Is the AI image from The Register?

Thanks, I can't think of it as anything but duke nukem forever now. Your comment made my day.

I can echo the frustrations expressed about social media becoming a necessity as it becomes the primary channel for communication by an institution. Both my university and student dorm use exclusively Discord to communicate events, exams, and general announcements. I don't run Discord on my phone and due to this I have come close to missing several important things, if not for a friend letting me know. I'm not sure what if anything could be done to change this...

My cybersecurity course uses Linux... in a VM. We boot into Windows 10, then start Kali in VMware and do everything inside of it. I still don't know why, I just bring my own laptop with NixOS and add whichever package we are using to my shell.nix for that course.

Can't hurt to do a little self-promotion ey? I recently started writing https://blog.allpurposem.at/minecraft-qr about FOSS stuff I work on and ways I've managed to survive my gamedev degree on Linux. Aiming for one post per month, though my next one is taking a bit longer.

I've really enjoyed using PINE64 products. I use the excellent Pinecil soldering iron which is fully open source. I used a PineTime smartwatch until I got it water damaged (rip) which was a ton of fun to use. I have a pair of PineBuds wireless earbuds (default firmware is not open because of proprietary ANC, but last time I checked this is being worked on). I can't speak for their laptops or phones, but I can definitely recommend the devices I do use if you're willing to get involved in the community to work through and fix some of the existing issues.

Honestly I saw btrfs in the arch install guide and read about it because I thought the name sounded funny. I used it until I distro hopped to NixOS couldn't figure out how to install it with btrfs, so I'm back on ext4.

Maybe I'll give it another try next hop, which is likely soon since Qt theming seems impossible on Nix. :/

Yeah, the interference argument is fair, but I think this is also the ISP (totally separate third party) trying to protect the paid plans they sell for connecting more than one device...

Looks great! Do you often use TTY login over a graphical display manager?

Awesome news! Really miss the tab groups from Chrome, really the only thing haha

I ran my own Mastodon for a while. While it does work, it takes up a ton of storage (every image and video you see is cached by your own server). It also doesn't work great for viewing stuff like replies and older posts, since backfilling is still not a thing. I ended up just browsing on remote servers instead. A great blog post about this: https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/08/11/some-notes-on-mastodon/

I was going to read this post, but I saw an AI image.

I'm stuck in Cloudflare loops as well, been a week or two. It works in "Private" windows so I'm guessing it's an addon. I think it might be either uBO, Privacy Badger, IDCAC (fork), or DecentralEyes.

A good 90% I'd say. All my devices run Linux (NixOS laptop, Ubuntu server, LineageOS phone).

Non-FOSS stuff:

• AMD GPU in my Framework 16 laptop means the only unfree package on my laptop is Steam.
• The proprietary apps I do run on my phone are TooGoodToGo and my bank as I'm not aware of alternatives.
• I wear a Pebble Time Steel smartwatch, also not aware of any alternatives.
• PS5 controller firmware has no replacement.

I don't browse the surface web a lot and when I do I tend to disable JS, so I avoid most of the nonfree JS. I have no social media accounts besides Mastodon, Matrix, and Lemmy, which are all free :)

As an extension, all my close family runs Linux on their computers, as it ended up being lower maintenance than setting them up with Windows when time came to upgrade.

I am very serious about using Linux exclusively. I have ported/rewritten all of my university's course materials in my past two years of gamedev studies and made them available for others. But the time has come to do an internship and I have yet to find a single studio I could be at while still using Linux. I feel like I reached a dead end tbh

I play VR on Linux, it works surprisingly well, especially via Wayland. There's an app called Envision that sets up basically everything you need for you. Unlike a few years ago, I had to do no fiddling, it just works.

I really, really hope this leads to development of data portability/server migration options. When I set my homeserver up, I chose Synapse as I didn't know about the other servers. Now that I do, and would like to switch away because of Synapse's performance problems and the new CLA stuff, I realize I and all my users are fully locked in, and would have to start from scratch (lose all chats, profiles, etc) to migrate.

I really enjoy it because everything is automatically maximized, but I can always easily put programs next to each other (f.e. my school uses Discord, so I have to have it open next to Matrix). The window rules are also very useful, as I can make Firefox always be on the first workspace, or my terminal always on the third. You can also make certain apps always float so password managers and such still work the same way.

And importantly, the email is from my dorm (whose contract simply said they provided free fast wifi), while these unexpected T&Cs are from the dorm's ISP.

I held on to my Time Steel for so long, but I finally switched to AsteroidOS on a Huawei Watch. No AOD, way too bright with lights off and unreadable in the sun, and have to charge it every night (barely lasts a day). I'm heavily considering going back.

Do you mean Obtainium? I use it to download apps not available on F-Droid, but I can't use it to actually browse/use GitHub. I will clarify in my OP :)

I tried setting this up, and I can connect to my honeserver, but I've no idea how to access its LAN services. How does it work?

