I think they forgot to list the best one. But it has these rules in the unofficial TOS that you don’t talk about it, soooo… never mind?

The differences in sheer speed and responsiveness is something FOSS alternatives need much more publicity about. When the requirements for one product are “help the user do what they want” and the requirements for another product are “synergize the KPIs of these 53 stakeholders in our trillion dollar conglomerate, monetize our market position in every way possible, and check the minimum viable checkboxes to keep end users engaged with the brand” it shows!

Windows to Linux is of course the most significant and worthwhile. As I like to describe it, even using the most full-featured distros out there (Linux Mint Cinnamon gang represent!) any flavor of Linux is like greased lightning compared with windows. And I mean Windows 10, not even 11.

A few weeks ago I turned on an old secondary desktop PC that had been powered off for a month. It had numerous updates, everything except installing a new named version. Even the kernel. I decided to time it. From the time I opened the software update GUI – including typing in my password, letting it download, letting it install, getting the “yo, reboot when you’re ready,” etc – it was done in 5 minutes. And those were 5 minutes where the computer was totally usable. Running the current version of the full featured Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.1 on a PC from 2011!

My favorite recent example is the switch from Plex to Jellyfin. Now granted, fully self-hosting means more IT admin type stuff for me so that family members and I can securely connect remotely. But god damn if every single app I have tried doesn’t feel like warp speed compared with the Plex versions. Did you know that watching my media using the WebOS app on my LG TV does not have to be dog shit slow? And don’t even get me started on phone apps like Finamp. (it really whips the jelly’s ass?)

I get that it specifies tech workers, but still my first reaction was that 12% is pretty low. You can find a much higher percentage of people who are confidently wrong about way more important things.

So uh, what’s your favorite way to enable secure remote access?

It needs to be something that people can use with smart TV apps.

I looked at some of the instructions out there, but my head is killing me so I’m not in a “figure out computer thing” mood. Otherwise I’d be at work, lol.

Well for better or worse, I am off sick from work today so I just set up the server!

That was fast.

Oh yeah sorry for the tone. That wasn’t my intent. I am not dreading Jellyfin whatsoever. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and I’m pretty sure it installed the WebOS app on my TV several months ago assuming the switch was coming.

Yeah I suspect I’m going to like it.

I think I’m going to set it up to run in parallel, then I’ll be ready to try it on people’s various devices as I get access to them.

I guess it’s worth trying rather than relying on vague internet comments. I’ll set it up for myself, then I can try apps on the various platforms as I visit people, etc.

Ugh, yeah. I guess I’ll definitely have to try it!

I would probably be using Jellyfin if it were just me.

The handful of people in my family that use my Plex server though are all non-tech people. When I hear that random smart TV apps aren’t nearly as good, that is what gives me pause.

That, plus the fact that a lifetime Plex pass was a one-time purchase on sale several years ago. It may be a proprietary product instead of FOSS like it should be, but at least they aren’t trying switch me to $1.99/month or some BS like that. But they’re probably smart enough to know they’d really start the Plexodus!

Maybe I should run jellyfin alongside Plex to keep better tabs on it.

For what it’s worth, I have switched three machines of mine from Win10 to Mint in the last year, and in each case it was much easier and faster to install than Windows. And of course, daily use is much faster and smoother than Windows, but that is true of all distros. It’s just worth mentioning because mint is made to be the full featured user friendly experience (some might even call it bloated) out of the box, yet it’s still a rocket in comparison.

One was a typical work-issued Dell laptop w/ port replicator + M365, one was an old PC at home I built several years ago, and the last was an even older PC I built like 14 years ago.

Just yesterday at work I installed Win10 in VirtualBox so I could test a Windows app that gets built alongside our main embedded Linux software (used the VM since a certain popup window secondary to the main app wasn’t immediately working in Wine). Holy crap was it painful after being used to the Mint installer.

Then when I got home I decided to turn on that 14 year old system that’s been off for a month (when I installed the latest point release 22.1) to let it update. Even using the GUI updater, and even though it had to update the updater itself before updating however many dozen packages AND the kernel, I timed the entire process at five minutes flat. On the computer from 2011, with a pretty old & small SATA SSD system drive. And you can use the PC like normal until it’s done, when it shows a banner suggesting you reboot when you can because of the kernel update.

Again, nothing special in the Linux world where software is actually created with users put first. But still noteworthy for being the “easy” distro that looks a lot like Windows when you first boot it up.

I’m not posting this to say anything negative about Arch, either. That kind of distro is very important to begin with, and Arch in particular seems it’s good enough that it might be the new Debian. Especially with SteamOS switching to it.

Thanks for this. I’ve recently been recreating my home server on good hardware and have been thinking it’s time to jump into selfhosting more stuff. I’ve used Docker a bit, so I guess I’ll have to do it the right way. It’s always good to know what choices now will avoid future issues.

That first reply highlights a major difference in how people approach the world.

Speaking very generally, conservatism and right wing politics seen to attract those who see everything as a competition and that dominating other people is what it means to be a good person. Funny that it also leads to frustrated, angry, isolated people.

So if we want to switch to using a website that doesn’t promote hurting/killing 2% of the population, we are now BOWING DOWN to the minority some of us would not rather murder.

It’s the same reason they hate DEI so much.

I almost never use it, but if LibreOffice can come in handy a few times a year, why not at least keep it installed?

A lot of stuff is indeed browser based, so I probably spend more time in Firefox than in my code editor and terminal.

But LibreOffice is welcome to live on 0.1% of my disk space!

This is so great to see, and the timing is perfect.

My son already calls the PC Steam, as in “we played game A on Xbox and game B on Steam,” so maybe by the time he has a PC in his room Steam really will run the whole platform.

It’s polished and easy to use, it leverages all the work that goes into Debian and Ubuntu, but it’s still Linux under the hood and doesn’t forbid you from getting into the weeds.

I run Mint Cinnamon on my work machine, developing software for embedded Linux products, and I haven’t had any regrets.

As an American, this line short circuited my brain:

Police there still carry guns on the regular

I live in a quiet but growing suburban town that’s closer to rural areas than the nearest city. When I walk my kid to elementary school (how European of us, lol) the police officer working as a crossing guard for the kids still has their gun, taser, bulletproof vest, and all their other gear on.

And it’s not a school-specific thing. You just never see cops without their weapons here. Armed and armored is just part of the uniform, essentially.