Anyone have experience with Zen Privacy app? (not the browser)
Zen
Zen is a simple, free and efficient desktop application that helps you browse the internet and use your apps without annoying ads, trackers, or hidden threats.zenprivacy.net
I would still download a car if I could. 🚗
cross-posted from: sopuli.xyz/post/29947730
I would still download a car if I could. 🚗
Instance setting for extra email text
Some instances like lemmy.zip and lemmy.world send custom registration emails which include info like support email address and appeals pathways. It would be reasonable to specify these directly in...Nutomic (GitHub)
Ajax homeless population sees ‘significant’ increase of 23% over one year
Ajax homeless population sees ‘significant’ increase of 23% over one year
Region of Durham staff say homelessness is increasing across the country.Durham Region
UN Report Exposes Torture of Russian POWs in Ukraine
UN Report Exposes Torture of Russian POWs in Ukraine
Ukrainian soldiers have executed at least 26 Russian military personnel, either taken prisoner or wounded on the battlefield since February 2022, according to a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).Sputnik International
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They know the torture is happening, they think it's reprisal, not that bad, perhaps even good
"Bet you can't prove it" is frequently said by people who appear to 180⁰ on the issue instantly, it's gaslighting behavior
They downvoted reports on Ukrainian conscripts being tortured by their superiors, as well as Ukrainian teachers being dumped into a pit by Zhorin. All on their own telegrams. They know
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The article does not specify which publication it refers to, but this is the only recently published report
ohchr.org/en/publications/annu…
During the year, a central priority of the HRMMU’s work was monitoring and reporting on the treatment of POWs. This led to conclusions that the Russian authorities inflicted torture in a widespread and systematic manner against almost all Ukrainian POWs and that many Russian POWs were subjected to torture or ill-treatment in the initial stages of their captivity. Findings and tailored recommendations fed into advocacy documents for high-level meetings with Member States, in June. In Ukraine, the HRMMU’s advocacy supported the launch of a criminal investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor General (OPG) regarding the use of torture at a transit facility for Russian POWs. The HRMMU is unaware if its reporting resulted in similar investigations in the Russian Federation. Its monitoring and advocacy also resulted in Ukrainian authorities improving the treatment and internment
conditions of Russian POWs
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Ukrainian soldiers have executed at least 26 Russian military personnel, either taken prisoner or wounded on the battlefield since February 2022, according to a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
‘We View What Is Happening With Sputnik’s Staff in Baku as Injustice’ – Dmitry Kiselev
‘We View What Is Happening With Sputnik’s Staff in Baku as Injustice’ – Dmitry Kiselev
Dmitry Kiselev, general director of the Sputnik News Agency's parent organization Rossiya Segodnya commented on the events in Azerbaijan.Sputnik International
Make Lugansk Russian Again: Moscow delivers on key objective of Ukraine conflict
Make Lugansk Russian Again: Moscow delivers on key objective of Ukraine conflict
From the uprising of 2014 to the total liberation of 2025, Lugansk’s return to Russia traces a long arc of defiance, war, and statehoodRT
Best YouTube Frontend for iOS
It would be nice if it also had features like SponsorBlock.
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Hm, I wonder why that is...
Can't be at all to do with the fact that Android has a much more open development and installation platform than a famously locked down device. Most FOSS developers use Android, and write app's for devices like those ones that they own. The better question is, why not just use Android and use something like LibreTube? In terms of cost, Android devices are much cheaper, and in terms of capability, they're more capable.
Can't be at all to do with the fact that Android has a much more open development and installation platform
Less to do with the "development platform" and more to do with the fact that you literally can't install them on iOS devices because Apple would never approve them, and you need their blessing to get it installed.
In terms of cost, Android devices are much cheaper
Used to be. Not so much anymore. At least not the high end ones. Google reached price parity with Apple in the last generation.
I’ll get a Google Pixel with Graphene when my phone dies or gets lost.
ONE OF US, ONE OF US
I'm not sure how effective that no tracking thing is
Not sure what you mean but you can disable tracking in any YT account. It's in the settings.
I'd say use the website through Safari. Install AdGuard, SponsorBlock, and Vinegar, and it should be smooth sailing. Return YouTube Dislike is available as a UserScript.
Brave and DuckDuckGo also provide nice experiences with YouTube, but thry sadly do not have SponsorBlock or Return YouTube Dislike.
If you really need an app, though, give uYouPlus a try.
Invidious does not have recommendations aswell.
Well, I don't need recommendations for a start. I can see the appeal, but my subscription feed is good enough for me.
Also, YouTube is incredibly heavy in comparison, and I personally believe it's better to avoid tracking in the first place than to jump through hoops to cripple or block it, so Invidious and yt-dlp are the obvious solutions for me.
With one exception, all of my machines have 8GB or less, and I use a Firefox-based browser on desktop (Goigle deliberately slows down their services on non-Chrome browsers). Also, YouTube does have server-side tracking, and I need to be able to manage my subscriptions. I could use RSS, but I already have a reader installed for news and I don't want it getting cluttered.
uBlock and Mullvad is a great combo, and I am known to use the main site if both Invidious and yt-dlp aren't working; but the fact remains that Invidious is the inherently more private option.
I just watch YouTube signed out in Safari. It is very easy to build your algorithm from there. I don't mind the ads since I don't watch YouTube mainly on my phone and I occasionally clear cookies.
You can also install Orion Browser, made by Kagi creators of a privacy focused paid search engine, which supports Firefox extensions like uBLock but I don't think it is open source right now but It will be soon.
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Vinegar - Tube Cleaner
Vinegar is a Safari extension that replaces the YouTube player with a minimal HTML video tag. It removes ads, restores picture-in-picture, and keeps videos playing in the background.App Store
Andi - AI Search for the Next Generation
Andi is AI search for the next generation. Instead of just links, Andi gives you answers - like chatting with a smart friend.andisearch.com
Orion Browser on iOS/iPadOS is compatible with (some, not all) Firefox/Chrome addons. Add SponsorBlock for YouTube, uBlock Origin and Video Background Play Fix from addons.mozilla.org and use the YouTube website as is?
Used to run my own Invidious instance I used with Yattee but it got banned and then for some reason ate shit and died completely.
add-ons on Orion
It's great to know that they are working better now, last time I tried almost none was functionnal and it was quite a pain to install / uninstall / switch source (Firefox / Chrome version) in the hopes of it finally working. I’ll have a look, since then I’ve been using Brave + piHole and it was more or less decent.
The future is now
LibRedirect - Privacy-friendly Redirector
A web extension that redirects YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. requests to alternative privacy-friendly frontendslibredirect.github.io
Please make an effort to avoid X.
If you're looking for someone's or an organization's feed, look for alternatives such as:
* Look for that person's Mastodon account,
* Look for a blog or website. It may have a RSS feed, if not try fetchrss.com/generator/generat…
* Look for a bluesky account, and get its RSS feed with a tool like fetchrss.com/generator/generat…
Invalid - FetchRSS
FetchRSS.com is an online RSS feed generator. Create RSS for any website. Select blocks you want to convert to RSS. Get RSS generated by your rules.fetchrss.com
Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine (2012)
A quattro anni dal loro ultimo disco "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings", i Counting Crows ritornano con un nuovo lavoro e questa volta è un disco di cover, spiazzando ancora una volta i loro fan. Ad Adam Duritz & co. infatti, una cosa su cui non si discute è la libertà di "scelta", in poche parole fanno quello che gli pare senza filtri e costrizioni di sorta... Leggi e ascolta...
Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine (2012)
A quattro anni dal loro ultimo disco “Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings”, i Counting Crows ritornano con un nuovo lavoro e questa volta è un disco di cover, spiazzando ancora una volta i loro fan. Ad Adam Duritz & co. infatti, una cosa su cui non si discute è la libertà di “scelta”, in poche parole fanno quello che gli pare senza filtri e costrizioni di sorta. Questa loro “scelta” gli permette di spaziare non solo con dischi variegati; dal vivo, in studio, di cover ma soprattutto con i tempi da loro scelti in base alle loro esigenze e non quelli dettati dalle Majors di turno. Dimostrazione è la scelta dei quindici brani che non appartengono ad un repertorio di canzoni famose o di facile ascolto ma scelte tra quelle che più piacevano a loro. Come risponde Duritz in una intervista: “Io sono un grande credente di una semplice regola, che qui non ci sono regole”. Insomma un gruppo “indipendente” nelle scelte e nelle esecuzioni della serie “prendere o lasciare”... artesuono.blogspot.com/2014/08…
Ascolta: album.link/i/1169968863
Home – Identità DigitaleSono su: Mastodon.uno - Pixelfed - Feddit
Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine (2012)
di Silvano Bottaro (or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation) A quattro anni dal loro ultimo disco "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mo...Silvano Bottaro (Blogger)
Me too!
I used Gentoo almost exlusively from like 2003 to maybe 2012 or 2013. I switched to Arch about then. But quite recently I made the switch back to Gentoo on my primary box and I'm happy I did.
Only thing I still need to do to really make it long-term sustainable for my particular use is to set up a build server on my network. My "primary box" is in the room where I sleep and I need it dark and quiet when I'm sleeping. Can't have MOBO color-shifting LEDs and fan sounds overnight. And I can't compile something like Chromium in less than the 15-to-16-ish hours I'm awake in a given day. (And I'd prefer to compile it myself rather than using a binary package.) Hence the need for a build server.
Interested in why you went back to Gentoo after Arch.
I use Arch (btw) and tried Gentoo back in the day, but it's always in the back of my mind that compiling source could be "better"...?
and more about having a lot of choice and really nice tooling.
it's in some ways a bunch more stable and declarative than arch.
packaging your own stuff is even easier and you can just have most packages be stable while only running unstable version of the packages you explicitly care about 😀
So, I've been using Arch Linux ARM on Raspberry Pis for some "desktop systems" as well as for a janky-ass NAS solution, but that project is kindof dying. They go many months in a row sometimes without any package updates. It's wild. And when people ask WTF is going on and ~~offer~~ beg to be allowed to help in some way, the admins lock the thread.
So, I've been looking to switch my Raspberry Pi's to something that doesn't depend so much on some "project" out there to be able to continue to use.
The main Gentoo project fully supports ARM. And even if it didn't, it'd be a lot easier to use Gentoo without support than Arch.
Switching my main box (not a Raspberry Pi -- it's an x86_64 system) to Gentoo was basically for the purpose of trying out Gentoo again and evaluating whether I want to take the plunge and switch everything to Gentoo.
Aside from that, there's SystemD which is yucky. (Yes, I know about Artix, but when last I tried it, it didn't really feel "ready for prime time". It depends a lot on the main Arch repos.)
Plus, I do kindof like the idea of "more control over my system(s)". Configuring/compiling my own kernel (yes, you can do that on Arch, it's much less "in the spirit of" Arch) to make it as minimal as possible and disable everything I don't need. And of course USE flags are a plus if you want a light system.
Anyway, those are my main reasons.
Ah, Ok, yeah Arch on ARM is struggling at the moment
I have / had some Ras Pis on it, but they wrapped up .. Pi0? a while back, so had to look at Raspbian (or whatever it's called now)... I'd not considered Gentoo for them... hmmm
Maybe I'll check that out
Thanks
The “fun” aspect was what drew me to BeOS when it was near its heyday. What that thing would do in comparison to Winbloze at the time and the user experience in general was astonishingly more pleasant.
I remember their simple web server called Diner I had a website hosted on an older machine running Diner in my lab and it was just always on and when my office got DSL I felt like a king having that site up and accessible from anywhere, knowing it was on a box in my office and running Diner on BeOS.
I tried to make this logo from scratch in Blender for a wallpaper and kinda couldn't get the shape right because the angle of the actual logo is a bit weird.
Good to know that I can use this official model.
That would make a huge difference.
I ran Gentoo back in the early aughts; it was hella better than Redhat, but it felt like I was constantly compiling stuff, and new installs and upgrades could sometimes take more than a day. I don't remember what I jumped to after Gentoo, but I've never considered it again because of the lack of prehbuilt binaries. It seemed bitcoinish to have thousands of people wasting CPU cycles compiling the same package when it could be compiled once and redistributed.
Where Gentoo is nice is in the build flags: there's really no way to get around compiling yourself if you want to exclude optional dependencies, and Gentoo had that in spades. I am just not sure how much that's actually used anymore, but having binaries gives you the best of both worlds.
Thanks for posting that; I may have to re-investigate Gentoo.
it's also waaay better documented.
it's comfy.
but having binaries
For big packages like browsers and office suites, not all packages.
Still a win if you're so inclined. I prefer to compile 100%.
new installs and upgrades could sometimes take more than a day
Laughs in Windows...
The most popular Linux distros are binary based. Gentoo upgrades build all new software from source. If you don't want long install times, don't usr one of these compile-everything-from-source distros.
There's no option to install Windows from source, and it doesn't really come with anything more than the OS, anyway, so it's apples yto oranges. Windows might not even be compilable on consumer hardware.
Still extremely customizable, and peerless rolling release features.
You can mix and match stable and bleeding edge packages very easily and switch at any time.
When packages make breaking changes, Gentoo will warn you and guide you through the migration before you update and only if you have the affected package installed.
Why is the rust compiler so terrible?
Trump leaves Maria Bartiromo speechless after suggesting US is hacking China
Trump leaves Maria Bartiromo speechless after suggesting US is hacking China: ‘You don’t think we do that?’
‘That's the way the world works. It's a nasty world,’ president says during sit-down interviewGustaf Kilander (The Independent)
Oxfam: UK government complicit in war crimes in Israel
Oxfam’s UK chief executive, Dr Halima Begum, expressed disappointment at a British court ruling which refused to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, which it’s using in its war on Gaza, on Monday. Oxfam submitted evidence in the case.
“The judgment is surprising and deeply disappointing,” Begum said.
“The Court and the Government have both acknowledged that UK arms are at risk of being used in breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza yet prioritise the supply chains of fighter jets over the lives of Palestinians,” she added.
“It is unconscionable that the Government would continue to license the sale of components for F35 jets knowing that they are used to deliberately attack civilians in Gaza and destroy their means of survival, including vital water supplies.
Syrian forces massacred 1,500 Alawites. The chain of command led to Damascus.
A Reuters investigation found 40 distinct sites of killings, looting and arson during three days of sectarian massacres following an Assad loyalist insurgency. The chain of command led from the attackers directly to men serving alongside Syria’s new leaders in Damascus. The killings now threaten Syria's fragile transition.
Among the units Reuters found to be involved were the government's General Security Service, its main law-enforcement body back in the days when HTS ran Idlib and now part of the Interior Ministry; and ex-HTS units like the elite Unit 400 fighting force and the Othman Brigade.
As the massacres of Alawites unfolded, the Defense Ministry spokesman Abdel-Ghani said publicly the operation on the coast was proceeding as planned with the goal of keeping control of the region and “tightening the noose on the remaining elements of officers and remnants of the fallen regime,” according to the state-run news agency SANA.
