Right, because proprietary software is never abandoned. At least foss leaves you with the source code so you or other folk can carry on the torch in the original dev’s absence.

Bluesky will be in the same boat given enough time. Mastodon (or other actually federated options) is the only proper stand-in for twitter.

Seconded. Its a great experience, my only complains is that photo synchronization with my phone isn’t stellar. Best solution I’ve found thus far is a proprietary app called FolderSync

I’ve worked in IT my whole career and if someone wants me yo install Linux on their machine, or has questions about bash scripting, I’m dropping whatever I’m doing to help them.

How else are my friends and family supposed to teach each other it nobody teaches them? Not everyone was as lucky as I was to be encouraged to pursue tech, that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same privacy and options that I benefit from.

And FOSS is just cool.

It’s such an underrated feature of desktop Linux. The fact that if I experience an issue with a piece of software, I could find the program’s source code and browse issues to see if anyone had a shared experience. And if not, I could publicly submit an issue which the developers and other users/contributors could help resolve. And if you’re brave/experienced enough, you can take a crack at fixing it yourself and potentially resolving the issue for other users!

On windows/macos which both fail to foster robust foss communities remotely comparable to Linux, the best option more often than not was sending an email to some support address that either never gets checked, or only replies with canned messages. After which you’ll never know whatnif anything happened to your report.

Lots of the most best tools for desktop Linux are free and open source, so you really don’t need to pirate desktop software. As far as multimedia goes, I generally find it much easier to sail the seas on Linux as opposed to Windows where everything felt hacky and difficult to isolate.

I mean compared to some elements of windows, yeah Linux is more similar to macos. But compared to other elements of macos, Linux is more similar to windows. But to say it’s super similar to either one in particular is kind of missing what makes each of them what they are.

Macos and Linux skills and fluency aren’t significantly more transferable than between Linux and Windows. They’re three pieces of software that ultimately try to do the same thing, but go about it in drastically different ways. There are only so many ways from your house to the grocery store, so some of them are bound to cross.

I’ve got h aliased to history | grep and it’s been revolutionary

Alternatively, ctrl+r

You don’t have to host a website. Just make software that works like the website and runs locally.

No offense, but you were told about handbrake, a tool that goes out of its way to offer a cross-platform GUI and complained about it not immediately working- with no elaboration.

We learn to write before we learn to navigate computer systems- the command line is only scary because digital illiteracy is taught to us the second we are presented with the windows/macos login screen. It truly does not get simpler than telling a computer convert image.pdf image.jpg.

These tools are daunting, yes, and it’s not your fault that everyone is taught that computers are magic boxes we have no real control over, but the hours you spend in a command line are just like the hours you spend learning to sew, or play an instrument. Nobody starts with every manpage seared into their brain, but if you’re able to look up a sketchy website that may well give you malware, you have the tools needed to learn this valuable skill.

You just killed 7 senior citizens

I mean, yeah like another user said, ideally it would be in the interest of groups which allege to have am interest in some form of democracy. But additionally, the ability to set up browsable partial mirrors which could be hosted by miscellaneous nonprofits and individuals both within and outside of the US would be a massive first step to preserving the information that IA stores. The fact that attacks on their servers can eradicate all access to the information they store is troubling given how many enemies they’ve made simply through the work they do.

I love the IA but they need to be infinitely more decentralized like yesterday

Agreed. Started out in Plex when j knew nothing about self hosting, very quickly made the switch to Jellyfin and haven’t looked back. If I’m hosting my media, storing it locally, and running my own server, I’m much better off not integrating the software of some company that feels entitled to bleed some extra revenue from me.

And don’t get me started on the registry editor

Not to discredit your experiences with Linux but you just listed Ubuntu four times

You can’t get a virus if your computer’s already dependent on one!

I mean yeah, but for a lot of people if they ditch their phone they’ll also lose their job and possibly relationships they value.

Cell phones spying on people isn’t good, but most people are simply not informed about how invasive they are and couldn’t make an informed decision if they tried. Pair that with the fact that cell phones are essential for a lot of modern life, and it’s not difficult to see why the average person is generally more wary of smart speakers than cell phones.

Phones are at least easier to justify since everyone kinda needs one now and there aren’t many great private options, especially for the lay person

1. Unplug your amazon echo devices

2. Hit it with a hammer

3. Send it to an electronics recycler

“Copilot, analyze player xXWaterUnderYourMumsBridge4201Xx to determine what would be the most accurate slur to call them”