https://github.com/neonwatty/meme_search

Linux, it fits my needs better on desktop, and is much less painful to troubleshoot than Windows, with more freedom and control than macOS.

Correct, Vector does not receive this information unless you willingly share it with them.

Element is able to use features called “Integration Manager” and “Identity Server”. When using an Identity Server, you can choose to link name, email, and phone number to your Matrix account. When using an Integration Manager, there’s a feature to share your location with others in chat.

As such, Vector discloses that they “collect this information”, although (except some diagnostics), this is completely optional.

(I am not associated with Vector, just interested in Matrix)

“clean driver install”, which heavily suggests you installed nvidia drivers, probably from the website. That issue is entirely on you.

Although “custom Windows ISOs” are a big security risk, AtlasOS isn’t a “custom ISO” and running a random binary off some guy on YouTube is arguably just as bad. He has next to no knowledge of Linux, neither do any other “Linux YouTubers”. Trusting someone like that with your Linux machine is risky at best.

Lets go through the summary and see if anything is wrong or misleading:

Linutil is a distro-agnostic toolbox designed to simplify everyday Linux tasks. It helps you set up applications and optimize your system for specific use cases. The utility is actively developed in Rust 🦀, providing performance and reliability.

• It is not distro agnostic. There is Arch and Fedora specific code, which are not separated into modules, but part of other scripts. Outside of the package manager, it also relies heavily on systemd.
• Installing “Diablo II Resurrected loot filters” is not an “everyday task”. A lot of other scripts are similar, very specific, “one time use” things, not “everyday tasks”.
• helps you set up applications, maybe, but only if you count running sudo pacman -S networkmanager as “helping”, even when it ignores existing network configuration.
• “optimize your system for specific use cases”, it does nothing of the sort. There’s no kernel parameter tweaking, no other cpu scheduler, no IO options being changed, or anything remotely similar.
• “The utility is actively developed in Rust” except for the ~70% that is shell scripts. (according to GitHub)
• “Providing performance and reliability”, which is not something that’s determined by the programming language.

So lets revise the short description, to exclude any incorrect/misleading statements:

Linutil is a toolbox. The utility is actively developed.

Alongside all that, the “installation instructions” include the biggest sin of all:

curl -fsSL https://christitus.com/linux | sh

TL;DR Never trust Chris Titus, or any “Linux YouTuber”, with your Linux machine. They do not know what the hell they’re doing.

mount -o remount,ro /

I think the last thing you’d have to worrh about is your job when nearly all infrastructure collapses.

Despite the downsides of F-Droid, there’s one thing they provide that other stores like Accrescent simply can’t. F-Droid provides APK builds with the exact source used for the build available. There’s a lot of trust involved, but this trust is in a single entity, rather than random developers. F-Droid has existed for a long time without adding malicious code to builds, so when they say “this source code produces this APK”, they have years of history doing exactly that to back their claim.

A random app developer has no such trust built up. Stores like Accrescent, even if you download only FOSS apps, trust the app developer with building apps. It’s less prone to one massive takeover, but APKs built by random devs are much harder to verify and check for malicious code than the source code. If F-Droid is taken over, it should be noticed relatively quickly, but affects everyone using F-Droid. If an app on Accrescent bundles malware, only users of that app are affected, but it may go unnoticed for a much longer time.

This person uses an 8GB mac, and tried to defend Apple in the debate, going as far as to say that Apple hardware is “not that expensive”, and within 2 months regrets buying the 8gb mac.

They think Open Source is “overrated”, insecure, and not important. They think Linux users are “normies” and fakers, Linux is not a desktop OS, and have explicitly stated “F*** LINUX”.

That’s a lot of terrible opinions in just 4 months, especially for someone who calls the internet “stupid”, and supposedly doesn’t have any education.

This is either a troll account, or someone with less than zero credibility considering their opinions and statements.

I don’t have a direct source other than the source code of the software they use: https://github.com/mautrix/signal

When using one of their “cloud hosted” bridges, the bridge software (that connects between Matrix/Beeper and other protocols) has to read all message content. Otherwise, it’s impossible to bridge to another protocol. E2EE becomes end (other users) to bridge (beeper) encryption.

With “local hosted” bridges, E2EE stays intact, but messages can’t be sent/received if the device hosting the bridge is unavailable.

In the future, with MLS (a different E2EE protocol), it could be possible to keep E2EE even when bridging to Matrix on cloud hosted bridges.

Depends on how it’s implemented. Anyone using a “media proxy” will see their discord bridged media probably fail to load (outside of possible caches) after a day. Anyone who has their bridge configured to reupload discord media to their homeserver should see no change.

You want a magic Discord speedboost? It’s called OpenAsar. Mitigates telemetry, and speeds the client up to usable levels, especially on lower end hardware.

I can personally vouch for how toxic the Discord server and its moderators/admins are. Went there for support (Hyprland was crashing on startup on AMD, sway worked fine), and was told something along the lines of “if you can’t figure this out you’re stupid and you should stop using Linux”. Figured out the issue on my own and stopped using and recommending Hyprland after that.

Not just the “lack of APKs”, but the lack of a FOSS build. As you noted, it is possible to instal an AAB by extracting the APK(s) inside, but that doesn’t magically remove non-foss libraries.

The only build is an aab file. This is a Play Store bundle file, not an APK, so not directly installable in Android without the Google Play Store.

The only build being a Google Play release also indicates that non-foss libraries were likely included, such as the FCM libraries, as is common for GPlay releases of otherwise FOSS projects.

As far as I’m concerned, Element X for Android is not available yet, unless either building from source (with modifications to included libraries), or by using a non-FOSS version from GPlay.

Your iPhone 13 syncs slower over USB because Apple decided to stay on Lightning connectors, which use USB 2.0 on the other end. Although FireWire was faster back when it co-existed with USB, the USB standard has surpassed it a long time ago with more power, faster speeds, and better physical connectors.

“Android” phones can sometimes have “close to mainline” Linux distributions flashed onto them. You can get some of those, used, for less than 100$.

A custom Android rom would provide you with a decent chunk of the freedom you want in a mobile device.

A phone specifically built for Linux, with as much as possible FLOSS firmware, will cost a lot more. The cheapest is probably the PinePhone.

What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

The whole point of EEE is to leave the original project in a messy state. With most of the fediverse userbase being “Meta Threads” users, developing anything for other fediverse software or making it somehow incompatible with Threads is not a (good) option. With a decent chunk of software and side projects being only compatible with the Threads “extended” (and likely undocumented) version of ActivityPub, Meta still has the ability to pull the plug on all of those. A lot of Mastodon users will become used to having interactions with friends on Threads, and will be forced to switch over by the time Meta kills federation.

It’s not just “a doom and gloom post”, it’s a valid concern that the communities and environments built up over years will get killed off, with a known strategy for doing so. Why else would Meta (Facebook) suddenly play nice with federated platforms, when their history is to buy out or kill off competitors?