Behind the scenes, Abdel-Ghani was running the Telegram chat of militia leaders and military commanders that coordinated the government response to the pro-Assad uprising, according to a dozen text and audio messages in an exchange between him and a senior commander from another faction.
Two people confirmed the Telegram handle was Abdel-Ghani’s and that Abu Ahd is his nom de guerre. Reuters contacted him directly on Telegram at the handle. He told Reuters he has been questioned by the committee investigating the killings but declined to comment further.
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Oxfam: UK government complicit in war crimes in Israel
Oxfam’s UK chief executive, Dr Halima Begum, expressed disappointment at a British court ruling which refused to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, which it’s using in its war on Gaza, on Monday. Oxfam submitted evidence in the case.
“The judgment is surprising and deeply disappointing,” Begum said.
“The Court and the Government have both acknowledged that UK arms are at risk of being used in breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza yet prioritise the supply chains of fighter jets over the lives of Palestinians,” she added.
“It is unconscionable that the Government would continue to license the sale of components for F35 jets knowing that they are used to deliberately attack civilians in Gaza and destroy their means of survival, including vital water supplies.
Palantir's Shadow War On Iran
Palantir's Shadow War On Iran
All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers.Kit Klarenberg (Global Delinquents)
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Under Israeli Strikes, Hezbollah Leader Refuses Call To Lay Down Arms
Under Israeli Strikes, Hezbollah Leader Refuses Call To Lay Down Arms
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem stressed on June 28 that the group would not lay down its arms while Israel continued...Anonymous1199 (South Front)
Challenges meeting new people without an Instagram account
I’ve been trying to meet new friends and new people to hang out with so have been going to a lot of social events.
I noticed that everyone seems to ask for my instagram account and when I say I don’t have one that connection kind of dies, and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them.
I don’t want to create an instagram because of the privacy invasions of meta but I also don’t want to feel left out when trying to make new connections. Anyone have any advice?
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Privacy is subjective. Use it but dont use it for things you don't want Facebook to know about. Don't use it on your phone. Don't use it on a computer with things you care about. Keep it in a container tab in your browser but don't keep it open all the time.
It's kind of a pain but you can definitely be mindful and only give meta crumbs where others are giving them truckloads of data.
Sadly there is a lot of good content on Instagram
Don't use it on your phone
There's also the option of using Private Space (Android 15+) or its multiple clones in manufacturer OSes. It effectively creates a new user profile which can be deactivated at will. The new user profile also has no access to any data from the main profile that can't already be controlled by permissions, like the app list. It has its own instance of Play Services, so AFAIK it shouldn't be linkable to the main profile. It's the best middle-ground I've found this far if the app needs to be installed in one way or the other.
An IG account isn't a phone number or email, and I think it's weird that young people treat it like it is.
Just say you don't do social media, and if they can't respect that, it's a quick test as to if they're your people or not.
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Or come across as a weirdo, conspiracy theory, antisocial, tech obsessive nerd.
I mean, it's not inaccurate, but not maybe how to present initially when you meet someone.
That is a good point, when I say I don’t have any social media more than half the time people respect it, almost like I’m saying I’m X years sober from alcohol.
But I still feel like I’m tempted to make an account to avoid this additional social friction. Maybe I won’t use it for anything except getting people’s contact info in these situations. I’m not sure I’m a bit torn.
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Maybe I won’t use it for anything except getting people’s contact info in these situations.
This is exactly what I did. I posted like three pics of my dog, and put it on private and never really use it except for that purpose.
I have never used any social media before or had an account on anything else, but something changed and people started treating instagram like a phone number, which is weird to me but that's the way it is now.
Don't feel like you must do this, but just wanted to say you're not the only person to do no social media, but felt the need to open an instagram
quick test as to if they’re your people or not
Absolutely... it's like when during job interview the recruiter ask if you code on the weekend. Some people treat that like the absolute worst question ever. Yes, in most cases I would argue it's to probe if you can be abused by working over time for free... but maybe you are into that or rather you do have found a way to make it work, e.g. NOT work during some weekdays. The point is that the question itself is a way to discover BOTH ways, for them AND for you. It is perfectly fine to stop right there and then if any of you is now aware that it's a show stopper because of whatever difference. The entire purpose of dating or interviews is to engage in a more involving relationship ONLY if it's worth it for both. It's a discovery phase, not a "let's close the sale" phase.
I mean again my initial reaction would be that indeed ... BUT it depends. If they genuinely offer say 3x rate, it's on demand from MY side (not the client), double vacations, etc then maybe. Again it has to be something that's actually interesting.
Sadly this is not even .001% the case, usually companies consider the weekend an extension of the week and such cases, they can absolutely go get fucked.
when during job interview the recruiter ask if you code on the weekend
I think it's more to see if you're actually passionate about what you do and you don't "just" do it for work, which definitely is a bit of a twisted view, when on average you'll already be spending 40 hours a week doing that, but I think people tend to make this sort of evaluation, because people who love programming so much to also do it on their free time will usually be better, since they simply have more experience than those who only do what they're assigned to do
If it's such an obstacle for social life, I'd just give in and make an account. Given the alternative is "exchanging phone numbers" (with the intent to text or call, presumably) I'd say Instagram is no worse privacy-wise - both offer absolutely no privacy protection. If a phone number is required to register (I don't know if it is), I'd get a bootleg sim specifically for it. I would treat all communications on any proprietary platform (even 1-on-1) as though they are happening in public (Twitter-style). Avoid using apps if at all possible as they have more access to your device. If that's not possible, at least do not give those apps any permissions, however hard they are trying to eek them out of you. Do not use it for anything but chatting with your acquaintances - merely looking at your feed, even without any explicit interactions like opening a post, gives Meta a lot of data about you.
If the connection moves on from "acquaintance" to "friendship", perhaps try pushing them towards a better platform - I recommend Matrix as it is federated (unlike Signal), and has pretty nice clients/UX nowadays (unlike Tox and XMPP), and is e2e-encrypted (unlike almost everything else).
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Back when Craigslist had personals ads I answered one saying that I had 10 laptop computers and no facebook account, and I actually got a couple of dates that way. Not everyone wants corporate media.
I've been chatting (non romantically) with someone I met on another forum, who is about the same way. No facebook or reddit or anything, not even Lemmy, just a few niche forums.
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This is, IMO, the biggest problem with FB and IG. They've replaced personal connections. I know some women who say they won't date anyone without an IG account.
and it feels too personal to ask for someone number when I just met them
Someone's number is literally just a series of digits. Social Media has their fuckin' life's story. I'd say it's far less personal.
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I think it's mainly two things:
- people fear reverse phone numbers look up tools more then the equivalent tools for social media.
- It's viewed as less replaceable then just blocking somone on social media
I don't really agree with either of these but it is what seems to be common.
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Get a new phone number and never sign it up on anything. It is very easy to replace a phone number. If you have had a phone number for multiple years and signed it up multiple times and still using it, it is time to change it now.
Blocking somebody on social media doesn't really mean anything, they still have your account, can still see your posts, comments, and even liked videos if they use another account. You would have to delete your account if some random person has your personal Instagram that you don't want anybody knowing, even if it is private.
They both have there downsides though.
yeah i feel you. I'm in a band, so instagram is basically a necessity for promotion and communication. getting the word out about shows, other bands will message me for gigs etc
just try to use it a little as possible, and try to lock it down as much as possible in the os. you can do alot in the android app settings.
basically treat it as you would having a conversation near a security camera.
The band TOOL literally never did any interviews before (or after) the internet.
Worked well for them.
Anyone have any advice?
Yes: recognize what you’re trying to accomplish and change your actions.
