Cost-cutting tips?
I really struggled between deciding to up- or to downvote. I disagree strongly with most you wrote, but I decided for upvoting, since you put a lot of effort in your reply.
Don't use Ubuntu or Fedora because they've been giving the community a hard time lately and are becoming too corporate.
I don't see much difference between Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse and PopOS. They are all "Corporate" (owned or backed by a private company).
That fact alone doesn't matter much for the end user. What matters is how fair they treat their userbase and how sustainable the company is. Fedora for example is a community project, backed by RedHat. So, the community decides pretty much everything and RH gives us devs and $$$. This symbiotic relationship ensures stability and enough manpower. I'm anti-capitalist myself, but find this concept not bad. Still, you're partially right. They are independent on paper, but in reality dependend on RHs money and devs.
If one dislikes this, we can always use and support independend distros like Arch or Debian.
Even Ubuntu isn't as bad as everyone says, even though I wouldn't recommend or use it myself.
Gnome also looks the most like macos if you want to retain that familiarity.
No, Gnome looks like Gnome. They do their own thing and don't copy other UIs. I would recommend KDE (maybe with some themes and two bars) instead if you want it to look familiar to MacOS.
But I would honestly recommend exactly this: Gnome. It works different UI wise, and this unfamiliarity gives the new user the hint "You shouldn't do it like you used to, this is another OS that works different".
On Mint for example, people often download their apps through the browser, since it looks and often works exactly like Windows.
Avoid Elementary OS. They are Ubuntu based but trying hard to be like Apple and sadly adopting some of Apple's anti-libre practices like limiting what software you can install and charging money for apps. As well as trying to get Devs to make apps only for Elementary which all use the same design guidelines and therefore can't be used on other Linux distros... It's a disgusting and disgraceful blotch on the FOSS community because GNU/Linux is all about User Freedom and interoperability, whereas Elementary are the opposite and shouldn't exist.
They don't limit you in any way. You can always install Flatpaks and everything else, they just offer their own repo with curated software, developed by themselves and optimized for their best UX, by default.
The option to support the devs financially is a revolutionary idea in the Linux world. Flathub also decided to copy that idea.
And I like the centralized tipping-system. I always wanted to support the devs, but don't have 1000 payment options. I want to appreciate the work they do and don't mind spending a buck or two for their great app I enjoy using.
The apps are all FOSS. You can rebuild or get them anytime you want.
Maybe you don't even need that, at least for accessibility.
Windows for example now has exactly this feature, which is a speech-to-text-transformer powered by some "AI".
But, in contrast to the Bing chat, this works (afaik) offline by some FOSS-backend, which I don't know the name of anymore (maybe someone else will?) You could use that tool for live transcription. That is supposed to work extremely well!
Please correct my if I'm wrong, I don't use Windows anymore personally, and at work we have a business edition that doesn't ship this brand new feature yet.
(Side note: as strongly as I hate Windows, this feature is absolutely godsend for hearing-impaired people and should be adopted by every other OS!)
If you want to transcript movies and thereof in bulk by uploading them, I can't give you any information, sorry.
But I believe there are some sites that give you the "subtitle file" for download freely, which you can add manually for each movie in Plex/ Jellyfin.
I will look into getting an e-reader though. Plan was always to spend less time on my phone. Photography doesn’t interest me. I’ve tried to get into it because hot girls are into it but I can’t even fake it.
Then don't chase something you don't enjoy! If you want to meet new people, be enthusiastic and have fun in what you're doing right now, whatever it is. When I've learnt something in the last few years, then it is to have fun and enjoy yourself. Others will notice and will be interested into you.
You're into books? Get a library card and ask the handsome lady next to you out. You enjoy collecting postcards? Weird, but interesting! Will be a great conversation starter. You get my point?
I honestly wouldn't buy a "cheap" phone in your place to be honest. They don't last as long. Maybe take a look into Fairphone, or Google Pixel devices. Both can run many CustomROMs (if you're into that), extending the life span and making it more private. I'm a fan of the Fairphone, since you can repair it yourself and it has (I believe) 10 years of software support ootb
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I tend to disagree.
Usually, I would 100% support that recommendation, since Mint is really a great introduction into the Linux world.
