Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:
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@dangoodin Yeah. I mean, they’re not wrong… it’s hard to trust Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc these days. But there’s a good reason that it has never yet been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” I myself - a technical person - have irrevocably borked Linux installs to the point that the only option was to erase and start over, just by trying to install a piece of open source software on it.
@thomasareed @dangoodin Chromebook is a Linux. It’s not hard to just install everything like on Linux Mint or a Ubuntu Desktop. No one is asking to install Slackware for non tech folks or Gentoo. I did this for a lot of “old” but perfectly working Windows laptops at a volunteer run Sunday school and the users have no issues. They open a Google Chrome and go about their day.
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@mweiss @thomasareed @dangoodin Well, opinions and experience differ.
I've noticed the windows users frequently say things like "Why isn't it doing what I want?" They've grown accustomed to their computers baffling them.
My spouse, mother, and employees in my office found the transition to mint pretty easy. The standard gnome desktop would be tough though.
@MarvinFreeman @thomasareed @dangoodin Windows has gotten worse in recent years. That doesn't make it harder than Linux overall.
Once everything is working, Linux Mint is roughly as easy as Windows as a daily driver. But when things aren't working, Linux (even Mint) gets much harder much more quickly.
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Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:
-- Google
-- Slack
-- Meta
-- Microsoft
-- Apple
-- Too many others to listThese orgs cozy up to authoritarianism. They terminate your account for any reason or no reaso at all. They shove AI down your throat.
And yet, my workplace, union, and so many of the orgs I value and need keep using them and have no plans to ween themselves off. Yes, I realize current dynamics make all of this inevitable.
So I'm left feeling hopeless and helpless, which is a terrible place to be.
@dangoodin Those types of orgs should really invest in their own NextCloud server or something
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@thomasareed @dangoodin I have a vague hope that Valve might popularise Linux with a subsection of gamers via all the work they are putting into the Steam Machine and their Linux based SteamOS. That may start some sort of snowball. Or possibly not.
@thomasareed @dangoodin Commoditise your complements as they say in Business School 101. For Valve, one of the main complements to their software is the operating system. So they have an incentive to capitalise on the work already done to create Linux and turn it into a lower cost (ie: free) alternative to Windows for normal humans. I have trouble thinking of anyone else who has that incentive.
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Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:
-- Google
-- Slack
-- Meta
-- Microsoft
-- Apple
-- Too many others to listThese orgs cozy up to authoritarianism. They terminate your account for any reason or no reaso at all. They shove AI down your throat.
And yet, my workplace, union, and so many of the orgs I value and need keep using them and have no plans to ween themselves off. Yes, I realize current dynamics make all of this inevitable.
So I'm left feeling hopeless and helpless, which is a terrible place to be.
@dangoodin I'm slowly working towards not depending on any of them. But here's catch-22 that I'm yet to find a good solution for:
Your email domain.
Are there any trustworthy domain registrars that don't require you to have a valid email address in order to acquire and manage a new domain?
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Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:
-- Google
-- Slack
-- Meta
-- Microsoft
-- Apple
-- Too many others to listThese orgs cozy up to authoritarianism. They terminate your account for any reason or no reaso at all. They shove AI down your throat.
And yet, my workplace, union, and so many of the orgs I value and need keep using them and have no plans to ween themselves off. Yes, I realize current dynamics make all of this inevitable.
So I'm left feeling hopeless and helpless, which is a terrible place to be.
@dangoodin The French government, in a bid to get its citizens and businesses off US tech, recently sponsored an open source video conferencing project.
https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet -
@dangoodin @markhurst -- maybe users could systematically keep their eyes on software, and encourage independent devs trying to make great software for them. i've been working nonstop forever, and it's impossible to get people even take a look at new stuff.
@davew @dangoodin hey Dave! thanks for the note. I remember using UserLand Frontier back in 1997 (which I still appreciate as it helped start the Creative Good blog which still exists 29 years later). Anyway LMK what I should be looking at today, as I'm putting together goodreports.com
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@davew @dangoodin hey Dave! thanks for the note. I remember using UserLand Frontier back in 1997 (which I still appreciate as it helped start the Creative Good blog which still exists 29 years later). Anyway LMK what I should be looking at today, as I'm putting together goodreports.com
since you like frontier, try
it's my latest outliner, and it even has a scripting language patterned after frontier. ;-)
also jake savin is working on a headless frontier for linux and latest mac os,. i can't wait to have it running on my servers.
and then https://feed.land/ -- it's a lot more than a feed reader.
dan there's so much out there, and techrunch is all that's left and they basically cover venture capital.
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@dangoodin I love how Linux is always the solution. Folks have no clue how regular people operate. If I were to hand a Linux laptop to any of the smart but non-technical folks I know, they’d struggle hard. Expecting them to install Linux or install and manage a number of FOSS tools? That’s not happening.
@thomasareed @dangoodin I'm often amazed at the inability of "regular people" to follow instructions, even on a step by step guide.
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@thomasareed @dangoodin I'm often amazed at the inability of "regular people" to follow instructions, even on a step by step guide.