Privacy requires shutting people out of your life. Meeting new people requires letting people into your life.
If people expect that the first “gate” into your life is your social media then meet that expectation. Have a social media presence. Post shit that you want people to see on it.
If you’re afraid of letting the companies that operate social media see your life, examine why. It may be that you’re perfectly fine with the trade off of a limited hang out in exchange for looking normal. Most people are.
It doesn’t have to be instagram. You could have a snapchat or a tiktok or whatever.
I disagree. You are normal if you have social media and not if you don't?
Dunno man, if people need IG to interact with you and you are not comfortable with it, maybe they are not your people, you know?
Why should one go into uncomfortable territory for others, people should interact from positions of comfort, otherwise its a stretch for one side and just a bad time all round.
One thing is for sure @ElectricWaterfall@lemmy.zip , you will have a harder time, make less connections, but I'm pretty sure the ones you will make, will be solid.
One word of advice as a fellow non-socialmedia-person. If you want to meet new people, make sure you are in the same place at a certain time on certain days. That way people know where you might be during certain hours and that is also a way to make connections. Just be sure you like said place.
Social media is literally normal.
It has gone through a process called normalization in order to become an expected part of social interaction. The op even said that people expect them to have a particular type of account and they feel like not having one excludes them from having more friends.
Yes, you are normal if you have a social media account and abnormal if you don’t.
The ol’ sarcasm detectors’ flashing red, ringing the bell and pouring black smoke out of all the panel joints but yes: if you want to fit into society it’s important to have social media.
If you wanted to live a private life in the 1970s, would it be better to descend from your cabin hundreds of miles from civilization with a wild mane of shaggy hair wearing your homemade leather suit or with an unstylish but kempt haircut, nondescript jeans and shirt and military duffel bag looking like any other of the myriad characters wandering the roads at the time?
Obviously you’d want the latter. Part of privacy is blending in so that you don’t arouse interest.
Nowadays if you want to be a private person and still interact in society, like the op, you need to have all the trappings of a someone who doesn't raise alarm bells. That includes, especially as your age drops, social media.
Social media is literally normal.
That's your bubble, not mine and not generally. Social media profiles is something 2010's here, maybe some still have it. What's in now is loose communities like Lemmy or Tiktok and chat apps for irl friends.
It’s also the ops bubble. My replies are generally directed at the op and their post.
I will also point to the requirement though, that us visa applicants give up social media account names or be subject to denial as evidence that it’s considered normal.
If it wasn’t considered normal to have social media then the cbp wouldn’t be so quick to implement that process.
Is this an age thing? I'm about 40 and I never had instagram, barely used facebook, and didn't use any others really. I don't think I've ever had a problem where someone backed out because I didn't have instagram. But I also don't have a big group of casual friends, and maybe that would be harder.
Discord sucks, but I've noticed a lot of social groups use it. A couple meetups I go to all use it for communication. Maybe that's more bearable than instagram?
I’m in my mid-thirties, and while I didn’t have the Instagram/Whatsapp problem as a late teen / young adult, the pressure to use Facebook was similar. When I decided to close my account, it was almost a social death. My friends organised all their outings there and didn’t want to bother reaching out to me. And many of those who did go out of their way to include me occasionally made passive-agressive remarks about how I was being ridiculous and making their life difficult.
That said, I would have loved being able to just say “I don’t have Insta” when men were bothering me in the street. 😀 But I’m sure that wouldn’t stop most of them even now.
Don't worry, I handed out my Instagram to some people who requested it and those connections fizzled out just as easily.
Could be down to me only ever checking it on a designated laptop once a week, but in my opinion, if it comes down to an Instagram account and regular app access, can't even exchange SMS numbers to text, then it's already a tenuous connection.
Funny enough, I didn't even make my own Instagram account. My friend really wanted me to be on Instagram so he went ahead, made it under my name, and handed me the keys. You probably can't do this nowadays due to security checks, unless you're Meta making a shadow profile kinda like my friend did for me. I'm just sitting on the shadow profile that would exist anyway, trying to contribute as little as possible.
Find a way to use Instagram to drive them to another app, like this: lemmy.world/post/21620691
PSA Help others escape WhatsApp using Watomatic auto reply (and how to write it)
watomatic.appExample
🤖 Automated Reply 💬 I reply faster on example.org ⁉️ WhatsApp is anti-libre software. We do NOT control it. It withholds a libre software license text file, like GPL.
ExplainedI reply faster on
Deleting the only way to reach someone online breaks your influence.example.org
A link and only one link, so (1) they see it's an app, not some random word or typo, (2) they can download it without searching, and (3) they don't have multiple choice–they don't need to do any thinking or research. Remove everything stopping them.anti-libre software.
Never say privacy, they've heard it all before (from you, no doubt). Say something different.We do NOT control it.
Make it simple and direct. Think of the most retarded person you know and break it down in a way they would understand. Think about every angle it could be misunderstood.It withholds
Libre software is normal, default. Anti-libre software is cringe, weird, dangerous. Act like it. Also, humans care less about getting and more about losing stuff.libre software license text file
Show them what to check for, for themselves, easily, obvious. Later, show them how to spread these ideas. Then, show them how to show others how to spread these ideas, make more of you.GPL
A keyword for them to web search for more, with better results than more complex terms like AGPL or misleading terms like 'open source'.Don't waste a word.
Lastly, make yourself someone everyone wants to talk to.
Anyone have any advice?
- Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say 'no', end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don't have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
- Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
- Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my 'real' phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I'm required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It's a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
- Accept that you're doomed to use IG because it's with those 'IG people' and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it's kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.
It’s a 2 € plan with a 2 € discount because the mobile operator is also my home internet provider. So 0 €/month.
And it’s my one and only mobile number, not an extra one for crap content. The plan only includes 50 MB of (4G) data per month, and I have to pay extra if I go over it, so barring emergencies I’m only using wifi — but I don’t mind not having access to internet everywhere and all the time, I find that healthier in a way.
It's just a perception thing we have, a phone number DOES feel more personal to me, even if most people's Instagram accounts are even more detailed. In my case, I literally never posted anything on Instagram, so there was nothing to gather about me besides what posts I liked.
Plus some people my interpret asking for a phone number as wanting to date them or smth (although the same could be said for any messaging service tbh).
Phone number can be problematic to share in some areas of the world, so it does depend on where you are, but email shouldn't be an issue in general. So easy to get an additional, private email address and use both at the same time.
I also don't have most mainstream social media anymore but have noticed a significant drop in people asking for it these days. Might just be my location in a city with a lot of progressive, tech savvy people, though.
I mostly use phone number and/or Signal these days.
Am Gen Z, and currently in college. Clearly am on Fediverse, and I was never a fan of using IG (only got it cause my middle school friends made me since COVID was happening) and I have completely deactivated my account as of last winter. I have met several people at my college who don't use Instagram for various reasons, and while my other friend is a little disappointed that she can't message them on insta, at the end of the day, we live and move on.
At my college a lot of clubs use GroupMe (owned by Microsoft unfortunately) and we have an official Discord Hub that a lot of clubs are on also. So there's two different methods of communication that aren't Insta that are common on my campus. Some of my friends do have Signal in fact (even my Instagram loving friend), but because more of them don't we unfortunately don't use Signal, even when I beg my one friend who has it. She says 'it sucks and who uses it", but I've never really had the chance to use it to judge her statement as true or not.
Anyway, yeah, you could do a bunch of crazy shit and make fake accounts on Insta to have superficial conversations with people who won't give you the time of day for having an app, or you could just not. It's not that hard to find better friends/people to hang out with, and if you really make a connection with them then they should be happy with any form of communication you offer. Not all Gen Z are adamant Instagram defenders, some even hate it for various reasons (Suckerberg, being data stalkers, promoting bigotry, promoting mental health disorders, etc.)
