netchami

@[email protected]

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netchami,

Me after completing exactly zero (0) tasks on my to do list

netchami,

I like your approach

netchami,

Discord is an absolute piece of garbage, it’s not a good messaging app, definitely not a good place to host a community (seriously, I don’t understand why some communities saw Discord as an alternative after the Reddit API changes), and most importantly, it’s spyware. The company doesn’t have a business model and it was founded by a guy who is notorious for creating random shit that’s not economically sustainable at all. I don’t understand why anyone would use this shit. This video outlines everything that’s wrong with Discord: youtube.com/watch?v=uvNkdAggUGU

Switch to Revolt or Matrix

netchami,

it must be doing something right in terms of being sustainable

They’re basically living off of investor money and selling user data. The former is not an indefinite solution though. And Discord Nitro is a fucking joke, the revenue generated from it will never cover the operational costs.

Matrix is a much better solution, it uses peer-to-peer technology (matrix.org/blog/2020/…/introducing-p2p-matrix/) to reduce the burden of operational costs on the team. It’s also federated, just like Lemmy, meaning anyone can host their own Matrix server and communicate with users on other servers. Running Matrix at home or on a VPS is even easier than self-hosting Lemmy. It’s also completely free and open-source and allows everyone to write their own clients. Discord on the other side is a piece of proprietary garbage/spyware and bans everyone who attempts to use a custom client. I will never understand why so many people like Discord.

netchami,

What is known as servers on Discord also exists on Matrix. They are called spaces and you don’t need to self-host a Matrix server to create a space. There’s also no significant learning curve, you just download Element (the most popular Matrix client), create an account and you ready to go. You can join spaces or groups from any Matrix server or message anyone on the network. Chats also make use of end-to-end encryption by default and it can even be activated for groups (wouldn’t make much sense for public groups though).

netchami,

Linux Mint is awesome for beginners.

netchami,

I really hope no one in this community uses Google as their search engine.

netchami,

You can use Startpage to get Google search results. It’s a meta search engine for Google, but it doesn’t expose any of your data. You can use it with DuckDuckGo’s Bangs feature. That way, DuckDuckGo can be your default search engine and you can make all of your normal search queries with DDG, but if you want to search on Google through Startpage, you just type !sp followed by your search query into DuckDuckGo and it will forward your search to Startpage. This also works with many many other sites, type !bangs into DDG to get the full list of supported websites.

netchami,

Startpage gives you Google search results without exposing your data to Google. It’s better for your privacy.

netchami,

Don’t use proprietary Tampermonkey, switch to Violentmonkey

netchami,

!g sends you to the Google website, obviously Google gets your IP, browser fingerprint, etc. that way

netchami,

I don’t get it either

netchami,

It sends your search to google but without connecting your search with your ip.

Not true

netchami,

Maybe try Startpage, it gives you Google results without exposing your data to Google.

netchami,

Maybe try Startpage, it gives you Google results without exposing your data to Google.

netchami,

Am I seeing Reddit there?

netchami,

Spez is a retard

netchami,

r/PiratedGames is the way to go for offline/single player games

For multiplayer games, I always try to get better deals on sites like Instant Gaming

Epic Games also offers paid titles for free, many of them are garbage though and I absolutely hate Epic Games

netchami,

That’s really cool, thanks

netchami,

That’s a nice feature, especially when gaming on Linux

netchami,

All of those shitty Big Tech companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and many others, all corporate Social Media platforms (including Reddit of course, fuck Spez), those shitty Hollywood media corporations, CDNs like Cloudflare or Akamai, Tesla and everything related to Elon Musk, Starbucks, basically all fast food chains, every Chinese or Russian company, every Israeli company, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Nestle and many others. I also try to stay away from PayPal, banks and insurance companies as much as possible, they are criminals.

We shouldn’t just focus on shitty companies. Foundations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are basically tax-exempt billionaire investment funds in disguise. This is a great video about the lies of billionaire philanthropy: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OH4uh8cHuto

netchami,

Sounds like you’re left with almost no modern conveniences or technology.