Yes, because you're a technologist and they're not. Patronizing them is counterproductive.
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@dangoodin Those types of orgs should really invest in their own NextCloud server or something
I take it you've never been a member of a union or non-technologist non-profit org.
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@thomasareed @dangoodin Chromebook is a Linux. It’s not hard to just install everything like on Linux Mint or a Ubuntu Desktop. No one is asking to install Slackware for non tech folks or Gentoo. I did this for a lot of “old” but perfectly working Windows laptops at a volunteer run Sunday school and the users have no issues. They open a Google Chrome and go about their day.
Easy for you. Not for non technologiests.
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Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:
-- Google
-- Slack
-- Meta
-- Microsoft
-- Apple
-- Too many others to listThese orgs cozy up to authoritarianism. They terminate your account for any reason or no reaso at all. They shove AI down your throat.
And yet, my workplace, union, and so many of the orgs I value and need keep using them and have no plans to ween themselves off. Yes, I realize current dynamics make all of this inevitable.
So I'm left feeling hopeless and helpless, which is a terrible place to be.
The issue is not the quality of OSS alternatives. It's that end users don't want to even think about hosting and infrastructure (leaving aside network effects for now). The same way they don't want to think about the plumbing in their home, and just call a plumber if it's not working. So I see the issue of trustworthy IT infrastructure to be conceptually similar to fatbergs, which are a mess that centralised authorities pay millions to clean up.
That's not exactly giving hope; but I would say that what makes it approachable to end users requires managed infrastructure that they don't need to think about. Including paying for it, as users have also been trained to expect to get consumer digital services for free. It's a high bar, but Signal and mastodon have some success because they provide this. DIY options like installing Linux or hosting your own service do not.
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Linux is usable by everyone, though many people may need help getting set up.
Everyone can use other search engines than google or bing.
Everyone can buy a degoogled mobile phone and use it.
Everyone can sign up to proton ot tuta for mail, calendar and more.
Everyone can get an account on a hosted Nextcloud service.
Companies and organisations with some economy can buy help with setting up and/or managing services.
The hard thing is makeing the desicion, which, acknowledged, includes the will to do some getting used to, some changes of habits, and maybe letting go with some convenience.
@anderslund @dangoodin
proton ok
refused by tuta 😎 -
since you like frontier, try
it's my latest outliner, and it even has a scripting language patterned after frontier. ;-)
also jake savin is working on a headless frontier for linux and latest mac os,. i can't wait to have it running on my servers.
and then https://feed.land/ -- it's a lot more than a feed reader.
dan there's so much out there, and techrunch is all that's left and they basically cover venture capital.
@davew @dangoodin will take a look, thanks!
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@aeva Put the ubuntu iso image on a usb key and insert it into the computer is all it takes, should be similar on other distros.
netboot.xyz is nice. It's a bootable image which brings up a menu of linux distros to try or install, fetching them over the internet. Install it on a usb key, boot drive, or network boot file.
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@informapirata@www.informapirata.it
Grazie ho letto la prima parte, spiegazione molto interessante, mi sono venuti dei dubbi, magari mi si chiariranno leggendo il resto.
@poliverso@www.informapirata.it @fediverso @poliverso@feddit.it @Informapirata@lemmy.ml @macfranc @test
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Alone season 8 watch thread. I hope there are less dead mammals, especially big ones, than in season 7. Not only is it nearly always a suboptimal strategy, it's depressing.
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Se senti che il tuo spazio di lettura digitale è diventato troppo stretto, affollato di pubblicità o limitato da logiche commerciali, è il momento di guardare altrove. La risposta non è un nuovo sito web, ma un intero ecosistema: il Fediverso. E per noi lettori, la porta d’ingresso principale si chiama Bookwyrm.
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Fonts – Pepper&Carrot
Fonts - Pepper&CarrotOfficial homepage of Pepper&Carrot, a free(libre) and open-source webcomic about Pepper, a young witch and her cat, Carrot. They live in a fantasy universe of potions, magic, and creatures.
https://monodes.com/predaelli/2026/01/28/fonts-peppercarrot/
#Fonts #PepperCarrot
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@alternativeto This is a webpage for the CompressO app. At the top, a video player displays a scene with two people (one in white clothing, one in red) and text "The Renaissance Edition"; below the video, it shows "229 MB → 14 MB" and "93.91% smaller". Centered below the video is a yellow hand gesture icon, with "CompressO" beneath it. Text tags read "Free" and "Open Source (AGPL-3.0)". The description states: "Free, open-source, cross-platform app for lightweight video compression with FFmpeg, supporting multiple formats and platforms without ads or registration." Below this, buttons read "File Compressor", "Mac", "Windows", "Linux", and "Alternative to HandBrake and Video Compression".
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Qwen3-Vl:30b
🌱 Energy used: 0.105 Wh
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Free, open-source offline video compressor with zero tracking, powered by FFmpeg. Available for Linux, Windows & macOS https://alternativeto.net/software/compresso/about/
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@mayo @cagrimmett @tg @brentsimmons
could you post a screen shot of what you're looking at? i have a feeling you're describing a different product. ;-)
