derek

That's a fair take. Silver Blue is great and, in the spirit of the thread, if I were helping an interested but hesitant lifelong Windows/Intel/Nvidia user migrate to Linux today I would:

1. Buy them a new SSD or m.2 (a decent 1tb is ~$50 & a good one only ~$100).
2. Have them write down what applications, tools, games, sites, etc they use most often.
3. Swap their current Windows OS drive with the new drive and, if needed, show them how and why that works or provide an illustrated how-to (so this choice is not a one-way street paved with anxiety. If they want to swap back, or transfer files, or whatever else; they can. Easily). Storage drives are just diaries for computers. The user should know there's nothing scary or mystical about them.
4. Install Fedora Kinoite on that new drive.
5. Swap them from Fedora's custom Flatpak repository to Flathub proper. A decision that should be given to the user on install IMO but I digress.
6. Install their catalogue of goodies from step 2 so they're not starting from scratch.
7. Install pika and configure a sane home directory backup cadence.
8. Ask them to kick the tires and test drive that Linux install for at least a month.

Kinoite is going to feel the most like Windows and, once configured, stay out of the way while being a safe, familiar, transparent gateway to the things the user wants to use.

My personal OS choices are driven by ideals, familiarity, design preferences, and a bank of good will / public trust.

I disagree with some of Red Hat's business model. I fully support the approach SUSE takes. I'm also used to the OpenSUSE ecosystem, agree with most of their project's design philosophies, and trust their intentions. I'm not a "fan" though and will happily recommend and install Silver Blue or any other FOSS system on someone's computer if that's what they want and it makes sense for them! Opinionated discussion can be productive and healthy. Zealotry facilitates neither.

That said: Aeon has been out of beta for a while. The latest release is Release Candidate 3 and they're closing in on the first full release. Nvidia drivers work after a bit of fiddling. 🙂

I'm going to edit my previous post to add the Kinoite suggestion for posterity's sake.

Check out Aeon and Fedora Silverblue. I'm installing Aeon on Desktops and MicroOS on Servers. My computer needs to be a reliable tool. Immutable distros make it exactly that.

The last thing I want to do in my free time or during my work day is be forced to fiddle with some poorly documented and/or implemented idiocy on my personal computer because I forgot to cast the correct incantation prior to updating something. I'm not a masochist.

EDIT To the hesitant but hopeful Windows+Nvidia user: give Fedora Kinoite a try. Check my reply to @independantiste@sh.itjust.works below for details.

I was taught something different growing up and had to check myself with a quick read. Holy shit. You're right. Thanks for sharing.

The right thing to do is offer a program to replace the battery. Even more right would be not designing anti-repairability into your products. 🙊

Throttling the processor to extend the life of the phone is a reasonable temporary alternative IF it's transparent and opt-in. Effectively forcibly downgrading the hardware spec of a device I own without even telling me is a serious breach of trust at the very least, no?

I agree the decision may have resulted in less e-waste but, even if so (and assuming all is well-intended), that can't justify hijacking consumer's belongings. That's a dangerous precedent to set.

That's not true for all sites. If the page is static then it'll have no clue. If it's dynamic and running a client-side script to report this info back, and if that information is collected, then I can see how that might be a useful supplement for fingerprinting if the server owner is so inclined. At that point though I'm wondering why a security-conscious user is raw dogging the internet and allowing scripts to run in their browser without consent (NoScript saves browsers).

Even then it's unclear when/how altering the page to render it differently is commonly communicated back to the server, how much identifying information that talk-back is capable of conveying, and how we might mitigate those collections (wholesale abstinence and/or script control aside). What are the specific mechanisms of action we're concerned about? This isn't a faux challenge for the sake of hollow rhetoric. I'm ignorant, find the dialogue interesting, and am asking for help being less dumb. :)

I found some brief and useful discussion in this Privacy Guides thread. Seems like the concern is valid but minimal for all but the most strict/defensive postures.

