If there’s any form of argument or debate, everyone cares about the correct spelling and grammar of their opponents.

What a lovely, fun little game! Thanks for sharing :)

When adults said things like “In this day and age, nobody says please and thankyou any more”, I misinterpreted “this day and age” as “The Stayan Age”, which was our current age, which obviously followed on from Bronze Age, Iron Age etc.

According to the best school playground scientists of the time, opening a packet of crisps upside down (i.e. so the branding/writing is upside down, and you open the bottom of the packet, at the top) actually “made you gay”.

It wasn’t just gay if you did it, but it would literally cause a spontaneous eruption of gayness in whoever did it - who would be permanently gay from that point onwards.

In the 1990s in the UK, it was gay to wear a backpack using both shoulder straps (as opposed to using one strap over one shoulder, which was the heterosexual way to carry things to school).

I genuinely didn’t realise that! It looked like they were missing, and just had the little nubs underneath.

Would you perhaps like to imagine they were missing, if only for the sake of my previous comment? :)

How often do you write the word “wads”? I can see a potential problem.

All three of ours play fetch, but only with specific objects. They’re all brothers about 2½ years old.

The tabby cat plays fetch with fluffy toy balls with feathers on them, the grey cat plays fetch with spare cat collars and the little black cat plays fetch with menthol sweet wrappers.

I miss lovely, earthy, warm, friendly chocolatey Brownbuntu.

I always felt purplebuntu was a bit vile.

I might be wrong, but wasn’t Movit just for timeline preview, and hadn’t worked properly for quite a few versions and now you just use the NVENC/VAAPI etc export profiles to export with GPU?

I’m sure it’s not possible for everyone - but I essentially did this some years back - though more with Premiere than Photoshop - and therefore more Cinelerra/Kdenlive than Gimp/Krita.

I ran a dual boot system from about 2008 until about 2015. If it could be done in Linux/FOSS, it was. If it couldn’t, it was done in Windows/Adobe software.

I was self-employed, though I often did subcontracting work for a handful of media/umbrella organisations - so sometimes I had to use Premiere or Sony Vegas to carry on half-done projects I was handed.

Bear in mind this was when you bought Adobe software and didn’t rent it - and you could also keep running an older version for years.

Anyway, over time I used the Windows partition less and less, until I got rid of it entirely when I got a new computer.

I had to work a bit harder one year, and I did miss out on a few projects - but mostly, I could do everything I could do previously, but it took a bit longer for a while until I adjusted to a different workflow.

After that, you’re just saying “That’s a £2000 job”, “That’s a £200 job”, and meeting a deadline. Nobody really cares if it took 7 minutes longer to do, and I saved a lot of time not using Windows any more.

Editing (and other design stuff) is a far smaller part of my overall work these days, but I still do a good chunk of projects over the year, and I’ve been 100% Linux for almost 10 years. No regrets.

To a degree, yes, but don’t expect magic. Some laptops have a waterproof membrane under the keyboard, so if you’re lucky, and it does, you may be able to just pop the keys off and dry the membrane out, and make sure no liquid creeps round the side into the electronics.

Otherwise you may have better odds if you open up the case and mop up any/all loose liquid you can get to with a microfibre cloth, as soon as possible, then try and let it air dry for a while.

A sealed bag with dried rice and your electronic object may absorb a bit of leftover moisture, but only to the extent that it will equal the moisture level in the sealed bag - the dried rice will gain a little extra moisture, the object will lose that bit of extra moisture.

Try to resist the urge to turn it on to check if it’s working until you’ve got all the moisture out.

It’s a good plan for a more professional setup, but in this distinctly unprofessional setup, if I did it remotely, I wouldn’t get my chat and a cup of tea and biscuit :)

I can’t personally, but I’ve installed/set up Linux systems for quite a lot of older people, and I think only one of them ever uses the terminal for anything. The rest just… use the computer.

On the whole, they’re pretty much just using Libreoffice, Firefox and a few other bits these days. If something needs the terminal to fix, we’re already past the point where they’ve phoned me to pop round and fix it.

These used to be Ubuntu systems, but I switched them all to Mint after having endless Snap permission problems with printers, USB sticks and other peripherals. Once up and running, it’s pretty low maintenance.

I guess they don’t need to use the terminal, because I’ll go and do it if it’s necessary - but we are looking at once every few years. Not a lot of tech support needed.

On my own machine, I probably use the terminal every day.

You’re totally right for brand new kit, but for older kit I’ve found that’s swung hard in the opposite direction.

For example, I was trying to help someone at the weekend setting up some old audio kit, a few printers and a slide scanner on their mac system, and it was a nightmare, and half of it’s still not working.

You’re constantly getting stuck with "this device only works with these 3 versions of this software and those versions of software only works on these versions of MacOS and these versions of MacOS only work with these models of Mac.

When I tested the devices on my laptop (Linux Mint), everything was detected instantly and worked with several different pieces of software (at least as far as you can test in a few minutes).

