Ulu-Mulu-no-die

she didn’t really want to switch to Win 11

On which computer? Her own?

Does not the company provide a PC with the tools needed? If yes, she has no right to decide what goes on it, the company does and she should respect that, doing what you want on a company PC can get you in serious trouble, way more serious than finding out you're using a pirated version of Office.

If the company expects her to use her own PC, they should at least provide the needed software licenses, Office365 can be used on the web, no need to install anything and it can be used on Linux no problem.

BUT the serious problem remains of having company data on her own PC, the best thing to do in such a case would be creating a VM, encrypting the file system and keeping all company data contained inside the VM.

Tho in such a case I would change company, no serious company today would expect employees to keep company data freely on whatever personal PC, that could lead to data breaches, I would never want to be involved in case like that, tho I live in EU, we have very strict laws about data integrity and privacy, dunno about other countries.

This is about Windows, why did you post it here?

On our company PCs we have both Edge and Chrome, after the latest Windows update a few days ago, every time I try to set Chrome as default browser, a window pops up saying something on the lines of "are you sure? please try out the fabulous Edge first, you might change your mind".

That annoys me to no end, first we are in EU, where Microsoft has been fined in the past for not allowing a browser choice, second, we're talking about Windows ENTERPRISE !!, keep that shit out of it, policies on PCs are decided at enterprise level, you can't spam users about it.

with as much users as possible

Wouldn't this lead to the same problems lemmy.world is having?

I would recommend choosing based on interests, rules that align with you, proximity to where you live, stuff like that. Population is not a problem, you can still participate everywhere because of federation.

None of the forcibly removed mods I spoke with have worked with or plan to work with replacement mods to pass on knowledge gained through years of experience.

None of them should. Let reddit deal with the consequences of their actions, trying to fix it for them would be telling them it's ok to treat free labor as shit (as they did).

I joined the fediverse a couple months ago, before the reddit protest started, admins of lemmy.ml were asking people to join smaller instances because they were being overloaded.

So an instance with less than 500 users was the parameter I used to choose, that instance was lemmy.world lol, look at where they are now.

I created a second account on lemm.ee only a few days ago for various reason, being populated wasn't one of them :)

Appending reddit to google search has become the only way to get meaningful search results, without it it's a shitshow of clickbait garbage, I can't imagine what it will become if it's not allowed anymore to index reddit data.

I understand companies not wanting data to be scraped for AI training for free, it's not only reddit according to the article, also news sites, I think it's a legit concern.

I believe at this point governments should wake up and regulate the matter of AI training globally, leaving it to individual companies will only damage users all over the world.

Doesn't that depend on game devs?

I mean, I can copy Baldur's Gate on a PC where there's no Steam at all and play it just fine, because the game itself doesn't have any restrictions. If other games have DRMs I don't think it's Steam fault.

If you want to be totally free from DRMs you need to check GOG, if a game is there, it doesn't have DRM, so neither the Steam version will.

This might be an unpopular opinion but I really don't get this trend of wanting to containerized just about everything, it feels like a FOTM rather than doing something that makes sense.

I mean, containers are fantastic tools and can help solve compatibility problems and make things more secure, especially on servers, but putting everything into containers on the desktop doesn't make any sense to me.

One of the big advantages Linux always had over Windows is shared components, so packages are much smaller and updating the whole system is way faster, if every single application comes with its own stuff (like it does on Windows) you lose that advantage.

Ubuntu's obsession with snaps is one of the reasons I stopped using it years ago, I don't want containers forced upon me, I want to be free to decide if/when to use them (I prefer flatpack and appimage).

Debian derivatives that don't "reinvent the wheel" is the way to go for me, I've been using Linux MX on my gaming desktop and LMDE on laptop for years and I couldn't be happier, no problem whatsoever with Steam either.

Distro Hopping seems to be such a big part of the “Linux experience.”

It's not, it's just a way to find the distro that suits you best.

If you're already satisfied with what you have, there's no reason to change and you're not missing out on anything. If you're ever curious about other distros, install Virtualbox and try them in a VM.

I stopped distro hopping years ago when I started using Linux MX (Debian based), I'm so happy with it that I have no intention to change ever again.

The only other distro I really like is LMDE (Mint based on Debian instead of Ubuntu), so I put that one on my laptop (MX on my gaming desktop).

Amazing job as always!

I agree with you, just wanted to add a couple things.

