Because the grifting is more tolerated nowadays. Its like the slow boil of the frog, they kept doing it for years and years, until people got more and more used to it, because we didnt push back enough at the right time.

So now we deal with this enshittification.

Personally I think its like a pendulum effect, it will swing back in the other direction, but it will take a long time.

Choose what you use carefully.

Assumption on your end. I dont trust the ground I walk on.

As good as tailscale is, I do so loathe it. It does make things easy, but I have to trust a 3rd party with my traffic and for me thats just no bueno.

For that style of laptops give aurora a try, its basically fedora, but polished for ultralights. I have a surface pro from 2018, still works great, had a harder time with other distros. Good luck.

I had a managed switch from mikrotik, returned it. Skill issue. Its good, but the tplink that replaced it worked just as fine for the sameish price and one tenth the hassle.

Awesome, best of both worlds! Have fun!

Yes, I have a surface pro5, I have been installing iterations of linux on this thing for the better part of 3 years now. Custom kernels, drivers, a pain, a real pain.

Until i came across aurora. Holy shit, I installed it and poof, all the efort of custom kernels, matching drivers just evaporated, I know I sound like one of those nuts that found a distro that he thinks is good, but I swear for the surface pro, this distro works excellently and I have tried ALL OF THEM.

Just know that you are saying goodbye to your cameras. Below I have linked the aurora ISO, the aurora install guide for surface and the linux-surface initiative, in case you strike out with aurora. Best of luck and if you have questions feel free to PM me.

https://dl.getaurora.dev/aurora-dx-hwe-latest.iso

https://docs.getaurora.dev/guides/surface-install-guide/

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

Mwahahhahaaaa!

I’m running aurora on a surface pro5 for ages, the thing works like a charm out of the box.

Nope. Dont do it. Google yourself, search your email inbox, start doing it by hand. It will take months. Why not do it through a company? Here: https://youtu.be/iX3JT6q3AxA

Florisboard is also amazing. One of a very few that dont actually track what you type. The other one i know of with no tracking is anysoftkeyboard.

I did, i abso-fucking-lutely did look at their numbers.

The 2024 numbers are not fully in, we can take a look at 2023. here is a link for you to follow along - https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf

I am skipping the income part, because its clear where they get the vast majority of their money.

[in millions, rounded up] Total revenue: $653

From which expenditures:

• Program staff: $202.4

• Management: $123.4

• Fundraising: $2.4

• Non-salary expenses: $162.2

• Grants and fellowships: $6.4

• Income tax: $14.4

Total expenditure: $511.1

So when you say “the bulk of money is spent on charity”, do you mean salaries? Because from what I can see, that is where the “bulk” is.

The charity part, from the 2023 revenue is 1%.

The mozilla foundation needs to be gutted or dissolved. Why do you need so much money? Oh, is it maybe because your fucking execs gobble it all up while the devs scrounge for scraps and the community contributes for free to your projects, you fucking executive pigs?

I hope it crashes and burns. I would bet serious money that the softare projects would not only survive but thrive without them.

I’m sorry for being a dick, but without seeing what the ones and zeros are doing I’m just not touching it with a ten foot pole. Good luck to you.

Foss or gtfo. Im not letting a black box see my files. I dont care what you claim, I have been burned before.

Knoppix circa 2004-2005, It was in a cd that came from chip.de. I had no clue what linux was back then. I know even less now.

I wont reply point by point because others have already done a fantastic job at that.

Install virtualbox, get some linux images from mint, bazzite or what ever other distro you might want or was recomended and install them as VMs in windows.

Set up a list of things in 3 tiers:

• must have functionalities/workflows (crucial functionality)
• nice to have (important to have)
• optional (can live without)

Then in the installed VMs, test out this list, something like “can I change the volume per app, can I change the audio device per app” or what ever is important to you, according to your list.

This way you can test out if its for you or not, you wouldn’t even have to leave windows for it.

One thing regarding gaming, as I game quite a bit too - games with intrusive anticheats dont work, most of everything else works with steam proton. Check potondb.com for your games, you will see what works and what not.

No. Its ok. Its not that expensive a service. Plus I actually enjoy using it.

I would normally pull for something like this since I have no love for corps. But with the whole buy european thing, i’ll pay it forward with the extra paid for 6 months.

I just hope I won’t regret this decision, but so far so good.

I JUST paid for anew accout for a year …

There are many meta-packages you can install. Im on arch for years, it works well as long as you dont constantly tinker with it.

I usually set up an arch install with the desktop environment and some basic setup where I can use it for my needs, then I use clonezilla to make a mirror of the install. Once a month I update the mirror by itself. In case I bork my main install, I use the mirror to rewrite my main system, no need to reinstall. I guess having a cheap 500gb ssd around pays for iself in this usecase.

Ah, I was there just yesterday, had a pint with the frankfurt server 03, the poor thing said 01 won’t talk to it anymore. Very sad.