People trying to have long-form discussions on Twitter/X has baffled me since the beginning. It is decidedly not the right platform for that and it was never designed to be. In fact, its design clearly discourages any meaningful discourse. I have never been able to wrap my head around that site and its users.

The interface is a bit bare bones and 90’s but I like it that way. It’s a good and reliable client.

I’d be perfectly fine if everything was just mixed mono. I see little value in stereo. I’m weird like that.

Can’t help you there, I buy CDs and lossless copies from Bandcamp and Qobuz. Those work for me.

I’m sorry, but that’s private.

“Install Gentoo” is a meme, not life advice. With Gentoo, the installation process gives you good insight in to the internals of Linux systems and compiling (almost) everything from source is interesting, but won’t produce noticeable benefits for average users. Especially since updates take some time, what with compiling the programs again. Gentoo is a great distro with a fantastic package manager, but unless you’re an enthusiast or a serious hobbyist, Don’t Install Gentoo.

He does appear to be reasonably black, yes.

It’s pretty good actually. Tastes way less like shit than your average cup of coffee anyway.

Yes, yes I am.

Mandriva was a Linux distribution that went out of business years ago. OpenMandriva is one of the projects that rose from its ashes with some of the same personnel and code base. It is an independent (not a fork) and community run distribution that, I think, does quite a lot with very limited resources.

I haven’t been able to solve CAPTHCAs in years.

Corporate backing is two-edged sword, unfortunately.

I refuse to accept that there is nothing we can do about it.

I don’t think you quite understand just how stupendous the amount of data Google processes from YouTube alone is. There is basically no way for hobbyists to provide an equivalent service. Very few companies have those kinds of resources. If you want, you can of course try running a PeerTube instance, but you rather quickly run in to problems with scaling.

I find it almost miraculous YouTube exists to begin with. It is no accident Google has very few competitors on that front, and I don’t think YouTube is even profitable for them. Without Google’s deep pockets and interest in monopolizing the market, YouTube would have withered a long time ago.

Trust me, I want a solution too. But 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute. All of that is processed, re-encoded, and saved with multiple bitrates. You can’t compete with that. YouTube might eventually keel over from Enshittification and its own impossibility, but replacing it with anything meaningful will be a challenge.

After Thunderbird’s UI overhaul I jumped around a bit and landed on Claws Mail. It’s fairly old fashioned, but I personally prefer that and find it clear and logical. It’s a good client.

My immediate first thought also. And my favorite character in the game.

I bought Tales of Maj’Eyal from GOG and have been playing the Linux port. Yeah, I’d say it’s my favorite. Even if I hate it sometimes.

If you want Debian with more frequent updates, consider going Debian sid. Base Debian is also fine, maybe with Flatpaks for more up-to-date applications where needed.

Yes, I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood!

Oh man. I’m so sorry for your loss. May your system break at some vague point in the future in a way that is nigh impossible to diagnose and that no one else seems to have experienced. Godspeed, you unwillingly content penguin!

Just go with Debian.