(Hyperbole) I’m shocked! I have been informed for decades, usually at high levels of snootiness, that Macs don’t have viruses unlike those pathetic other operating systems…

(hahaha)

Recently I was thinking about how I missed webrings for websites instead of reliance on search engines, many of which aren’t even directing you to the sites anymore just showing AI summaries.

No MFA, and stale passwords up to 4 years old. And they say “anyone can do IT”…

After the recent Google AI stuff, I’d expect an AI children’s book tool to teach children how to make mustard gas with cute cartoon characters. :P

Was anyone else expecting an article talking about the subject? I was reading and then, “Oh they’ve set up an interesting topic to discuss… wait, other articles to read, where is this article?”

Also, the internet access mechanism (starlink) is incidental to the subject matter, why mention it in the title?

Also, what @paultimate14 said, “youth not respecting tradition”…

I have been ping ponging for almost two decades on the desktop. Currently on Pop!_OS (Ubuntu derivative) with a “safety blanket” dual boot with Windows. I went through a lot of these stages many times. So far, ~3 months on this has been the least frustrating Linux desktop experience. I’m still missing some of the power management controls and cloud file integration is kind of a joke, but an interesting time. For the many things that work well, the performance is so much better than Windows and all the other Linux distros I’ve tried on this same hardware.

2D/3D Simulation/Game creation Godot :)

How many times? Every single time…

Hadn’t realized that change was in there. What a mess.

The only thing worse is New Outlook. They took away all of the power features and a good deal of the customization, and so you are left with something that feels like it was designed for a mobile app while you try to manage thousands of emails.

Over the last few months I’ve tried half a dozen Linux distros. PopOS has been the best so far for me. Plays the games, didn’t have to force the audio to work, and regular apps open way faster than even other Linux options, it is astonishing. I have used Linux on servers for ~30 years, and this is the first time I’ve been really comfortable on the desktop side.

We had a large layoff a few months ago, including people with over a decade of time at the company, and a meeting afterwards where an exec said, “Yes you were working hard before, and now with many hundreds of people let go, we are asking you to work even harder.” Not all rainbows and butterflies where I am, just that one piece about remote work. :)

Got a weird speech recently that we all need to work hard for the company to succeed, but raises and bonuses were dependent on the “economy and stock market” doing well, if “the economy” was going to continue to do poorly, then there was nothing management can do about skipping another year of raises, and we should just be glad we haven’t had another RIF.

My current company stated that if you have a local office and want to go there fine, but otherwise do your job where it makes sense. Of course my boss is on one coast, the rest of my team is spread out in multiple states on the other coast, and I’m kind of in the middle of the country.

“You must go in to the office, so that you can get on calls with your team or other teams, which are in the other global offices.” (rolling eyes)

I tried Garuda as well, and was not happy with the hoops I had to go through. I switched to Pop OS, and have had very smooth sailing so far.

some people might like that it helps them get targeted ads - after all, the tech has crunched all the data, and can advertise things to you that you might actually want.

Hahahahaha Next best thing to ad blocking, is generic ads that you don’t care about and can ignore more easily, and you know that the company is getting paid less for those ads showing.

I’ve been trying to switch back to Linux desktop for a couple of years. I’ve been very successful lately with “Pop! OS (nvidia)”, I think this one might finally stick.

Thanks, I’ll look in to this and maybe dual boot and try it out. I tried with Arch/Garuda and liked the window manager experience, but ultimately ran in to problems.

but even as a relatively technical person, it was a massive pain sometimes.

I’m glad to hear this… I’ve been writing code and using Linux on servers since Red Hat (pre-fedora) had “Redneck” as a language option… But so often I get told, “Oh, you must be a technical newbie, because real techies can handle recompiling the kernel in order to get everything to work…” ( rolling eyes ) There is a world of difference between a headless server, and wanting to use an OS for your primary direct interaction. :)

• When I decided to get a new laptop, I failed to look for reviews of Linux driver compatibility while making my selection. That one is on me. I’ve run Linux on servers for so long, where I need network only and no graphics, sound, or even input usually (just remote in), that I forgot about the driver limitations.
• I’m also a developer. :)

Sound never worked right, occasional app worked, but not most things. CPU control was touchy, and this new laptop on full performance drowns out the TV on high volume, so I need fine control to manage the noise in order to stay where the family is and still use my system. :)

Blender was a problem until I learned you have to use “prime-run” (or something like that) to force the dedicated GPU, then that started working. Was trying to determine a system to make 3D environments (like Unity, Unreal, etc.), but didn’t find anything great, and then found out that that a secondary interest of VR/VR development is poorly (or not at all) supported on Linux (something about the window manager not managing display access correctly). File syncing with services like Dropbox and Google Drive were problematic.

Then of course is gaming. I have a small handful of games I enjoy, and after a couple weeks I finally found a Steam setting using an older Proton version that worked well enough (but a lower overall performance compared to native Windows), with only occasional crashes for no reason.