Just an anecdote, but every time I try to create an account on Instagram I get automatically banned after account creation before even login-in for the first time.
If I recal they then ask me for a copy of my ID to confirm my name is real (which it isn't).
I have no idea how they know, I've tried literally with different residential IPs, different emails and even on brand new devices. On my Instagram user friend's house.
Maybe it's just ~~bad~~ good luck, who knows. In don't need Instagram anyway, just an interesting fact.
You're on the 'privacy' community of an open source and federated alternative social media system designed to avoid corporate control and surveillance capitalism - and you're like "wtf everyone here is very privacy focussed and Linux nerds".
Do you complain about sand at the beach?
Iran envoy leaves meeting over presence of hostile US media
TEHRAN, Jun. 30 (MNA) – Iran's ambassador to Armenia has walked out of a National Press Club meeting, in protest over the presence of a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) correspondent, who "works for our enemies."
Mehdi Sobhani initially demanded the removal of the RFE/RL reporter from the National Press Club meeting, noting that “this outlet currently works for our enemies”.
As the moderator Narine Mkrtchyan said she could not remove the journalist and urged to begin the event, Sobhani replied “I will not participate,” and left the room, according to Press TV.
Eventually, the correspondent of RFE/RL, which is funded by the US and operates under the US Agency for Global Media, left the meeting, as his presence caused disruption.
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Aw, they got their little feelings hurt. Who knew genocidal assholes had feelings?
Edit: sorry promise I won’t post before coffee again.
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I love this part (end of the article):
As the Iranian Armed Forces pounded Israel and its military and industrial infrastructure, using many new-generation missiles that precisely hit the designated targets, the embattled regime was forced to unilaterally declare a truce deal on June 24.
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Talent agency UTA drop Bob Vylan following Glastonbury chant controversy
The punk band Bob Vylan has now officially been dropped by the talent agency UTA following the comments being made during their Glastonbury set.
During the performance, the band led a pro-Palestine chant with their crowd, proclaiming “death to the IDF”. Following comments from the festival staff as well as various politicians, UTA has announced their decision to part ways with the group.
Insiders have said that UTA senior executives agreed with the festival, saying that the band had taken their political beliefs too far when making their comments. Despite not coming out with any official statement, all images and information relating to the musical duo have been wiped from the company’s website.
The BBC continued in a statement, “The antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves. We welcome Glastonbury’s condemnation of the performance.”
Bob Vylan ‘dropped by agents’ after controversial Glastonbury IDF chant
Rap punk duo no longer appear on agency’s website days after festival furoreJacob Stolworthy (The Independent)
If Israel is the "victim" then they are "Jews". And "The Jewish State"
If Israel is the perpetrator then it is the "secular only democracy in the Middle East.
Nato’s summit cannot disguise Ukraine’s plight
Nato’s summit cannot disguise Ukraine’s plight
Without more military aid, Kyiv’s situation on the battlefield could deteriorate rapidlyGideon Rachman (Financial Times)
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The AI Company Zuckerberg Just Poured $14 Billion Into Is Reportedly a Clown Show of Ludicrous Incompetence
The AI Company Zuckerberg Just Poured $14 Billion Into Is Reportedly a Clown Show of Ludicrous Incompetence
The data annotation company Scale AI that Meta splurged $14 billion to take ownership of was reportedly overrun with "spammers."Frank Landymore (Futurism)
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The research community already knows this.
Llama 4 (Meta's flagship 'AI' project) was as bad release. That's fine. This is interative research; not every experiment works out.
...But it was also a messy and dishonest one.
The release was pushed early and full of bugs. They lied about its performance, especially at long context, going so far as to game Chat Arena with a finetune. Zuckerberg hyped the snot out of it, to the point I saw ads for it on Axios.
Instead of Meta saying they'll do better, they said they're reorganizing their divisions to focus on 'applications' instead of fundamental research, aka exactly the wrong thing. They've hermmoraged good researchers and kept AI bros, far as I can tell from the outside.
Every top LLM trainer has controversies. Just recently Qwen (Alibaba) closed off their top base models just to spite Deepseek, so they can't distill them. Deepseek is almost certainly training on Google Gemini traces. Google hoards their best research for API models and has chased being sycophantic like ChatGPT. X's Grok is a joke, and muddied by Musk's constant lies about, for instance, open sourcing it. Some great outfits like 01ai (the Yi series) faded into the night.
...But I haven't seen self-destruction quite like Meta's. Especially considering the 'f you' money and GPU farm they have. They're still pushing interesting research now, but the trajectory is awful.
Step 1: Go to an Ivy League school
Step 2: Make friends with a failson/daughter of a prevailing plutocrat
Step 3: Put the Matrix-code screensaver on your laptop (apparently, this worked on Elon Musk in the early Twitter takeover days)
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Get a $10M Series A and a $100M Series B thanks to the family of your rich friends buying into your hair-brained Theranos knock-off.
You know how you have to pay extra to have insurance to pay to take care of your mouth bones and your face balls? Well, what if we did that but with all the bones and stuff? Like, why are your foot bones included in the same insurance that pays for you to have knee bones or neck giblets? Why not do all the bones and stuff a la cart? And then maybe skin can be a premium add-on. We could charge separate for the red goo that's all on the inside everywhere, and then it's like a subscription model for having parts. We can sell it like "don't pay for the parts you don't have," and people will think that they are saving money because each part costs less than the whole, but paying for everything costs more.
-some Health Insurance board member somewhere, probably.
I think there’s better and less racist ways to get your point across here
Edit: my mistake I confused this story with another one that was about mismanaged offshore labor.
How this Microsoft-backed billion-dollar London startup made 700 engineers sitting in India pose as AI tool
Tech News : Builder.ai, once valued at $1.5 billion and backed by tech giants, has filed for bankruptcy after being exposed for misleading investors about its AITOI Tech Desk (Times Of India)
Not racist: “A company was claiming a super smart AI was making decisions but it turned out to be a bunch of people in India doing all the work”
Racist: “haha I bet the AI is really good at phone support because it’s powered by Indians”
‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis
‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis
Unusually aggressive lone star ticks, common in the south-east, are spreading to areas previously too cold for themOliver Milman (The Guardian)
Central banks rush to gold as fears of US dollar crisis mount
Macroscope | Central banks rush to gold as fears of US dollar crisis mount
Central bank gold holdings are now back to where they were in the 1960s, before gold went out of official fashion.Anthony Rowley (South China Morning Post)
Velázquez Leads 'No Masks for ICE Act' Rally at NYC Field Office | Common Dreams
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/32488116
Jessica Corbett
Jun 28, 2025"As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works to deliver on Republican President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations, federal agents, including those with ICE, have taken immigrants into custody while wearing masks and plain clothes—sparking alarm over abuse by anonymous agents and also copycat criminals.
Velázquez's bill would bar ICE agents from wearing facial coverings during immigration enforcement, unless medically necessary or required for safety. It would also require written justification for any mask use, agents to wear clothing displaying their name and affiliation with ICE, and DHS to report annually to Congress on any related complaints and disciplinary actions."
Velázquez Leads 'No Masks for ICE Act' Rally at NYC Field Office | Common Dreams
Jessica Corbett
Jun 28, 2025"As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works to deliver on Republican President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations, federal agents, including those with ICE, have taken immigrants into custody while wearing masks and plain clothes—sparking alarm over abuse by anonymous agents and also copycat criminals.
