It’s my opinion that most people think of all the technology as it were 15 years ago. Apple was innovative, Google wasn’t evil, Windows worked well, and Linux was not as accessible as it is today.

I had two bouts with Linux in the distant past, and neither time did I think Linux was anything worth pursuing. Not that it was bad, I just didn’t see a benefit over the alternatives. In fact the alternatives had all the benefits in my mind.

When I switched a year ago, I was blown away how far it had come as far as being accessible. Now I can’t imagine using Windows as my primary OS ever again.

Windows troubleshooting is always SFC and DISM as the new “have you tries turning it off and on again” default first recommended step lol.

I believe self hosting should be made easier. Definitely easier to understand.

If its not going to be that, then the opinion that people should self host is flawed. Not everybody can self host. They don’t have the knowledge or time to commit to it. So either it’s wrong to not have a better entry to them or it’s wrong to say they should self host.

I don’t self host much. What I do I keep with local access only. Why? Because while I’m no dummy, I also am very out of touch with modern tech and don’t have the time or energy to learn what I need to for it to be done right.

Thank you for the info.

Thanks for the info. Kind of confirms there are better ways about this that I should look into. But also confirms that it works well enough because sometimes I just want to play music on my TV as I do house chores.

Anybody using jellyfin for their music? I never tried it because some initial comments said it was bad, but it looks like they’ve been improving it.

I get your point, but the fact that the data is available elsewhere isn’t really an argument for allowing another vector to collect the data (and also cross verify it).

There’s more of an argument if there’s not really another choice, say buying a new car that doesn’t collect data isn’t really an option since they all do it on some level. You either buy a car or not.

But cameras there are options that are not cloud based. Safemo is probably the best comparable product to other WiFi cameras, and then there’s any NVR system. You can accomplish the same thing without much sacrifice or compromise.

Then there’s the its “fine” today but tomorrow things change… Like Ring now feeding images to Flock and their surveillance/facial recognition system.

So no, its not quite okay that “they already have my data from other places so it doesn’t matter”

Yeah, I always bring this up because it’s what I dealt with. Mind you, it was amplified because I set up a media server right away and got seriously confused.

What? Permissions don’t get inherited? OK fine, so how do you set permissions? This site says 755 and this site says drwxr-xr-x. Can’t I just get a straight answer?

It’s a fundamental functioning difference between the OS’s that not a lot of people talk about when talking about switching.

Even my Windows machine that is set up with an admin/user structure (as God intended) doesn’t give me any fuss with file access.

I find that one of the biggest differences is the file ownership/group design, and the non admin user. Sure, it might not come up in a straightforward manner, but it will.

Why do I need to put in a password all the time? How come I can’t just move this file to another drive?

This might be too “advanced” for what you’re looking for, but I think even basic usage comes across this.

I switched to Linux about a year ago. I was a windows power user and now I’m a Linux noob, but couldn’t be happier.

I hate to say it, but there’s still reasoning to have Windows. I use a VM with ameliorated windows running for the few things I can’t get away from.

For others, I tell them my story. Most people I talk to won’t or can’t make the switch, which I’m respectful of. To those that would benefit, I recommend at the minimum O&O Shutup but highly recommend ameliorated. This has been more welcomed.

People won’t care until they have a reason to care. I’ll still be around when they do.

Oh, good to know. I had no idea this was a thing.

Its pretty straightforward. You just need to have secureboot disabled in bios so a third party driver can load.

Graphene is more than easy. It’s a browser based install with a USB cable. It’ll take some time to read through and execute the steps, but at the core its like 15 minutes of real work.

I too thank you for the recommendation.

This is exactly why I don’t use it. I have a super tiny chance of getting somebody to message me on signal. I have zero chance of getting them to simplex.

Good call. I didn’t know that any banking apps were working with it at all, so good to know there are some. I also don’t know why I said that it didn’t support NFC as I did know it has it, but somehow in my mind payment platforms became the use case, and therefore not supported.

Both options are good. I think for the most part it boils down to wanting a single product or suite of products.

While you certainly can get just one proton service, the idea of having an easy entry point into multiple privacy focused solutions is what they are going for.

The pro argument for that is cheaper overall, simpler to get into and mange, etc. The con argument is an eggs in one basket philosophy isn’t ideal because you can have a single point of failure. This is all subjective to your personal threat model.

Welcome to the club. I switched about a year ago and its been fine.

Mind you, I was a windows power user and I Linux I’m just a below average minimalist user, but its been fine. Also mind you, I run a windows VM for some stuff I’m still tethered to (virt-manager is your friend if this is the case). But I have 3 machines in my house that are all Mint boxes and its smooth sailing.

There are some things I wish were different, but you need to choose your battles. Like I don’t want any kernel based anticheat on my system so those kinds of games I play on console if available, or don’t play at all.

As far as advice, part of what I like about Mint is their forum. Yes, you can always search and find answers but with so many variances between distros having a forum tailored to your specific OS is a nice perk. You will find a lot of answers there.

Hot tip: read up on file permissions, users and groups. Permissions aren’t inherited like they are in windows so that’s a mental adjustment you need to make.

You’ll probably pick up on the file structure fairly quickly. Though I didn’t unhide the hidden folders in my home directory because I needed to (I forger why but it came up)

And honestly, I’ve used an AI tool to help walk me through getting some stuff to work (somehow I broke my Samba sharing) so that’s always a resource to help guide you and troubleshoot.

Gotcha. So with a few exceptions they overall seem perform well across the board.

Once upon a time I dreamed of switching them all out for something better, and was actually looking forward to Tapo with matter support.

But for my uses I’m basically pulling the plug. My switches are smart enough. I can do schedules, profiles, and control with the app.

I don’t need more than that and there’s not really a privacy focused option as far as I know. Blocking internet is my solution to keep things contained.

Confirming that Graphene does not have NFC, and as such cannot support any payment system.

Edit: I stand corrected. GOS does have NFC but it’s the payment system hat needs to be compatible (and Google wallet is not)