GIMP 3.0 makes it a lot easier for devs to add functionality and they’re starting a UX working group.

But I find it usable, I’ve been using it weekly for a very long time. I’m happy to see development picking up though with more people joining.

I believe the EU redirected open source funding to LLM/“AI”. Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund on the other hand had its budget increased.

You always have to consider the sources of such whispers, otherwise it means very little. The devs, who are few and works on evenings because they have day jobs, a well-know open source issue for many projects, were clear about when they started in earnest on getting 3.0 done, less than 3 years ago. Until then they’ve spent most of their time adding features to 2.10 and the 2.9 branch was more of a long lived testing ground with occational test releases that cause talk sometimes. The aim was RC primo or medio this year, they’re only slightly late.

But I get the feeling more devs are starting to contribute now it’s near 3.0, maybe because the new architecture actually makes it easier. So there’s hope a lot will start to happen. There’s even a UI working group.

I’m running the 2.9 nightly, it’s better in a multitude of little ways as well as having a number of new features.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd ed., p. 83.

Greybeard here. I can use vi, emacs, nano, etc. and use whatever is available if it suits the job. For many years I did dev in emacs on my computers and on other systems used vi for quick edits. Currently on my own laptop I have micro as default term editor now. For Rust development - code, though I have hopes for Lapce.

They’re all just tools and so are people who get tribal about things.

Well, yes use-case is key. But interestingly ext4 will never detect bitrot/errors/corruption. BTRFS will detect corrupted files because its targeted users wants to know. It makes it difficult to say what’s the more reliable FS because first we’d have to define “reliable” and the perception of it and who/what do we blame when the FS tells us there’s a corrupted file detected?. Do we shoot the messenger?

For a few years I used a distro that had btrfs as default, including scheduled automatic maintenance. Never had to bother about manual balancing or fiddeling with the FS.

Yeah I gave up and installed Windows in a VM, I use it for those annoying forms and some old tax software… My kid also wants to use powerpoint occationally. It’s quick and easy to install in a VM though and doesn’t take up much space but I got a lot of room on my SSD so everything is relative.

I’d like a Linux solution for the forms but it’s still convenient to have a Windows VM once in a blue moon.

…and new font handling, several layer features - including tools working on multiple layers, new and improved tools, wayland support, widows Ink support, new plugin architecture, dynamic guides, improved file handling (formats, bigger files, etc), I think some gesture stuff as well? The non destructive editing is implemented for some things, not others (e.g. if adding a shadow to text and changing the text, the shadow will change too). I probably forgot some stuff…

Wifi workaround here.

Ah, I see thank you for the reply. I was under the impression the Mint team favored Flatpak over Snap.

I haven’t used either, just curious; what kind of difference is there between regular Ubuntu based Mint and LMDE? I thought it was mostly just more recent packages with the Ubuntu base?

They also have port forwarding without static IP, but you have to renew the port every 7 days. Which is what I use, I don’t mind changing port once a week.

Well, when it comes to laptops these days lots of brands can practically only be serviced/repaired by bringing them back to the Apple Store/manufacturer’s repair shop. Especially when it comes to lightweight models.

I miss my old Sager/Clevo gaming laptop where I could replace practically everything, I even upgraded the gfx card.

You seem upset. Blink twice if someone is forcing you to use it.

It might be a bit tighter than Fedora, I haven’t tried Fedora so I wouldn’t know but Flatpaks can still be installed as user, no pw. All mine are, by default.

I’m lazy - just gmail pinned in a tab on my browser on my Linux desktop, the browser is always open anyway. Default mail client on iOS/iPadOS.

I’ve used Thunderbird in the past. The redesign was nice but it’s still a bit cludgy to use somehow, compared to gmail web.

It’s fixed. In general no distro is fail safe, recently even an immutable distro (our current hopeful advance in update reliability) had a hickup on an update that required manual intervention. It basically boils down to that it’s not possible to test for everything, we can only hope to continually add more test cases and improve human procedures based on post mortems.

I’ve been using OSMC on two of my TVs for years. First on RPis, then on Vero boxes. They connect via SMB to my NAS for content. OSMC/Kodi can play almost anything without needing wasteful transcoding. I use them daily.

For Netflix/Prime it’s either built in on the TV or running on a Firestick. Interestingly one can sideload Kodi on a Firestick, so an OSMC device isn’t necessary in that scenario.

Meh, if just wanting a lightweight laptop that’s fast even when unplugged there’s people who would be OK paying $700 for a M1 MBAir or a bit more for a 16GB version. They’re great laptops, the Rust compiler is very fast on M1/2 and with no fan noise. If buying Apple Refurbished they’re like new.