Be aware that not eating meat, while being an amazing stance for many reasons, doesn't prevent animal testing, since animals used in labs are bred specifically for that purpose, they don't come from the food industry nor they have anything to do with it. In the country I live there's a law that says that each lab animal can be used only for one experiment and when experimenting is done, if they don't end up with permanent damage, they can be given away to rehab organizations for adoption, otherwise they must be euthanized.

I think many countries (EU at least) might have similar laws, people just don't know, like I didn't until I went to a non-profit org specialized in rehab of rabbits, guinea pigs and rats used for animal testing, to adopt a rabbit (I kept them as pets for many years, they're fantastic pets). I learned a lot from them.

will infiltrate and target labs and try to expose them any way they can

Their intentions are good but infiltrating labs to release animals, without knowing anything about them, is wrong, it's being ignorant of the consequences.

For example, rabbits used in labs are mostly new zealand breed because they are very tame compared to other breeds, they're also among the biggest. Rabbits in general have very fragile bones, big breeds (more than others) need to grow up in spaces that grant them movement to be able to develop muscles to sustain their weight, they don't in labs, they're kept in very small cages all their life, so if you release them without proper rehab, the first time they try to stand up on their hind legs (rabbits do that instinctively) they'll break their spine and die, just like that.

All lab animals in general live in cages all their lives, suddenly "throwing" them out in the wild to fend for themselves, is condemning them to die horrible deaths. That's not to say staying in a lab is better, but what those people do is irresponsible.

You can argue that copyright law should be revised.

It already has been, there is a ruling that allows an exemption to copyright law for the specific use of preservation by libraries and museums.

Maybe they could do more about it but what's already there is way way better than nothing.

Debain (alt Linux Mint DE) Pro: The most stable OS I’ve used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games

I don't use Davinci Resolve but I do play videogames, I build my own desktop for it and I use Linux MX (Debian), it's rock solid.

"Ancient packages" are not a problem with backports, there are also flatpacks if some backports are not enough for you, or DEB packages directly from software developers (I manually install a couple of those).

The only games you will have problems with are those implementing invasive DRM, but that's not a "Debian" problem, Linux in general doesn't support that kind of DRM (not yet at least), tho I personally don't mind since I think DRM is stupid and I've always tried to avoid it.

I think end users wouldn't care either, they probably wouldn't even understand what's actually happening, they'll only notice performance degrading (if this is the case) and blame Linux for it.

That's not to say this shouldn't be done, I just wish there was better control on license violations and those doing it on purpose, like Nvidia in this case, would be seriously punished to make them think twice next time.

If I use ubuntu I’m somehow forced to use them.

Yes, that's why I stopped using it years ago (among other reasons).

Users are not out of options, they don't need to check the origin of the apps themselves, it's enough to ask other users what distros don't do the things they don't like and use those.

World of Warcraft has its own anticheat that works on Linux no problem, if Blizzard can do it why Riot can't? It's not that WoW has more players than LOL so it could be justified, it's actually the opposite.

Free speech means they don't arrest you for what you say, it's about the government, not private entities.

Private platforms are free to do what they want, free speech rules don't apply to them.

The solution is using a distro that has support for containers (flatpaks preferably) but doesn't force them on you, so far I haven't found a single use case in which they're truly needed on desktop so apt update still does everything for me.

There's some software that I compile myself (emulators), it cannot be upgraded with a packet manager but that has always been the case.

I use Linux MX but there are other distros with the same approach. It also makes it really easy to see if you're installing them because flatpak is a separated repository from non-container apps (I think it's also updated by the package manager but I haven't tried so far).

Nvidia cards on desktops work very well, you just need to install proprietary drivers.

The problem with laptops is that they're not dedicated cards anymore but an hybrid intel/nvidia that can give you a lot of headaches on Linux, I advise against it. No idea how AMD is on laptops.

If being cheap is a priority, I suggest getting a Steam Deck, it's designed for gaming (unlike budget laptops) and it's a PC. You can get a docking and connect whatever peripheral you want (mouse/keyboard/monitor/TV/whatever) and it has a desktop mode to be used as a "regular" PC if you need other things besides gaming.

LTS is your problem, it has too old stuff (kernel, drivers) for the sake of stability, never good for games, especially new ones.

If you want to stick with Ubuntu, you need the normal one, or change distro as you said, Fedora is good, Linux Mint is also really good and based on Ubuntu, if you want something more similar to what you're used to.

