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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Kubuntu 8.04.

    It was the last release with KDE 3 and very polished for its time. Many applications from back then have vanished by now. Kopete was Magic, supporting all IM protocols (Including Yahoo video calls!), Amarok was so reliable and sleek.

    Of course most things have improved since then, but I remember it fondly.










  • The point is, they already did. 99% of webservers run Linux. They are all out in the open and hackers love to get their hand on them as they are likely to have mailservers on them and they have a public IP so they can always be reached.

    And most of them do not get hacked. And those that do mostly get hacked due to bad passwords or bad website code. I administer one and see the thousands of attacks running up against it daily (most are just attempts to log in with basic credentials). And of course I see the daily influx of updates from Linux.

    If a new security flaw is seen, its often quite difficult to use. And with Linux somebody makes a patch before simple tool for hackers are out. With Microsoft products you wait till the next patch day, in the best case critical exploited bugs are patched in days. Also security flaws in closed source products are often easier to exploit and tools to use them are available fast. (Such flaws are often already discovered in open source products by third eyes and testers before they make it to production systems.)

    Of course there are exceptions to the rule, like heartbleed. This was an easy to exploit flaw in an often used Linux service and it caused a big turmoil because many where to slow to patch their systems.

    Also of course if Linux gets more popular on the desktop more software will be an attractive target for malicious actors and some software may get popular before many people take a look at the source code. But the situation will still be much better compared to closed source systems.

    (Also of course more closed source software will be made for Linux then)


  • An SSD really is the solution. You believe it just speeds up boot time, but it does speed up nearly everything else too.

    Your Webpage? Your Browser loads it, stores new data into the cache and stalls while waiting for the HDD. Or it knows elements are in the cache and stalls waiting for them.

    You click on the application menu? You PC tries to load 20 icons, tiny amounts of data an SSD has ready in a microsecond. Your HDD takes a full second because the seek between the 20 places where the icons are on the HDD takes so long.

    I have some very old PCs I manage (mainly for relatives) and one couple uses a Core 2 Duo E6400 which should be quite similar to your PC. This PC is very usable for daily browsing with Ubuntu 22.04, boot time is about 25 seconds, then about 10 seconds to load up ebay. (I admit I optimized boot time quite a bit) The other PC they have is even slower than that, I just do not remember the exact CPU right now. That one is even used for old browser games similar to candy crush.

    Of course it is not what I would use given the choice. I want to compile code in seconds, watch videos in glorious 4k and play a 3D game from time to time. But for them it works perfectly well, so well that they deny my offers to upgrade them


  • I had great experiences with old games on Linux. Mostly they work better than on a modern Windows system. For Example Neverwinter Nights 2. Under Windows movement is jittery on fast CPUs. There is a community patch for that thankfully. Under Linux it just works with WINE (the patch is advisable for other reasons there too). Also loading times are blazingly fast under WINE and Linux. On my HDD PC 1 second vs 50 on Windows. Now with a NVME SSD, Windows also only takes 2 seconds.

    Of course Wine/Proton is not perfect, I still have a dualboot system for that. But I boot to Windows very rarely these days. When I do I am hit with so many slow updates, that I don’t get to my game. Maybe I should stop doing them and cut of its network access.

    Really old games tend to be more difficult. For a relative I set up a VM with Win98 as the performance impact won’t hurt the games, some even benefit. (I believe the games where Safecracker and Theme Park) Even older than that DosBox and ScummVM work perfectly.


  • Yes Hamas is a terror organization, no, that does not allow you to behave like a terror organization when fighting them.

    If you have read the article this is not about innocents which where at the wrong place a the wrong time. This article is about deliberate destruction of civilian buildings without giving any justification besides ‘There are some things that we see that you don’t see.’ in some cases evacuation was allowed, in some cases no time for evacuation was given. There is in my eyes no justification for this.

    I never said that Israel should stand idle. So don’t push that opinion on me.

    What could be done? Attack military targets only, give civilians time to evacuate. (Yes a civilian home becomes a military target if it is used as weapons stash/factory, but there was no indication at all in the cases listed in the article), support the more moderate Fatah in regaining control. Support new democratic elections. Provide help in forms primarily targeted at civilians: Food, water, education. Allow students from the Gaza Strip to study abroad. Part of that is already done, but hampered by the military actions.

    Destroying peoples homes and basic utilities will only ensure that hate on Israel grows and support for Hamas remains steady.


