Good points. Yes, I do prefer to give an instance at least the benefit of the doubt. Difference tho really with Fediverse is you have to search and follow stuff to see it. It does not get inserted into your feed through ads or people playing the algorithms. So generally I’m only seeing what I follow. I suppose we do need to choose our instances wisely. Certainly, if an instance (not just a user on it) is really spamming or impacting on other instances, I suppose there can be grounds to block it. But we have not all been spammed yet by Threads. I don’t like Threads (cancelled all my accounts years ago) but I left a few good friends and family there that I would like to reconnect with, and follow them. I also like that my metadata stays on the Fediverse side, so I don’t need a Threads account or their app tracking me.

I just would not like to be denied the option to even reconnect with my family and friends. Same goes for WhatsApp interoperating on Signal protocol - I have many friends and colleagues I left behind on WhatsApp, and would like to reconnect again with them.

Especially when any individual can decide themselves to block Threads or Lemmy.

I agree 100%. I don’t need someone else overriding my existing right to decide whether I want to block or not (where is that going to stop). Anyway, I connect and follow individuals, not their whole instance. I’m not going to see anything from Threads unless I choose to follow someone. And if any friend reboosts stuff I don’t like (from Threads or anywhere else) I block that “friend”.

KDE Plasma on Manjaro Linux

• Desktop folder pinned to left screen for working stuff
• Conky on my 3rd screen for monitoring resources
• Plasma Activity folder on 3rd screen for general folders used often (On Gaming and Video Recording activities this folder differs for those activities)
• Golobonotes pinned notes on 3rd screen fore commonly accessed references

Snowrunner - stunning scenery and realism, and you can take it as slow as you want…

The post here is a link to an online survey being done by the Signal Community. Users need to follow the link to answer the survey if they wish (but it means creating yet another new account which I’m getting pretty tired of as I’m now passing over 900 different logins all with unique passwords etc ;-)

Yes Linux Mint. You CAN migrate later to other distros without losing your data so feel free to test others out later when you feel ready and know more about them.

Thanks, yes that is actually a slightly more comprehensive backup, looking at their GitHub project at https://github.com/vikdevelop/SaveDesktop, and they have a Flatpak installation as well.

Linux and FLOSS unfortunately don’t have budgets, and rely on logic and common sense. Microsoft has a big lobbying budget, gets in to see senior politicians and decision-makers, and then sponsors training, digital villages, etc. Yes, it costs a country overall much more than Linux, but it is easier for schools/gov depts and middle-men make some actual money in their pockets. That’s what Linux and FLOSS end up against. What would turn it around is having strong local businesses driving training and making tender bids to install and support Linux and FLOSS. A government or school wants to have it done for them. That’s the reality, unfortunately.

They know little about open source. Microsoft is exclusively in schools and government, and that is what they grow up with. They probably know more about pirating Windows, than using Linux legally. There is also a good kick-back in terms of MS license mark-ups for middle-men businesses. One would hope there is some mandatory education around different OSs as I’m sure kids would love to explore and modify software.

Partly my fault - I have that page set to auto open on my browser every week

I keep trying it but for me its not ready yet. Finally, in 2023 I can actually boot into it, but I get random freezes for up to a few minutes at a time. So it’s closer, but not stable yet. Hoping that Plasma 6 will be good to go.

Yes and no. It is good and I did one restore of some files that worked fine, but in my case it was noticeably affecting my boot up times, and I reverted to ext4 (boot ups were fast again to less than one minute). For some reason, BTRFS was resulting in quick login, but about 18 mins before my actual desktop was responsive after login. I spend many days trying to troubleshoot that. Maybe you won’t have this problem. I had my SSD system drive on ext4 with Timeshift backups, and my /home partition on BTRFS.

So I’m back on my ext4 doing a daily automated backup to a second drive with rsync (LuckyBackup app). I think there are further kernel improvements coming to BTRFS later in this year. But I’ll probably only retry it again end of 2023 or in2024. So if you decide to move, just benchmark your boot times, so you can judge if it affects them badly or not.

That said, BTRFS has some great features, lost no data for me, and I think has a great future.

Which looks very different if you choose any of the other themes. We have tons of choices, and each of us decides. Some may even want theirs to look like Windows.

Manjaro - because everyone else seems to only be voting for Arch itself here. Manjaro is actually very stable, but I did sometimes have some trouble with AUR updates clashing. I like it because it stays relatively up to date and I don’t have to do any major reinstalls or upgrades. I’ve been on it for a few years and never have lost data or was not able to get it started (even if it did need a manual kick-start once or twice). Like any distro, over time you become savvy around what to use and what to avoid.

Sorry about that - I somehow chopped the last letter off - have fixed it now, but it is at https://youtu.be/g7x_ngYtj6Y

KDE - using it with Manjaro now, but also used it on Mint before that.

Manjaro KDE for last few years