I'm personally trying to get away from all things Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big brother data mining tech companies.Originally Posted by mtnbkr
It's not paranoia... they really are out to get me (and you).
I'm personally trying to get away from all things Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big brother data mining tech companies.
It's not paranoia... they really are out to get me (and you).
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
Agree with all above and it's the reason for which my only use for a Chromebook is to get rid of ChromeOS and install GalliumOS... which works "pretty well" for most things.I'm personally trying to get away from all things Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big brother data mining tech companies.
It's not paranoia... they really are out to get me (and you).
Fuck Google.
Grab your gun and bring in the cat.
That's cool, no problem with that, but I was speaking directly to Borderland's issues with his current machines.I'm personally trying to get away from all things Google, Microsoft, Apple and other big brother data mining tech companies.
It's not paranoia... they really are out to get me (and you).
Chris
Pulled out an old* Lenovo tower that's been sitting disused and without an operating system. Wife wanted it up and running for the kids so the three aren't all sharing a single desktop PC. The current family computer runs Haiku but I didn't have a bootable iso handy where a somewhat fresh-ish Artix Linux thumbdrive with the OpenRC init system and XFCE desktop environment was sitting on my desk.
I'm going to let the family poke around now that I've set it up with yay for more access to downloadable programs, Brave for a modern browser, nnn file manager for me to zip around the rare days I audit the kids' folders, GNU EMACS** because one does, transmission-cli, youtube-dl command line only, Libre Office, Lynx for Gopher access, Links as a back-up browser with terminal and graphical options (my favorite for Wordpress sites), feh*** for photo viewing, sxiv for .gif viewing and to make the default photo viewer, mupdf as a lightning fast PDF viewer, and called it a break for tea.
Still need to test if it plays DVDs without needing VLC which is a bit heavy for the old hardware and dig out a set of old speakers if I haven't already thrown them out in a bout of spring cleaning. Also want to get a graphical VPN client on principle but wil make the kids do that. Anything above and beyond this base set-up will be on the kids, like loading StarDict and some offline dictionaries for it, RSS viewer, a podcast client, a graphical digital audio workstation, or whatever.
Then I need to see if I can recover display funcionality to a more modern Windows 10-era tower and get Haiku on that to see how it does.
* Windows 7 or 8 came with it.
** Also set it set to default for opening .txt files. This thing has five text editors, now: Vi (boo), Nano, EMACS, Mousepad, and Leafpad.
*** Forgot that it doesn't play animated gifs and had to grab sxiv for that but too lazy to uninstall it.
In absolutely predictable news, I needed VLC for DVDs as MPV just played the first episode of a series disk with no menu. RSS and podcasting goals combined into a middleweight client that does both just fine (I have failed at the first tenant of the unix philosophy and will report for my flogging).
Every time I get a Win 10 update it jacks my Bluetooth settings. Mostly just turns it off. Every GD time. I'm thinking a company as big as MS could figure this out. My computer is only a few moths old with an i5 processor so it isn't like it's ancient hardware. I'm not sure why the update can't read my settings an restore them instead of just axing my Bluetooth.
I think Windows is very much like a 1911 that someone pieced together from a box of parts they found at a gun show.
Last edited by Borderland; 11-24-2021 at 08:51 PM.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
Forgot that Haiku still doesn't play nice with UEFI when it tries to boot up so now I have more work on my hands. Runs fine off a thumb-drive for now, though.
Windows Subsystem for Linux is another option, for those who don't like the VM route. Install WSL and then add the distro of your choice via the Windows app store.
Relatively easy to set up through powershell. Currently runnin' Kali on my laptop this way. No issues. Though, I have no idea how much data is still going to MS which concerns me as well. I'm on a similar path, getting out of all of the silicon valley ecospheres.
Sorta relatedly, a mastodon instance is in the works as well, for sharing the latest g-baby pics with those who've dropped facebatter and the like.
I have friends who are Linux fanbois and they seem to do more complaining about non issues with Windows and Macs than doing anything else. One guy bought one of my old Dell Laptops and made some sort of semi-functioning Linux box out of it. It had issues from day one, and he seemed to blame it all on Win10, but it was always the mobo that had a problem with the USB ports. It has a pretty powerful video card in it and it runs very hot. He seemed to blame that on MS too, LOL.
Other than the snooping, I don't have many complaints about Windows from 7 on (I avoided 8 totally).
My new PCs have been great!
It doesn't get any better when they are systems engineering professionals and/or published authors (that one wrote the book on bash scripting). I've spent a large portion of my career working with linux, designing and deploying commercial systems, etc. It's safe to say I'm completely comfortable with the OS. But, Windows snooping aside, I'm just as content to use a properly specced Windows system. Since Win2k, Windows has worked fine for me. I'm typing this from a Linux system only because it had gotten old and sluggish (built it 8 years ago), so I decided to see if I could eke another year or two out of it. Mission accomplished on the performance front, but getting replacements for some of my Win apps (mainly for amateur radio use) was a bit problematic, requiring a mishmash of Linux apps, Win apps under Wine, and even a VM to run one app that just wouldn't work any other way. Luckily I seldom use that latter one.
Oh, and it seems to get confused about my Xerox laser printer. It prints fine, but every few days it lets me know it found a new printer...the same Xerox that I've had since I installed Linux.
Chris
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