I could be mistaken, but since it’s a Mozilla base code and F-Droid distribution chain, I’m not sure where Google can stick it’s thumb in the pie.

(currently scrolling from the throne) Fixed that for you

File under “abusive uses of technology”

All technology development stands on the shoulders of giants. It’s unethical for modern giants to refuse to continue the tradition.

https://newrepublic.com/series/49/microsoft-three-mile-island-ai-nuclear

Nope. Very real.

Or just agree with what your betters want you to think, obviously. </s>

I thought her insights were practical and grounded. Do you disagree about the factual nature of their anecdote about engagement with cameras off? Or that the anecdote isn’t indicative of general audiences? Would you care to elaborate on what you mean by “what actual people are actually like”?

It’s worse then that. They’re actively profiting from that discount rate, meaning they’re ludicrously profiting from everyone who doesn’t spend half their life getting discount codes (the cost of convenience)

Yep yep. Was hoping someone would call me out on that. 😝

Nah. I’ve been advocating for Linux for decades. For decades I’ve been trying to convince people to switch on its own merits, but none of that has been effective.

It took Microsoft sabotaging their product for me to see the needle shift. So I’m done trying to convince people with carrots, it’s time for Microsoft to convince the masses with sticks.

What’s next Microsoft? Replace the windows os loading windows page with a 30s ad? Or have defender uninstall apps if a competitor pays enough? Maybe capture a screenshot of my screen every 3 seconds for AI analysis?

I’ll accept that maybe I’m giving Google a pass because of misplaced nostalgia, and while I personally have never used or liked Meta Facebook, I’ll concede that for a while it provided a service some people valued.

It’s still my opinion that Google and Facebook have a large percentage of engineers that personally try to make them a genuinely good service, at least moreso than compared to TikTok and Temu. But I’m willing to concede it’s not as much a practical difference as I would like.

Emphasis on by comparison, as in “molten hot metal is cooler than the surface of the sun, by comparison”.

TikTok and Temu actively have code in them that would be considered a virus in other contexts. They exploit your system to gain more access than they should, violating the point of sandboxed access.

By comparison Meta and Google merely take advantage of user ignorance and apathy by making opting out frustrating - but still technically doable.

Both practices are terrible, but that’s not the same as saying they’re equally bad.

Them too, but lukewarm by comparison.

But even that would cover a large percentage of the American workforce, and I imagine over a few years, it will grow to cover all users that don’t need personal accountants. Progress is progress.

Personally, I hope this transitions into a system where they email you a proposed return and you do nothing to accept it (only needing to take action if there’s an issue).

I saw a video recently where a Steam Deck was repurposed as a robotics controller and monitor unit for prototypes. Having an off-the-shelf highly customizations controller for $350 is a steal for this industry, but they’re not using it for games.

(Video for reference: https://youtu.be/1KEtxTQUzxY)

Disclaimer: I don’t use Fedora, but have friends who do. So I tried to include sources, below. 😅

How would I install NVIDIA drivers?

https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA

_Does Wayland work with NVIDIA?*

(I don’t know)

A lot of distros are moving to Wayland. How would I ensure I stay on an Xorg session?

GNOME now defaults to Wayland. Instructions to use xOrg instead: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/configuring-xorg-as-default-gnome-session/

I expect other desktop environments will similarly have mechanisms switch, at least during a transition period.

I enjoy modding Bethesda games. Does Mod Organizer work fully on Linux?

Your mileage may vary, but it looks likely: https://github.com/rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer

I’ve had difficulties running my steam games through proton on my laptop. Does proton work with Fedora?

I suspect it will. Steam has been pouring money into making it’s catalog Linux ready, https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/gaming/proton/

With said difficulties with proton, would installing Steam as a flatpak work or will it cause issues?

In principle it ought to, but there appears to be an issue with it currently. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/gaming/proton/

Can you really not play any games with anti-cheat?

Anti cheat software generally works by looking for irregularities that detect if there’s any program besides Windows that’s intercepting system calls. It is unfortunately by exactly this mechanism that allows Proton to work (as Windows isn’t present).

Let’s start simple: You should consider hoping from Linux Mint to LMDE if you haven’t already.

As a user, you have no obligation to participate in the politics between the Ubuntu and the Mint Development team, but if you’ve followed the controversy and agree that Ubuntu is being a bully, this would be a small yet material way to show support.

what am I missing?

Every Linux distribution has a purpose - a reason its author thought it was worth the effort of creating it. Some are grand, others are silly, etc. When you explore distros, you’re telling the community which ideas resonate with you. Popular ideas will replicate, unpopular ideas will be abandoned.

Also, switching distributions makes it harder for business to ‘capture’ the Linux demographic. The mere act of switching occasionally means that tools to import/export/manage your data stay relevant. This literally fights enshitification.

Finally, and this is a matter of personal taste, but I like trying different versions of Linux for the same reason I try different flavors of ice cream: It’s fun; and even if now and then I get a bad flavor, I feel enriched by the experience.

(Edit: it’s to its)

Yes, at the beginning of the pandemic it was discovered that Plex Inc had been tracking, reporting home, and selling user watching habits to advertisers. Basically the exact thing many Plex users were trying to get away from.

This inspired many developers (who were otherwise stuck at home due to said pandemic) to fork Emby and thus Jellyfin was born.

Yes. Absolutely 100%. Canonical has a pretty solid track record of acting like a corporation.

Can’t speak for @[email protected], but I was happy with Ubuntu when they first started - they took the best of open-source, put it in a nice package and then put money into improving it. It’s just over the years they’ve drifted away from that and slowly have been replacing stuff with their own in-house stuff. At this point, they’re sorta Microsoft light. Maybe harmless today, but only because they want to look better than the competition.

If that alone weren’t sufficient reason to be skeptically pessimistic, enshitification is trending, all corporations seem to feel that now is the time to turn the screws. Can’t blame a guy for expecting bad news generally in this environment.