Yeah I browsed r/all out of bored interest the other day for the first time in nearly 2 years. It was all shitty videos with silly music presumably imitating tik tok? I lasted a few minutes.
Then I browsed an old reddit I used to follow and it was mostly bot posts and karma farming.
I didn’t realise things have gotten as bad as they have.
No, if you like mint and cinnamon then why change?
The only reason to change would be if you want a different desktop environment. You could do that with mint or go with a distro that mains a different DE.
Mint is popular and reliable, so only change if you fancy trying something new and are willing to reinstall if its not to your liking.
I used to be on Mint and left it when I decided to move to KDE. It worked fine in mint but I had lots of app duplication in the menus. I also wanted more cutting edge versions.of software so wanted a different district for that. So I switched to OpenSuSE Tumbleweed (a rolling release distro).
If you do want to tinker and try out other distros then you could also play with distros in virtual machines (KVM or Virtualbox) or if you have a desktop get a second harddrive and install a different distro on it. Its easy to dualboot Linux distros (and safest to have separate hard drives so you don’t make mistakes when partitioning).
I’m not sure how the Tories choosing not to go suggests conservative voters are not respected? Maybe not respected by the Tories?
But in all honesty the whole thing is political grandstanding on all sides and a waste of time.
Those devices are subsidised and you end up paying through all the subscriptions to Amazon (for example), lockin to Amazons ecosystem (they push their content and rentals) and the data scraping, and being sold to advertisers. Youre paying much more than that to Amazon in the long term.
Meanwhile you can get a raspberry pi 5 started kit for £82 - including the pi, a case, SD card to put your OS on and a HDMI cable. Then its just a bit of time to set up a system how you want it - lots of guides online. Its even a fun project and you learn a bit about setting up a system how you want it.
Personally I would put a bit more money in and get an 8gb pi plus a case for an nvme card, and a 512gb card. Then you can run the OS off the nvme and have loads of media storage, and a snappy machine with the ram. In that case you’d get the 8gb pi for £76, case for £38 and a 500gb card for £36. £144.
Yes it is more expensive than a fire stick for £60 (often on sale for £45 in fairness). Yes it costs more at the front end and there are compromises with 4k streaming and HDR. But you then have a device that is 100% yours, 100% private and secure and is also very versatile. You have a full linux OS to do with as you wish - including install steam and stream games from your PC or play lower powered games locally or use a huge range of linux tools and apps.
For example my PI runs a Jellyfin Server so I can access content from any of my devices, and it also runs Home Assistant so I can control my home, and Synching so I can transfer files between devices, and more. A media stick can’t do any of that.
My point is that like for like is not a fair comparison. Tge media sticks are subsidised and huge compromises to your privacy, plus aimed at locking you in to a corporate ecosystem. It coats a bit more upfront for your own device but you get much more bang for your buck. And you save yourself in terms of privacy - Amazon can’t scrape your data to sell you stuff or sell you to advertisers, and you dont have the privacy nightmare of the microphones listening for their Alexa service.
You can use your own home theatre PC with Linux, and use a Bluetooth media remote with a web browser to access streaming services. You can also host your own content and use Jellyfin. Kodi can also be used for a good tv interface. And you can even use it to game, pushing it beyond the media sticks.
I have a beelink miniPC in my living room, and I use it for streaming, web browsing and gaming.
Another cheaper alternative is to use a raspberry PI as a home theatre device. It can be a capable media PC.
The biggest issue with both is 4k content and HDR. Many streaming services dont allow content to be streamed at 4k in linux devices. Also HDR support in linux is lacking - no browsers support it, and its experimental in DEs like KDE and Gnome only so far. If you supply your own content then 4k is no issue, and for HDR if you get an AMD GPU you can play with the experimental features in KDE and Gnome.
If 4k/HDR is a deal breaker then Windows can be used but obviously thats american and brings in a whole host of privacy and security issues of its own.
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Different adaptations appeal to different audiences and people go to watch them. They offer different interpretations and takes on the book.
Like to me the Kiera Kinghtley version is a crappy Americanised take on the story that loses the satire and wit in the book and instead focuses on amping up the romance. But I know lots of people like it.
