Libb

It’s nice that both parties are discussing here.

I read all of the discussion, I think it may be useful to point out that here are two different issues at hand here:

1. The debate around the question: should we not have or not have multiple similarly-themed communities since we severely lack users to make them thrive. That’s technical consideration that’s easy to debate, imho.
2. The other one is more related to a question of ego (No blaming here, my own ego is the size of the Eiffel tower ;), and is about deciding if it’s ok to ban someone because they’re doing something you don’t agree with but technically is not against the rules AND AT THE SAME TIME it’s about deciding if it’s ok to keep bothering the admin/mods of another and similarly-themed community once those mods made it clear to you they prefer you stop doing it but you think they’re wrong?

Those two issues should be dealt with separately, if anyone is hoping to reach any agreement.

Could the two communities thrive? Maybe, maybe not. They could both die, too.
Could they merge? I think so (because I don’t see large enough differences between them).
Should they merge? I think so but not if one of them doesn’t want to merge, it’s simple. It’s called freedom and respect.
Should they discuss a merge even if they don’t appreciate each other, instead of banning and/or spamming? I think so too. At least in the interest of the two communities. Failing to do so would only reflects we’re not better than some of those elected clowns we call our representatives… And seeing how crass stupid some of them are, I’d rather try my hardest to never look like them :p

A few more general considerations, keep in mind they’re coming from an old fart that probably doesn’t understand much:

• If I go to some place and the owner tells me they don’t like I what do at their place. I will either stop doing it, or stop going there depending the situation.
  If I really think they’re wrong, I may ask other persons around me but if none agrees with me, well I’m back to square one and I will either stop going there or stop doing whatever I was doing.
• As a member of both communities, I find it a pain to have two similar communities even more so when both post the exact same content because it creates more noise in my feed and because it forces me to waste my time and energy deciding where I will read said duplicated content and maybe post a comment. The solution is obvious: I will unsubscribe from one (for the time being, I still follow the two communities).
• Fediverse is about networking and non-centralization. It should not be about owning and dictating what one should or should not be allowed to do… which is what Reddit turned into and why I quit using it entirely.
• I know it’s somehow trendy ‘to be right’ and to present the other dude as being ‘the bad guy’ the one that is wrong and that should be punished. At best, it’s naive. Simply put, no one is the asshole because we all are at one time or another—and if anyone needs help understanding that, consider the following: we all need to poop and once we’ve pooped we all need to wipe our dirty ass clean. So, yeah, not only we’re all assholes but(t), no matter how briefly, at one time we also all have our ass dirty. What matters is not that it’s dirty it’s how we clean it.
• We don’t own communities or their members. If we’re anything special it’s their janitor, trying to keep it working and clean.
• I’m old enough that I’ve learned to not give a crap about sensibility, be it my own or other’s.
  I try to not be mean but I will also say what I have to say and I’m fine with some people not liking it (or not liking me) as I’m fine with me me not liking what they say.
• I’m not fine with people insisting on convincing me I should change my mind and I should (dis)like what or who they (dis)like. My answer to that behavior is to block them. Am I wrong or excessive in doing so? I could be, sure, but why would i want to waste my time discussing with someone that doesn’t want to discuss and only want to convince me I’m wrong and they’re right?

Hi & welcome from a fellow Mint user.
It’s a stable distribution that comes with a lot of things preinstalled (so less extra stuff to install, but also a lot of stuff you might not need)

• +1 for Encryption, both Luks for the system disk and whatever other internal drive and for USB stick or external storage. If someone was to steal my computer I would pissed off but OK, I can deal with it knowing they can’t access my files. Use a good password (mine is 20-ish characters long all random and, yeah, I’ve memorized them but I have a decent working memory ;)
• • for (automated) backups.
• +1 for automated updates
• +1 for not installing from any source. It’s tempting but it should be the exception (for me, it means yt-dlp and Mullvad for the most, of there is also my RSS app of choice newsboat since it’s not officially available anymore :/)
• I don’t use antivirus on Linux (nor on my Mac). But I seldom download anything and don’t open attachments I’m not expecting to receive ;)
• I would not play with services as a beginner as you risk deactivating something you need.
• The firewall as gui that’s installed by default (on my Mint, at least ;): its Gufw on the command line and it’s called Firewall Configuration in the main Mint menu. Open it, type your password, activate the ‘Status’ toggle. Done. Then you can start adding rules as you need them.

I would add to that:

• Don’t rush to tweak everything at the same time. Try one at a time, it’s easier to revert back.
• Backup your home folder regularly. Not only does it contain all your precious files but it also contains most of your settings and tweaks. So, if you ever need to reinstall you will get back all those settings/tweaks when copying back your home to the fresh install.

