A 50-something French dude that’s old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. I also like to write and to sketch.
https://thefoolwithapen.com/

  • 0 Posts
  • 15 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: November 26th, 2023
  • Libb@jlai.lutoLinux@lemmy.ml•KDE Vs Gnome - Heavyweight Championship
    41·
    6 hours ago

    What desktop do you favour and why? Explain your thoughts.

    Xfce & Cinnamon.

    If I had to pick between KDE or Gnome, I would go KDE without any hesitation as I quite like it whereas I’m not really a fan of Gnome. Gnome UI is OK I guess, it’s just the way they want to decide for everything I am not a fan of (After 35+ years using Apple, I did not switch to let anyone else decide for me ;). If I don’t use KDE it’s mostly because it requires too much work to “tone it down” and make it behave like I want my DE to. Out of the box, there is too much features I have to turn off and configure, features that are also spread between too many (and not all of them… obvious) menus/settings. What’s great with KDE is that it’s at all possible to configure all that, it’s amazing. It’s just too much for me. Be it XFCE (on Debian on my desktop) or Cinnamon (on Mint on the laptop) I barely need to change anything to have them do what I wish.

    So, to summarize I would say it’s my untamed laziness that dictates my choice of a DE :p

    It’s also the reason why I do not use one of those tiling WM I know exist and I know, as a user spending my time with my fingers on the keyboard, I would love to use in place of the standard floating windows. Alas, having them correctly configured and running, and then having to relearn decades old habits, would require a time and an energy I have no desire to spend. So, I don’t. Still, I understand why some people like them so much ;)

    edit: clarifications

  • Libb@jlai.lutoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Should "Bad People" deserve a respectful burial?
    4·
    10 hours ago

    One good way to answer your question is to ask the exact opposite question: why wouldn’t they deserve decent funeral?

    How would it help anyone to refuse decent funerals to a dead body? No matter their crime, the ‘real bad guy’ is now dead and is no more. It’s a body not a person anymore.

    And then, one may want to consider this question: why would anyone want to punish innocent people (the family of the ‘real bad guy’ has committed no crime, right?) by refusing them the right to pay respect to the deceased? And if it is somehow right to punish the family for crimes they have not committed, have they been (secretly and silently) trialed? By whom and for what crime exactly? And who was their defendant?

    One may also want to question their desire to hate so much on a person as to hate their corpse and then, once again, to apply their hate onto innocent people, aka the family of the ‘real bad guy’.

  • Libb@jlai.lutoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Which cloud photo backup service do you use and recommend?
    1·
    24 hours ago

    They have a lifetime account promotion going on now, worth getting?

    Depends how you look at it.

    What I can tell is that I already had their smaller lifetime and waited for that promo to get a larger one.

    That plan is worth a little over 3 years sub… As a comparison, the previous cloud service I used (iCloud) I have been using it for a long time… since it was introduced (was it called MobileMe already, or was there another name before that? Can’t recall). So, provided Filen does not go bankrupt, I worry not I will get my money worth after those 3 years. Seriously, though, Keep in mind that Filen is a very small and very young company and, unlike Apple, there is possibility the company won’t last.

    It’s a risk I’m willing to take as it really was the closest to what I would call my ‘perfect’ cloud. Not quite there yet, but close enough for me to use it and closer than any other including Proton Drive, which I’m already paying for (I use their Mail+ plan, which comes with some cloud storage)

    Also, note that you can get up to 50GB free storage: 1) by creating your user account using an affiliate link (you may want to check my blog, to use mine) you will get 20GB free instead of the base 10. 2) you then share your own affiliate link to get up to 30GB extra more free. That free storage is then added to whatever plan you decide to purchase and/or to subscribe to, if any. Also, all plans are stackable.

    Edit: by all means, take some time to test their free account (there is no real restriction beside storage) so you can see by yourself how well Filen meets your expectations. My needs are really… simple.

  • Libb@jlai.lutoLinux@lemmy.ml•escaping windows/macOS and want to get work done? here's my list of dos and dont's
    7·
    1 day ago

    is this really that bad?

    As someone who slightly customize his Linux DE, I would say that the real but potential issue when using some non-official theming (or very niche ones) is that one does indeed risk having issues after a major system update, thing breaking off or just plain not working anymore. It’s no 100% certain, but the risk is real. And that is something that, on a work machine at least, is never an option (the machine is supposed to be available and work in a predictable and reliable manner, hence why I’m so madly in love with Debian plus it’s so well optimized :)). On a personal machine? Well, that’s up to anyone to decide what their priorities are.

    Luckily one is not required to use extreme theming. Personally, I limit myself to whatever is provided with my version of Linux in order to change font size, colors/theme, wallpaper, cursor appearance and so on. So, everything is easier to see for my old eyes.