As said, I get that’s not the case with newest kit, or kit that requires special proprietary software, but for a lot of older equipment, I absolutely can’t fault it.

Do you know any of the following:

• what’s the WiFi card in it?
• what’s the laptop?
• what kernel version are you using?

For an easy GUI way to find these, you can go to the

bottom-left menu > administration > system reports

Then go to the System Information tab.

You should have the kernel i.e. 6.3.0-39-generic at the top

Scroll down, and under network you should have something like Device-1 Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 - that’ll be the WiFi card.

In case you didn’t know, the Kernel contains drivers for things like WiFi and other devices.

An older kernel tends to be more stable (the bugs have been fixed) - but it cannot contain the drivers for devices that didn’t exist at the time.

By default, Mint is likely using the kernel 5.15, from 2022. If your WiFi device is newer than 2022, it won’t work yet. However, you can install a newer kernel (mine, above is 6.3.0). I had to do this to get the WiFi working on my Thinkpad p14s. This is quite simple and safe to do, and completely reversible if there are problems.

There’s a chance if the WiFi card is particularly new or obscure, that it won’t work at all currently. We’re waiting on the company, or more likely a talented volunteer, to write the drivers.

In this case, you may need to buy a USB WiFi adapter, for example TP-Link USB Wifi. I had to do this with my Dad’s laptop recently. Within the next year, he probably won’t need it anymore, as the drivers for the internal one will likely exist.

My nose/sinus/throat is all very sensitive to perfumes and aerosols these days, and even if it’s not strong enough to close my throat up and choke me, it still tends to make me feel sick. I’ve not used any spray and rarely any smelly stuff for over a decade.

Most soaps and some shower gels are fine though, so there’s no problem with starting a day “clean”.

On the morning train, you can normally smell people who use deodorant instead of washing. It’s quite hard to describe - air freshener in a festival toilet? Artificial sweeteners on a stilton cheese? Anyway, if their perfume isn’t strong enough to physically harm me, I don’t care.

I used spray deodorants as a teenager, and unscented roll-ons for many years after - but after stopping using it, I found, like the couple you mentioned, that I didn’t sweat as much, and the sweat that was there didn’t smell as bad. Oddly enough, anecdotal evidence suggests my natural smell increased my attractiveness quite significantly. Of course, all of these may have just been coincidental factor of age/hormones/circumstances etc though.

I was a bit paranoid for some years, and always asked/checked with trusted people “do I smell?”. I found I can smell myself when I do.

My work is sometimes quite physically demanding, so during the ~two months a year when it’s potentially warm (Northern UK), you can get a bit sweaty - but so is everyone else. If you really feel the need, a quick armpit wash in a sink at lunchtime, or a “festival shower” with a wet-wipe would sort that out.

Anyway, so the rough answer is “There is less body odour. You get used to what’s there. Most of it smells quite pleasant, sometimes even to the extent of it being animalistically magnetically attractive”

Yeah, you just have to wait it out for a few years. Can’t be long before it moves back to new variants of straight, loose, baggy, bootcut and flared and that sort of thing etc. I’m stocking up next time.

I would probably be the same, had I been born 5 years earlier or later, and hit a different part of the skintight/baggy cycle.

“Skinny” jeans, or other skintight trouser variations. Been a fad four times during my life, I think. Somehow manage to be slightly more ridiculous each time.

[Edit]Also “shellsuits”, the crinkly, extremely flammable alternative to the already-vile tracksuit.

Kriss Kross will make you jump! jump!

Not quite sure what you’re after - but on the off chance, I’ll mention LMMS, as I don’t think it’s already been mentioned amongst the other audio software.

Website here: LMMS

Well, every now and again, someone needs to post on the reddit one saying “look at them misidentifying a thing on Lemmy”.

They’ll either be genuinely helpful types, and join us to help out, or they’ll be “someone is wrong on the internet” types, and join us to be correct.

Obviously I have no idea if this would work in practice.

I guessing I should have checked again before posting! Thank you :)

whatisthisthing

Bear in mind that most of what is written above also applies to PopOS - except for the desktop environment being Gnome 3’s “Mac-like” rather than Cinnamon’s “Windows-Like”. There’s a few cool little adjustments to both, but this preference may have the biggest impact.

You can always test a “Live USB” of both, which allows you to load the OS directly from a USB stick, without installing anything - to test which seems right (and the same applies to any other distro anyone mentions in the thread). I’m pretty sure a ten minute test of each would give a sufficient amount of “Hmm, that’s cool” / “Huh, that’s weird” to help things along :)

I’m sure you’ll get 20 different recommendations, but if you’d like another one, I’d agree with your original suggestion of Linux Mint.

For someone who’s familiar with Windows, they should be able to pick up and use it immediately, it uses the easy to understand traditional desktop visual language, menu bar etc.