You are right, I forgot one exception. I do use a Google Phone because these have the best support for alternative operating systems. I replaced the Stock Android which is filled with Google spyware with GrapheneOS, an entirely open-source version of Android which makes many privacy and security improvements and gets rid of any Google services. Watch this video to learn more about it: piped.smnz.de/watch?v=yTeAFoQnQPo

On my laptops/computers, I exclusively use Linux. I refuse to touch any bloated, ad- and spyware-infested Windows computer. Yes, even at work. As a DevSecOps and Senior Linux engineer, I am free to choose whatever operating system I want. Free and open-source software is the way to go.

I use Firefox (LibreWolf, a better version of Firefox to be percise) with DuckDuckGo as my search engine, I watch YouTube videos through Piped, I use Signal as my messenger, I use Proton for Email, I self-host Nextcloud for my files, contacts, calenders, etc.

For entertainment, I simply pirate the content which gives me much more freedom compared to shitty streaming services like Netflix. That way, I also don’t have to give these shitty corporations any money. I use the open-source Jellyfin media server to consume content from my media library. I do the same thing using Navidrome for my music.

Regarding Social Media, Lemmy is probably the only thing I use. I don’t need Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok.

And the list goes on and on. I could write an entire book about avoiding proprietary software and shitty corporations.

ensure you are truly not using any of these companies or their subsidiaries

I do everything in my control to avoid it. I can’t 100% guarantee it, but that’s also not my goal. Not giving them my money or my data is enough for me.

Or even if a mom and pop shop down the street is using technologies, software, or appliances from one of these companies to run their local business…

Well, that’s out of my control.

netchami,

Stay away from this garbage. Use BleachBit.

netchami,

CCleaner literally sells you privacy as a pro feature, whereas BleachBit puts privacy in the second sentence as a core aspect of the tool.

Exactly

netchami,

I’m suffocating in a wall I guess

netchami,

That’s not open source, it’s source-available

netchami,

Israeli government = war criminals

netchami,

GitLab is mean for large enterprise environments. It’s overkill for most users. Gogs/Gitea/Forgejo focus on simplicity. These are also pretty easy to self-host.

netchami,

I would donate if they accepted Monero

netchami,

Another reason to never ever touch any Facebook services and to block their shitty privacy-invasive ads

HP says I should have known its £399 laptop bargain was too good to be true (www.theguardian.com)

[…] Parcelforce texted the delivery slot. No delivery. Parcelforce and HP’s tracking systems then claimed I had refused the parcel. I scheduled a redelivery for the next day. Parcelforce then rang me and the agent acknowledged a delivery had not been attempted and that the tracking information was false. It claimed HP had...

netchami,

Exactly

netchami,

On a separate note, I still don’t understand how trackpoints on HP laptops work. There’s no scroll button, how the fuck am I supposed to use this piece of shit if I can’t scroll??? The thing that is meant to replace the mouse/trackpad for ease of use and ergonomics literally forces me to use a mouse or a trackpad. This doesn’t make any fucking sense!!!

netchami,

What caused you to get into it

The year was 2002. I was told about Gentoo Linux by a college. I saw it as a new, shiny toy and immediately wanted to try it out. I realized that it was better than Windows, so I stuck with it. (Not with Gentoo, but with Linux. I still use Gentoo sometimes today, but I also tried out many many other distros throughout the time and I don’t use Gentoo exclusively nowadays.)

are you an evangel

Yes, I believe that Linux is far superior to Windows and I tell people about it

are you obsessed?

Absolutely

netchami,

That’s nothing new. The Israeli government solely consists of war criminals and it was all planned by them.

netchami,

They are war criminals that deserve to be punished

netchami,

That’s nothing new. These war criminals have been doing this since the very beginning of their existance.

netchami,

Exactly

netchami,

Politicians don’t understand science anything

netchami,

Well, based Terry absolutely makes me want to move to TempleOS

netchami,

Congrats!