  • I had good experiences with the Zenbook-Flip Series from Asus. Linux support is great, build quality too. It even survived a big drop with only the screen falling out, but still working. I just inserted it again. Battery life is also great which is perfect for university.

    Palm rejection did not work reliable however. I just got used to disable the touchpad with a keycombo whenever I started typing longer passages of text.



  • Niche language, but try out PureBasic.

    Its IDE is based on Scintilla. And it is very fast, even on an ancient PC it runs. It is specific for the programming language.

    And here some advantages it has compared to a simple text editor:

    • Autocomplete of all functions and many API functions of the OS
    • Hints about parameters
    • F1 Help for all functions by just placing the cursor on them
    • Jumping to errors in the code
    • Automatic backups of all the progress of your codes, no problem to backtrace even if you forgot to save or commit.
    • Manage Projects (Groups of source codes and different targets)
    • Well integrated debugger

    I agree with you in many points. Most other IDEs I am forced to work with are horribly slow. Especially those which rely on electron. Sometimes they lack features every basic editor has by now.

    This is to say: Good IDEs can exist and are a great benefit for the programmer. But modern IDEs often chase keyword features and use complex and bloated frameworks to achieve them. Sometimes even forgetting to add basic features which made IDEs a thing initially. An IDE should take almost no time to setup to your needs and should not hinder with complex operations which take seconds to run, it should only support in code creation and aim to make features like autocomplete show suggestions in milliseconds.


  • I can’t speak for the Nvidia issue. (Only that it is widely know that Nvidia actively works against Open source and only just has begun changing their stance, so Nvidia support is still poor on Linux. Their proprietary drivers aren’t great either. I stick to AMD since using Linux, they work great out of the box)

    But the audio issue baffles me. Under Kubuntu with KDE I just klick on the Loudspeaker in the systray and choose the device. It even remembers it over unplugging and replugging devices.

    Image of mentioned audio selection popup with radio button before the devices

    Rgarding openssl: Thats the price you pay for freedom, you can change the system how you want, even into non working states ^^ BTW: You can repair such mistakes with a LiveCD even major ones like this.


  • It seems you have not read my post or the study in detail.

    Indeed it seems that cloth masks are not very or even not effective. But, and that’s a big but: FFP2/KN95 Masks seem to be quite effective.

    The Cochrane study authors themselves note the low confidence they have in their results. The sample size is quite small (e.g. only 8407 people in summary over all studies they evaluated for FFP2 masks) They even got the result that handwashing has no benefits.

    In Contrast the studies in the metastudy I linked work with far larger sample sizes.

    I won’t respond anymore after this comment as you seem agitated and resort to personal attacks which won’t lead to a productive discussion. I hope you find a calmer moment to consider the evidence studies have gathered and overthink your position.


  • Letting this stand this way is close to misinformation.

    Linus Torvalds got accused of sexism, as to be expected with a person so public, but nobody ever proved anything. In contrast he shows the opposite of sexist behaviour nearly every day by working with all people equally on the Linux kernel. Also his daughter Patricia is a feminist and he fully supports her. Honestly I am surprised that with so much of his communication being public (Mailing list discussions) nobody found any piece which sounds outright sexist. Not even a bad joke. He is a role model regarding this.

    His toxic behavior is another thing. And also up for discussion I think. Firm words to discourage bad behavior regarding contributions to the kernel. He went to far at times, recognized it, and improved. He still has the stance to not use overly polite words to play around any bad statements, which many think is correct to improve communication and finding a common ground instead of secretly harboring ever greater dissent. Many discussions by many qualified people on this in the net.


  • I don’t understand people downvoting without correcting. This way this wrong information stands here, seemingly scientifically sound as a study is linked, contradicted only by votes and words.

    Thank you @SigloPseudoMundo@lemmy.ml for looking at the study and noting its limits here.

    If somebody wants to check for himself I suggest to take a look at https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fvl-2021-0032 A study which looks at many different studies and metastudies.

    To summarize:

    • Some studies exist that measured no benefits of masks under certain circumstances. E.g. only evaluating complete protection. But few also seem to be sound at first glance. E.g. one looking at effects of a mask requirement in Bexar County, TX.
    • Many of the negative result studies focus on cloth face masks, one even suggesting they increase risk.
    • Many studies and metastudies with generally more sound methods suggest mask are effective at preventing spread and limiting mortality.

    Conclusion: Masks, excluding simple cloth masks, are likely quite effective. More research is needed.