BUT, for this specific setup, Mint won't be the best choice imo. Cinnamon (@OP the desktop environment/ GUI) doesn't support Wayland (the modern display management protocol) yet and still uses X11 (one from the 80s).
This will make the experience a bit worse with two monitors, resulting for example in performance loss, inconsistencies, and so on. Not bad, but not as great as it could.
I would rather recommend Fedora. It is not as super beginner friendly as Mint in holding your hands, but also not throwing you into the cold water.
There is the "Workstation" edition, the default, which uses Gnome as DE. This one is simple and elegant, and quite different than Windows or Mac, which will (imo) make the transition easier, since you don't expect it to work as it used to before on Windows.
Or the KDE edition, which is really really customizable with more features, but also a few more bugs.
Just my 2 cents
I noticed that I take a lot more care and attention on my posting on lemmy in general. The conversation can be much richer than it is on Reddit and I feel that it’s worth my time
Yep, same. I’ve also spent A LOT of time in this quarter just creating content and answering comments. But, none of it felt like wasted energy and I don’t regret anything. I was able to strengthen my created community, help others in topics I’m interested in, and so on…
I have terrible ADHD
Again, same. Medication and meditation helped a lot making me more mentally balanced and being able to read a book or doing hard mental work.
Also, when I let my thoughts drift, I think about all those great interactions I’ve had this day and not how shitty everything is in general, like it has been on Reddit. That really took a strain on my wellbeing, and I reduced my usage of it long before taking the plunge and switching to Lemmy.
Book recommendations
I “really” started reading not a long time ago. That was just something I was never able to due to said untreated ADHD, but now, I can, AND I LOVE IT!
I just started reading the Witcher books after playing through The Witcher 3. Even though I played it for 400 hours “without break”, it really hurt when it ended, and I wanted more from this immersive, disgusting, magic, beautifully crafted world. Those books (I’m into 2/6 now) are way better than I could have ever imagined and really help me break out of all this RL shit. Those books also demonstrate again how capitalism, Hollywood and Netflix transform a piece of european culture (which TW is based on) and extremely interesting characters into something as shallow and americanized as the series on Netflix. Different topic…
On the more “nerdy” side, I’m currently reading “Running Mycelium” from Paul Stamets right now. It’s about how mushrooms could save the world, for example by filtering out toxic waste or plastic from the environment, giving us a sustainable building solution, new medicinal horizons (e.g. antibiotics), and so on.
Yeah, otherwise, I have a lot of books in my reading list and already downloaded.
I will definately take a look into your recommendation, that sounds like a possibility for me to be fun at the next party 🙃 Text
Yes the karma system here is way better! It definitely reduces the hive mind mentality.
Sure, but we have to make sure we communicate what the up-/downvote function actually is for. Many Reddit-refugees would otherwise just keep it as a "I agree"-button, and nothing would change for the better.
Maybe if I could personally filter out communities that I’m not interested in?
I agree with the sentence before, but I don't think filtering out everything you're uninterested in is remotely possible. Yes, you can filter out some specific communities you dislike, like all those Linux-subs, if you find them annoying. (OH, btw.: That was a comment in one of their/ our memes, and when one guy, coming from outside the sub, complained this stuff is constantly on his trending page, someone suggested "We're only 3 popular subs. Just blacklist us and you'll never hear from us again" it really resonated with me!)
Alternative?
I personally would rather enjoy a "promote" than "bury" function, something like a "GigaUpvote™" for posts you wish others to see too. Market the up- and downvote button as a quality filter, especially for comments, and if a post gets a certain ratio of up- and downvotes, comments and promotions, it will appear on the "popular"-tab.
Just as an additional function, IF YOU WANT. Keep the "old" spirit for those who prefer it, and suggest it for newcomers to find new content. And make it easy to toggle off for social media junkies like myself.
Same here. I have nothing of value to add.
What changes did you notice in your thought patterns when you withdrew from Reddit?
What books are you into and would recommend? Is there a community here?
I wouldn't agree with "better content" per se.
There's just as much "spam" (links to articles, low effort posts, etc.) as everywhere else. At the same time, the content is waaaay better.
Karma
The fact that you don't have to keep your karma in mind here let's you speak more freely.
