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rufus, (edited ) to opensource in What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

I’m not sure. The benefit of open source is that you can just take it and use it. And even incorporate it into your own projects. And it’s super easy, all you have to do is make the source available if it’s copyleft.

Now people want to add money to the mix, define valid use-cases, have me file paperwork to become a non-profit etc… Especially adding money to the mix could turn out bad in my eyes. Currently people are incentivised by other things. Software development and usage is a level playing field and you get gifted awesome programs. I’m really not sure if more capitalism helps. (But yes, I also think it’s annoying that companies like IBM, Amazon and Google make big money and often don’t contribute. And maybe handling money is unavoidable, for example since nowadays many projects need to pay for infrastructure, or do automated builds / tests / CI and that also costs money unless Github helps you out.)

I already dislike the growing amount of Source-Available software, and software that contains the commons clause. Can I now share this with my friends? Can they invite some more people to the instance? Do I need a lawyer and do proper accounting if they contribute paying for the server? What if the software relies on other software (libraries/databases) that aren’t free anymore?

rufus, to linux in Any experience with teaching kids Linux?

🏆

rufus, (edited ) to piracy in Looking for piracy-friendy peertube instances

You mean like pirated stuff? Peertube isn’t made for this.

However. You could use sepiasearch.org and search for conspicuous terms like “S01E01” or “1080p.web.h264” and see where other people upload copyrighted stuff. There are a few TV shows on flim.txmn.tk video.ploud.jp tube.p2p.legal and a few that aren’t around anymore.

But please check their rules. You don’t want the admins to get in trouble because of you, unless they signed up for that.

And i think some of the instances I mentioned or you’re going to find that way are meant for old videos where the copyright expired or that have been licensed Creative Commons or similarly.

rufus, (edited ) to opensource in The issue to create a new main menu for Minetest has been open for 6 years.

I think it’s just a larger undertaking. Like mentioned in the last comments. People either need to address that as the main focus for some new major release and work on it. Or subdivide it and find people to work on the individual components to make it happen (gradually).

Also there is always the thing with hobby / free software projects. Sometimes people focus on functionality and features and not so much on asthetics and the first impression. I agree the welcome screen is somewhat important as it’s the first thing a new player sees. But I also like the developers to work on features which enhance the actual gameplay because I just see that screen for 10 seconds and it’s kind of a waste of time to improve it for someone like me. The current screen works alright. There are several dynamics affecting projects: “Perfect is the enemy of good” (don’t make it too complicated) but also sometimes a makeshift solution or something that works “okay” stays inplace indefinitely because “it works” and people concentrate on other stuff. That’s just how things work. It takes deliberate effort to work against those dynamics.

So I’d say the cause is, their focus is somewhere else.

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Can I pre-install Ubuntu on an SSD?

I’m not sure if Ubuntu requires a wired internet connection. I’ve installed a different distro yesterday and wifi worked fine during the installation. The installer asked me to connect to network and I used the wifi. I’ve never plugged a network cable into the machine. Maybe it’s the same with Ubuntu. But sure, there are other possibilities. Offline installers and/or you can install Linux on a different machine and then swap the harddisk/ssd. Just take care not to overwrite the internal disk of your laptop. Make sure it writes to the correct disk (or unplug other ones).

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Surface Go 2 with 4GB Ram and 4425Y worth it?

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.

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Any experience with teaching kids Linux?

For reference about 4 year olds: lifehacker.com/i-raised-my-kids-on-the-command-li…

I think I read his blog back then. Telling about the progress his (then) very young son made. How he didn’t install a graphical user interface at first but the kid loved ‘sl’ (the steam locomotive if you mistype ‘ls’), and cowsay and so on. And they had a command-line chat to communicate (or just smash buttons).

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Linux on a 2in1 for Uni

I happen to own one of the Thinkpad Yogas.

Both are entirely different product lines. Unless something changed in recent years. I like mine. And I’ve seen the ones without the ThinkPad branding in a store. They’re cheap. But that’s about it.

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Can flatpaks be installed and accessed from another partition on the same drive?

I feel you. The bugs that get the machine to crash and you have zero chance of getting any useful debug information, are by far the most annoying ones.

In my experience it’s most of the time some driver issues in the kernel or the (NVidia) proprietary drivers. Or an hardware issue. On Debian I can install several kernel versions alongside each other. So there would be no need for me to install more than one distribution. Most of the times a proper crash isn’t caused by the userspace anyways, so it boils down to the different kernel versions and configurations anyways. You could also try an older kernel.

rufus, (edited ) to linux in [Discussion] Git - How is it classified?

