And before that, where did people think money-grubbing, morally-bankrupt billionaires vacuuming up all their data was going to lead? This was all but inevitable, especially when, without outrage-based engagement algorithms there is no President Trump. These scumbags prop each other up. Don’t give them a dime or let them profit off your attention.

How does one keep their system secure with pirating? A large mkv of a new movie seems like an effective container to deliver a payload.

“Naive” doesn’t sit right with me. Anyone can scrutinize LUKS, or BitLocker for that matter (via cryptsetup). Backdoors aren’t the issue here, even for MS Bitlocker. The issue, as stated in the article, is:

by default, BitLocker recovery keys are uploaded to Microsoft’s cloud

No need for a backdoor if you know you can get keys to the front door.

This is me, too. Also, not bothered that their instagram algorithm can serve them highly personalized political propaganda just as easily. At least not bothered enough to leave.

Even after seeing it, I was sure the iphone would fail. I thought, “Why would anyone use a crappy computer on a tiny screen instead of a laptop or desktop?”

It’s the data of what corners MS can cut to save more money than they lose when x number of users decide enough is enough.

Not the commenter you replied to, but I change my XDG directory names to be lowercase and start with different letters. For example, Desktop, becomes “drop” (as in pick it up and put it somewhere else) and Downloads is a subdirectory dl. A program that would otherwise save to “Downloads” now saves to “~/drop/dl”. When I setup my machines I run a script including the line xdg-user-dirs-update --set DESKTOP "drop" to update the XDG directory and I delete “Desketop”. So og commenter has the option of updating their userdirs to be nested in their username if they wanted to avoid symlinking. Here’s the relevant arch wiki page and xdg freedesktop page.

+1 for PBS streaming. It’s a great value and highly underrated.

Also moved to codeberg in the process. Bonus

Yeah, a lot of people outside of linux think you have to use the command line to work on linux, but really it’s just an awesome, additional tool that then takes over a lot of gui stuff. It definitely helps when it’s your daily driver and you spend less time reading man pages and more time writing from memory and running snippets and aliases. [edit: fix grammer]

This looks awesome! I’d just been collect my GPS data thinking one day I’d analyze/visualize it on my own-- not expecting anyone else to make a such a comprehensive program. The UI looks really slick. I’m looking forward to testing it out. Hopefully this weekend. Thank you for this!

That’s a big question, but I’ll try my best to answer without getting too deep in the weeds.

I’ll probably sound like a fanatic, but I use my PKMS for notes, logs, journaling, project and task management, snippets, and documentation. They all have their own structure and flow. It’s a Gall’s Law kind of situation where I started simple and it worked, so it was extended and slowly evolved to reach it’s current complexity.

The beauty of PKMS over a notepad is the loose set of basic features (Wiki-links, tags, templates, etc) that be used in a personalized way to quickly capture, organize, and retrieve info that works best for you and no one else.

As a simple, but detailed example, in the context of learning linux, i might make a “linux” note and dump info there. I put everything in my own words unless I use md quotes (> quoted text) and I add useful links that I also bookmarked in my browser. When the “linux” page gets bloated, I migrate clusters of info into new notes, wiki-linked in the “linux” note. For example a “distros,” note which might have some high level comparisons. I favor making new notes over md headers so it’s easier to find and open notes by name (a “quick switcher” hotkey as it’s called in obsidian). When I settle on a distro I might make a note for it to contain wiki-links of default components EG “apt (package manager),” “gnome (desktop environment),” “x (windowing system)” and dump relevant notes there. If I try wayland, I’d make a “wayland” note but also a “windowing system” note that both wiki-links “x (window system)” and “wayland,” and is wiki-linked in each of those notes.

It could get very meticulous, and some folks setup is too much for me, and I’m sure mine is too much for others, but start simple, experiment, find what works, and add to it. In the beginning I had dedicated time just to developing my PKMS. The important thing is quickly recording and retrieving info.

Sometime i do have crazy scrawlings where i just need a notepad to dump info during a deep dive. That would be loosely zettelkasten style with a time-stamped name, sometime with a few extra works for context/search. Sections could be extracted into their own note later. The note itself could be linked to more organized, related notes.

