Huh. Today I learned. I avoided snaps because Firefox snap took so dang long to load, and Firefox flatpak just launched…

Flatpaks: NOT Ubuntu’s containerized deliverable. They use snaps. Flatpaks are more Fedora’s thing. I know Mint uses flatpaks, and Silver blue relies heavily on them. Snaps v Flatpaks are like Coke v Pepsi. It’s all just sugar water, but people care, for reasons.

Tailscale: a VPN -esque service that lets you connect networks together in fun and interesting ways. For instance: I can use tailscale to access my home network from my phone!

Yes!

This is what the community will likely tell you: Gnome is more for “I just want it to work and stay out of my way” and KDE is for “I want it to behave in some crazy fashion, and I CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!”

I find the opposite.

I get Gnome, and I add tweaks, extensions, desktop wallpaper thingies, task bar nonsense, etc. I get KDE, and I just use it as is.

So clearly, the correct answer is: XFCE! Mwah hah hah!

I tried Bazzite on an old mid-tier gaming laptop, was Mondo impressed. I basically agree with all the things you said. Amusingly, I find that just general purpose computing is snappier and smoother too, so I wound up using it mostly as my surfing/Plex/shopping machine more than anything else.

I use ProtonVPN and it sets up a “leak shield” interface when you start it and destroys that when you end it. It keeps traffic from flowing out over the non-vpn internet. The problem is, if the VPN crashes or doesn’t shut down gracefully, that interface kills all traffic.

To test if it’s something like that, try pinging an outside address, first by name and then by IP. If you can’t get either, it’s not the DNS messing you up. If you CAN ping the IP but not the name, then it is the DNS messing you up.

I didn’t know anything about docker when I set up my NC years ago, so I ran it as a snap on bare metal. Man, it’s gotten so much better! It used to really suck. Like, simple file transfers just didn’t work half the time, so I’d be retrying the same thing over and over… A few years ago, I literally migrated it from bare metal to a VM, but kept the exact same install. I have so much crap on it now, I think I’ll never bother switching it out to docker, just because of the inconvenience. I know the snap version can just run using a local hostname, you just have to set it in trusted domains setting. Might be the same in the docker image?

Dogged stubbornness. I use Linux because I refuse to give MS any more of my money, and I’m too stubborn to give up.

It works, I never posted back. Thanks!

I use Gpoddersync to keep my phone and tablet in sync, but I have one podcast that keeps glitching out and redownloading over and over. Not sure why.

Thanks! I’ll give it a try tonight!

I’ve been fighting with it since 5.5. I was able to play in Fedora 42 using Proton Experimental this morning, but it’s been super hit and miss for me.

I got an N100 SZBox for cheap a few years ago(?) That has a big USB HDD drive plugged into it. Handles 1080p in house just fine, and I think the bloody hard drive eats more power than it does!

That article had 891 “partners”. Holy hell.

I have a nice Juniper. It’s an old cast-off, but no issues.

I agree, and I take it this far: “I worked hard and paid for my house, why should some lazy loafer get housing for free? I paid 24,000$ in tuition, why should kids get free college?” I think that, at some point, one guy has to be the first guy to benefit from progress, and all the people who didn’t benefit just have to suck it up. I would 100% pay a much higher tax rate if it meant that homelessness was gone, hunger was gone, kids got free education… I’m Canadian, so I don’t need to say this about health care. Yeah, I paid an awful lot of mortgage, but if someone else gets a free house? Good!

If you plan on dual booting, remember to disable fast startup on the windows side, or you won’t be able to access the windows partition(s) as read/write in Linux. I have to dual boot for school, (God damn you, Lockdown Browser!) But as soon as I’m done, I’m dropping MS like the hot steaming pile it is.

If you try to ping 8.8.8.8 and it works, then try to ping google.com. if that doesn’t work, it’s your DNS resolver. I’m not an arch user, but on a lot of Linuxes, there’s a nameserver setting somewhere that has come unset. Try to set it to the IP address of your home router, that may fix it. P.S. The guy who posted the “It’s always DNS” shirt is right. I am buying that shirt.

I got some video goggles about 10 years ago. The picture on the box? A guy wearing cool shades. Me? It felt like 10 pounds strapped to my face in such a way I had to look straight up to sort of see a blurry, blocky video through a screen door. This had to be plugged into a DVD player or a VHS player (yes, really) with three separate cords, but still also ate four AAs more than once an hour, and had built in earbuds in exactly the wrong size. Also, there was a separate cord to a remote control that managed to get tangled up very easily despite being too short to fit in a pocket while the goggles were on your head, so I just kinda looped it over my shoulders. Claimed to have a 3D mode. Never found it. 300$ well spent.

This is what makes me so sad. I have a friend, got married, had a kid, looked at the world and said, “This has to change.” He bought solar. Bought a Tesla. Started growing food in his back yard. Joined a farm co-op. Did all the right things. Frankly, I admire his willingness to actually be the change he wanted in the world. Then, the owner of the car company turned into a Nazi. Not exactly his fault. Some Tesla drivers need hugs.