I think there isn’t really something “authoritative” in Git. You can upload your changes somewhere or another developer can download changes from you. You can also all make incompatible changes and then you won’t be able to sync it anymore (you’d need to fix that first and manually handle the conflict). There’s nothing authoritive in it. In practice most people choose a central place and all upload their changes there and everybody else regularly pulls them from there. But you could as well directly do it with the computer of your colleague if you have a network connection and access to it. Files including history of changes are the same on every machine and server. (If they’re all up to date). It’s like storing a directory including past versions on 10 different computers.

rufus, (edited ) to linux in [Discussion] Git - How is it classified?

Well the bugtracker and additional features are not inside of the git repository. So they’d get lost. But each ‘git clone’ is a complete clone of the (source code) repository including all of the history of changes, the commit messages, dates and individual changes. That’s stored on every single computer that cloned the repository and you have a copy of everything locally. Though it might be out of date if you didn’t pull the latest changes. But apart from that it’s the same data that Github stores. You could just make it available somewhere else and continue.

rufus, to askelectronics in Is “harvesting” small amounts of electricity a fools errand?

Depends on the use case. It is a very good idea to harvest small amounts of energy for example to use it in a calculator or a clock or a remote control or button or light switch. This way you never need to replace batteries or have them leak and destroy the thing.

Apart from that. There aren’t many use cases for those very small amounts of energy. You have to ask yourself what you’re going to use that small amount of energy for. Because batteries and wires are way cheaper. And they store amounts of energy you’d need 20 years of harvesting with equipment that costs a lot more. It just depends on the use case. And for little amounts of energy, the use-cases are severely limited.

You’re allowed to do this as a hobby, however ;-)

rufus, (edited ) to opensource in Can this be replicated with opensource software?[p2p file transfer over thunderbolt, and extremely low latency Video and game streaming (no encoding)]

I found this article from 2018: …kellner.me/…/thunderbolt-networking-on-linux/

And this from 2022: chrisbergeron.com/…/ultra-fast-thunderbolt-nas-wi…

Seems you just plug in the cable on Linux and you’re done. Low latency video can be transferred over network for example with gstreamer/pipewire and files with any file transfer protocol.

rufus, (edited ) to piracy in Looking for good USENET primer

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?

rufus, (edited ) to linux in Any experience with teaching kids Linux?

Awesome question. And good advice here. To add something: Don’t just give them games. Hook up an old printer, install LibreOffice plus the openclipart images. Kids can make everything into a game. We used to play with my dad’s old pc and imagined being private investigators and had our own little office. We printed out lots of silly stuff and took notes on the computer. There are a few ‘learn typing on a keyboard’ games, but back then I didn’t have fun with them.

Maybe they like drawing, install TuxPaint, Krita. Or video editing or recording stuff, give them a webcam/phone and Kdenlive. Have them do a spoof on a movie or do their own Lego stop-motion film. Or they like to make music, install Audacity’s sucessor, LMMS, a drum sequencer …

And of course the whole kids-education metapackage if your distribution has one. So they can program little turtles and start coding with Python. You can do this at age 8, depending on the kids personality.

It works best if it’s tied somehow into their lives. For example (occasionally) printing homework assignments, a stop-motion suite if they play a lot with Lego anyways…

Other than that, my boy scout education tells me to “look at the boy”. Have them explore and see that they like. Assist and teach them how to operate the software they want to use. Help them once they get stuck or can’t figure something out on their own. You will have to guide them and show how they can achieve the results they want, so they stay motivated.

Give them background knowledge and tell them the 'why’s. Why something is the way it is. I’d say that is the point where we get to Linux. At age 10 or so, you don’t necessarily care about an operating system. But you’re curious and happy to learn why there are different ones and why they behave differently and the story behind that. And the thing that hooks you is the possibilities and usefulness for your life. So that’s why I recommend installing lots of useful (to kids) software.

And maybe give them a chat / instant-messenger program. So they can contact you and ask questions.

As it is with teaching generally, it heavily depends on how you do it. Kids are very curious by default. In my experience: “Look at the boy” has served me well. Kids come in a wide variety. Don’t teach them top-down but find a mix of letting them explore and roam, but also make sure to teach them the basics first. And guide them how to apply things to their life and find use-cases and the fun in it. If you pay attention to them, you can adjust your own behaviour.

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