BananaTrifleViolin

I think a lot of it comes from schools, and in particular physical education and competitive sports. There is nothing wrong with competitive sports but the attitudes around it in schools can be so toxic, and in particular it can be used to create hierarchies. The idea of being good at sports and that being masculine was something I certainly experienced a lot at school. Also people who weren’t as academic but thrived in sports were lauded.

My school had various sports teams and clubs, and fuck all academic activities. Sports aren’t toxic but the attitudes around them can be, and particularly adults who feed in toxic attitudes and values around it.

I like Mate-Terminal; it’s nicely customizable for my tastes and does the basics well. I also quite like LXTerminal for similar reasons.

But generally I use Konsole as I’m using KDE a lot now, and it’s the default terminal.

To answer your questions:

When it comes to other distros; I currently use Linux Mint with KDE Plasma desktop. The debian/ubuntu ecosystem is pretty easy to use and there are lots of guides out there for fixing/tinkering with Linux Mint (or Ubuntu which largely also works) because of their popularity. Lots of software is available as “.deb” packages which can be installed easily on Linux Mint and other Debian based systems including Ubuntu.

I’ve also been trying Nobara on a living room PC; that is Fedora based. I like that too, although it has a very different package manager set up.

Whatever distro you choose, Flatpak is an increasingly popular way of installing software outside the traditional package managers. A flatpak should just work on any distro. I would not personally recommend Snap which is a similar method from Cannonical (the people behind Ubuntu) but not as good in my opinion.

In terms of desktop environments, I like Linux Mint’s Cinnamon desktop, but have moved over to KDE having decided I prefer it after getting used to it with the Steam Deck. KDE has a windows feel to it (although it’s very customisable and can be made to look like any interface). I’ve also used some of the lightweight environments like LXDE, XFCE etc - they’re nice and also customisable but not as slick. You can get a nice look on a desktop with a good graphics card with KDE. The only desktop environment I personally don’t like is Gnome 3 (and the Unity shell from Ubuntu); that may just be personal preference but if you’re coming from Windows I wouldn’t start with that desktop environment - it’s too much of a paradigm shift in my opinion. However it is a popular desktop environment.

I’ve been dual booting between Linux and Windows for maybe 10 years or so (and tinkered with linux growing up before that). I think maybe similar to you, I’m technically apt when it comes to computers but not a programmer; I’m good at problem solving issues with my computer and am not afraid to “break” it.

A few key things:

• Make sure your important personal data, files etc are kept secure and always backed up. This is probably obvious, but it does lower the threshold for tinkering and messing with the computer. I’ve reinstalled Windows and Linux multiple times; whether that’s getting round broken Windows updates, or Linux issues or just switching up which Linux distro I use. If you are confident you have your data backed up, then reinstalling an OS is not a big deal
• Use multiple drives; don’t just partition one drive. Ideally each OS gets it’s own SSD; this will make dual booting much easier and also allows complete separation of issues. I have 4 hard drives in my PC currently - A 1TB C Drive SSD for Windows, a 500 GB Linux SSD drive, and two 4TB data drives (one is SSD one is just a standard HD). SSD is faster but you can of course use a mechnical drive if you want.
• When it comes to dual booting, if you have a separate linux hard drive, then linux will only mess around with it’s own boot sectors. It will just point at the Windows boot sector on the windows hard drive and not touch it but add it as an option to it’s boot menu. Then all you have to do is go into your Bios and tell it to boot the Linux drive first, which will get you a boot menu to chose between Linux and Windows. Tinker with that boot menu (Grub2 usually) - I set mine to always boot the last OS selected, so I only have to think about the boot menu when I’m wanting to switch. Separate drives saves you having to mess around with Windows recovery disks if things go wrong with the boot sector. One drive with a shared or multiple boot sectors can be messy.
• Try a few Distros using their live images. Most Linux distros you flash onto a USB stick, boot onto that (OR use VirtualBox in Windows to try Linux in an emulated environment) and it takes you into the full desktop environment running from the stick. You can then install from that. But you can also use linux that way. You can even run linux entirely from those USB sticks (or an external drive) and get a feel for it, including installing more apps, upgrading etc all using the USB stick as storage.
• Also try a few different different desktop environments and get a feel for which one you like. Most distros default to a desktop environment (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc). You only really need to test the desktop environments with one distro as they’ll feel mostly the same in each distro.