On that topic,I’m not much of a geek (a 50-something dude and a 35+ years Apple customer) but I did learn to use git to keep a backup of my config folder. So, when I screw up something (so far, Mint has not once screwed up anything by itself, the few issues I had to deal with were all me-related) , I know I can revert back to the previous version of whatever settings I’ve just damaged without difficulty. Learning the basic of Git is not hard, it’s just…odd, and it works great. If it was compatible with LibreOffice files I would love to use if for that too…

/Not_a_Rant

Are you sure about that?

I don’t mind people sharing their feelings about their switch, joy as well as frustration. And if I did, I would not read them… exactly like I don’t read political topics ;)

It can vary a lot depending the publisher, and some will not care at all while others will use, say, tracking features or work collaboratively (they can even be using OneDrive for that, which includes MS Office in its price), or they will require the author to use a specific Word template that they have devised for Word (with the person in charge of the final layout in whatever layout application, in order to streamline or the process and save time on that part of the job), when they aren’t that kind of publishers that simply do the final layout directly in Word before sending the final PDF to the printer. Also, as an author, if a publisher has asked you to use MS Word and some specific stylesheet and realize they tried to to be smarter than them… good luck with that, unless they’re already one of their best-selling author.

And that’s just what comes to my mind and that I have been witnessing first hand ;)

So I’m wondering if an upgrade is safe because

Imho that’s the wrong question. Without backup nothing is safe whether you pate the OS or not. Anything can happen (the disk can die, the computer can be stolen,…) and, yes, most upgrades should go without any issue but then one won’t go well and then what? You need to do backups, we should all ;)

I’m currently using Proton and still have to move to another service

I’ve moved to Filen (German end-to-end encrypted cloud you can rent (or buy) for a year or… a month (maybe worth the cost at least for a month when you will upgrade) and it works real nice for me on Mint 22.1

Depending the storage you need, you can get from 10 to 50Go for free: 10 base *+10 if you use crate your account using this affiliate link (no string attached, it’s real free storage) and up to 30Go more if you also share your own affiliate link. If you’re wondering, I use their 2To lifetime plan.

2/ Related to the first question: I’m using a old laptop (asus zenbook from 2015 or 2016, can’t remember), so would I be find with an old hardware such as mine?

It’s not that old, you should not worry much ;)

Depends what you need. Many publishers require certain features from MS Word that are not available or are not as ‘compatible’ in LO Writer (not that its LO’s fault ;), but for most use case I would agree. Things are a bit more complicated in the case of Excel as far as I can understand what I read (edit: I don’t use much spreadsheets myself).

I’ve quit using MS Word a few years ago, fully switching to LO Writer. There are a few issues here and there but nothing that’s a deal breaker (and Word had its own issues too), and I must quite like many things in Writer—beside the app not spying on me, I mean ;)

Sorry I didn’t used PKMS as keyword :/

Don’t be, it’s not that obvious.

To answer your question… Yeah I suppose analog note-taking is probably the best, You can write without any limitation in every direction !

Will see how the conversation goes in the pkms group, but that’s the road I went and I have zero (like in not a single one) regrets.

There isn’t any community about note taking where I could post my question and no this is not a “What’s the best note taking app” question…

Here, maybe? [email protected]

A community dedicated to personal knowledge management systems.

Does anyone here has some experience and is taking notes that way? I’m really curious on your experience and maybe your thoughts if it’s feasible ? Practical ?

If you ever decide to post over there, in order to no pollute this Linux community I would happily share my own choices but they may not be the most digital solution, as I fully switched back to analog note-taking, using a Zettelkasten system (a fancy name for index cards stored in shoe boxes).

Aren’t they constantly? ;)

this, or maybe take it to a repair shop to replace it’s battery and maybe the USB port as well.

yep, if at all possible that would be a better idea.

I would not keep any device with a fully exhausted battery just because a battery in a good working condition can already be a fire hazard. So, a depleted one who knows how it can reacts? I would properly dispose of it by recycling it.

Hi,

I’m a Windows user of all life

I was a Mac user for 35+ years (still am, partly). It took me a little while to get used to new names/commands in Linux but that’s to be expected. And it is not much an issue anymore ;)

I am those persons that has bad times remembering names, words… imagine commands… Even after using it so much I remember some basics but I’m struggling a lot and I have to go back to notes constantly to do some basic operations. Even worst after trying multiple distro from from different upstreams that commands are … Different

What kind of commands exactly? I mean, I don’t know that ‘commands’ are different from one distro to the other’ as they all use the same apps. So, beside the name of a few specific ones (like, maybe the app installer).

What would be your recommendations to help me. Are there tools to help this issue ?