Trying to validate this myself for Dark Reader without breaking out Wireshark and monitoring some big tech site while I toggle color modes (which I might do later if I think of it and find the time) I see Dark Reader is open source, an Open Collective member, and seems to engender little hand-wringing. The only public gripe I can find is this misguided Orion Browser feedback thread.

Thanks for the interesting diversion!

How so?

Your closing sentence hints at the root of the misunderstanding here. It also fails to strengthen your initial claim at all. This study's Lay summary sets it out perfectly.

Many autistic individuals report feelings of excessive empathy, yet their experience is not reflected by most of the current literature, typically suggesting that autism is characterized by intact emotional and reduced cognitive empathy. To fill this gap, we looked at both ends of the imbalance between these components, termed empathic disequilibrium. We show that, like empathy, empathic disequilibrium is related to autism diagnosis and traits, and thus may provide a more nuanced understanding of empathy and its link with autism.

Autistic folks don't always exhibit the socially defined traits of autism. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, right? So while your [claim] [double-down] [pre-emptive concession] [claim] ends with a claim that's reasonable it is also fundamentally disconnected from the initial claim (which is, at best, half-true). Social and non-social traits are additional dimensions on a complex spectrum. Defining autism only by it's more visible / stigmatized traits perpetuates the false equivocations of abnormal with disordered and disordered with diseased.

Sent with love ❤️

This is admittedly a bit pedantic but it's not that the risk doesn't exist (there may be quite a lot to gain from having your info). It's because the risk is quite low and the benefit is worth the favorable gamble. Not dissimilar to discussing deeply personal health details with medical professionals. Help begins with trust.

There's an implicit trust (and often an explicit and enforceable legal agreement in professional contexts (trust, but verify)) between sys admins and troubleshooters. Good admins want quiet happy systems and good devs want to squash bugs. If the dev also dons a black hat occasionally they'd be idiotic to shit where they eat. Not many idiots are part of teams that build things lots of people use.

edit: ope replied to the wrong comment

I don't immediately disagree with this. Reactionary decisions breed instability and progress requires a foundation. Though with the Nation's already flawed fundaments being actively bulldozed I am compelled to ask: what calculated tactics may we reasonably trust are in play?

Biden has played politics well enough. I'll grant that. Especially while navigating the obscenely successful obstructionist Republican strategies which strangle the Legislature. The fact he's accomplished anything of note in this climate could reasonably be spun as impressive.

Is the bar for America's "left-wing" set so low, and the expectation they'll cow to corporate interest so common (and rightly so), that this spin, these accomplishments, are honestly lauded as the laurels on which the Biden administration may ride to a second term? Forgiving student debt. Ensuring fairer access to home loans. Expanding healthcare coverage for veterans. All good things! No doubt. Is it fair to expect the American people to think this is enough? While higher education, homes, and healthcare become increasingly accessible?

Addressing symptoms in this way placates the agitated while maintaining the status quo and setting precedent to, ostensibly, address root cause at a later time. It assumes that the wheel of progress turns slowly. That progress will win out if it is patient and persistent and noble.

The past twelve years have proven this is not so.

The religious right-wing has worked diligently over the last ~70 years to create the current theocratic zeitgeist on which the MAGA parasite is parading to victory. It is not a sudden and surprising uncoordinated incidental movement preying on the Bible belt's misguided moral anxieties. Haphazardly funneling the reactionary rhetoric of today into a Four Years Hate to seize power and further the ideology of Paul Weyrich. No. It is a dedicated effort. A calculated tactic. Others are replicating it and fascism is on the rise world 'round.

Successful opposition to the oligarchy-backed, well organized, long-planned, and now popular out and proud American fascist hate campaign will not be found in treating symptoms or placating concerned citizens or maintaining the status quo. What, then, is the Progressive answer? What tactic is the Biden Administration, or the Democratic Party, or anyone anywhere deploying that we should "grow the fuck up" and wait to see the impact of? Why should I, or any concerned citizen, trust that this is so?