If you know you want to use Pop_OS, then follow their guide on how to install. It’s generally very similar for all linux OSs (there are other methods but this is the simplest and most common):

1. Download a disk image (ISO)
2. Flash the disk image onto a spare USB stick. Balena Etcher is a very commonly used tool for this.
3. Restart your computer and go into your bios (usually the Del key just after reboot, sometimes Escape or F2) and change the boot order to that USB is 1st, above your hard drives
4. Insert the USB stick and restart the computer
5. You should load into the Linux live environment set up by that distro. Pop_OS loads you directly into the installer; you can go to the desktop by clicking “Try Demo Mode” after setting up langauge and keyboard. You can just continue installing.
6. Select the hard drive you want to install onto. BE CAREFUL at this step; most installers are good at making clear which drives are which. The last thing you want to do is wipe a data drive or your main OS. Know your computer’s drives well, and if in doubt the safest thing is to unplug all the hard drives except the one you’re going to install Linux onto.
7. Follow the installer set up (to create the main user account, etc) and install.
8. After installing reboot the system and go back into the bios. This time put your linux drive at the top of the boot order (or below USB if you still want to boot other live images - remember to take out the stick! But generally more secure to boot to a hard drive and password protect your bios so people can only boot to USB when you decide). That’s it! Reboot, and select linux from the new boot menu.

Linux has come a very long when it comes to installing and setting up; installers are generally easy to use, work well and generally hardware is recognised and set up for you. The exception will be the Nvidia graphics card - you will need to set up the Nvidia drivers. Pop_OS’s install guide shows how to do it.

Hope that helps! Run out of characters!

Self Driving Cars - were getting used to the idea because of the half baked stuff that’s already here but it’s realistic this will make it mainstream in the coming years

“Cure” for cancer - the rapid progress in immunotherapy drugs is making more and more cancers realistically treatable. Cancers.are still terrible conditions but it does feel realistic that we are moving towards a “cure”. After that it’ll be a focus on preventing and reducing the horrible side effects of treating cancers.

Regrowing organs - this also seems increasingly realistic. We’re already routinely regrowing people’s immune systems for some conditions (autologus ransplants - where the donor is also the recipient). We’re also increasingly growing different types of tissues and organs in lab experoments. It’s looking plausible although hard to say when it’ll become mainstream.

AI - I’m not convinced this one is on its way. What I mean is true General AI. What is labelled AI now is nowhere near General AI; it’s sophisticated and impressive but also limited and deeply flawed. We’re in an era of hype to drive up share prices but the actual technology is error strewn and is essentially a remix engine for human generated creativity. I’m not convinced true General AI is on its way because at the moment they don’t understand how the current AI systems work. It’s unlikely you can proceed from what we have to full general AI stumbling around in the dark or by shear luck. Not impossible, but unlikely. I think the current methods will more likely hit a brick wall in prpgress - they are useful tools but may be an illusion when it comes to full AI.

I deleted my account.

You may have the GPU drivers installed but are they active? Look in “Software & Updates” on the Additional Drivers tab and see which drivers are active.

Installing the drivers is not enough, you have to select them to use them too.

If the latest drivers are active then you may need to think about switching to a legacy version (you have a pretty old CPU and GPU by current standards; newest drivers are not always best). You may also want to look at using older versions of Proton than the latest for similar reasons - there may be features and changes in newer versions that are just not going to work with your set up or your set up just isn’t tested to work with.

You can use PowerPoint in a web browser with office 365. Really don’t need windows to run it anymore.

Yeah, “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence. This whole panel is an example of a straw man fallacy to undermine someone saying “people are stupid”.

This is an interesting concept but doesn’t seem like it has long term legs.

It depends on what you mean by open source and also even eBook reader (I’m assuming eInk), but if people want open source e-readers I would say flashing existing reader hardware with open source operating systems would be the way to go. However I’m not sure if there is much motivation to do that.

There are Android based eink ereaders available with more freedom than Kindle devices (Boox is an example) and you can side load free or open source reader software onto Kobo (maybe not Android Kindles though?), and you can load free books onto e-readers via software like Calibre. So you can read books in privacy outside the vendors ecosystem - it kinda reduces the imputus to build an open source ereader (hardware or OS).