My parents run a business, and besides having me install it and do the initial setup, they both use Linux fine and have adjusted great from their previous machines. I moved them to it mainly because of performance and being tired of fixing printers on Windows. LibreOffice runs, Firefox runs, a video editor works, and OBS runs, so it's enough for their use. They're both on Wayland, one on EndeavourOS (w/ a graphical app store set up ofc) and the other on Fedora Kinoite, w/ nouveau drivers and no issues so far!

Yep! You can just paste the URL of the blog into your reader (or try https://blog.allpurposem.at/feed/ if that doesn't work).

I'm seeing others recommend the G14 2022 all-AMD one. I have owned this model since it released and use it nearly every day. Despite the performance being pretty okay, it does have its share of deal-breakers which, if I knew them at the time, I would not have bought it:

• random freezing, this affects some units most zen3 amd laptops and it seems I got unlucky. ASUS has been ignoring the issue for a year despite the crashes being reproducible on Windows (Windows recovers from it while Linux just freezes)
• short stutters due to fTPM. Hopefully once Arch updates the kernel to include the recent patch that blacklists all AMD fTPMs fixes this, for now you have to email ASUS to get a secret BIOS that allows disabling it
• nonfunctional vfio (code 43) without patching BIOS variables with a sketchy script (have to disable rebar), rebinding after shutting down the vm still does not work at all for me
• overheating while gaming, even with fans forced to max
• wifi constantly disconnects. I mostly fixed it by buying a AX210 card from Intel
• bottom shell is super brittle and cracked when unscrewing it

The laptop itself would be the best Linux experience I've had if not for these issues. The trackpad is excellent and great for Wayland 1:1 gestures, the display and speakers are great, and the battery lasts a good 2-3h with light web browsing.

My Ubuntu server (which has been working for a few years now) recently asked me in a full-screen prompt while updating something about GRUB. There was a list of partitions with just one element, which is the partition that GRUB os on. I was focused on something else so I just hit enter, but now I am really scared to reboot it. Is there any way to pull this back up or to double-check that everything is ok with the machine?

The uni is not at fault here, the dorm is a separate entity that just happens to have a deal to keep some rooms for exchange students like me. The dorm is from iQ Student Accommodation (who told me I could bring a router), and the ISP they use is ASK4 (whose T&C you are seeing).

I set up Arch manually, following the ArchWiki guide. Over time using it though, I must have made some customizations that were incorrect and caused it to break.

I do too. Envision has an option to install "WiVRn" which I found worked way better than ALVR.

The ethernet connexion still requires a login/account creation/T&C acceptance sadly.

While I see where you're coming from, I do need to clarify two things:

• I use VR mainly for two things: Beat Saber, and sometimes C++ game development (my degree). I can't develop on-headset because of the limitations Facebook imposes, so I am stuck with streaming. I am taking my own path through these studies, for example I rewrote all the assignments and engines to CMake and then Linux which has allowed me to learn a whole lot more than if I simply followed the classes. I wish to mess with networking as another extension to my studies, as it's not covered at all and now is the time I have dedicated 100% to learning (vs later in life).
• I didn't really choose this university: I chose to do an exchange program for a semester and this was the one option that matched my interests/degree. And the uni seems awesome so far (we haven't started courses though). The dorm is a separate entity from the uni, but they do have a deal to provide rooms for half a year for exchange students. So this dorm was my best option to avoid a yearlong contract.

Switches are also explicitly banned as they allow bypassing the device limit.

Something I can use to browse GitHub repositories, reply to and create issues, and get notifications for issues on my own repos.

My router is an Archer C6 from TP-Link. I've never used OpenWrt, but I have used Linux on my laptop & server for many years. Is this worth looking into/possible without any prior networking knowledge?

Yeah, that's a possibility. I did fly the router all the way here but if I really can't use it I will go wired. Sadly I couldn't get WiVRn working on wired, and ALVR had really bad performance.

Thank you so much :D I had a lot of fun with that one; happy you liked it.

That's good advice, however this dorm is not part of my uni (just a partner to provide housing) and the internet provider whose T&C I'm expected to accept and sign up for 1y of are a totally separate legal entity, that has a bunch of upsells for stuff like "connect more than 1 device" (which my router/AP would basically be bypassing, and I think that's what these clauses are about). About the interference, is it possible to limit it severely while still having a reliable connection just within my room? I only really want to connect:

1. Laptop (wired)
2. Phone
3. VR for streaming from laptop

Would that work even if the T&Cs are for a third party (the ISP), while the correspondence is with my dorm provider (not legally related to my uni, they just have a partnership)?

I'm only staying for a semester (via Erasmus, or what remains of it post-Brexit) so while I did consider this I don't think it's very viable.

I'd be happy to set my device to passthrough mode, but I think the ISP prevents peer-to-peer connections (which my laptop would make to the VR headset) unless you buy one of their plans for Chromecast/smart TVs. Would that prevent it from working? And would I still be able to connect multiplw devices despite their one-device limit?