You have to right to do what you want, people criticizing your choices are those who are confused about what free speech really means (hint: it's about the government, it doesn't apply to private entities).

I think you would get more suitable recommendations if you told us what your use cases are. Did someone else give you those requirements? Are you new to Linux?

Arch, Slackware current (KDE), Suse tumbleweed, Debian sid and Fedora tick all the boxes but I wouldn't recommend Arch nor Slackware to someone who never used Linux before, nor I would recommend Debian sid for desktop usage (unless you know what you're doing) because its packages are not controlled by their security team.

Free and open-source. Receives regular software and kernel updates.

All of them (desktop). The difference in updates is between a rolling release or non-rolling one.
Rolling means they receive updates to software and kernels continuously as soon as they are released, you always have the latest versions but that could lead to instabilities, non-rolling (or stable) are updated less frequently so are more stable, which one to choose depends on what you need to do with it.

Avoids X11.

Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu, Slackware current, Debian, Arch, if you choose GNOME or KDE you'll have Wayland as default AFAIK, probably others.

Supports full-disk encryption during installation. Doesn’t freeze regular releases for more than 1 year.

All of the above.

We recommend against “Long Term Support” or “stable” distro releases for desktop usage.

LTS is a version, not a distro. Distros that offer LTS versions also have a non-LTS ones, get those and you're fine. Tho not wanting a stable is weird, they can be the best for desktop usage depending on what you need to do.

Supports a wide variety of hardware.

That depends on the kernel, all kernels support a wide variety of hardware, non-LTS versions are best for more modern hardware.

Preference towards larger projects.

All distros mentioned are large projects, Debian is probably the biggest, it also supports several different architectures.

Ubuntu is based on Debian. LMDE have existed as a backup plan in case something wrong happened to Ubuntu, Mint could still go on without problems.

Using LMDE is like just removing a "middle-man": Debian --> Ubuntu --> Mint, Debian --> LMDE. (I've been using LMDE for a few years on my notebook while on my gaming desktop I use Linux MX, also based directly on Debian).

I understand some people don't want Ubuntu to avoid commercial distributions but for me the reasons are different.

Ubuntu LTS is base on the testing branch of Debian, while non-LTS are based on Debian sid, that is the development branch, in both cases you lose - in my opinion - one of the biggest advantages of using Debian that is rock-solid stability, sid packages are not controlled by Debian security team so in that case you also lose out on security.

Another reason is Ubuntu have been trying to push their own sort of "proprietary" version of containers that have been proven times and again to have serious security flaws. They also use them everywhere and I don't like that, I want to be free to decide if/when to use them, not being forced to do so for everything.

Sometimes they make very questionable decisions, like when they wanted to discontinue libraries for 32bit compatibility (while Debian does not), ignoring there's still a huge amount of 32bit software that cannot be recompiled to 64bit (mostly Windows games), that made me question they know what they're doing.

You can do that with the gog version.

You can do that with Steam too, I know because I'm doing it. I have dual boot, I use Windows very rarely (I play on Linux) so Steam is not installed on it at all, I copied BG3 on it to try out mods because Mod Manager doesn't work on wine for me.

I can assure you the game works perfectly fine without Steam.

With the steam version it’ll try to launch / connect to the local installed steam at startup

As you sure you're using the right exe? bg3_dx11.exe and not some launcher?

That was on the kernel 6.1.0-18, I had it too, fixed several days ago, but in OP picture the kernel is 6.1.0-17, that one wasn't affected.

I too had the "graphics too old" error on WoW out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago, after playing it on Linux just fine for years, no idea what changed on their part. Blizzard never supported Linux AFAIK but their games usually work nonetheless.

My PC was really too old tho, almost 10 years, it still worked fine but graphics drivers weren't update anymore and that created a lot of problems in different games unfortunately, not only WoW (BG3 for example was full of graphics bugs - pretty unplayable, even if the PC could run it at medium settings).

I was already planning on building a new one and now it's done, just reinstalled WoW with Lutris and it works, I used the battle.net script here: https://lutris.net/games/world-of-warcraft/.

Regulating doesn't mean blocking, AI needs to be regulated, it should have been already done, look at stuff like deep fakes, some done even with dead people, fakes with actors faces and voices without their consent, and so on, it's not just about training, it's also about how the results are effectively used.

And the fact the training is expensive doesn't mean everyone should have free reign about it, especially when noone cares about the reliability of the datasets they're using, of the ethical aspects of it.

