Love to see it! I got my parents onto Linux Mint about a year ago and it’s been great for them.

Their home PC is way too old to upgrade to Windows 11, plus I didn’t want them subjected to Microsoft’s trash software and spying, so Linux it was.

Themed it similar to Windows 10, even changed the “Start” menu icon to the Windows 10 logo so my parents felt safe using it lol.

The problem with replacing Discord isn’t the tech or features. Discord doesn’t do anything special that hasn’t existed in other software for 15-20 years.

The key difficulty is overcoming the network effect. All the big streamers use Discord, which means their millions of viewers are going to use Discord also, which means that most of their friends will too, and thus, you have a default app that almost everybody uses.

It took a massive amount of effort for me to just get three of my friends to sign up with Matrix and join a group server for gaming, and two of them stopped using it after just a month or two. I only have a single friend who is still using it, and they only use it when the two of us are gaming.

I’m going to assume worst case scenario, rotting bloated corpse that stinks, is covered in flies, and is floating high and very visibly on the surface of the water.

In that case, I would need the pool to be probably Olympic sized and be on the long end away from the corpse.

My instinct says that would be enough for me to not be too horrified beyond the initial horror of seeing it in the pool.

This will become more and more true in more and more cases as time goes on.

Linux is built on a far more efficient kernel, and the culture of Linux development is very much the same.

Meanwhile Microsoft will continue to enshitify its projects, shove more AI garbage onto its users, and prioritize profits over everything else.

Linux has been the standard OS for decades in the low power computing space, Microsoft can’t compete.

I love how she starts off by saying her legal team recommended she not do that…then proceeds to do it anyways lol.

Onision had a pretty spectacular implosion, but he was always a pretty wild and controversial figure. Shane Dawson was another pretty massive one. Miranda Sings was also huge, then all the weird and creepy chats and stage moments came out, sank her whole brand.

Voyager user here, just some general bugginess. It’s not bad, but sometimes weird stuff happens, like when I minimize the app on my phone and then switch back, the main toolbar is misaligned.

True, it still does vary even chipset to chipset. Some Nvidia and Intel cards do just work depending on the distro, others require more work.

It also depends on how “techie” the user is. My parents are 0% techie, so I have to do anything and everything for them if they have questions or issues.

But a Windows power user can handle some terminal use and other basic system modifications. And honestly now days, most of that stuff is super easy. Like Linux mint has a dedicated driver app that allows you to use a simple GUI to install Nvidia drivers, it’s super easy.

Hard to summarize, because it differs so much from person to person.

I installed Linux on my parent’s computer. They don’t need to know anything about Linux, because everything they use is identical to their old Windows PC. They click the icon for Chrome to open the browser. They Click the icon for LibreOffice to type up a “Word” doc and print it by clicking “file > print”

As far as they’re concerned, they are still using Windows.

For a gamer, they will need to know a little about Proton, possibly Lutris and the Hero launcher. They might need to know about installing nVidia drivers or tweaking a few things in the Steam launch options to get games to run better.

It’s tough to know exactly what a new Linux user will “need” to know in order to use Linux.

Typically it refers to leftists who strongly defend/advocate for authoritarian statist approaches to socialism/communism.

I agree, but then why would they not retracted their support? If it really was an honest mistake and they weren’t aware of the situation, I would think they would apologize, explain that they didn’t know, pull their support, and issue a statement about the kinds of values they want to promote in the FOSS world.

But instead, they have doubled down, the CEO himself. It’s very strange and concerning.

The weird thing for me is the financial support coming from Framework to Hyprland. It would be one thing if Framework was working with Hyprland to test compatibility and functionality on their machines and do specialized bug testing. They could kind of justify that from a purely technical stance.

But the fact that they picked a very niche project for no apparent reason to support with a significant monthly financial contribution is so strange. There are numerous other niche distros/projects that aren’t mired in controversy that Framework could have worked with, (Alpine, Void, ElementaryOS, etc.) so why Hyprland/Omarchy?

Very disappointed. I’ve been pushing Framework computers very strongly for friends and family over the last year, plus I’ve been planning on getting one to replace my aging Thinkpad. Now I am going to hold off until the dust settles on this.

Fair point, I thought Proton went back farther than that.

I think my overall point is right still though, Linux gaming (native or otherwise) has become not just viable, but in some cases objectively superior to gaming on Windows in terms of raw performance. Pretty amazing, and in even less time than I originally thought lol.

Linux mobile phones are the fusion power of the FOSS world, always “right around the corner.”

All the pieces are there, but none of them work together smoothly enough to be functional for anybody except the most hardcore FOSS enthusiasts.

When Proton started, it was kind of a joke, killed the Steam Machine idea in large part because the game compatibility was so limited. A decade later, we have a multi billion dollar handheld PC market lead by the Steam Deck, a Linux handheld that can play tens of thousands of Windows games without issue, in some cases with better performance than their native platform.