As a more complex, but shorter example, to show how similar tools can be used in a different manner: I’ll make a note for a command line program, for example, cat. I have a CLI template with a Useful Flags (options) section. Kind of like a personalized tldr. I’ll also have specific notes for complex snippets (AKA one-liners. Real note example: “list-and-sum-all-audio-file-durations”) and if it uses cat, i’ll tag it #cmd/cat. The CLI template also has a Snippets section that uses dataview to automatically list, in this case, all notes with the #cmd/cat tag. I also have a “command line programs” note that uses a dataview query to list all notes that used the CLI template. Also, a Snippets note using dataview to list all pages created with the snippets template.

There are tools specifically for snippets and personalized tldr, and I may migrate to those eventually-- especially after I have my install script up and running with linked configs-- but the simple tools in PKMSs are really adaptable and make it easy to customize and integrate. Plus it’s all md files in a folder, so it’s easy to sync and access on multiple machines, including mobile.

I hope that’s not TMI. Starting linux can feel overwhelming and I don’t want to add to that. Quiet the contrary. I started my PKMS right before my last, permanent switch linux and I think it helped it stick, and 3+ years later I still use [my PKMS] all the time. As I said before, the simple tools that turn a notepad into a PKMS can add a personalized structure to the insane scrawings, making it quick and easy to navigate, find, edit, and add info. You just have to start simple and take your time. I hope that helps. Good luck with the switch!

I use Obsidian. Stores everything in markdown and has a nice sql-query-like plugin, dataview, that I’ve built a nice workflow around. Obsidian isn’t FOSS, which has become more important for me, so I’m looking to migrate over to markdown oxide in helix. If I were starting from scratch I might try logseq or similar. Whatever you choose, I think it’s helpful that it’s stored in a portable format like md so you can change programs if you need.

1. As others have said, it’s possible to play most steam games, but not all. You have to decide if you like those games more than you dislike MS and Goo. I find there’s so many great games out there that I’ll never get to all of them, so I’m ok with dropping some bangers that usually want too much access to my system.
2. Here’s a useful resource if you need to understand slightly technical linux foundations https://linuxjourney.com/ It might not be necessary but it does help to have a foundational understanding, and honestly, the command line is awesome, powerful, and one of my favorite things about linux. Beyond having a basic understanding (and maybe having one of the books the site recommends on hand), before going to an LLM as others have suggested, have official sources of various components bookmarked and go there first. There’s so much BS out there now, I actually like the fact that I can read technical documentation, test it out, and know if it’s true.

one other tip: I’d recommend some kind of personal knowledge management (PKM) system to take notes. Linux gives you a lot of freedom-- that’s what’s great about it-- it can be complex and have a learning curve at times. It’s absolutely worth it though. It’s a totally different paradigm than windows. After a while you can really start crafting the whole system to your needs as an individual. I’m 3 years in and was using my first setup that whole time, i didn’t realize how customized I had made it until trying to set it up exactly on a new workstation. Now I’m writing a script so to automate my setup (os settings, program installs, configs) by running a single command. Then I can really start experimenting.

Everybody’s different and with a little basic knowledge, everyone’s setup can be tweaked to their individual needs a little better than other “user friendly/polished” operating systems. I hope you find as much joy and freedom in it as I do.

As I’ve been working on an install script for making my setup more portable, this is handy and timely. Thanks for sharing!

PS I hate to be the UUOC person. I’m sure you’re already aware and it was a deliberate choice.

Not that I have it all figured out, but it sounds like it would help to decouple backup from sync. I have syncthing keep a two-way sync, including deletes, but have syncthing’s trash as a “backup” (items deleted after n-days) on each device in case I accidentally delete something. Then I have a nightly, encrypted backups with versions stored offsite (eg borg) which is only meant to be used if there’s major failure like a flood or fire. HDD failure is covered by RAID10 NAS. Somewhere in there I have or need a data integrity/hash check, but at least it’s a start.

Thanks for the rec! The anonymous branches and working-copy-as-commit subsuming git stashes is intriguing. I’ll give it a closer look when I have a chance.

Great topic. I’m going to have to investigate some of these suggestions later.

Since my first pick, helix, was already mentioned here and i commented on it, I’ll add gitui. Git can be very overwhelming for me. Gitui arranges frequently used git commands in a sensible, visual layout and makes it easy for me to understand and interact with git.

+1 for helix. I was new to linux and TUI editors. The vim tutor was a good intro to the concept of modal editors, but needed lsp and syntax highlighting. At the time I struggled a lot with configs, so neovim was out. Helix is just a fantastic, batteries included experience. Approachable for beginners, but feature rich for novices.

Edit: typo, grammer

Is a server a requirement? I haven’t tried myself but localsend (p2p) comes to mind.