Velázquez's bill would bar ICE agents from wearing facial coverings during immigration enforcement, unless medically necessary or required for safety. It would also require written justification for any mask use, agents to wear clothing displaying their name and affiliation with ICE, and DHS to report annually to Congress on any related complaints and disciplinary actions."
Velázquez Leads 'No Masks for ICE Act' Rally at NYC Field Office
"When agents hide their faces and identities they create chaos, fear, and open the door to abuse. Immigrant communities are left wondering if they're being arrested or kidnapped."jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)
Velázquez Leads 'No Masks for ICE Act' Rally at NYC Field Office | Common Dreams
Jessica Corbett
Jun 28, 2025
"As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works to deliver on Republican President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations, federal agents, including those with ICE, have taken immigrants into custody while wearing masks and plain clothes—sparking alarm over abuse by anonymous agents and also copycat criminals.
Velázquez's bill would bar ICE agents from wearing facial coverings during immigration enforcement, unless medically necessary or required for safety. It would also require written justification for any mask use, agents to wear clothing displaying their name and affiliation with ICE, and DHS to report annually to Congress on any related complaints and disciplinary actions."
Velázquez Leads 'No Masks for ICE Act' Rally at NYC Field Office
"When agents hide their faces and identities they create chaos, fear, and open the door to abuse. Immigrant communities are left wondering if they're being arrested or kidnapped."jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)
More than half of Ukrainians support finding compromise in war, 20% support continuing the fight
More than half of Ukrainians support finding compromise in war, 20% support continuing the fight
Almost 56% of Ukrainians are in favour of seeking a solution through compromise with the involvement of international leaders in order to end the war. Almost 17% of Ukranians are in favour of a temporary freeze of the war, and 21.Iryna Balachuk (Ukrainska Pravda)
.ua
domain is owned by. Absolutely hilarious how fascists are invariably the most ignorant people on the fediverse. 🤡
.ua domain
covering your bases by owning multiple URLs in different domains is called being thorough. There also exists gazeta-pravda.ru, pravda.sk/, pravda.com.ua/, main.pravda.rs/, and many others.
Pravda .ru is not the same as the pravda.com.ua
Ukrainska Pravda (Ukrainian: Українська правда, lit. 'Ukrainian truth') is a Ukrainian socio-political online media outlet founded by Heorhii Gongadze in April 2000.... In May 2021, the publication’s new owner became Tomas Fiala, CEO of Dragon Capital.Dragon Capital is a Ukrainian group of companies in the field of investment and financial services, offering a comprehensive range of products in equities and fixed income sales, trading and research, investment banking, private equity, and asset management to institutional, corporate, and private clients. It was founded in 2000 in Kyiv... It is also the owner of news media holdings in Ukraine — Ukrainska Pravda and The New Voice of Ukraine.
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This is all from that same site. Is all of this also "Russian propaganda"?
This is the equivalent of calling Haaretz an "anti-semitic source"
NGO Ukrainska Pravda
Vyacheslava Lipinskogo, 9, Kyiv, Ukraine, 01030
Researching making the switch from Windows on my main PC and I have questions.
This PC is basically my life, I use it for work (freelance business), entertainment, and to self host a server so I'm hesitant. I have a handful of questions for now while I look into it more:
- I'd prefer not to dual boo, but it might be the safest way to start? If I dual boot, get used to Linux and (hopefully) get everything I need working, can I then go from dual boot to erasing the Windows partition and recombining so I then only have Linux installed and can keep the work and programs I already installed on Linux?
- I do voiceover work, music production, and digital art/photography. Anyone else here do all this and what programs would you recommened to replace Audition, Photoshop, and Cubase?
--2.1. Regarding music production, has anyone successfully used vst files from Windows on Linux?
- The drives for my server are NTFS. Does anyone have experience with this format on Linux (I use Emby)?
- My bread and butter right now is voice acting so I NEED everything to play nice. I've read there might be some issues with drivers for my hardware, namely Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 and Behringer UV1. Anyone have any experience with this?
EDIT: Wow that's a lot of responses. I'd like to respond to each but I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the info haha. I think I'm gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out. Thanks to everyone, I've got a tonne to mull over now. Appreciate it!
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I’d prefer not to dual boo, but it might be the safest way to start? If I dual boot, get used to Linux and (hopefully) get everything I need working, can I then go from dual boot to erasing the Windows partition and recombining so I then only have Linux installed and can keep the work and programs I already installed on Linux?
My personal experience says: try dualbooting first, because it will make you to have a working machine continuously. Taking into account that all Linux-based OS behave vastly differently from MS Windows, it is possible to break things, when learning a new way of doing things.
The drives for my server are NTFS. Does anyone have experience with this format on Linux (I use Emby)?
I've been using an external NTFS drive for compatibility and big files storage: works as charm. The worst case scenario is you will need to install an ntfs-3g
driver, although it is usually included with the distro.
As for production: I don't have much experience with that, although I can recommend you looking around tooling that solves the problem. You will need quite a bit of patience and trying things, because switching platform will definitely require you to make some shifts in usual processes you have now. Don't expect things to be obvious 100% replacement: unfortunately lots of people have this expectation, and get frustrated.
As for hardware, just looking the model up on the internet with adding "linux", or "ubuntu", or "fedora" should do the trick of figuring out if it will work.
Quick response:
- Yes, what you suggest is possible, but just be careful to backup your data. Burn the
Gparted
ISO onto a USB and then boot from it. You will then be able to use this tool to delete the Win partition and resize the Linux one.
For complete peace of mind in case something goes wrong, I suggest usingCloneZilla
to create an image of the drive for backup purposes before messing around with the partition. Of course, you will then need a spare internal or external drive of the same size, or larger, onto which you will save the image...
Grub will easily cope when the Windows partition is removed, but I also suggest installingRefind
, which provides a nice interface at boot-time to choose which system to use and also recognizes any changes when partitions are added or removed. You should find the package in the repositories of most distros. - I cannot help with this.
- Linux can handle NTFS. On my Linux server I used Samba to share files on NTFS drives over the network because those drives were removed from my Windows PC at the time . Most Linux distros will handle Samba shares through the
CIFS-utils
package.
I read that there is no great performance loss between sharing Linux's EXT file system over a NFS network share from a Linux box , and NTFS over a Samba network share from a Linux box, but there is one potential issue as I see it: Linux distros do not have the tools to check NTFS drives for errors. Therefore, if a powercut was to happen, then you may then have to remove the NTFS drives from your Linux machine and go find a Windows machine to check the disks and correct any errors. I coped with this for a few years before deciding to create new EXT4 partitions and copy the data across from the NTFS partitions. I recommend that you employ a similar migration strategy. - I cannot help with this.
Good luck! The learning curve is steep and somewhat mindblowing, but very satisfying too - and you'll maybe catch the Linux server admin bug (disease?) and want to go deeper into that rabbit hole....
- Dual boot should be ok. If and when you decide to fully switch, I'd say it's better to do a reinstall. Messing with partitions always comes with disclaimers. A bit advanced topic if you are interested: when you resize partition usually data needs to be moved, depending what you do with it, so it will wear your ssd; also you should be aware that you must install windows first, Linux second because windows doesn't really play well with others and be sure NOT to format EFI partition when installing Linux.
You have alternatives to dual boot: VMs. Run Linux on bare metal, then boot up a VM if you need something only windows can provide. Gnome has a new VM tool incoming.
- No idea for audio, but Photoshop has alternative, gimp. Wether you like it or not, it's another story (people I know really really hate that one). For digital art there is a tool called Krita that runs on kde. People really enjoy using it.