Wanting to improve my Linux skills after 17 months of daily driving Linux

I’ve been daily driving Linux for 17 months now (currently on Linux Mint). I have got very comfortable with basic commands and many just works distros (such as Linux Mint, or Pop!_OS) with apt as the package manager. I’ve tried Debian as a distro to try to challenge myself, but have always ran into issues. On my PC, I could...

netchami,

I thought a more advanced distro, that is still stable, would be good overall. However, not getting new software for a long time sounds quite annoying.

Arch is actually not as bad as many say. It’s pretty stable nowadays, I even run Arch on some servers and I never had any issues. It gives you the benefits that you can basically find any package in the AUR and everything is up-to-date. Try it out, if you don’t like it, you can still switch to something else.

I’m wanting to challenge myself to get much better with Linux, partitioning, CLI, CLI tools

The best way to learn the CLI is to use it. Try not to use your graphical file manager for a while and only interact with the file system through the terminal, that teaches you a lot.

I’ve been considering installing Arch the traditional way, on my X220, as a way to force myself to improve. Is this a good way to learn more about Linux and a Linux system in general?

Yes.

I always hear good things about the Arch Wiki.

It is truly fantastic.

Is there any other tips someone can give me, to sharpen my Linux skills?

Use the system, don’t be shy, try different things out. If you are scared that you might break something, try it out in a VM. Break your VM and try to fix it. That teaches you a lot.

I was even considering trying out Gentoo on my X220, but the compiling times sound painful.

I would not recommend that, updating packages will take ages, it’s not a great experience.

netchami,

Another thing that helped me: Get comfortable in the Terminal. Obviously you have to learn some commands and how they work, but just configure your shell and commonly used CLI tools. It makes the experience so much more pleasant. Install a nice shell prompt, set up some aliases for frequently used commands, learn the basics of shell scripting and write your own useful little scripts for things you often have to do, maybe start using Vim and configure it the way you like it. Also explore other shells. Bash is the default shell, but there are better options like zsh or fish. You can watch this video to get some inspiration: youtube.com/watch?v=KKxhf50FIPI. This is actually pretty close to my shell setup. If you want to start customizing bash, check this out: youtube.com/watch?v=b3W7Ky_aaaY.

To continue learning, maybe subscribe to some Linux-oriented YouTube channels. DistroTube makes great videos about Linux, tiling window managers, how to use various commands, how to configure your shell environment, etc. He also reviews many Linux distros or explains why free software is important. If you search any Linux-related topic on YouTube, chances are that DT already made a great video about it.

netchami,

My desktop is running a nearly 10 year old install.

Oh wow! That’s truly impressive.

New to Linux, have a few questions

I currently use Windows 10 and I’d like to try out Linux. My plan is to set up a dual boot with OpenSUSE tumbleweed and KDE Plasma. I’ve read so many different opinions about choosing a distro, compatibility with gaming and Nvidia drivers, and personal issues with the ethos of different companies like Canonical. I value...

netchami,

I’d rather avoid a Linux distro that’s implementing something like ads or telemetry…if that’s even a thing that’s happening?

Fedora has some telemetry, but as far as I know, you can turn it off during the installation. Some desktop environments like KDE Plasma also have options for telemetry but it’s disabled by default. If you want it, you manually have to enable it in the settings.

Should I avoid OpenSUSE

Some software might not be available on openSUSE

or KDE Plasma

Not really, Plasma has a shitload of features and customization options, if many options tend to overwhelm you, you might be better of with a different desktop environment, if you are fine with customization options, Plasma is great for you.

Are there any ‘10 things to do first when installing Linux for the first time’ recommendations?

Since you said that you want to install openSUSE, I recommend this video: youtube.com/watch?v=ajVqJ1nl9bM

netchami,

openSUSE is rather small, not everything is packaged for it. Arch is the best in terms of software availability, thanks to the AUR.

The only distro that even comes close is NixOS, but I really wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. You can explore it in a VM though or maybe at some point actually try it out. It’s very very different than other distros though.

netchami,

Yeah, why not?

netchami,

KDE Plasma 6

netchami,

Mission Control looks pretty nice, it tries to resemble the Windows Task Manager really closely so it’s great if you are switching from Windows

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