@bbbhltz@beehaw.org
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bbbhltz

@bbbhltz@beehaw.org

Music lover and English teacher with an interest in slightly geeky things

mastodon / blog / listenbrainz

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(Constructively) What is your least favorite distro & why?

I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

The distro I came here to mention has been hated on already. My dislike goes to the distros that start off fine, and somehow screw it up.

Honestly, I remember using Manjaro ages ago. It had an official Openbox spin (not a community thing). I had already used Arch but I didn’t even check to see what it was based on when I tried. I thought, “green is nice” and it was. It very quickly became less nice. I didn’t use it after that, but I’ve heard plenty of hate since then.

I’m going to put another one out there just for fun.

Distrowatch’s n°1… MX Linux

Nothing wrong with it, but the fact that it is number 1 (I know their ranking is just for fun and based on page hits) and doesn’t deserve it is the issue. It works great, when I used it I didn’t like how there was a second application for installating certain software. I think I used the Xfce setup. Again, it’s fine, but if a first-time Linux desktop user sat down and installed that, it might not be the best initiation.

Popular and highly ranked distros give Desktop Linux a bad name sometimes is what I’m saying.

"Must Try" distros and DEs?

Hey folks! I’m getting a fresh laptop for the first time in about a decade (Framework 16) in a couple of months and am looking forward to doing some low-level tinkering both on the OS and hardware. I’m planning to convert into a “cyberdeck” with quick-release hinges for the screen since I usually use an HMD, built-in...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Don’t know if it is a must-try, but LXQt has come a long way. The file browser is excellent. Everything is fast and snappy and very traditional (start button, system tray, etc.). Runner up I guess.

You can run Alpine as a desktop. The Edge branch. New software, got what you need, installs and updates fast.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Did you delete them outright or modify the text and then delete it? That is the tinfoil hat way! If you lived in Europe you could request your data to be deleted. You can also request your data and they are supposed to comply at some point. If you did that you could see what they have.

The rabbit hole will drive you a little bonkers so maybe don’t overthink it for now and take a look at www.reveddit.com and archive.org to see if your username pops up.

bbbhltz,
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Amazing that I can live in the country and hear nothing about this. I’ve just read the Guardian article and I guess not living in Paris or another major city might be one of the reasons.

bbbhltz,
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I am a professor as several different schools in France (business, notarial studies, agricultural engineers, communication). I would day 95% of my students are from well-to-do families. But, most of them are required to find paid internships. The notary students usually get unpaid internships.

As an internship advisor, I can confirm one thing: paid or not, they put in the hours and take the same crap as a paid employee. Sometimes it is worse. For example, if an intern is absent from work, the message gets to me, and I send it up the chain of command and sometimes parents get involved. It is stressful for the students. My business students get paid internships (about €1400/month) but still need help from their parents and many of them will be doing something they don’t really want to do (think finance instead of marketing).

Now, being a professor I am in contact with a rather large network of of profs spanning the private and public sector… My colleagues from the public sector are worried about this looming change to laws. It would lead to an overhaul of the system as the internship is counted as a credit. If it is decided that they should be paid, how many companies will want to pay when they can just hire a part-timer for the summer?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

You can achieve this through graphical utilities.

Self-updating apps aren’t a big thing on Linux, so the Windows way isn’t an option…

The signing key is important for security reasons, so you definitely need to add that. After adding the repo you can just use Synaptic or whatever app store thingy Ubuntu uses.

Most of the time you shouldn’t need to fiddle with the command line and the apps you will need are available through the Software Centre and the entire process will work like on Windows.

For me, Linux was the first operating system I used that had an app store or software centre and I was pretty glad to not need to…

  • open a browser,
  • navigate to a site,
  • (hope it is the right site…)
  • download a binary executable,
  • open a file explorer,
  • launch the binary,
  • click through a list of options and agreements,
  • and finally delete the binary.

