utopiah

Looks like a USB stick.

Honestly I'd

• take any distribution that someone at or close to the library is comfortable with, e.g popular Ubuntu or Debian,
• setup a user profile that fits the need of the average library user, e.g Firefox with as a start page the library website
• make sure the library card system do work
• copy /home/thatuser directory somewhere, e.g /root/thatuserunmodified and insure permissions make it unmodifiable
• add a cron task so that every evening 1h after the library close any thatuser session is terminated, /home/thatuser gets deleted, copy the /root/thatuserunmodified to /home/thatuser and fixer permission
• assuming it's fast enough (I bet it's take 1min at most as /home/thatuser would be mostly empty) I'd do the process after each logout so that each new visitor gets a fresh session, no downloads from previous users, history, bookmarks, etc. Only what the library consider useful.

That's it. This way one can still let the OS do it's updates but the user experience is consistent.

Nice, I made a wokrshop about that earlier this year for RightsCon :

"Can you host the metaverse? How learned helplessness from Big Tech made you believe you can't

BigTech seems expensive, complex, secure, new and basically the only way to use any modern tool. This is a blatant lie, repeated daily and orchestrated to limit emerging technology to very few for-profit corporations. Being a repeated lie is a problem because instead of at least trying to challenge the status quo we, all of us, can assume it is true and give up on trying, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Before digging into the technical aspects it is important to first prove it by running a short experiment then, only after, question how lie made us collectively and individually impotent. Learned helplessness itself will be used to identify extremely difficult situations most of us did encounter and might still encounter in the present.

This session will invite participants to simply try what is the state of the art of BigTech marketing at the moment, namely "the metaverse", and show that behind the abstract concept there is a technical reality that is not that complex and definitely not unachievable, even for a independent person with a very limited budget.

The workshop itself will rely on self-hosted open-source tools in order to both communicate and capture lessons learned, demonstrating by its own execution that synchronization and exploration of such a topic is possible today. "

If people here are interested I can record it again in a presentation format.

Half-life: Alyx, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, ... you get the idea. It's not so much those apps per se, and I'd prefer them to be FLOSS too, rather it's the amazing content and in such rare cases, I'm happy to financially support the creators.

Obviously important but "Published 2 months ago, on April 15, 2024" so would be good to also have an up to date link to understand what has changed, if anything, since that leak.

Not really, not only because of the language but also because the same scrutiny between code and content wouldn't have to be the same. I also don't expect core aspects of the distribution, e.g kernel, package manager, cryptography libraries, to be verified the same way than a random software, e.g Kdenlive. So... is it bad, absolutely. Does it mean everything should be questioned again? Probably not.

If you haven't done it yet, please consider contributing by writing down what you believe is currently missing, either as your own blogpost or via https://community.kde.org/Kdenlive#Contact

Agreed but isn't it the experience most people on the Internet currently have?

When you expose ports to the Internet. It's honestly interesting to setup a Web server with the default page on it and see how quickly you get hits on it. You don't need to register a DNS or be part of an index anywhere. If you open a port (and your router does forward it) then you WILL get scanned for vulnerabilities. It's like going naked in the forest, you sure can do that but clothes help, even if it's "just" again ivy or random critters. Now obviously the LONGER you run naked or leave a computer exposed, the most likely you are to get a bad bug.

Ironically enough if you do not know what a firewall actually does (and saying it "protects" against "stuff is NOT enough) IMHO you do need one. That being said unless you know what you are doing, better leave it to the default one with default settings.

As a shareholder (which I'm not), it's absolutely amazing.

As a human being though... it's simple to look at the history of the company, from its inception based on nepotism and locking-down was hitherto the common good, to going from one place of monopoly (OS, app, cloud) to another (extending to whatever is trendy at the moment e.g XR with HoloLens, AI with OpenAI, etc).

It's IMHO one of the very worst thing that could have happened to humanity in terms of cognitive empowerment. Apple is not far behind but in terms of locking up an entire ecosystem but Microsoft, sadly, is doing it better.

To clarify what I mean is that Microsoft is the business embodiment of learned helplessness. Most people would shrug at the quality of software they provide, the price, etc ONLY because they are convinced, wrongfully so, that they are is no legitimate alternative. If users were actually able to chose, not being coerced into but properly chose, by experiencing alternatives, the World would be totally different. Instead of having computer users who feel an adversarial relationship to their devices, we would have a much stronger relation of "this is MY device" the same way a lot (not all) of people have a repair toolbox at home. They know they can try to fix something in THEIR home, even improve it. Most people understand it won't be easy, they might mess it up, but it's possible to try. Not in software, and that's entirely Microsoft "success". Maybe in an alternative reality others, like Apple, would have made that happen to, but in our reality I blame Microsoft, Bill Gates upbringing from his legal mindset father and well connected mother.

We could have a world were users own their devices, have a challenging yet empowering relationship to technology, starting with software, and instead we have exploitative learning helplnessness. So yes, Microsoft is that bad.