I’d love to see a truly open source Eink device - particularly software wise. But I doubt the demand is enough. And this Open Source hardware solution seems a bit too cut back to fit the bill.

That valve uses Arch is irrelevant in all honesty. Proton is not a Valve product, Valve is merely one of its users and contributors, and it is not wedded to one distro…Similarly Valves own Steam packages are not distro specifi, and there are other gaming platforms to consider which also benefit from Proton (for example you can get Gog windows games working in Linux too quite easily), as well as all the Retro gaming options.

Pick a distro you personally like. I use Mint as I like the cinnamon desktop interface and the distro is pretty much good to go from fresh install. I use Mint both as a dual install with Windows on my PC and also within VMs in Windows. I still spend a lot of time using Windows because of specific games compatibility and work related apps.

EndeavourOS seems a good choice if you do want to go the Arch route but it’s only something I’ve played with in a VM.

If you want something gaming specific then Draugar seems like a good choice - it apparently uses Ubuntu LTS but with the mainline Kernel updates optimised for gaming. But I have no personal experience with the distro.

I also see a lot of people seem to like Pop!_OS, but again no personal experience.

I’ve had no issues with Mint on my setup.

Yeah I was surprised they took it down. I think it’s a foolish knee jerk reaction and is patronising towards readers.

Ironically there is know nothing to put the current spike of interest in context as you can’t read the letter on the guardian website.

I’m actually really unimpressed with the guardians action - they don’t respect their readers and clearly no longer believe in freedom of speech. They could have modified the article to put the letter in context themselves rather than link to a 20 year old article criticising it. It also makes it hard for those who want to push back against the letter and answer those who are pushing it.

That doesn’t make sense? How would you have the “add from search bar” feature in the settings screen?

It’s a context specific method of adding a search engine - you add it when you’re at the site. Meanwhile the setting screen is global for the browser.

If I was laid off by a company I wouldn’t go back unless I had no other choice. If a company didn’t see your value previously and now it supposedly does, what is to say it will not change again in the future and fire you again? A lot of companies do a last-in first-out approach and are cyclical about hiring and firing to please shareholders. That’s where these tech companies are at now.

Also who wants the potential of a CV where you were laid off twice by the same company? It’d be like them taking your CV and wiping their arse with it before handing to back to you as security escorts you out of the building.

Don’t go backwards, keep moving forward.

Absolutely. Not being allowed to stand for office does not conflict or restrict his freedom of speech rights.

It’s like a non us citizen saying the “natural born citizen” clause in the constitution conflicts with their right to free speech.

It’s called confabulation, and it’s not “normal” aging, it’s a sign of memory loss. Dementia is a common cause.

I find it staggering that the democratic party are going with him as their presidential candidate. Feels like a mix of the sunken cost fallacy and a fear of turning away from someone who is currently beating Trump in the polls.

Arguably Trump confabulates too but it gets dismissed as he’s been a liar for so long no one notices.

2024 is looking like an election with two elderly men with dementia vying for the whitehouse, and another one as senate leader. That’s how extreme US politics has become - you could put up a literal monkey now and as long as he’s in the right party he would get nearly 1/2 the vote.

It’s all a sign of how dangerously broken the US electoral system is.

So this is really “silly season” when it comes to news and that apploes to political news like this.

The primary season hasnt even started and they’re already saying trump has won. It’s nonsense. People can build and lose momentum over the course of the race. All that’s happened so far is the obvious challenger DeSantis has imploded. But it’s a big race and anyone could gain attention and votes in the primarys.

Wenl just need to look back to previous races to see the bookies favourites not winning. Trump himself was an outside chance. Bill Clinton came back to win the nomination. The idea anyone has a clue what is going to happen in this race is nonsense.

Ultimately “live and let live” is all we can ask of anyone. If that is their attitude then they aren’t a bigot. People are expecting too much of other people now - not embracing someone does not make someone a bigot.

Your starting position to me is honestly enough but unfortunately many people are way away from that. As a gay guy, I’d be happy with people just saying “do whatever you want want, just don’t ask me to like it”. The problem is too many people claim that with words but then actually act differently.