Today 4 years ago, Dr. Li Wenliang warned of a suspected SARS patient in a Wuhan WeChat group. Soon later, he was arrested for “making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak.” (harakahdaily.net)

Dr. Wenliang’s message went viral, becoming the earliest warning of what we now know today as Covid-19. He returned to work, but contracted Covid from a patient, and died on February 7, 2020....

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I’ve told this tale 3 years running now:

I work at an international business school. I try to stay up to day on world news. There was a paragraph written about “infectious pneumonia” in Time magazine or The Economist the last week of 2019 (so the issue published the first week of 2020, I think).

Returning to work a week later I mentioned it in class, because that year I had about 6 students from different parts of China.

They said, “it’s nothing, just a flu.”

The next week, as numbers started to be published they said, “no, it’s an exaggeration.”

The week after they were the first students to start wearing masks.

Week 4, they told us they hadn’t heard from their families in several days. This would have been February 2020.

I felt so horrible for those students that year. They were only 18 or 19 years old. Sent to France in January 2019 (they are required to come several months before classes start in order to learn French and pass some tests). They were locked down March 16th 2020 and forced to take lessons on Zoom. Unable to return home for the summer. Took another semester on Zoom, etc., etc.…

I think they finally managed to head home in the spring of 2021.

bbbhltz, (edited )
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I have a friend / colleague who was a bit like this. It is a “see it to believe” situation. For her it was when she was at work and she watched her mouse stat moving on its own.

When she thought about how she never did anything bad on her work computer, but sometimes accessed her personal email… She got it.

And now she pays closer attention to things. Like in our city you’re pinged via WiFi when you get on a bus, but you can opt-out or jut turn of your WiFi, so she does that. And she makes email aliases now too. Nothing too serious, mind you, but she is 50 and figuring this out on her own and then teaching her friends and colleagues about it which is way better than going down the rabbit hole. Now there’s a bunch of boomers refusing to use Teams or access work email on their personal devices because she explained that they do have things to hide: the names and ages of their children and grandchildren, where they go for drinks after work, what they watch on YT, etc.

I don’t get into it with people though. People just write me off as some nerd, which is not the case.

What is a small .EPUB reader that is easy to install for my small Puppy remaster?

My question is basically the title. I’m making my own Puppy Linux remaster and it already has a .PDF reader for it that is very small. I think it’s called Evince? It has a native GTK UI and starts in a second, uses very little RAM and CPU. Now I need a .EPUB reader. I’ve seen a couple different .EPUB reader apps out there...

bbbhltz,
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Just checked the modlog. I don’t appear to be banned. Funky Federation stuff.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

MuPDF mupdf.com It does PDF and Epub and is pretty light.

epy github.com/wustho/epy is a cli Epub reader

recommendations for lightweight window managers for an old netbook

Hi, I’ve got an old netbook from Samsung that has an old Intel Atom CPU (Intel Atom N455 1.66 GHz). I installed Arch on it and am now thinking of a suitable window manager. I tried Hyprland (kinda expecting it to not work really) whick didn’t start at all. Before I had Debian with Gnome, which technically worked, but...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Just a window manager? Not a DE?

Under X11 there is Openbox, bspwm, herbstluftwm, dwm, i3, Awesome, Ratpoison, spectrwm, Qtile, …

Under Wayland: Weston, LabWC, Wayfire, Sway, River, Cagebreak, dwl, …

I keep things pretty dull and use Openbox + LXQt. It is a stacking WM that is stable, and LXQt is snappy.

If you are looking for a light DE LXQt is very light, Plasma is lighter than it used to be, but it also has loads of features. Xfce has more options for configuration than LXQt and I think it isn’t quite ready for Wayland.

Maybe Sway would be up your alley?

(Note to self: check arewewaylandyet.com)

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Of all the privacy-related changes I’ve made, Signal is the only thing I’ve managed to get anyone else to use.

