#foss

[crawfishcomic]

Improvisation

[retroscifiart]

Art by Chris Foss. Most of these were painted 1970s to the early 2000s

[fedora-official]

Install Floorp. You can do it with Floorp. You can use Floorp and browse it. Download Floorp right now. Install Floorp. Dive into Floorp. You can Floorp it. It's on Floorp. Floorp has it for you. Floorp has it for you.

[praxis-app]

join the praxis discord - sign up - github

[nixcraft]

[autolenaphilia]

One thing I noticed talking about Linux and free software is that a lot of people seem afraid of learning things about technology. I constantly read things like "I hate windows, but switching to linux would mean learning a new OS, and you have to be some super-smart programmer-hacker to do that." Or even: "Switching to firefox would mean switching browsers and I don't know how"

And that is precisely the attitude tech companies like Microsoft and Apple try to instill in their users in order to control them. They create these simple and “friendly” user interfaces for their products, but these hide information. From their OS being pre-installed to their settings apps, they keep people from learning things about how their computer works, and letting the companies make the decisions for their users.

I think people are underestimating themselves and overestimating how hard it is to learn new things are. It is like Windows/Macos have taught them some kind of technological learned helplessness. Not knowing how computers work and being afraid to learn how is how companies like Microsoft controls you, and justifies that control.

For example, people hate the forced and automatic system updates on Windows. And Microsoft justifies it as necessary because some people don’t know that their computer needs security updates and therefore don’t update, so they have to force the updates on them. That’s definitely true, and Microsoft’s tech support people is definitely very aware of that but it is a operating system that presumes that the user is incompetent and therefore shouldn’t control their own computer. And of course Microsoft abuses that power to force privacy-invading features on their users. Windows updates are also badly designed in comparison, no Linux distro I’ve used required the update program to hijack the entire computer, preventing the user from doing other things, but Windows does.

This is the dark side of “user-friendly” design. By requiring zero knowledge and zero responsibility for the user, they also take control away from the user. User-friendly graphical user interfaces (GUI) can also hide the inner workings of a system in comparison to the command line, which enables more precise control of your computer and give you more knowledge about what it is doing.

Even GUIs are not all made equal in regards to this, as the comparison between the Windows Control panel and their newer Settings app demonstrates. As I complained about before, Windows have hidden away the powerful, but complex Control Panel in favor of the slicker-looking but simplified and less powerful Settings app for over a decade now.

Of course this is a sliding scale, and there is a sensible middle-ground between using the command line for everything and user-friendly design masking taking control away from the end user.

There are Linux distros like Linux Mint and MX Linux who have created their own GUI apps for tasks that would otherwise use the command line, without taking control away from the user. This is mainly because they are open source non-profit community-driven distros, instead of being proprietary OSes made by profit-driven megacorps.

Still, giving that control to the user presumes some knowledge and responsibility on part of the user. To return to the update example, by default both Mint and MX will search and notify you of available updates, but you will have to take the decision to download and install them. Automatic updates are available in both cases, but it’s opt-in, you have to enable that option yourself. And that approach presumes that you know that you should update your system to plug security holes, something not all people do. It gives you control because it presumes you have knowledge and can take responsibility for those decisions.

All this also applies to the underlying fact that practically all pre-built computers nowadays have an operating system pre-installed. Few people install an OS themselves nowadays, instead they use whatever came with the computer. It’s usually either Windows or MacOS for desktops/laptops, and Android/IOS for smartphones (which are also a type of computer).

Now all this is very convenient and user-friendly, since it means you don’t have to learn how to install your own operating system. The OEM takes care of that for you. But again, this is a convenience that takes choice away from you. If you don’t learn how to install your own OS, you are stuck with whatever that is on the computer you bought. It’s probably precisely this step that scares people away from Linux, few people have installed even Windows, and installing your own OS seems impossibly scary. But again, learning is the only way to take back control. If you learn how to install an OS off an USB stick, you now have choices in what OS to use. (Sidenote: the hard part IMO is not the actual install process, but fiddling with the BIOS so it will actually boot from the distro on the USB stick. This old comic strip illustrates this very well).

