😁

Good call.

Maybe the Americans can find some aluminum on another planet. There’s none on earth.

I’m kinda done with the flavour of pigs-at-the-trough leadership democracy that the UK is now. Anarchy for the win.

If they’ve got the tech to go to and terraform another planet, why can’t they reform this planet?

I’m highlighting a contradiction in what you’re asking.

You’re asking whether you should use a ‘pure’ Linux kernel but using ‘dirty’ stuff everywhere else?

It’s not a great flex, but the whole thing about Linux is that you can choose to do what you want with no restrictions.

Have at it! Enjoy!

Thank-you for your kindness. And it is really kind!

I’m old so my view of prop software is rooted in the change of early Microsoft et al bringing real change to the dubious parasitic entities that they are today. I watched it slowly happen and have been delighted and contributing in a small way with Linux since the turn of the century.

RedHat had been sold to the ‘no-one ever got fired for buying IBM’ (I still can’t believe that they believed that that was a winning slogan). In these trying times the love for open source isn’t translating into enough cash; average people are stretched.

I can’t wait for the leaders in my country to stop pandering to the world’s oligarchs and serve the people that elected them.

Upvoted.

Appreciate the reply, but I don’t mind some proprietary code. There are very few reviews of open code by respected bodies (I’m writing in generality here). I’m certainly not qualified to review code. Just being open is only the beginning of the journey.

As we’ve seen with some open software recently there are some active hackers successfully targeting open software because it is open. Such exploits are not always discovered in good time.

https://thenewstack.io/why-so-much-open-source-software-is-vulnerable-to-hackers/

https://thehackernews.com/2025/01/github-desktop-vulnerability-risks.html

Etc etc.

I place store by the warrant responses and action of government entities against some software.

Signal. It’s changed a lot. For the better.

Reverse canary?

Do you use Netflix or other services/products with DRM?

That’s your answer.

No.

As opposed to Microsoft, Google, … NSA, or GCHQ servers. Or all of the above.

Use a proper password manager. Bitwarden, and the rest.

As much as I love Firefox, I don’t use a browser borne password manager.

Don’t put parental controls on it. What do you want to control? Maybe put controls on the website that they can visit, but that goes on the DNS or router. Most kids will go to a mate’s house that doesn’t have any or as harsh parental controls anyway if they are particularly keen on seeing something that they ‘shouldn’t’. Parental controls are a fix for parents who can’t talk to their kids; they make the parents feel safer but just send the issues underground. Gen X will have been writing code for a while at your child’s age. I was. There was no choice if you needed to unlock a game you could’ve afford. At that time GUIs were a bad overlay over MS-DOS or DR-DOS. You had to know what you were doing to get the best out of it. Your kid will be fine with any distribution of Linux. If your kid is technically inquisitive likely to be good at maths/science, get them installing Arch. If not and they just want to use a browser, install one of the top five popular distributions from distrowatch.com. The Office suite for Linux is called LibreOffice. If you use Chrome as your browser you’ll easily tell if your child has been on bad sites because your timeline will be filled with adverts for unsavoury impotence remedies. Enjoy.

PS printers are still bastards in Linux. Happily they’re less bastardish in Linux (and Mac, because Linux and iOS use the same printing software) than Windows. If you like your life buy a decent Laser from anyone but HP - my generation bought the last decent HP printers they made.

Mostly in times of economic growth and very positive sentiment. It’s the antidote to the catch-22 that you can’t get a particular job without the experience but can’t get the experience without the job.

Simply put ‘fake it until’ applies when you can put experience you don’t (quite) have on a CV; get the job and acquire the experience before it is ever tested in any meaningful way. That only really happens in a period of rapid economic expansion (whether that be in your (their) business, sector, or country wide). In such cases no-one really knows what they’re doing.

I don’t have much experience of celeb or influencer culture FITYMI - finding someones parked Lamborghini or private plane and dancing in front of it for a TikTok pretending that is yours.

[help me out please: add-ons are the Home Assistant thing that you can’t use with Home Assistant in a container? Extensions are the Home Assistant add-on that you can … ?]

Almost everything is WiFi, I can’t remember the thing that isn’t.

I’m really looking forward to Home Assistant; I have to learn to use containers first.

Thank-you most kindly for your imputus. Very well received. 😁

That’s very well received. Thank-you.

I have only a small place but being without some items would be disconcerting. Most of my set-up is in Tuya/Smart Life on WiFi.

I’m trying to learn podman/containers to make it possible.

Good luck!

That’s an amazing set of references to throw my way. Thank-you. I’ll read through them in a while. My assertion was based on talking to real people: I’m only just not-Russian myself.

I don’t really think you’ve captured communism: Cuba isn’t. China has been moving away from communism for decades. Russia rejected the Communists for the Bolsheviks shortly after the revolution. There’s a huge difference between socialism and communism.

The West is in somewhat of a hard time. There’s a left shift going on since my golden days (as Gen X). Young people (Gen Z) rightly feel hard done by and the social mobility seems to have been damaged. It feels like the sodding seventies again here in Blighty ( I hadn’t even become a teenager when they ended but remember the mood and despair. Candles lighting the supermarket visits. Dead bodies of the unburied and the rats).

They already tax alcohol everywhere as far as know. Maybe you’re in the 'Mercan mountains and you’re a moonshine master; but noting the instance and name probably not!

Hullo to Deutschland!

Answered my own question: Yes. I’ve put the various anti Reddit spam in ublock so not really necessary.

Much rather have addy.io than Firefox Relay. I used the beta here in the UK and moved on.

Don’t know what oldlander is; directs to old.reddit?