As for reddit, we've been already shafted, that's why we're on lemmy now.

What are corporate users using?

Windows on PCs, Linux is used mostly only on servers (RedHat/SuSe), hardware brands are usually HP, Dell and Lenovo.

I think that is my standard

Why? Do you expect companies to ask you to use your own PC for work instead of providing the tools you need? Be wary of those who do, using whatever personal PC for company work can lead to data breaches and that's a very serious problem.

Being verified on Steam Desk is my parameter for deciding if I'll consider a game or not, even if I don't have a Steam Deck (yet). I'm perfectly fine with that, not asking for a Linux native version as long as the game works as it should on Proton.

What CA are you getting your certificates from?

If Let's Encrypt, have you checked their alternative methods to certbot?

You can't do whatever you want if you're an employee in a big enterprise, there are company-wide rules and standards that you have to respect, you can't expect your colleagues to adapt to you nor you can decide which OS to install on your company PC.

That's not to say you can't use Linux at all, you can ask your IT to be allowed to install Virtualbox and use Linux in a VM, that's what I do, there are a lot of things that don't strictly require Windows and I use Linux for those.

What? You just have to install the proprietary drivers, they work perfectly fine. I get that if you don't want any proprietary stuff NDIVIA is not the best experience (opensource drivers are not good because of lack of support) but I'd hardly call that a huge mess.

downloading pirated material is perfectly legal and it’s just the uploading of the pirated material that’s a breach of copyright

Not sure if you just worded it wrong or you're confusing piracy with copyright.

Anyway, piracy involves circumventing a protection system to get something for free instead of paying for it. DVDs for example not only contain copyrighted material, they also have copy protection systems to avoid unauthorized distribution, downloading is illegal as much as uploading since you're getting a copy on which the protection system has been broken on purpose.

Copyright violation, on the other hand, happens only if you publish something you didn't make without the authorization of the original author, so downloading copyrighted material - that doesn't have any protection system - is perfectly legal, uploading it is not.

I never liked GNOME, too inflexible as you said. My favorite is XFCE and it couldn't be easier, right click on the entry on the app menu and select add to desktop.

And if you want a custom one, right-click on desktop, create launcher, give it a name and click browse to select the file you want to run, that's it. Create link if you want to link to a folder.

Ah ok.

I simply assumed it wouldn’t work because that’s the case with like 99% of steam games

That's because the vast majority of games implement DRM unfortunately, BG3 does not, Witcher doesn't either, any game that does not have any DRM can be played fine outside of Steam, tho there are not many.

DRMs are not Steam doing, it's game devs.

Yes I was referring to snaps.

distribution hopping will add lots of unnecessary frustration for me.

That's a fair point. Cinnamon is the desktop manager and it's been the only one available on LMDE so far, in any case, it's perfectly fine to use Mint, just know that if they ever decide to make LMDE their primary, you have nothing to worry about, being already used to Cinnamon we'll make it so you won't notice the difference at all, LMDE is still Mint after all.

It's been a while since I installed Debian directly, anyway I believe it's a godsend as a base and amazing as a server, but for desktop usage I prefer derivatives because I find them more user friendly.

LMDE vs MX: they're both really good, MX is a bit more "nerdy", LMDE is beautiful out of the box and has the total friendliness of Mint, MX (XFCE) is a little more barebones when it comes to user apps/GUIs but it has some fantastic tools to get into its customization, more flexible than LMDE from that point of view.

Yeah and sometimes it's not even just about customers, some people don't realize big enterprises (as in dozens of thousands of employees) are very different from smaller companies, they're like a "different world" on their own, not everything you can do on a smaller scale is feasible. They would probably need to work in one to really understand.

I think it depends on what you want to accomplish.

I agree Distrobox is perfect for any case you want to use software your distro doesn't support (you basically setup the target distro into a docker container), or for developers wanting to use different versions of software/libraries without risking breaking the host OS with tons of different packages that might conflict with each other, but I wouldn't say it can also completely replace the use of VMs.

For example, using a VM is the only way for me to use Linux on my company PC (Windows), it's easy to get permission to install Virtualbox/Vmware since VMs are isolated from your host and you can cut them out from the company network, it's an opposite use case than what you would use containers for.

VMs are fantastic to learn, trying the setup of a different distro if you're distro hopping or simulating multiple machines interacting with each other, you can't do that with containers.