If I would say "Pineapple on pizza is disgusting", I would have been downvoted to oblivion on Reddit. Here, they just ignore it, OR, don't downvote and tell me why I might be wrong.
Back to Reddit: That, in fact, would give me two options:
- Delete this said comment, which would discourage discussions and make every community hive-minded, or,
- Stay strong to my opinion, and loose the ability to post to many subs anymore, because I now have -5000 Karma.
I always chose 1... Here, I don't care. And this mindset has lead to many great, mind opening discussions.
Even on subs like r/Changemyview or r/Unpopularopinion this culture didn't exist. No opinion was unpopular, merely "weird" (like "I like my socks wet" and stuff). Every "unpopular" opinion was popular on Reddit. And elsewhere, everything was a fight.
On this site, disagreeing is only for useful discussions I had/ read too. It's almost like an "anti-echochamber", and I love it! I love my opinions being challenged.
One more result of that is that the upvote/ downvote function went from "I agree/ I find that funny" or "This is against the subs opinion" to "This comment is worth reading for others and adds value. OP put work into it". WHICH IT SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE BEEN! This button isn't for disagreeing, it's for FILTERING out trash!
Algorithm
Also, there's no algorithm. On many other social media, post that make you laugh (-> mostly dumb stuff or reposts) or promote strong emotions (mostly aggression and tribalism) got promoted.
Here, it's somehow totally random. There's so much "boring" stuff on my trending page. But, I've discovered many cool niche subs here I wouldn't have otherwise. I didn't know so many people were into collecting space rocks and model trains for example 😁
E.g., my own gourmet-mushroom-growing-community got super many views and comments from people who've never heart of that before. That was unbelievable!
On the other hand, there's sooo much useless information, some opt-in filtering/ algorithm wouldn't be bad tbh. But many say that about account karma too, which is a way smaller feature, and that has repercussions too (see above). Something like an algorithm would be HUGE, but also maybe hugely bad for this site?
Idk, tell me! Be controversial! 😁
Yes and no. I think it makes sense when you separate it a bit more.
Instead if throwing everything in one list, create profiles/ categories/ folders/ whatever.
I use it mainly for the public state media in my country. Those "media hubs" are a horrible UX (despite being insanely expensive!) and to fix that I add some of their shows into my RSS, so it works similar to the YouTube subscription box, because somehow german media people are still behind 30 years... In that way I fix that shit for myself because they can't...
I don't use it for example for news or YouTube, since both have a timeline already built in.
I really recommend trying an e-reader in your local shop or borrowing one from a friend if you can.
I've read books on my phone for about a year now, but the "feeling" isn't right there, and I somehow get distracted a bit.
I'm really a fan of "a device should do one thing, and that really good". I bought a camera, a reader, and so on because of that. My software habits are the same. I have dozens of simple apps on my phone and PC, and all of them serve one single purpose. Look up the UNIX-principle if you're interested in more. (Sorry, this site is full of Linux-circlejerk 🙃)
- The camera makes 10x better photos than every top tier smartphone (+ is a fun offline hobby that improves your skills!)
- The reader gives you a display that's super easy on the eyes, lasts for weeks on battery and doesn't distract you.
- My smartphone is only there for communication (Lemmy, messengers, calls) or if I have to quickly look up something on the web
Separating everything really also separates your mind, giving you peace.
It's minimalist and maximalist at the same time.
Nothing has changed
I don't believe anything has changed neurologically or psychologally in the last decades.
There have always been people who are more susceptible to consume "trashy" (provoking, easy to consume) media.
Once it was low-quality newspapers (a german band once refered to them as "fear, hate, tits and the weather forecast", which fits really well!), then it was trash TV, then mobile games, and now TikTok and stuff. Some people are just attracted to flashy stuff and can't get enough dopamine.
It's just that the latter example is very new, and everything new is automatically bad, no matter what.
There have always been young people who read books, create art, video game, listen or create music, have hobbies, and so on.
BUT, something has changed:
One word: attention economy. Capitalism realized, that especially in combination with ads, you can create A LOT of money by making easy to consume content.
If a platform uses dark patterns (emotional or funny content, reinforcement, short content instead of longer stuff, flashy stuff, likes, endless scrolling, keeping you as long as possible in the app, etc.), it makes a lot more money with it's users.
