The best and most official explanation I've read is the 2017 GNOME blog post, Status Icons and GNOME.
Essentially, tray icons are a throwback to the days before designated notification and media playback APIs, and they now create some ambiguity for app developers, in addition to being ripe for abuse.
It's a worthwhile read and the writer makes several valid points, but doesn't address as much as I'd like in terms of actual solutions for things like instant messengers.
Personally, I would be happy if most traditional tray apps could be displayed in the dash, with status indicators, and started in a minimized state, but I still see the benefit of having some always-visible panel icons, such as instant messengers and VPN indicators.
Thanks for the info. Davx5 has worked well for me, but it's still nice to have alternatives.
My challenge has been finding a decent open source calendar app for Android, which unfortunately excludes Calengoo. I'm just not interested in using closed source network-capable apps to manage my personal information.
I don't think you'll be able to build anything with €100, but you might be able to buy an old PC or laptop locally and use it as is. I've never run nextcloud myself, but from I've read it'll be the most taxing service on your list. Everything seems pretty minimal, though I don't know anything about Photoprism.
While I'm a big fan of Vim, it's definitely not for everyone.
I spend about half of my writing time in VSCodium, which is a community-based release of Microsoft's open source VS Code editor. There are several markdown, grammar, and focus-oriented plugins for the platform, and you can pretty much shape it into whatever kind of editor you want.
I use VSCodium for the vast majority of my personal notes, technical writing, and project documentation (nearly all of which are written in markdown format).
VSCodium on the desktop, and Markor on Android. I write everything in markdown, and VSCodium is already where I spend half my time editing and writing code, so it was an easy choice. I also use Vim for quick one-offs, especially if I'm already working on a project with it.
Like others here, I also use Syncthing to keep my notes synced between home server, remote clients, and mobile devices.
No, it isn't. I've used many Android phones over the years and none have ever defaulted to storing contacts on the SIM. SIM storage is very rudimentary, and you'd have to go out of your way to make use of it.
I won't pretend to know how tightly integrated the keyboard is within the Android OS, but given the interoperability between app and keyboard it seems likely that vulnerabilities could be leveraged to gain malicious access to the clipboard and other sensitive data.
I have a Paperwhite myself, but from what I've read the Oasis works just as well via USB and is equally compatible with Calibre. The experience is pretty much plug-n-play after the initial setup wizard.
As long as you don't need audiobooks on it, you can essentially erase your wifi credentials, turn off wifi, and manage your ebooks through USB and something like Calibre.
The Kindle OS will continue to collect and store all sorts of telemetry, and will upload it later if you ever reconnect the device to the internet. Just something to consider.
Normally, I would just suggest avoiding Kindles but, like me, you already have the device so might as well use it.
It seems that BT 5.3 in USB format is a challenge to find, let alone support under Linux. If 5.0 is acceptable, the TP Link UB500 uses an RTL8761B chipset which has been supported since around kernel 5.16.
I have a few UB500 and UB400 adapters and both have worked OOTB without issue under Fedora.
Not crazy at all. Came here to say the same thing. My vote would be to pick a distro that'll let you focus on the schoolwork. Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, or even just Linux Mint.
Yeah, it definitely sounds like you've got the right approach already. If you can manage your data within the lower storage capacities, I think you'll appreciate the reduced noise and power consumption of the SSDs.
My home server is a NUC inside an Akasa Turing fanless case with an 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD for my file shares. Works great and it's completely silent.
It should go without saying that routine, off-site backups are an important element of server administration, regardless of drive type. Mine are completed monthly, and critical data (docs, keepass databases, etc.) is also synced across multiple devices using Syncthing.
The flatpaks will continue to be updated by the backend system, but you'll no longer have to deal with the sluggish frontend UI to keep things up to date.
Do you have to watch a loading screen while system updates are applied like on regular Fedora or is it in the background?
The image is downloaded and staged in the background of the active session. Upon reboot, the session seamlessly defaults to the staged image. For flatpaks, the updates happen immediately and without the need for a reboot.
On flathub.org there's a blue checkmark for apps maintained by the devs
Aha, that must be one of the newer features implemented from the beta portal they'd been working on. I'm glad to hear it, and overall I hope to see more official upstream devs come on board with the platform (Signal, I'm looking at you).
Thanks for clarifying. I recalled seeing something about 720p caps for certain streaming services when using non-DRM platforms, but I wasn't sure which.
Thanks for sharing these links! I'm glad to see so much consideration being put into a better solution.