- NTFS has one thing that Linux doesn't really like - it is case insensitive. Linux normally works with case sensitive filesystems. There was recently a rant by the Linux overlord about case insensitive filesystems, so you might want to stay clear of it. It's ok to use it on a thumb drive though.
Edit: minor typing fixes
I would dual boot first. I'm doing that myself at the moment with Pop OS. I disconnected my existing drives leaving just the drive I'd install Linux to. Ran the installer, then reconnected. I hit f12 at boot to select startup. I did this to avoid dealing with grub or messing with the windows bootloader. I haven't had good experiences with it in the past.
My biggest problem with trying Linux at the moment is I have a USB audio mixer that Linux refuses to enable. I can tell it sees it, it just won't list it as a selectable audio device or send audio through to it. So I have no sound.
There is software for all your uses on linux, but I would start by using those apps on your current setup to get used to the workflow.
Changing from windows to linux can be really tough but it can be made a lot easier if you are already using programs that work on linux before you switch.
+1
I learned Inkscape / Scribus / Krita (which was not easy after 15+ years hooked on Adobe BS) while still on Windoge, had used Linux before so the switch was really painless.
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- Definitely dual boot, especially if you're new to linux, and double-especially if this is what you use for work. You are likely to run into situations where shit just doesn't work and you need a fallback environment to operate in while you figure out what that's about and how to fix it. Likewise, you will run into software that runs badly on linux or just doesn't run at all even under wine/VM, and it will be nice to have that fallback for when you don't have time to fuck around and figure out what the problem is and need to just get shit done. If things go well you will find very quickly that you don't need it and can probably go ahead and delete it after a little bit, but at first you want that lifeboat. Mine stuck around for 2 weeks, but I only even used it the first couple days and the rest was 'maybe I'll run into some weird situation...' and just not needing it. As for merging the partitions and such, I believe that's possible, but you definitely want to make sure you have backups before you try it just in case. There are many good cloud backup services that have linux native clients (I use filen.io myself.)
- I've never even touched music software so I have no idea what's out there. I do however know about a great website called alternativeto.net that lets you find alternatives to existing software, and you can select your platform to limit it only to linux software. For example, here's the entry for linux-native replacements for Cubase (it was the obscure one from my perspective, wanted to see if they actually had anything, turns out they do.)
- Yes, NTFS generally works mostly fine on linux, though there are a couple of weird cases where it causes problems (one I ran into was adding games I had installed on an NTFS drive for windows to Steam on linux, it was very wonky.) After nuking my windows boot drive I went through and copied all the stuff off my NTFS drives and reformatted them to btrfs before putting the data back on them to ensure that everything would work smoothly, but if you're just using it for regular file access you should be fine. The one caveat I would add is I would probably not recommend editing large projects in files on NTFS drives in linux if you can avoid it, but poke around google and see if you can find people reporting issues with your specific software/use-case to see if there are any problems with it.
- Drivers for weird hardware are potentially an issue. Looks like there is a FOSS driver for the Scarlett, didn't see anything at first glance for the Behringer, but also again I have no idea what I'm looking at here so this is something you're going to have to do some research on. I have had some weirdness with audio in general on linux, things cutting out unexpectedly, stuff like that, but that's strictly games/discord/that sort of thing, so it might be worth looking for stuff other people have posted about doing heavy audio work on linux to get an idea for what to expect. I'm sure it can be made to work, but it might require more fiddling than you expect.
Either way, welcome to the party. 😀
Support for Focusrite Scarlett audio interfaces on Linux
If you’re into music creation, chances are you’ve heard of Focusrite Scarletts—they’re practically a staple in the industry. But here’s the kicker: while they’re adored by many, official support from Focusrite is limited to Windows and Mac users.Raffael Rehberger (🤬 blog.rtrace.io)
Actually the safest thing is probably to choose a main system and run the other in a VM like with VirtualBox. For you, you could just install VirtualBox on Windows then Linux inside of a VirtualBox VM. Windows does have a builtin Virtualization solution too you may be able to use, but I have personally never done that. Keep in mind too that VMs are not as performant as bare metal. For video probably NO, for images fine, for audio maybe but you'll have to see if you get the real-time timing you need in a VM. Good way to play in any case. 2nd best if you have a workstation, not a laptop, you could put in a hot mount SATA drive enclosure, and just swap in the drive you want and get full bear metal performance. Dual boot takes some tech skill. Be sure to back everything up if you do that. Should do that anyway before fiddling. Also if you use bitlocker and secure boot make sure you have all your recovery keys and know how to work with your bios settings too.
Maybe I am missing something, not sure why you care about NTFS. If this is a separate computer you don't really care about that, just the sharing protocol (SMB for example). If it is on the main box, then you'd probably convert this to Ext4 or something similar. No reason to stick with NTFS with Linux. There are a lot of great FS options on linux plus BTRFS, LVM, or RAID to if you want redundancy.
Regarding apps. The alternativeto site is great. Linux has a bunch of audio and photo software. If your a pro, you may not find any of it sufficient. Especially a lot of people cannot do without Photoshop. The common quoted photo programs are GIMP and Darktable. There are many other photo and image programs. Common audio program is Audacity. Again, there are many others. Looks like some handle vst but I have no personal experience.
"This PC is basically my life" screams leave well enough alone. I wouldn't even set up a dual boot on a machine I depended on to make my living. If you do, make sure you've got everything backed up before you start. Nothing should go wrong, but that's a very different statement than nothing will go wrong.
If you want to start using linux I'd recommend you buy a cheap second computer and start there. You can safely experiment as much as you like without risking your professional set up.
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I'm an ex-Windows user and have been using Linux for about 7-ish years now.
If you can handle some downtime, the possibility of some plugins breaking and some time getting used to your new system, you can give it a shot. Otherwise, what I'd more or less recommend is getting a spare computer and just trying Linux out on that. That way you can keep your work computer for critical work while you mess around on the spare.
I checked Cubase on WineHQ, and sadly it won't run via WINE from what I see, so you will either have to look for a different DAW (which will require extra time re-learning everything) or just going with a spare).
If you do plan on biting the bullet and going full Linux on your work machine, here's a couple observations:
The only Windows DAW i've tried on Linux is FL Studio running through WINE. I do have REAPER for aligning audio tracks (it's very good at that) but I haven't really used that enough to become proficient with it. There's also Bitwig, which I haven't used (I checked the price on that when i was kinda on the fence about getting it and oh boy is it expensive! around $800 with the annual upgrade or smth lol).
From my experience, VSTs via WINE (in my case, running through FL Studio 24.2.1), is quite good, although there are is a good bit of jank that comes with it (a few 32-bit VSTs don't work, it's a bit of a gamble honestly) and there are bound to be a couple potential breakages with WINE updates (like what happened today as I'm writing this, I updated WINE and idk if it's just a residual thing but the GUIs on GVST plugins don't render anymore, I can still access the parameters via hovering and looking at the hints panel in FL Studio, but it is a bit cumbersome trying to operate VSTs blindly, especially when they contain things such as waveforms/levels).
Other than that FL Studio's been running like a charm, very very close to (if not native), except for stuff like the Diagnostic thingy not working at all (told you there's jank).
As for replacements, you will need to learn new programs, one which may not contain all the features that you would want (muscle memory can also be a bit of a pain). I'd start out with maybe trying out Audacity and GiMP/Krita on Windows and try learning and getting used to the workflow of each on your existing Windows installation before swapping over. I was using FOSS programs like GiMP/Audacity beforehand so the transition was easy once I swapped over. FL in WINE back then was a little more finnicky but most of it still worked so it kept me going.
