Corgana

Good point but I will say even with immutable distros users are given a lot more control than Windows or Mac.

In Bazzite, installing software, for example, works differently than under a typical distribution.

This is true, but it’s also on the whole a lot more familiar to a non-Linux user (open app store, search, download).

Took a long time, but nice to see this topic getting mainstream attention.

This is literally the answer lmao why are you getting downvoted.

“any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not owned or funded by the state” is not the common definition of “independent media” (it’s not even the definition given in the hyperlinked definition). “Independence” in this context refers to journalistic independence.

Zorin is another distro that (very successfully imo) does a windows-style taskbar with GNOME and is parent friendly, though like I said before, I think today I would go with something immutable for a non-techie because they’re very hard to break.

KDE is the easiest for coming from Windows, you almost never never need the command line or anything “extra” to customize it (beyond what even Windows will allow).

GNOME (especially in Ubuntu) by default is more Macintosh-like which might appeal to some people, it’s “simpler” but any customizations will require navigating the add-ons (and in my experience inevitably the command line too).

I think KDE is the one for most people who just want a functioning PC. GNOME could be good for the PC you might make for your parent. Bonus points for an immutable distro which are even harder to break.

OP if you enjoy a fun weekend project, don’t go with a pi-hole. It literally only takes about 5 minutes. Also I recommend the blocklistproject lists https://blocklistproject.github.io/Lists/

FOSS land is always going to be populated by freaks and geeks. The well socialized devs get jobs at Google. It’s impressive the “system” works as well as it does, IMO. Passion is a big motivator.

There is a reason the type of devs who have the talent, passion and time for projects like this are not spending 60hrs/wk at Google.

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Haha, Ulrich I noticed you on several threads the past few days correcting misinformation, thank you for your service.

In my book a single data point (a phone number) is not “vast amounts of metadata”. Again, I have never seen someone describing Signal as a “paragon of privacy and security”, Signal itself certainly does not say that (It’s presented as an improvement over SMS).

Signal is an excellent alternative if you’re looking for an E2E encrypted SMS replacement your grandmother can use.

Where did you read that they are collecting vast amounts of metadata? Not challenging your claim just that I have been trying to find more info and came up empty. Signal says “we don’t collect analytics or telemetry data” but that’s about it.

I’d be curious to hear your criticisms of Signal! While I haven’t seen anyone describing it as a “paragon of privacy and security” I do think it is a highly accessible SMS replacement that is also open source, end-to-end encrypted, and operated by a nonprofit.

Matrix.org & the servers they run, which was originally funded by Israeli Intelligence

Can you elaborate on this? The only connection I was able to find to Israel at all is that the British people who originally created the protocol worked for an American company (amdocs) that was founded in Israel in 1982, but bought out in 1985 long before Matrix was developed. Furthermore, Amdocs hasn’t funded the development of Matrix since 2017 and the current Matrix.org foundation is based in the UK.

Wikipedia: Amdocs, Matrix

How does it work self hosting? Is it querying other search engines or just maintaining a database on your server?

I see, I wasn’t comparing an article to a video, I was comparing a video to a text summary of the same video.

We seem to agree that actually eating real food at a greasy spoon is preferable to reading a description of the dining experience offered at the Ritz. But your replies give me the impression we disagree?