My favourite version is the 1997 BBC tv series but even that is flawed as Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet doesnt really capture the character. She is too serious and humourless, and Alison Stedmen as Mrs Bennet is too over the top and cartoonish.
There is plenty of space for another adaptation, and new writers and directors and a new cast of actors can give their interpretation on the book plus introduce it to a new generation of people who may be first exposed to Jane Austen via a new TV series.
Anything that gets more people to read and appreciate the works of Jane Austen is worthwhile in my opinion.
Yeah this is absolutely correct. When you look at prices and adjust for inflation $80 now is about right.
The value of money has gone down, and the value of pay cheques and salaries have not increased to keep up.
Unfortunately this often gets sidelined with “what aboutism” - like what about the dysfunctional AAA market, and predatory big publishers like EA that churn our crap, or all the publishers trying to build microtransactions into games. These are also ALL valid issues, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals that video games cost around $80 in 2000 when adjusted for inflation.
The video game industry can be dysfunctional AND we’re also being screwed over by dysfunctional unequal capitalism causing declining living standards at the same time.
And the company remains massively overvalued despite the recent falls in value. It has a long way to fall yet.
I’ve played around with this. I find lutris is good for most games but sometimes you may need to do it yourself using Wine or Proton
I managed to get a game called Discworld Noir working - its almost impossible to get running in Windows itself but in wine it took relatively little effort.
The key for getting old windows 98 games running for example is to create a dedicated own Wine prefix (basically its own virtual environment) and install the needed windows packages into it. I’m using wine but you can also use the gaming focused and optimised Proton in a similar fashion.
For my method you need Wine and Winetricks. Winetricks gives you lots of easy to use tools to configure a wine prefix to your needs.
I followed this guide to create a win98 like environment: https://www.myabandonware.com/howto/wine (I appreciate the sire itself may be objectional to some but the guide itself is OK). The author doesnt quite understand wine so take some of the comments with a pinch of salt.
I’ll summarise here.
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 winecfg
The command basically tells Wine to run winecfg in the prefix; as the prefix doesnt exist wine first creates the prefix folders for you then launches the generic winecfg tool.
Winecfg will open. You can set the scaling for the prefix using the graphics tab if its too small (4k screen for example). Set the DPI to around 200 for 4k works well. This useful scales everything including games in a window if you use tools like dxwnd (mentioned later).
Close wincfg and now use Winetricks in the prefix using the terminal;
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 winetricks
This command ensures its using your specific prefix. If you run winetricks from your linux menu it will run on the default prefix for the system, which may be the lutris one or more likely another random default one. You can select a prefix inside winetricks but it can be annoying each time you launch it. Using the terminal to specify the prefix prevents any errors and is just easier imo.
Select the option “select the default wineprefix” in the menu. It will stick with prefix you specified in the terminal.
In winetricks its a good idea to first install the basic windows fonts so old games and installers work properly. Select “install a font” and then select Core Fonts and Tahoma then click OK. Winetricks will download and install the fonts. It will throw up a dialogue box every so often warning you that wine will be unavailable - its very annoying but not an error, it a bizarre design decision with winetricks. Just click OK/continue each time it comes up. Once it finally finishes the fonts are installed and youre back in the winetricks menu. You may also get wow64 warning boxes if youre on a gaming distro/bleeding edge wine- also annoying but not an error.
Next we want to install some old windows DLLs and packages. The ones listed by the website work well for me for old games. You want:
You may need slightly different packages for your games.
Again you’ll get lots of warning messages and popups. Just click through and agree to any old windows licenses. Allow the packages to install to their default locations - they’re installing into the prefix in a folder “drive_c” which is your fake windows drive.
Once its done you have a functioning Windows prefix which is optimised as if it was 1998.
For my game - Discworld Noir - I then had to install the game into the prefix. I used winecfg to mount my CD drive into the prefix and ran the installer off the CD. You can launch winecfg from winetricks and also launch Explorer - this shows you the folders inside your prefix. Running both let’s you change settings and also browse your virtual windows machine, including launching setup files from the CD. Note winecfg doesnt auto update if things change in the host linux system (like yoy mount a new drive). Close and reopen winecfg to see changes - can be important if youre swapping CDs for an install. To be clear the system changes do auto apply to wine, you just can’t see them live update in winecfg.