    It works very well and since it’s part of the distribution I know it will not break after an update. The downside is that it’s often much more limited than what some other dude may have done somewhere on their own machine and then decided to share online. I don’t mind it ;)

  • Libb@jlai.lutoLinux@lemmy.ml•escaping windows/macOS and want to get work done? here's my list of dos and dont's
    191·
    1 day ago

    90% of those are nvidia related.

    I’m not a Fedora user (Debian and Mint are my go to) but I don’t have a similar impression. Also, my own NVIDIA GPU has always worked OOB (even without installing its proprietary drivers, it just works better after installing them) and still is, but it’s also considered old being a 970.

    Imho, a simpler advice would be along the line of what you mentioned already. Something like: don’t rush for the latest/greatest hardware. Often, new stuff will lack support.

    1. no theming. no icons, no fonts, no plymouth screens, nada. as few extensions/plugins as you can, run it as close to stock as possible.

    I agree with the idea of not wasting time but configuring the theme/look (which is part of the OOB experience, on Mint and Debian at least) can be essential to work in decent conditions.

    As a matter of fact, theming is one of the technical reasons why I switched to Linux from Mac. The ability to have the text as large as I wanted it to be: getting older, one slowly realizes that small thin light-greyish designer cherished fonts lose a lot of their appeal in favor of those non-fancy but larger and bolder dark fonts that are more easy to read :p

    So, I would object that theming can be a very legit, like 100% legit part of the process of turning a Linux machine into a usable working machine one will be able to work on for hours (like tweaking the keyboard layout would be for anyone, like me, writing in more than one language). And that is not even mentioning people with disabilities.

    1. don’t dual/triple/whatever boot.

    Unless one has too, sure. Try running any recent edition of Photoshop in Wine and do real paid work…

    My own solution was to keep a dedicated machine for anything like that: Photoshop and video. Note that for video one may decide to let go of FCP or Premiere and switch to DaVinci Resolve, instead.

    1. separate your system stuff from your applications as much as possible. purge all user-facing apps, like firefox and media players and such from the system’s package manager (apt or dnf) and reinstall them from flatpak

    Why would that be a good idea?

    I mean, I do my best to avoid all those third-party installer (like Flatpak) because they are not as well integrated to the system as the native installer is (in my case it is ‘apt’), and because they also waste much more disk space for the reason that, like you said:

    the apps include everything they need to work,

    Which, sometimes/often, means a real lot of extra stuff.

    the setup is easy to maintain and recreate

    That’s the exact reason why I use the native installer and not those third-party ones. That and the faultless integration with the system (menus, themes and stuff like that).

    And in the odd case I would have to reinstall Linux (an even stranger need on a work machine, since that machine I would not tweak it beyond what I deem necessary for me to be able to, well, work on it and therefore it would be rock stable), even in that case I would need to reinstall it, I find it so quick to reinstall all my apps by typing a single line: “sudo apt install app1 app2 app3 app9999”, no matter how many apps.

    I am keeping such a list in a text file, I update every time I start using a new app, just in case one of those days I truly am forced to reinstall my system. So, I know it would only be a matter to copy-paste said command line in a new shell. Not pretty but real easy and quick ;)

    Flatpak (…) upgrades are better (no reboots necessary)

    Once again, I’m not a Fedora user but does Fedora really need to reboot after updating a bunch of apps? I have hard time imagining that.

    Sorry if my comments sounds critical, it’s not my intention. But while I was reading your post I was very surprised how affirmative you were on certain decisions/choices and how much my own personal experience was different.

    greybeards dunking on you because you’re not a “real” linuxer?

    And if you’re wondering, nope, I am not one of those ‘real user’ either even though my beard would be grey, if not plain white now… if I had one. I come from 35+ years (happily) using Apple hardware and software for work and for personal stuff ;)

    Edit: clarifications.

  • Libb@jlai.lutoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Which cloud photo backup service do you use and recommend?
    8·
    1 day ago

    Filen.io

    It’s a cloud much more than a dedicated photo backup solution. So, depending you specific needs it may not fit the bill (it does, for my limited needs).

    What makes it great imho is that it’s based in Germany and uses zero-knowledge E2EE. It’s also available for Mac, Linux, Windows and mobile. And it has either sub-based plans or lifetime ones (BTW, right now they’re on sale).

    (if you want to know a little more why I picked up Filen and not the others available, feel free to check my blog, link in my profile)

    Edit: it can be used as backup tool too, not just as a simple cloud, there is a setting for that.

  • Libb@jlai.lutoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What do you like to do during a power outage?
    1·
    3 days ago

    The same things I do when there is power:

    chat with my spouse, read, write, sketch, paint, play chess. I will also try to do some chores I have been avoiding for awhile ;)

    Edit: we have a few portable reading lamps that will hold for many hours between charges, so we can read during the evening too. We also have flashlights and… candles, just in case we need them (so far, we never were cut off power long enough)