erebion

“read the changes before installing a major update”

As if people have the time to read the changelogs for every single package all the time… 🙄

This is pretty important on a server to avoid disruptions and outages, but people have other things to do.

And once it is no longer on and has become a setting, they can just remove the setting and force people to drop gsettings and then remove it completely.

They could also instead ask people on first launch. Some people enable telemetry, so they will find out how many people prefer to keep it, which I bet will be most.

Then that could be solved by displaying a message the first time GNOME is launched, not by disabling it. This will just break workflows for quite a lot of people.

XMPP server, do some decentralised communication under your control. It will federate to other servers, allowing you to speak to other people and join public chats. An old Raspberry Pi should easily be able to server 100 or 200 users. Try Prosody for that or Snikket if you prefer containers and everything working out of the box.

You could also use it as a NAS, if you don’t need a fast NAS. It will probably be enough to stream HD media using VLC on a cheap Android TV device/dongle.

But why? Then the users thinks “huh, weird” and goes on.

I’ve seen that countless times with people that are less technical.

XMPP server would be another idea, those will happily run on anything and barely require resources.

Just because the linked site does mention it does not mean it is not worth pointing out.

Yes, but just because SMART does not complain does not mean the drive has issues. If it does, it means there are issues. That should be kept in mind.

Several different operating systems, such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD (the latter one having a live system and being the easiest to try out). Those have their history based in BSD. But thatʼs all bit too much to fit in s reply here.

Unlike Linux distributions, those projects develop a kernel and the other parts together and make an OS.

Most software will be available on BSDs and on Linux distributions.

Just that. Also, most research I’ve seen claim no difference to be found, but surely that also depends and neurotype and several other things, so it might still be helpful for some groups.

Testing does not have dedicated security work and issues could be unsolved for a couple more days. You can use testing, of course, but read Debian security advisories. Upgrade packages from Unstable if there’s something critical and do not wait days for a fix.

It’s called unstable because packages are constantly upgraded, unlike Debian Stable, which stays the same until the next release and only gets patches. It is NOT called unstable “because they do not guarantee that it will work”, for that you’d need paid enterprise support from some company.

~/git

Everything else is managed by Ansible or synced via Synthing (except ~/Downloads).

Oh, you can do serious work with GNOME, most people try to force it into something that it is not.

This video gives a good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDLfRjam0E

I know many people that prefer GNOME for their work in IT. I prefer Sway, but use GNOME on phones and tablets, where it works great for me.

Is this satire? Just wondering, because it sounds so stupid.

I’ve used that font on an ereader for more then a year, then switched to something else and noticed no difference at all.

I’ve also seen research claiming that it does not help at all, so idk.

First couple of years? I was in my early teens when trying out many distros within a couple weeks, for example Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, OpenSuse… Then I settled on Ubuntu and used that from 2008 to 2022, when I was fed up with Canonical shoving snapd down my throat and me having to uninstall it all the time. Since then I’ve used Debian exclusively, previously I only had it on some machines.

(I’ve also toyed a bit with the BSDs, but was missing systemd, so those never stuck with me.)

That seems to be something a cheap Raspberry Pi 4 can easily handle. I even use mine as an SMB share. Sure, the speed is limited by the network port and USB port sharing data lanes, but it’s fast enough for my needs. Needs tiny amounts of eletricitiy, so I don’t burn the planet that quickly.

I migrated my mother to GNOME (on Debian), that’s very much unlike Windows, but she immediately got it. The overview of open programs is similar to what she knows on Android, for example. She is someone that struggles with email attachments from time to time, but GNOME works well for her.

It does not have to look like Windows to work for people. People use phones a lot more these days and those do not run Windows (hopefully, at least, cause that’s dead).

Try out Debian. Stable, base of many other distros, loads of documentation, huge helpful community, just runs and barely ever breaks (I can’t even remember the last time I had issues).

Somehow I, actually, find this font hard to read. o.O