From video description:

Reason 1: Gaming
Reason 2: Creative Apps
Reason 3: Foobar2000 (my music player)
Reason 4 (bonus) Fussing, fussing, fussing!

via https://lemmy.ml/post/16929334/11684532

It is absolutely not weird and I would argue it's even important. The whole point of the interview is that BOTH parties evaluate each other according to THEIR criteria. Maybe for them it is not important but for you it's a requirement, maybe you discover through that the culture is not aligned. It's great for both to understand this NOW rather than 3 months down the line, as you started to settle, they teach you everything about their specific infrastructure and... it doesn't work, now both needs to redo the process again.

So yes IMHO it doesn't matter how "silly" it might sound to you, now during the interview process, is the time to insure that it's going to be an actual fit.

You have to also be aware that they might say no, or that the question itself might lead to a rejection. They might just not want this due to internal policy, security, culture, belief system, etc. This might feel like a loss but again, better know now and look for a place that match your needs that later on.

I also don't conduct many interviews, especially not right now, but when I did anything that could help me understand what made the candidate tick, what got them genuinely excited or angry, was super important. Sure I wanted to insure the technical capability but beyond that I was looking for any clue to see if we were compatible beyond just task in, result out, because in the long run that's what would make us both happy.

TL;DR: yes, ask for whatever YOU want.

FWIW ThinkPad is not IBM anymore. I assume it's obvious but just in case it's not 100% clear, a Chinese company (Lenovo) bought the brand 2 decades ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad

I'm not arguing that the quality or Linux support changed since then, just make it explicit in case somebody might ride on the nostalgia of once great hardware devices.

PS: I rocked an X31 with ratpoison a while ago, before the times of MacBook Air and I was convinced I was pretty cool.

Well, let me put it plainly, if you are selling better, I’m buying. So far the one thing Pine has done better than a lot of people talking is doing. They are not the only ones, e.g Purism, but at that price range and who actually did deliver I haven't seen better. Pointers welcomed.

At least have a dedicated /home partition. This way if you want to upgrade the OS, change distribution, heck even migrate to a totally different OS your actual data is safe. Also if you need to do a backup, "just" backup /home which is probably going to be significantly faster and convenient than the entire OS. It also avoid using e.g dd and get a rather opaque file.

TL;DR: yes /home keeps your data safe

I've been running my PeerTube instance for more than a year now so hopefully I can help :

• if you only watch, it doesn't use your device for storage, only some of your bandwidth if P2P is enabled. If you want to host content, e.g a video of yourself explaining how to design your own smart speaker using only FOSS, then you should setup a server which will need storage for your videos.

Happy to clarify more if you need. Overall you can watch content from https://video.benetou.fr and most likely all bandwidth will come from my server. You can not upload your videos there though (unless if I accept making an account for you, which I won't). There are other servers though, public ones, which allow registration and where you can thus upload your content too.

I'm against Android but I admit it's getting harder and harder to get "connected" (not to say "smart") device without it on. Anyway I did give up on my 55" Samsung TV for a video projector from Nebula. It's so compact it sits under the former TV stand. I installed VLC on it and connect to my RPi4 with a DNLA server on it and watch content I downloaded before. Not a perfect setup but quite happy with it. Until then I was using LibreElec on the RPi to drive the TV.

Like... now? Here are my notes about it https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SelfHostingArtificialIntelligence

You don't even need to wait for "AI" chips, "just" a high-end GPU will do.

Sure they are very very large models like Mistral or BLOOM you won't be able to run even on a 4090 (highest end gaming card right now) but there usually have lower quality versions that might give usable result.

IMHO though what I realized while testing all that at home is... it's rarely worth it. It's absolutely fun to play with, even interesting to learn about it all, but in terms of time/energy/ecology/costs versus result, so far it's been "meh". A cool experiment, like locally get transcript for my PeerTube server from the audio of my videos, but something that in fine I always end up not relying on.

It also allows me to do cool prototype, like code generation in XR, but again that's something I'd qualify as fun, not as productive.

TL;DR: it's feasible today but IMHO not worth it.

PS: best example would be Immich with it's optional ML, locally or not (as in serving content on a small Pi but doing the ML inference on your desktop)

Agreed, I share the same frustration (including for Chromium) as if developers were somehow blissfully ignorant of the political and economical power they give away to company that use and abuse their work, truly self flagellating.

True keeping it all in memory, especially as it would be of limited size, could be a good solution. That being said a single script and cron job is rather "easy" IMHO.

Indeed, would have been better to share https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%2031/DEF%20CON%2031%20video%20and%20slides/DEF%20CON%2031%20-%20An%20Audacious%20Plan%20to%20Halt%20the%20Internet%27s%20Enshittification%20-%20Cory%20Doctorow.mp4 and a PeerTube mirror.