You can also mount ISOs using linux and winecfg will pick them up as CD drives, or also use Winetricks to launch Windows installer files directly. You can also use the terminal to launch the setup files directly.
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 wine /path/to/setup.exe
The game will install into the prefix as long as you run the setup file in the prefix.
Unzip the file into your prefixes fake drive C folder. For my example i put it in: ~/Gaming/Win98/drive_c/dxwnd/
Then using winetricks or the terminal, I launch dxwnd. Dxwnd contains loads of template configs for old games in its “export” folder. For my game I import the “discworld noir” config and then right click OK the new entry and select “modify”. I then point dxwnd to the location of the game exe (in my case I also needed to download a modified exe file for the game made to work on more modern systems - it also patches some other game errors so is still needednin my win98 fake machine).
I also then change the game resolution to 800*600 in dxwnd because for my game that is the source of crashes which the default config gets wrong.
Then thats it - I launch the game from the dxwnd launcher and a window 800*600 appears with the game in it. The great thing about dxwnd is that window gets scaled according to the DPI I set in winecfg so its nice and big on my 4k screen.
This is an example - your games may need different config options. Or you could get them running in Steam using proton - just add a “non steam game” find the exe in the lutris wine prefix (lutris/proton both create their own Wine prefixes) and add it.
There is also a tool called protontricks that is very similar to winetricks and allows ypu to modify the proton prefixes into the same way as winetricks for my game.
Protondb.com provides lots of information on popular and modern games, including peoples tips on how to modify the prefix or settings to use on launch to get games working.
It can seem intimidating but essentially wine and proton are doing the same thing: they create a windows environment with config files in a folder in your linux home folder. Lutris automates a lot of this installing the DLLs etc it needs for a game. But when lutris fails to work you can tinker with the lutris prefix using winecfg and Winetricks (launch them from within lutris), or create your own like I did.
I like to create my own prefix for probelmatic games as my lutris set up is now quite complex and has many games installed. So if there is one game with unique needs and tinkering it is useful to be able to create a dedicated prefix - then you dont break your other games if you break the prefix.
Hope that helps. Its honestly not as hard as it can seem and I have managed to get games working on linux that are nigh imposaible to get working on Windows now.
Also I havent even touched on Dosbox/dosbox-x which can run loads of dos games and even run Win98 itself. And of course you can also use KVM/Qemu or VirtualBox to make Windows virtual machines as another route. Generally though so far ive managed to get my windows games working on Wine.
And of course on top of all that you have emulation tools like Emulation Station, or EmuDeck, and loads of emulators. I use ScummVM for my old adventure games, and fs-uae for old Amiga games. You can do a lot with linux!
I wonder how low it will go. I was tentively planning a holiday trip to New York and another to a conference in Chicago. Both of which are totally off the cards having seen the horror stories of people having their phones searched, refused entry and even being detained for extended periods without justification.
Instead, I think I’m going to finally make a long wished trip to Canada.
I do feel sorry for those working in the US tourism and hospitality industry. It’s hardly well paid work and often filled by new migrants and the young / students. It won’t start recovering until the craziness of ICE abates but it’s the sort of damage that is fast to take place and takes a long time to heal once it’s reversed - and a reversal isn’t even on the cards for the foreseeable future.
It honestly seems very unpredictable. Anecdotally the worst behaviour seems to have been at the most republican states but not exclusively.
For example the Australian who had a work visa and lived in the US for years flew in to Texas where it was arbitrarily nullified. There are plenty of stories of people crossing southern and northern borders and being detained by ICE. Thats included British, German, Australian and French cirizens that ive seen in the UK press coverage anyway.
As a US citizen you shouldnt have an issue but I’d probably travel through a major hub like JFK in New York to be safer. I wouldn’t re-enter through Republican states like Florida, Texas, nor probably Washington DCs airports. Obviously travel on your US passport.
You should he OK as a US citizen but it does look like there is a breakdown in the rule of law in the US. People imagine that means riots and the police not able to keep control, but in this case its the government and government agencies doing whatever they want and the legal system unable to stop them.