So it’s certainly possible for things to completely change, but we need a big player or consortium of players to unite with a shared goal of getting a Linux Phone to the state where it’s genuinely able to replace a traditional Android or Apple phone.

I’m very cautiously optimistic, I think it would come together much faster than Proton did for Linux gaming, but again, there needs to be a really heavy push into a singular device to start off. Like how the Steam Deck was, it allowed devs to have a singular platform to target for compatibility. Then, as the platform matures, competitors & innovators can enter the market and expand options, like how now there are multiple distros with builds for handhelds, like Bazzite, Nobara, and CachyOS.

Depends on your meta-ethical framework. If you’re a consequentialist, then you should always choose the option that leads to less evil being done. Same if you’re a utilitarian.

If you hold to a Kantian value-based framework, like the action itself holds the primary moral goodness or evil in its own nature, then choose the action that itself is less evil.

There are many other frameworks. It also depends on what you think happens in the case of something like voting. Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.

Others see voting as a mere means to an end, and thus, is justified if the outcome is better than not voting would be. Some see it as purely neutral, like a tool that can be used for good or bad.

Still, others see it as an inherently good thing, and view abstaining from the act of voting as a moral wrong, because it is a willing act of self-sabotage of the moral interests of the greater good, or sometimes as a violation of the social contract.

There are many other positions and considerations. Basically…it’s complicated.

Discord for me. A bunch of my family and friends are avid gamers. Discord is the universal standard app they all use for general communication.

Not only do they use it for all their gaming related stuff, they have additional servers and channels for just chilling, chatting, off topic stuff, memes, politics, etc etc.

It’s the network effect. Even if there was an open source app that perfectly replicated all the functionality of Discord and was just as simple to install and run as Discord, most of them still wouldn’t switch to it, because all of their friends and family are still on Discord.

So they would have to have two completely separate apps with totally separate social groups to maintain, and nobody but hardcore advocates for FOSS and privacy are willing to do that.

Sure, I have Discord, Matrix, IRC, Signal, XMPP clients, and a Private Mumble server, all on my systems, but I’m hardcore about FOSS. None of my friends and family are willing to do that. It took all my energy to convince two of my most techie friends just to get Signal on their phones. And only One has been willing to install a Matrix client to chat just with me.

My spouse and I are foodies and both vegetarian. We’ve had several chefs put together some absolutely incredible vegan/vegetarian dishes.

One of the chefs told us that being a plant-based chef has recently become much more respected in the culinary world. He thought we were at the start of a plant-based revolution in the culinary world. Younger folks are reducing meat consumption more than any previous generation, and there are beginning to be a lot of dedicated vegetarian/vegan restaurants popping up in most medium to large cities.

They were really helpful in my transition into Vegetarianism. When I first became vegetarian, I pretty frequently craved meat, Impossible/Beyond meat alternatives were great for those times.

Pretty quickly the cravings lessened, after a few months I rarely craved meat at all.

Almost 5 years later, I crave something meaty maybe 3 times a year. Sometimes I want a heavy savory burger during the summer. Impossible meat patties are great for that.

They are also useful for entertaining family and friends who still eat meat. I’ve cooked vegetarian burgers, brats, breakfast sausages, etc. And most people give them pretty rave reviews. I even have had some family members say “I didn’t know you are eating meat again.” because the taste/smell was so close, they thought it was real meat I was cooking.

I can’t speak for lab meat, but it would be pretty cool if we were able to grow authentic meat from cell cultures that were acquired ethically, like painlessly from already dying/dead animals.

At this point, I can’t see myself ever going back to even totally ethically synthetic meats, I just don’t have a strong taste for it anymore. I prefer the health benifits I get from eating cleaner anyways.

I do wish they had a really good Impossible fish, I still often miss a hearty fish and chips with fresh tartar sauce and nice balsamic vinegar dip.

Install the latest version and then use their upgrade utility when they announce it on their official blog. Upgrading versions is easy, takes a little while, especially on an old system like yours, but not hard at all.

Mint is my favorite “Just works” distro, enjoy!

Check this out, not sure how relevant, but a cool project that unlocks some of the proprietary functionality of a bunch of Scarlett devices on Linux: ALSA Scarlett Control Panel

Also if you haven’t checked it out already, r/linuxaudio has some posts I found on various Scarlett device questions, you’ll have to search for specifics.

And lastly, are you using Reaper as a Flatpak? If you are, download “Flatseal” it’s a Flatpak app that allows you low level control of all your flatpak application permissions on your system. You can set all kinds of low level system access to the Flatpak you’re using, that can help fix various issues that come up because of how Flatpaks are sandboxed on Linux.

Hopefully some of this is helpful. I’m not an audio expert, so my abilities on this issue are limited sadly.