If you're still thinking about wiping Windows off of there and going full Linux, good luck, my friend.
I think I still have an 8 track key I can give some one if they dm me.
I'm going to second the comment to leave well enough alone. Do NOT mess with your machine if its what makes you money.
I know you commented you don't have funds for a second computer to test with but that really is the best step for you.
This is especially regarding some of your other details. You are not in for a quick and smooth transition (sorry to say).
VSTs are "sort of" supported on Linux. Basically they're not and there are work arounds that I haven't done using wine for compatibility.
I run a virtual machine for the windows software I am reliant on. So basically my Photoshop etc I use Affinity in a windows VM and it works fine. Depending if you get intensive with your work you might need a lot of resources or experience lag. But for the most part it should be fine.
Look into virt-manager for your VM if you want to go that route.
Besides the VST issue, audio recording will probably give you additiinal problems. I haven't delved into it because he rabbit hole went too deep for me, but from what I've read there tends to be issues with audio in VMs (tremendous lag for one).
But all that being said, there should be a solution for all of your needs. It probably won't be straight forward though given your use cases. I don't want to sound negative with my warnings, I just want to make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot with your work.
Buy | Bitwig
Buy Bitwig Studio, Producer, or Essentials. Upgrade or renew your license and find the version that's right for you.www.bitwig.com
Ok so I'll just focus on dual booting since there are other thorough replys here.
I really recommend that you DO dual boot but only in a specific way.
When people say "Dual Boot", this can mean two very different things.
A common way to dual boot is to have windows and Linux exist on the same drive by partitioning the drive and installing a boot manager. I strongly advise against this. It's not worth the risk and pain.
Just install linux on a totally new drive and select it as the boot drive from bios. Leave you windows drive untouched.
Linux is much better than it ever has been. There is a very good chance it can do everything you want. But, especially as someone running a business, there will be times when you just need to get something done and will want to fall back to what you know. These times often lead to people giving up and rolling back to windows in a panic.
Just leave yourself a way to instantly and effortlessly fall back into windows as needed and eventually you will end up doing that less and less. Until you don't do it at all and the windows drive gets wiped for more Linux storage.
I was going to suggest something similar. Basically, unplug the windows drive entirely, install linux on a dedicated drive. Then plug them both in and use the bios to decide which one to use. Basically don't have them interact at all. That way, worst comes to worst, you can boot into windows exactly as it is.
If this was a personal machine you use for recreation, I would fully support just dropping windows entirely. But no matter how much I want to support a fellow Linux convert, if you make your livelihood from this computer, I wouldn't risk any downtime that costs you money.
I think I'm gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out
Just keep in mind, in such a case, that your performance will be quite reduced due to limits on I/O. When you have Linux on a real drive - especially a striped RAID, the system is blazing fast. It’s a substantial difference you should keep in mind when evaluating.
You could acquire a pretty cheap PC for Linux it runs on a potato. Try an electrical scrap heap nearby that you can fossick from or a friend with an old, unused system in storage (even a cheap $20 retro PC from your local marketplace?) to acquire an old retro system. You might not even need a new screen depending what connections your existing screens/TV has and if you could use a cheap adapter and cable from the thrift store.
Linux runs on basically any retro PC and laptop excluding some annoying wifi chips that need planning before the install if you don't have ethernet. Some really old tech may also require specific distributions that still offer support too.
Machines with a 32bit CPU you will want to confirm beforehand if your chosen distribution still offers a supported 32bit install image and retro PC's with obscure expansion cards that perhaps were never supported. This is likely moving into vintage collectors territory though and you would have to be pretty lucky now to find a machine like that super cheap and working.
Solved: Any desktop environment or WM with configurable placing/opening of windows?
When using TMUX, it is easy to create a script, which opens TMUX, configures the screens/panes of TMUX and open/run programs.
I like this a lot.
My baseline would be something like, when I login, some applications are executed and their windows automatically placed on a virtual desktop.
For example:
- Open Firefox and put it on virtual desktop 1
- Open Terminal in fullscreen and put it on virtual desktop 2
- Open VSCode and put it on virtual desktop 3
Something like that is possible with sway, in the environment I am working, sway is not able to run XWayland applications w/o crashing.
Is there any way to have this functionality on Gnome, Mate, Xfce?
Even better would be something to open several windows and arrange them automatically for different work tasks/projects I am working on. Any ideas?
Edit: Solved! Thanks for the input. Auto Move Windows extension for Gnome solves my problem.
KDE window rules can do this natively
Hyprland window rules can also do this natively
Gnome can also do this with extensions as mentioned
Herbstluftwm. It's one of the main reasons I use it.
You can run commands on the command line to create your layouts for one or more desktop (tagged spaces), assign programs to appear on tagged spaces, and then run the programs. Put it all in a shell script and hlwm runs it when it starts.
I use xtoolwait for programs I want multiple windows on different desktops for, like terminals.
I have three monitors; one is a status window, and the other two are grouped together in 8 different tags. Mod4+9 focuses the status screen, Mod4+[1-8] switch the other two monitors in sync to the other workspaces. It's all set up when I log in, including the creation of several terminals each running tmux from sessions restored by trum-session. The only thing I have to do is enter a password to unlock my secrets so background processes can start doing their thing.
cmgvd3lw
in reply to jacksquat • • •Ulrich
in reply to jacksquat • • •slackness
in reply to jacksquat • • •TLDR; risks far outweigh the benefits. See bottom of response for recommendations.
Should you use it?
Zen will be able to decrypt and analyze your entire traffic. And then it'll encrypt what it allows before letting it leave/enter the device. This means even if you trust Zen, that one certificate is the only thing standing between your traffic staying encrypted. It gets compromised, you're compromised.
Do not trust an app with your entire traffic, ever. Even if its not malicious there are going to be bugs, vulnerabilities, leaks, etc.
Moreover, something being open source does not mean its audited by people who know what they're doing - neither for hidden malicious code or mistakes. I did not see any formal audits being mentioned in the readme.
grapheneos.org/faq#ad-blocking…
What can you use instead?
You should instead use ublock in the browser and system wide DNS blocking on your device. You can use an adblocking public DNS server (e.g. Mullvad) or setup pihole locally. You do not have to self host pihole, you can just set it up on your computer and use on that device only which would be the same thing as using Zen on that device.
Note that using a public, blocking DNS will block less domains because they have to make sure it does not break anything for anyone but it will make you less fingerprintable. OTOH, using a custom blocklist you can get the most out of blocking but you're probably the only person blocking that specific subset of domains which will make you more fingerprintable. Take your poison.
What about content filtering on desktop/mobile apps DNS blocking cannot solve
DNS blocking merely stops the application from accessing certain domains. It won't be able to block malicious content served from the same domain as the content you actually need (e.g. YouTube serves both ads and videos from the same domain so you can't block their ads without blocking the video itself).
You should not install applications you don't trust on your device and use them on the browser as much as you can or use and alternative FOSS frontend (e.g. Reddit, Discord, YouTube etc.)
But some applications might be circumventing system DNS
Yes, there's nothing stopping an application from doing its own DNS resolution or using hardcoded static IPs. You should not run applications trying to be actively malicious in this way. Neither Zen, nor anything else will be able to protect you from untrusted code doing suspicious things on your machine.
GrapheneOS Frequently Asked Questions
GrapheneOSjacksquat
in reply to slackness • • •Zerush
in reply to jacksquat • • •Anyway it's always good to use this and similar apps on the PC, in Mobile maybe InVizible Pro (F-Droid version please).
Safing Portmaster - Easy Privacy
safing.ioignJojo
in reply to jacksquat • • •