Thanks. Yeah I spent some time with it and drew some finite-state machines with TikZ(?), other diagrams, we assembled a few physics homework assignment scripts to tidy the data from experiments, do linear regression and generate beautiful diagrams. It also taught me a bit about typesetting and proper formatting. I ‘wasted’ quite some time with it but a homework assignment in TeX looks almost like a scientific paper. Depending on the later career it’s a good skill to have. And I still prefer writing stuff with that instead of fighting LibreOffice. YMMV, since I also like programming and prefer text and the command line over GUIs.
Glad you were able to figure it out. Yeah, there are a lot of settings and different moving parts involved in doing audio. And the config files are all over the place. It can get nasty.
There has to be a way to make your settings and that pipeline the (system) default. Or at least change the profile that gets loaded for your specific soundcard and change and override the channel mapping so it won’t load something else first.
I think the easiest way is to take them from the ‘experimental’ branch of debian’s own repository. But read about the consequences of enabling experimental, first.
Yeah. Spotify really got to me. It’s so convenient to have everything available. At least it used to be that way except for the one-off obscure album or a few artists who still own their copyrights and can decide to not participate. But lately a few of the songs have become greyed out and unavailable. And the unavoidable enshittification has begun.
I still remember the times when I bought CDs and owned stuff. And the time when lots of series were available on Netflix and it was worth it’s (lower) monthly price. But as of now half the movies and series I like aren’t available. Like Star Trek, all the Disney movies…
And concerning Spotify: I read they pay an artist at most a third of a cent per streamed song. That is ripping off the artists anyways. I think I could just cancel my subscription, rip off the artists myself and cut out the middle man.
Hehe. I think the majority of people (who haven’t stumbled here by accident) don’t really need that reminder.
I’m a bit unsure. I don’t really mind stealing from big companies. Even more so if they make all those stupid business decisions and start to become more and more greedy. I personally think it’s a bit unethical to pay for stolen goods. That is fencing. But I think everyone should decide for themselves how they’d like to handle this.
If Nextflix only licenses a show for temporary use by me, it’s more a license violation than a proper analogy to stealing that would apply. But maybe I shoud read a book and not watch that much TV anyways.
Is Usenet always that expensive? Their recommended plan is $30 per month with a discount for the first three months. And the cheapest one is $10/month but that only gets you 20GB…
I’m not really a pirate so I don’t know much about paid pirating services. But I’m pretty sure I could get Netflix and Disney+ for that kind of money. Is Usenet access really worth that much?
I’d say 4GB of RAM is barely enough. It’ll probably do for the things you mentioned. But opening a browser and surfing the web, or using modern Electron apps/software will quickly get you to the limit.
Another idea would be buying something second-hand / refurbished. It’ll get you better specs for roughly the same money. But probably not a Surface or a tablet, so YMMV with that approach.
Thanks for clarifying. Yeah I implied that but didn’t explain all the nuances. I’ve been scolded before for advertising the use of Debian testing. I’m quite happy with it. But since I’m not running any cutting edge things on my server and Docker etc have become quite stable… I don’t see any need to put testing on the server. I also use stable there and embrace the security fixes and stability / low maintenance. I however run testing/unstable on my laptop.
It’s relatively alright for something that’s called unstable. There is also testing which is tested for at least 10 days. And you can mix and match, but that’s not recommended either.
I wouldn’t put it on my server. And I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who isn’t okay with fixing the occasional hiccup. But I’ve been using it for years and I like it.
However, mind that it’s not supported and they do not pay attention to security fixes.
Yeah, paying with credit card also works for me. And I use the browser a lot for stuff like that. Just the added layers in the apps sometimes don’t work. Like when I tried riding one of those electric scooters. I was able to put in my credit card details and they got accepted, and I know my phone is capable of doing NFC, but somehow there is something else in that app that prevents me from doing the actual transaction and rent the scooter. Online-shopping and things like that work fine. I don’t need an App to use Amazon or PayPal… So I wouldn’t know either.
Thx. I’m going to look up the de-googled phones you mentioned. I think I will try to use my Pixel as long as it works, but in theory it isn’t supported anymore and I’m supposed to buy a new one now. At least that’s what Google and GrapheneOS tell me.
Thank you. I completely agree. We can’t do stuff ourselves, my Pixel 4a is End of Life now and all the proprietary parts of the system won’t be updated anymore, which is a shame because the hardware is still perfectly fine.
And I hate the business decisions Google makes. Android is built upon Linux and the core is supposed to be free software. But then they move more and more stuff into their proprietary Google services packages. Like the proper keyboard with swipe typing, the better calendar app, text to speech, push notifications and all of the payment stuff. I personally replaced everything on the phone with a custom ROM, and did not install the google services. But I had to find alternatives to all of that and some things really don’t work as well. It’s a hassle and some things just don’t work at all. Like some stuff that requires in-app payment. I don’t care too much, because I get most of my Apps from F-Droid anyways and they’re open-source. But I can’t pay with my phone in the supermarket, can’t rent those silly electric scooters and a few other things.
Yeah, I think so, too. It doesn’t have to be this way. I mean this is mainly due to the way ARM hardware works, lack of good drivers, maintenance and dedication by the manufacturers of that hardware. And everything is quite fragmented. In theory we could have a hardware platform that has good open-source drivers and is well-supported. The Pinephone was an attempt to establish one platform that people could focus on. But it has quite some limitations and also hardware/design issues.
And Linux isn’t quite there yet. I mean I love Linux and it can run on embedded devices very well. But things like connected standby (for example receiving chat messages while the hardware sleeps and saves power) just isn’t implemented in a desktop environment that was made for computers. And also not in a chat application that was made for computers. So, set aside the hardware and driver issues, we have another issue with Linux software that wasn’t made to run on smartphones.
There is a way around that and that is to add those capabilities to the Linux kernel. And also give applications means to stay connected in the background, adapt to different screen sizes, rotate the screen and evict themselves from RAM. It’s kind of what Android is. It builds upon the Linux kernel and adds lots of stuff that is specifically useful on smartphones.
I hope someday some of those techniques get adopted into the mainline Linux kernel and also the frameworks the desktop software uses.
I’m not so sure if taking screenshots of exact settings is the correct mindset. Sometimes you have a different selection of software available and you might for example want to change your email-client or learn a new video editor because some other software works better on linux or is tied into the system better. You also need to adapt a few workflows to be maximally effective. Because some things just work differently on Linux.
I think your approach is quite good. All I want to say is: I’ve seen people get very disappointed with Linux. Especially if they try to recreate their Windows-experience closely. Be prepared to let go of your now perfectly configured software and start fresh with more things than you currently anticipate.
But Linux is awesome. I think the most important thing is to do a backup first. In case something goes wrong and you accidentally wipe your harddrive or you need to go back.
If you use one of the standard graphical desktops (Gnome, KDE, …) you don’t need to explore all of the config files. The most important settings should be in a settings program.
And programs should (mostly) come with sane default settings anyways. Debian adds a few. So the usual way (for beginners) is to start with the defaults and change around stuff once you want to customize something, and starting with the software you use the most (like an text editor, …). The standard GUI software (like your browser, LibreOffice) has GUI settings dialogues anyways.