FWIW :

fabien@fabien-CORSAIR-ONE-i160:~$ cat /home/fabien/bin/screenocr #!/bin/bash

spectacle -r -nb -o /tmp/test.png
tesseract -l eng /tmp/test.png /tmp/ocr
#date +%s >> ~/grab_timed
#cat /tmp/ocr.txt >> ~/grab_timed
firefox --new-tab --url https://duckduckgo.com/?q="$(cat /tmp/ocr.txt)"

PS: was curious about it, done that in August 2022

Any review? In theory interested (I have reMarkable 1, 2 and PineNote) but short of trying one myself I'd like to read what people here think, not just announcements, otherwise feels like an ad.

Obviously based on the community here, I'd also like to know, beyond the eInk screen performances (which seems to be the single biggest differentiating factor) if it's possible to use Linux rather than Android, like on the devices I already have.

Agreed, sadly not a technical problem but a business one. Unless governments step it I don't see this changing.

Probably a cleaner way indeed but again mindful about how familiar people who can help the library are with NixOS vs Ubuntu/Debian.

Agreed, "smart" isn't what matters, it's more connected and in control, with Internet optional, no proprietary app or weird protocol mandatory.

I'd argue that beyond the distribution itself it's a lot more about what you install that will make the difference. If you can basically stick to the console and connect via ssh you'll have a lot more resources available, both bandwidth (assuming you were planning to see a remote desktop) needed but also disk, CPU and RAM. There are lightweight WM e.g ratpoison but IMHO a server should be headless.

So... yes Debian but IMHO Debian without any desktop, just boot with sshd running, Ethernet cable plugged in and connect remotely.

PS: I'd also check if a RPi could be sufficient. I'm running few RPi4s and RPi Zero with 100Go+ microSDs and that's very small, silent and doesn't consume much energy. I understand it's appealing to upcycle old hardware but in the long run, e.g 1 year running 24/7 might not be worth it.

I guess SteamOS? It's immutable and... well runs on the SteamDeck which is pretty cool. I use it to play, obviously, but also to work. Love it.

FWIW I'm using the reMarkable 2. It runs Linux and pretty fast eInk for sketching and writing notes. It's not paper but closest to it I tried so far.

Well I have one of those and... if the phone would be 10x thinner and flexible it'd be amazing. As-is unless you have either huge flat arms or a tiny phone it's not ideal.

Edit: thinking about it I'd happily trade it for flexible touch eInk instead, don't think that exists yet

I've done a bash script and a KDE shortcut for that a while ago. I didn't even remember it until now. It's useful sometimes.

I mean... it just works? Since the Index is out it's just been working basically. Not sure what else would be needed. Sure being able to use Quest headsets would be nice but unless Meta decides to open up, I don't think it would happen. IMHO that's a vendor problem, not the OS lacking support, sadly.

I never thought I'd say this but... in your case, for work at least I would actually stick to Windows! It looks like most of your tools are from Microsoft and that the environment they will normally run on is Windows. It seems most pragmatic to stay there.

For gaming though (as I've argue few times and can be seen from my history), Proton works well, even for AAA games, unsupported (officially) games and VR. ProtonDB helps you to quickly assess if that's the case for your specific games.

Anyway, what I would suggest though is step back, i.e WHY do you want to step away from Windows. If it's technical then "just" dual boot and properly separating fun from work might be sufficient. If it's more moral and ethical, then earning money from tools that are NOT from Microsoft to gradually decouple, remove the dependency on it, seems like the "right" thing to do.

I did a long LONG time ago. I don't even remember so I'd say 20 years ago. It was very interesting. I do recommend doing it at least once... well maybe only once actually. If possible do it on a real computer, not a VM, so that you don't get distracted and feel just a bit of risk. Obviously do NOT do it on your main computer where you have important data, just in case.

Gaming? Fair point.

Unless it's for games that use shitty anticheat solutions probably not a good reason anymore due to the SteamDeck, a LOT of games do work and it's possible to check before hand via ProtonDB.

So it was a fair point 5 years ago, now most AAA games, including VR games, do work without tinkering.

Because it's cheaper (barely but still), smaller (fits right into the Pi and its case) and more convenient (no adapter). When one just got a Pi that might even be sold with a microSD then they'll use that.

I'm not arguing it's the right thing for data intense usage but the "why" IMHO is pretty obvious.

You don’t know what a “monopoly” is.

Do you though? A clarification that most people miss : "In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with a decrease in social surplus." (from Wikipedia) So are you 100% sure that the author was talking from an economical rather than legal viewpoint?

So sure, in theoretical economics GitHub is not a monopoly, rather it's part of an oligopoly. Yet, in law, it is in practice a monopoly. GitHub is so big that it does shape the market of collaborating on (open-source) software, even though alternatives do exist.

How can I even buy one in Europe?

vote with your wallet or usage in this case

In the case of companies as large as Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc sadly this is not enough. I suggest reading Chokepoint Capitalism (Giblin and Cory 2022) in which they highlight the numerous mechanisms, legal or not, they use to prevent actual competition. So... yes vote with your "wallet or usage" but also with your actual political vote in the hope that people elected will enforce existing policies, e.g antitrust, so that competition can genuinely exist.