Years of algorithms perfectionized manipulating you and your attention span with supernatural stimuli (as mentioned above).
What to do with those informations?
Notice, how boring Lemmy, RSS-feeds, and stuff like that are?
After checking my posts for this day, I'm done and do something different, like cleaning the kitchen. Now, I'm on the toilet and don't have anything else to do, and I have fun answering you :)
That's how our devices should work. I don't wanna be a slave, I want to own my device, and not the other way around.
Tbh, I'm grateful Reddit went downhill. A year ago I could never imagine nuking my account.
I spent my whole teenage and now adult years (15 - now) on that shithole, was super addicted and couldn't spend 2 minutes without checking my phone, even in meetings, dates, and so on. It was just as bad as vaping for me. I knew, that it was slowly killing every brain cell, but "loved" it too much.
Thanks, u/spez ❤️ You killed Reddit for me and made my new "Reddit" (-> Lemmy, but with the same app) THAT boring for me I bought an e-reader now to read books instead😂
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If I understand it correctly: you just want something you can flash or plug into a random PC, like when you switch companies or rebuild your PC often, and then work from this setup for developing. Is that right?
There are following options I have in my mind right now:
- Install a "normal" Distro of your choice (e.g. Fedora Workstation or Silverblue) onto a external hard drive, or (maybe?) better, an USB-NVME. Now, you can just use your setup on every PC by just booting from the hard drive. If you are a developer, you probably use containers anyway, so I would recommend an immutable distro like VanillaOS or Silverblue. They are way harder to break and will make you more productive.
- Use NixOS or something therelike. You just write your system-config as a nix-file and then you can overwrite any Nix installation. There's also Fedora uBlue, where you can make something similar, but that image is more cloud based, while Nix is "simpler".
- Make your own "distro" by using an iso-maker program. There are a few around, but I don't have any in my mind right now.
But you should still explain your intentions better, they are hard to grasp for me.
You didn't! :) You couldn't have said it better, especially in your answer here!
As I said, I had the same thought as you with immutable distros like SB or Nix.
I just didn't have much to add as an additional comment besides "Kids, this why you should always backup and maybe use an immutable distro if you can".
As someone who values robustness and comfort, I wouldn't touch something arch-based even with a broom-pole.
If I wanted something that's a rolling release, I would use Tumbleweed or it's immutable variant.
For me at least, the only pro in Arch is that you can configure everything exactly to your imagination, if I know exactly what I'm doing. And EndeavorOS is pretty much a pre-configured Arch that removes the only USP of it, the DIY-element.
I don't see myself as competent enough to maintain my arch install, but I can access the AUR with distrobox on every other distro, like Silverblue, too, so I don't care. The big software repository isn't an argument for me in 2023 anymore. With distrobox my arch stuff is isolated and if something breaks, I can just forget my two installed apps and reinstall this container in 2 minutes.
It's just an unimaginable peace of mind for me to know that if I shut down my PC today it will work perfectly tomorrow too. I'm just sick of reinstalling or fixing shit for hours every weekend. I'm too tired for that and have other responsibilities.
But yeah. My thoughts were exactly the same as yours and I didn't have much more to add besides saying "Hey, do xy that this won't happen anymore in the future" without sounding like Captain Hindsight from South Park. Context
I had the same thought, but didn't want to sound insensitive.
Saying "Your fault, using Arch for something important is a bad idea, you should have made a backup before", while he fears all his important data is gone, would have been rude and very unhelpful.
But immutable distros solve these issues, yes. Since I switched to Silverblue I've never been more relaxed than ever. If something goes bad, I just select the old state and everything works, and updates never get applied incompletely like here.
Is it only when playing this specific game, or do you have that in general, like when playing Steam games or modeling something in Blender?
For me it sounds like a hardware issue. The GPU is pretty old (age-wise, ignoring performance). Some electronics will degrade over some time and just stop working. That's my guess.
Also, two 4k-monitors sounds like torture for a card like this :D
Maybe install/ live-USB a completely other distro on a second drive and replicate this situation. Use default Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora, they have a different DE/ compositor and some other different underlying stuff.