That’s how life is in general, not just computers. Having control over your life means making decisions based on your own judgment. And to make sensible, rational decisions, you have to learn things, acquire knowledge.

The only other alternative is letting others take those decisions for you. You don’t have to learn anything, but you have no control. And in the tech world, that means big corporations like Microsoft, Google and Apple will make those decisions, and they are motivated by their own profits, not your well-being.

Computers have only become more and more capable and more important in our lives, and that can enable wonderful things. But it also means more power to the tech companies, more power over our lives. And the only way to resist that is to learn about computers, to enable us to make our own decisions about how we use technology.

[daemonhxckergrrl]

computer: I can't icanticanticant do it...I need CoolLibrary where's CoolLibrary I can't find it ;m;

me: uh, lemme check..

*rummages through the filesystem*

me: ...aha !! see, we got CoolLibrary right here !

computer: b-but..but it's...it's the nnneeewww CoolLibrary >:c I want the oooolllddddd one !!!!

*me, writing 'old' on a label and sticking it to CoolLibrary*

me: here you go, honey, how's this ?

computer: yippee !!! yaaayyy !!!! ^w^

[ffmpegofficial]

hey just a tip. if you want a streaming service-like set up for your ("legally acquired") media, DON'T use jellyfin to host it. And ESPECIALLY don't use it with kodi to have more power to theme and change the feel of it. I would hate it if you did that. That would be terrible. Wink Wonk.

[verynerdyelaine]

Window Managers are cool

So, I've been using Unix based Operating Systems (MacOS and Linux) for a while now but when I was just starting to use Linux there was a term that a lot of people were using and that was a "Tiling Window Manager".

What is a Tiling Window Manager?

Well, A Tiling window manager is a window manager that organizes windows into grids of tiles and not promote the overlapping of windows.

Why do you need it?

Tiling Window Managers are amazing at organizing windows and keeping in track with whatever tasks that are in-front of your face. Tiling Window Managers are also keyboard centric in which you can switch between windows with just your keyboard and as I am a Neovim user i use HJKL to breeze through the windows. Tiling Window Managers also have the feature of workspaces (desktops on MacOS) in which you can designate whatever stuff you have into different workspaces.

What Tiling Window Managers do I use?

On, Linux i use dwm and on MacOS i use yabai. dwm is an amazing Window Manager due to it being highly configurable, minimal and yet simple which fits my cozy zone. yabai is what i use for MacOS due to it being 1 of 2 Tiling Window Managers on MacOS (the other being Amethyst) but yabai is much more powerful and more configurable.

Final Thoughts

Tiling Window Managers are cool and you should give them a try :3

[retroscifiart]

Early illustration by Chris Foss, 1968

[noctumsolis]

There is currently some misinformation about Firefox being spread around.

Firefox is NOT selling user data.

The legalese in the ToS is easy to misinterpret, but Firefox remains the most privacy-focused modern browser in the world.

Spreading misinformation that may be easily confused with true facts is an often used aspect of FUD propaganda, which has a long history of being used to undermine free software that competes with commercial rivals. From Wikipedia:

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a manipulative propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling, and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information, and is a manifestation of the appeal to fear.

These techniques were a major factor in the rise of Microsoft as the dominant software supplier for most of the world. In particular, FUD was perhaps the most significant factor in the downfall of Firefox's antecedent browser, Netscape Navigator.

Always remember that there are powerful interests in opposition to the success of free, open software. Never take criticism at face value but look for more nuance.

Furthermore, because Firefox is a free and open source project, users have a great deal of influence. If people make it clear that they do not like what Mozilla (the non-profit community who make Firefox) are doing, they will change.

You don't have that power against Google (Chrome) or Microsoft (Edge) who are answerable to shareholders above all.

[praxis-app]

join the praxis discord - sign up - github

[dank-memes-my-ex-gf-sends-me]

[emacs-unofficial]

From where I post

[wordcubed]

I'm not a femboy but I agree that by day 100 I would also mix things up and start looking for a boyfriend instead.