As an Ubuntu based OS, you’re giving yourself access to a lot of very user friendly forums etc - the vast majority of what applies to Ubuntu applies to Mint. It’s currently very well supported based on its popularity.

I only steer away from Ubuntu itself because of the newer versions using non-traditional (perhaps Mac-like?) desktop visual language, and problems with Snaps (fonts, external drives, USB pens, cameras, printers etc not being visible).

Nvidia drivers are sorted during the install. You could happily use it for years without touching the terminal, as long as your install runs smoothly in the first place (wifi/touchpad/sleep etc) - though that should apply to any distro really.

Basically it should work, should be safe and comfortable, should be easy.

He’ll have a significantly easier time if he works with the idea that “Games = Steam. No other shop/launcher exists” (same for any distro).

I sometimes offer a little informal tech support to older/less computery people near where I live - Mint tends to be easily picked up and understood, and for most of them, it’s now a yearly check-up rather than a weekly panic :)

Not sure if it’s more suitable than what’s been suggested already, but I use Virtual Volumes View, an open source program to log/index my (disconnected) external drives and older hard drives.

I then keep the database/catalogue in a shared location I can check from my desktop/laptop.

They’d pick that up fine when you say “Ah use t’arch by t’way, annumavegan”. :)

I’d like to like Snaps, but the main thing that put me off them was their inability to see: • Fonts • Printers/Scanners • Other Internal Hard Drives (other than Home) • Cameras • USB Sticks • Anything in system folders • Other software, or plugins

This was when they were a pretty new thing though - so, fingers crossed, have they managed to deal with this permissions thing yet? Something like Flatseal, or Android’s “This program would like to access this folder and your camera - Allow/Deny”?

So any time someone posts the “I’d just like to interject for a moment…” speech, we should now copy and paste the “First of all, this copypasta has never been said…” speech in response, thus making the meme a) longer, b) interactive, c) technically correct?

She would be disappointed in how untidy my files are.

"Why is the final version of this project called “test1_b_new_reworked_draft_2_prefinal_dif_font_b_temp_FINAL.png”?

She would then forgive me because her filing is worse than mine.

It previously just showed a grey box to the right hand side, whereas now it shows a video thumbnail of the link.

Absolutely. It’s a shame that this has become so rare. Even the Framework laptop, which is put together in a modular manner, allowing pieces to be swapped in and out, doesn’t give the option of having a touchpad with actual buttons.

I could have a full rant about it, but based on their lack of availability, I suspect I’ve got a minority opinion.

I’m sure it’s not everyone’s reason, but mine was “Thinkpad still has physical left, right and middle mouse buttons”.

It used to be a beautiful, friendly shade of brown and orange, and now it’s a vile shade of purple.

Other than that, if you look at Linux Mint today, you get a rough idea of what it was like. An easy to use desktop, with menus and settings exactly where you’d expect them. It was relatively easy to install, with an easy to understand graphical menu guiding you through the process. It had sane defaults for everything. It was fast, stable and improving all the time. Most things just worked. It was fast and reliable compared to Windows XP/Vista.

Slightly “Rose Tinted Glasses” view of things, but essentially their slogan “Linux for Humans” was true. An inexperienced computer user or previous Windows user could pick it up and use it straight away. There was quite a lot of innovation towards user experience, in line with community wants, hopes and ideas. It was all about customising things to your own needs.

The change was essentially they innovated towards their own ideas and not those of the community. It was all about customising things to their idea of what things should be like.

They designed their own Unity desktop to replace Gnome, changed to a more obtuse “Mac-like” interface, removing menus, settings, options etc. They were trying for this cool “convergent” OS for seamless mobile phone and computer usage. This made a lot of compromises in desktop usability. They eventually binned the mobile phone thing and Unity, then tried to remake everything again in Gnome, but left all the weird defaults and missing options.

Then a few other things in a similar direction.

Then Snaps, but that’s its own story.

On the link for the wikipaedia "week"page, lower down, under “Christian Europe”, it mentions: “The seven-day weekly cycle has remained unbroken in Christendom, and hence in Western history, for almost two millennia, despite changes to the Coptic, Julian, and Gregorian calendars, demonstrated by the date of Easter Sunday having been traced back through numerous computistic tables to an Ethiopic copy of an early Alexandrian table beginning with the Easter of 311 CE.”

So I guess, Easter Sunday in 311CE, someone called a big meeting and said something equivalent to “Right lads? All agreed? Today is Sunday, everywhere. Got that? Go and tell everyone you know. We’re synchronising everyone’s calendars.”

Perhaps it’s been fixed since, but a this type of thing was the main issue with snaps to me:

“Why can’t the program see the printer? Ubuntu can see the printer”

“Why can’t I save to this USB pen? It can’t even see it”

“These two programs are meant to work together, but they can’t see each other”

“I can’t open my project from my external drive”

“It won’t let me import the photos from my camera. It can’t see the camera”

Would have been less of an issue if they had an android-style permissions pop-up with each incident, but snaps just left you silently failing.