It was a matter of saying “I don’t use WhatsApp anymore” and that was that. Some friends didn’t make the switch, but they know where to find me.

Quitting Facebook lead people to believe that I was in need of help, though. They thought I was crazy. Still, today, people ask me why they can’t tag me on FB or why I unfriended them. When I tell them I stopped using FB they’re shocked and say things like, “but you’re such a techy computer nerd guy.”

Quitting Google was confusing for others too.

bbbhltz,
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I use Tasks.org on Android which does sync with DavX⁵.

There is no “countdown” but it shows due dates in he widget and has notifications.

bbbhltz,
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wholesome, awesome, fun

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

As far as I recall, it never was relevant. It was generally viewed as a rant written by a non-professionnel. Perhaps I am wrong? Sorry if I am wrong?? Don’t start reporting me, please.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Here is the list with my opinions:

  1. ONLYOFFICE (I might need to give it a try again some day)
  2. OpenOffice (should probably stop including it in repos)
  3. CryptPad (more of a Google Docs alternative)
  4. SoftMaker FreeOffice (never heard of it)
  5. WPS Office (nah, thanks)
  6. Calligra (looks good on KDE)

What do you think about this? (www.youtube.com)

Since i see so much linux talk on lemmy i got curious and watched a video about the common distros. How true is the information in this video? The person hardly describes why debian and arch are just better than every other distro. At least i’m definitely now curious about Mint or something for gaming.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/d5b2e59d-8e47-45be-b2c7-8d633f5ca6c2.webp

Don’t like that he called some distros pointless. I would have found a better word. Lots on there that I have never used, obviously, because I am not a sadist. I couldn’t tell you what would be good for gaming or not, but flatpaks have made some things easier (or so I’ve heard, don’t quote me on that). And Fedora is a “Devil?”

Anyway. While I don’t watch this channel ever, I am aware of it as a reputable channel for things like this, so it might be trustworthy.

Why are Debian and Arch at the top? Debian is one of the grandaddies. Many distros are built on Debian—MX, Mint, Ubunu, Pop, Zorin, Neon, etc.—and there are many packages in the repos, which are divided into stable, and testing, and unstable sections. So, a Debian base can be stable or extremely up to date. The Debian community and maintainers are another reason the distro is so well-liked. Arch also has a large selection of packages, an excellent wiki, and the AUR to have access to anything missing from regular repos. Manjaro and dozens of others are based on Arch as well, meaning the community is rather large.

No need to follow rules and conventions though. There are many people, myself included, that use Alpine for their desktop because the packages are very up to date.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

A regular user like myself finds it easier to answer this question with 3 options:

  1. Centralized
  2. Decentralised
  3. P2P

Signal and Threema are centralized options. With Signal planning on rolling out usernames it will be an excellent choice, hopefully.

Matrix, XMPP, Session, DeltaChat and others are decentralized, and some allow for self-hosting.

Briar is P2P.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I guess it depends on what comes with the distro. If you start off with a basic Linux install and add a DE that is low on system resources, like LXQt, you can breathe life into a machine.

Bodhi, antiX and Linux Lite come to mind.

You can also start with a minimal base, Arch, Debian, Alpine, anything, and then add packages.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Logically, there is but one choice

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/61e24a36-015a-4248-868c-a09fa2323a44.webp

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I’m a Boimler though

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

As mentioned, this is a Qualcomm thing. Not exactly spyware, but probably not necessary either.

www.qualcomm.com/site/privacy/services

Qualcomm Location Service (formerly “IZat Location Services” or “IZat”) is technology offered by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in the U.S., QT Technologies Ireland Limited in countries within the European Economic Area, and Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (Korea) YH in the Republic of Korea (a.k.a. South Korea). Qualcomm Location Service may enable your device to determine its location more quickly and accurately – even when your device is unable to get a strong GPS signal.