My two sole advice:

• don’t try to remember too many commands. Instead, focus on the ones you use daily or very often. After you get those memorized you can always decide to memorize more… or not memorize them at all. I don’t bother remembering them, why would I when I can easily use Ctrl+F and instantly find them the moment I need them?

How do I do? I keep a text files in which I store all the stuff I seldom use but still want to be able to find in case I need it someday. To make finding them easier, I put descriptive titles and comments with each command. And that’s what I’m searching for, not the command name ;)

• If you’re talking about Terminal commands, learn to create your own aliases they will let you remember a short name instead of full commands. I have a few lengthy commands and some scripts (for example, to compress/convert images) that I I regularly use. I don’t remember them. I’ve saved them in a .sh file that I can either call through a Terminal or simply by a right-click in my File Explorer (it’s Nemo and they’re called ‘Actions’, on Linux Mint)

I must be older and even more out of touch than you are, as I only use the default Terminal that came with my distro and I had to do a search to check what were Ghostty and Terminator (I know about the movie, obviously, but I’m also old enough to have been watching it in theatre the year it was first released ;)

s that no longer pre-installed, at least for camera imports? It was on 17-20.3 but I don’t think I’ve done a clean (re)install since.

I could not swear, one or the other. Let’s just say I make it my default viewer instead ;)

Jesus that explains why I’ve never used this. Pip is a security issue.

Not sure to understand your remark: I don’t use pip and have no idea what risks it could represent or not.

1. I remove the preinstalled version (sudo apt remove yt-dlp)
2. In my ~/.local, I have a ‘bin’ folder in which to put any manually added app, and in my .bashrc I added that folder to the path. So everything in it is usable.
3. I download the latest binary from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files and moved it to that bin folder.
4. Done. I can use it like if it was the pre-installed app ;)

Apps I replace with newer versions (on Mint too):

1. LibreOffice, with the latest .deb from their website
2. Celluloid, with mpv. I cannot tell how much I appreciate mpv even though it sucks with DVD, for which I use VLC ;)
3. yt-dlp, with the latest version available from git
4. Screenshot, with Ksnip.
5. Whatever the default image viewer is, with Pix.

This is really good advise and it all boils down to one attribute. Patience.

Thx. Yes, patience is key. As is the ability to

Take a step back.

Failing is fine because it’s not about us, it’s not personal. It never is. It’s about learning something and about the process.

Many thanks to all those that maintain FOSS.

Amazing.

+1. That’s amazing to see people working together like that in order to develop and maintain a fully working set of tools for anyone to freely use.

I guess my end goal is to be able to comfortably install and use arch Linux with my own customization’s and be able to fix it when things go wrong.

What tips/ideas do you have for getting better at navigating the terminal, and getting a better understanding of how the os works. What is a good roadmap to follow? And how did you, advanced Linux user, get to the stage your at now?

You learn by doing and by failing. Like we learned to walk, to write, to drive, to kiss, to speak a foreign language, or even to lace our shoes (and, yep, even that was a heavy trial and error process for toddler-us back then).

• Install Arch (in a VM, maybe) and while doing so read the Arch Wiki to understand each step, each action and the role of each app you’re asked to install. The Arch Wiki is an impressively well done documentation.
• Be fine knowing that it will take time to learn anything new (not just Arch, anything), you won’t get good at it the first time. Don’t rush it, take your time.
• Be fine knowing that you will face issues and will most likely fail at some point, be it to instal Arch or in doing whatever new. There is no other way to learn, for all of us, than by failing and then trying again, over and over. Once again like we learned to walk (by falling on our butt), to lace our shoes (by making a mess) or to kiss (by not doing it great at first).

Learning takes time and efforts. Perseverance, and humility. There is no shortcut to learning anything that is worth learning, not just Arch. But the reward is also so much worth it. Einstein had to learn calculus, Da Vinci had to learn how to hold a paint brush, and Tolstoy like Flaubert had to learn to write and I’m willing to bet they all made mistakes while they were learning their respective craft.

Even without referring to geniuses: the first time I tried to install Arch I ran away screaming and swearing I would never touch that thing again. The second time, I had already managed to read a good chunk of the relevant part of the wiki and used it constantly at each step of the process. I still failed at it but at least I understood why I failed and I felt incredibly more… in charge, despite me failing. The third time, I managed to have it running, and to install most the packages I wanted. That was great. There was no fourth time as, as much as I love Arch (which is a lot), I quickly realized using it that constant updates were not what I wanted from my OS and apps (I’m an old-ish user with very basic needs, I’m not even that much of a geek to be honest). So, I switched to the complete opposite of Arch (Debian, another great love of mine I must say). Still, learning and using Arch taught me a lot about Linux in general and about… myself.