If everything works fine, you know it's probably KDE, and if you have the same issues, it's a hardware problem and you have to repair/ replace something.
Don't forget to update me on this situation :)
From what I've heart it isn't recommended to use an OS persistently on an USB-stick. Not is it slower, the constant read and writes may damage it, since it isn't made for that.
Please correct me if I remembered it wrong.
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It depends what you like on MacOS the most.
If you value the look and want to make it as similar as possible, then use KDE with some of the great global themes. Two docks, one large and cut off on the sides as application dock at the bottom, and a thin one with status icons and global menu at the top. Then one of the many popular Mac themes and animations. Looks very similar!
If you like it's simplicity, polish and gestures, take a look at Gnome with some extensions and modifications (dash to dock, window icons all on and left, etc.).
Also, something MANY forget, XFCE and Cinnamon exist too and can also be modified to look very similar, at least compared to some older versions (no blur and so on). Sadly, they don't support Wayland yet.
The real question is: Why do you want to do that? I mean, yeah, Linux is about choice, and I absolutely respect that, and if you love the theme of MacOS then go for it.
But there are SO many other great concepts around. Plasma is unique, and Gnome even more with it's simplicity and amazing workflow. Pantheon isn't a clone of MacOS and maybe not the best choice in general from what I've heart.
But yeah, in short, try KDE and modify it.
I would recommend Fedora Kionite, or uBlue KDE/ Bazzite. It's the same as Kionite, but preconfigured with some additional QOL-stuff. Bazzite is the equivalent to Nobara, but also immutable.
I turned into a huge fan for Silverblue (and spins) over the last few weeks.
Especially interesting is the Universal-Blue-project, which offers many "spins" (or to be more precise, new-interpretations and derivates).
You can just install the vanilla Silverblue and then rebase to Kionite, uBlue, Bazzite, and so on. And if you don't like it, just roll back/ re-rebase without any hazzle or risks. Your user data are separated from the system and don't need to get copied from your backup like usually.
What you might like:
- Immutable and hard to break. If something breaks (bad update or user fault), roll back. Works even better than Snapper (Tumbleweed) imo, which is pretty much the best BTRFS-implementation. You don't need to restore it, you just select the image and boot.
- Can be rebased (underlying system swapped out) to anything you want. Switch from KDE to Gnome because it now has a feature you missed? One command, a few minutes waiting time for the download, reboot, and you've got a clean "new" system with all your userdata and stuff unchanged!
- No reboot for updates required, they just install in the background and get applied when you boot up your PC the next time.
- Cutting edge, but stable.
- Doesn't only support Flatpak, but relies on it (at least that's recommended).
- Install any software you want with Distrobox. Arch, Debian, whatever. Comes pre-installed (uBlue at least) and is an integral part of your workflow if you use the terminal.
- Great KDE implementation.
My least favourite (and only) method for me to cut costs is reduce my energy consumption.
I already have a super cheap setup (used Mini-PC for 50 bucks, old SSDs I had lying around, etc.), so reducing the hardware costs more isn't possible.
But, without tweaks, this setup would eat 15W (idle) and 25W (under load) electricity. At least, thats the case atm.
I just started selfhosting to be fair, and I didn't have time to throttle the server. I use it mainly as NAS, so speed isn't as important in this case as for other services like webapps, where reactivity is needed.
The CPU isn't too bad, so, even when reducing the performance to 50%, it should still work.
Also, I will try to change the active cooling fan to a passive heat sink, that might reduce the bill further.
What mainly eats resources like crazy is my Nextcloud AIO. I try to follow the UNIX-principle as good as I can, and NC doesn't follow it well, at least for my use case.
I only need a file server, and NC is pretty "bloated" with talk, calender, and so on. So I disabled all of that.
But, I'm not capable enough to set up an Online-FTP-Server and secure it enough without ever working in that environment. NC AIO provides a lot of comfort and "just works". So, I'm fine with that.
Here in Germany, especially thanks to the energy crisis, electricity is absurdly expensive, and even reducing the TDP by a few % will save me much money over a year.
So, I try to reduce the load and increase efficiency wherever I can.
Still, even now, with an increased energy consumption + paid domain, it's still cheaper than using OneDrive or something like that, even when ignoring storage size.