I’m a UK citizen and am not intending to travel to the US - I often cone for a major conference but having seen what happened to the French scientist who had his phone searched and then was denied entry for criticising Trump I won’t be risking it. I’m sure a lot of other UK and Europeans feel the same way.
Sadly the only 100% safe option for you is to not leave the country. Its madness as youre a US citizen but at this point things are still going through the courts and its not clear where this will stop.
This is a nonsense. The drinks industry don’t want bourbon tariffs in the hope that will mean there won’t be tarrifs on EU booze. But there are blanket tarriffs on all EU products, so relenting on Bourbon specifically will do nothing but benefit the US drinks industry.
Robert Habeck is right - the EU is in a position of strength standing together and should target any response to most hurt the US President.
The US will have blanket tarrifs which are essentially a tax on Americans. The EU can’t directly affect those but it also should not have blanket tarrifs on US goods as that will just damage the EU economy further. Instead it should have targeted tarrifs and other measures designed to hit the US (particularly republican states - thats why bourbon was picked in the first place), and meanwhile work with other tariff hit countries to lower the cost of business in their directions.
One way to look at it, is if its now 20% more expensive to sell resources and goods to the US, its actually 20% relatively cheaper to do business with the rest of the world. So thats where growth is going to come from. Tarrif US stuff that strategically benefits Europe (cars for example), don’t tariff other US stuff so the EU benefits and look to the rest of the world for growth and opportunities.
In some ways the US is handing the EU a golden opportunity to take over much of the US economic influence and power around the world.
Also they dont “owe” the US anything. Trump has a cretinous understanding of economics.
This is just Mafia like extortion. It doesnt really matter now if/when these tariffs are undone - Trump has totally destroyed the US reputation as a reliable ally and trade partmer.
No deal with the US is worth the paper its written on, as everything is dependent on the whims of one person.
Presidential systems are sources of weakness and instabilty it seems. They’re no better than monarchs, and the whole system can easily be twisted into dictatorship. Look at Russia and now the US.
Yeah i think youre right. I think its a lack of understanding about what a digital currency is by the article writer. It seems like they’ve heard cryptocurrencies are an alternative to other payment methods but don’t understand why. They’re probably confusing the concept of a digital currency for the block chain technology itself.
A block chain could be used as a method for clearing payments, but it wouldn’t necessitate creating a new digital currency. Existing assets and currencies can be tokenised in a block chain, and the block chain still used to validate and record the transaction.
That doesnt get away from the real issue - its not the method thats the problem, its that Visa/MasterCard control the market. Europe would need to actively try and break that duopoly. Its well overdue.
I’m in the UK, and am paying £32 ($41) a month for 1Gbps symmetric fibre to the home.
Edit: worth adding my sibling is paying £36 a month for 1gbps down/100mbps up from the main network in the UK, Openreach (they run the old poles and other companies run services on their network). Thats probably the more common fibre package at the moment.
I’m on a newer independent network, and there are other companies building out independent telephone pole networks in the UK.
I used to be on Virgin cable and was paying £56 a month for 512mbps down, 100mbps up.
I didn’t know what magic wormhole is - apparently its a tool for securely transferring files or folders from one device tp another, with single use human pronouncable pass phrases.
You need a whatsapp account still to use a bridge like thjs. The bridges are for Matrix which is an open source messaging network.
Beeper is built using matrix, and is owned by an American for profit company that also owns WordPress. They’re hosting the bridges, and they encrypt your chat but the bridges are vulnerable to service operators like WhatsApp not locking them out.
Personally I am going for Signal (which ia run by an American non profit) and SMS, and completely leaving WhatsApp.
Regardless of OS version? That sounds like nonsense. Only someone who doesn’t know how Linux works would believe that.
glibc is a fundamental library that underpins Linux. Its been going since the 1980s and is constantly updated and patched.
Similarly the Linux kernel undergoes constant evolution and change.
No one can promise to support Linux regardless of the OS version because by necessity it is constantly changing. Even slow release cycle distros like Debian move forward with each major release. Backwards compatibility is actually a bit of a nightmare on Linux. Ironically it can be easier to get old windows software running on Linux than old Linux software.
People running systems older than glibc 2.31 really should patch and update their systems. That package itself is already 5 years old.