that the EU passively killing hundreds of refugees is less interesting because the EU does so regularly.

Oh nice thanks!

Cheers! Yep, I’m gonna give them the down low on Linux. I might even modify the DE to imitate the Windows 11 UX so the transition is easier.

I’m basically boiling it down to Debian/Debian-based OR Fedora…

This is actually a good shoot. Or maybe something like Gallium OS, but dunno if that’s still around haha.

Thanks for the heads up. My main concern with Zorin and Pop (out of ignorance, more than anything) is that they’re built with more modern devices, and will make the ThinkPad experience extremely slow? You think this should be a concern or it’ll be fine?

Perfect! Honestly, my greatest fear is that something breaks and they need to look up fixes by themselves. For a technophobe, StackOverflow and other forums can be pretty intimidating or downright hostile.

Ideally I’d like to opt for a distro that firstly works well on old machines (I’m going for a ThinkPad T400, i.e. an ancient one), and secondly, if it does break, can be fixed with a GUI hopefully.

Based on my understanding, primary uses:

• Read research papers (PDFs). Annotations functionality is a must (includes highlighting, commenting etc).
• Write university essays, including formatting, academic citations etc. I’d personally stick to Libre Office but realistically, they’re gonna use the MS Office suite. So I’d like to either have MS Office offline on the machine, OR let them use the on-line version easily.
• Listen to music fairly regularly, so Spotify is a must.
• Easy access to banking, finance etc.

Secondary uses:

• Streaming-wise, they occasionally use Netflix but mostly stream via one of “those websites” if you catch my drift
• They also like to use a VPN, which I can help set up (I’m planning to use my own OpenVPN instance)
• Social media, i.e. Gmail, FB etc.

So yeah, I think the ideal situation would be one that easily allows:

1. Using MS Office
2. Using Adobe (I’d have used Okular personally, but it’s annotations are utterly inaccessible if I share my Okular-annotated PDF with an Adobe user and vice versa)
3. Browser for everything else (I’ll likely give them Brave)

Sadly not!

Hey! You can also post this to !beatles@sopuli.xyz if you fancy :)

Beatles

Cheers! Fwiw, here’s a list of compatible desktops from the libreboot website:

• Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard
• Acer G43T-AM3
• Intel D510MO and D410PT motherboards
• Apple iMac 5,2
• HP Elite 8200 SFF (HP 6200 Pro Business probably works too)

Does this require fiddling with software?

Depends. Libreboot replaces your processor’s firmware with fully libre software. Most importantly, it gets rid of Intel Management Engine, which is a firmware-level spyware that all modern laptops have. Almost all laptops are stuck with this firmware – the sole exception are ~10 machines, mostly Toshiba, from 2008-2012ish. With these, you can completely eliminate the Intel ME by flashing your firmware with libreboot.

Now, in most cases, this requires tinkering with hardware. If you’re lucky, you can find a ThinkPad model that you can flash without having to gut the whole machine first. So in most cases (to my understanding), librebooting a machine is heavy on having to disassemble your laptop.

Does it work out of the box?

If by ‘out of the box’ you mean ‘works without issue once installed’, then yes. Once you’ve done the fiddling and set everything up, you don’t even have to think of libreboot again.

Some motherboard bios will give overclocking(OC) options. Does Libreboot give OC options, RAID drivers, or boot security options (encrypted OS)?

This is mostly beyond my expertise, but I recommend going through libreboot’s extremely informative official website.

If i wanted to take my current Franken-desktop and switch out the BIOS/UEFI and keep the OS, could this do it gracefully?

Almost definitely no. Libreboot only works on a select few devices, all of which have been out of production for about a decade (usually more). It’s a great option if you’re 1) Willing to tinker, AND 2) Either have one of the compatible models lying around, OR 3) Are willing to find one off of eBay auctions or local marketplaces.

You can find the list of compatible laptops on the libreboot website – if you’re lucky, maybe you have/can find one of these. If not, I’m not fully sure this has been of much help to you :')

The main appeal of libreboot is that you can truly create a 100% libre laptop with it. No blobs, no proprietary software, no invasive surveillance even at the firmware level.

Could you share any particular points that made you switch? I’m currently on Manjaro and I was thinking of switching to Fedora. But now I’ve started hearing good things about Debian…not sure how to proceed!

Yep! The main caveats are:

• You can only create a community on the instance you’re signed up on
• Some instances (e.g. Beehaw) don’t allow community creation

But in general, most instances do allow it. One possible workaround if you’re “stuck” on Beehaw might be to sign up on another instance, create your community, and then make your Beehaw account a mod on it. This way you don’t have to ditch you Beehaw account if you’re keen on creating communities.

Alternatively, if you’re still quite new here, maybe creating an account on another instance might not be a huge loss to you just yet.

One of the lesser-known scandalous from American history (there’s many to choose from) is John Muir’s campaigning for the National Park Service, which is often celebrated as a great victory of environmentalism. What they don’t tell you is that Muir saw the indigenous people of California and the Pacific Northwest as ‘savages’. The NPS meant that thousands of people lost their lands, lands which they had tended for centuries, but which appeared to White observers as merely ‘virgin forest’.

What’s this?

Cheers! Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Better to have an empty community (for now) than none at all.

Oh interesting! Last I checked Njalla was Bitcoin/Ethereum only but glad they accept XMR now. I run a 1984 VPS so can confirm that they accept XMR. I prefer them as they’re cheaper than Njalla (only a little bit still)

I believe it can but don’t take my word for it