Something like the UAD could disable it, or you could use Tracker Control to block it, or straight up use adb to disable it… But, it will run even if disabled.

The package is com.qualcomm.location so,

adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.qualcomm.location

will disable it, but it will always come back…

The US supports Israel because of 'Jewish wealth', claims BBC presenter (www.msn.com)

It’s very difficult to characterize this as an isolated incident of anti-semitism by the BBC considering it’s far from their first incident, and considering further that the BBC has spend 20 years and well over £300,000 keeping the 20,000 word Balen Report into their perceived anti-Israel bias buried....

bbbhltz, (edited )
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Just for clarification, in case anyone is in the same situation as me…

Clicking on that link just takes me to the MSN front-page for some reason… The French version, because I live in France. This article is from The Jerusalem Post and the lead is:

The BBC’s Spanish-language service released a program claiming that “Jewish wealth and influence” in the United States is the reason behind the United States’ ongoing support for Israel, according to a translation produced by Jewish News on October 20.

If you speak Spanish you can see the program in question here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16Mnq93qL0

Article: www.jpost.com/diaspora/…/article-769435

Conclusion is that of OP: BBC are in hot water.

As a Canadian, as much as I like it when news providers stick to their guns, I think the CBC will also probably need to make some updates to the way they use the “T” words in the future.

Israel-Palestine megathread for the remainder of the weekend

the front page is now like half articles on this currently, so it’s probably time for a megathread because none of us want to keep track of 12 threads on this subject and all the resulting comments. only major subsequent developments (for example, boots on the ground; pronunciations by governments; that sort of stuff) will get...

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

Maps and Misinformation

Sorry, not news or updates, but also not worth creating a thread.

I’ve been seeing lots of maps on Lemmy (mostly in French-speaking communities communities). A number of them look like this:

standard conflict mapshttps://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/df26b2c6-bf6c-4ce1-8216-75e6092a1f8f.webp

And then I’ve seen others that look like this (usually labelled as “fact” or “reality”):

alternative versionshttps://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/089e4f5d-5664-443d-be90-743ff3fa454f.webp

With the exception of an amazing 3-day event that took place in my school (we had some history professors/researchers come in over 3 days and present us arguments from both sides, then moderate a debate…) I received no education about this, and even if I had it would have been about 20 years ago or more.

I suspect we have all seen a version of this map before. I can read the Wikipedia, and watch the documentaries, but where should I look to be able to come to a decision on my own regarding these maps? Meaning, is one of them more factual than the other?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I can tell some of the people commenting here are holding back, but there is an undertone of something here that isn’t very Beehaw…

Anyway.

As I live in France, I can confirm that something like this was inevitable. First of all, the politician who called the ban is severely disliked. His name is used as a synonym for poop on the internet. That is just a small detail…

It was more or less decided that he cannot put a blanket ban and would need to ban case by case, but I may have missed something since yesterday.

Through migration and gentrification, France has set itself up for minor disasters such as this. Also, through education. I am from Canada, and I remember learning about this conflict in highschool in the late '90s. But, teenager me didn’t even know at the time what a Muslim was or why religion had anything to do with it. Here in France, students do not learn about it at school, they learn about it from parents. The French way of thinking is always about time, context, and place.

So, last week was the time. Context was terrorism. Place was… Israel. The media here can be quite biased. Lots of younger people have no clue what biased means. They consume lots of YouTube and prefer things to be vulgarised, meaning simplified, and will adopt the opinion of a YouTuber or influencer quite easily. This is contradictory to how the French used to think even 10 years ago.

Since Monday, a fake story about Arabs planning a djihad has been circulating on social media. It is all over French Instagram (my partner showed me) and Telegram too.

Ignorance, fearmongering, bloodlust, racism…all the bad shit could boil over. Adding fuel to the fire is the trend of calling out and doxxing anyone who criticises country A instead of county B.

I think the police will have a busy day and some looters will again take advantage of the situation.

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