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Linux on desktop is fine if you just need a browser, a media player and have basic office needs. ZorinOS is a neat Ubuntu derived distro that looks much like Windows. But then suddenly your grandma says she wants to use a specific windows only genealogy software. Nephew has got some niche usb peripheral with only Windows drivers and configuration software. Some streaming service's DRM doesn't let you watch in 4k. And it all starts falling apart.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:20
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It's gotten a lot better but for a long, long time, there weren't any easily digestible resources for how to do stuff in Linux. There were incredibly thorough and well documented wikis which basically meant trying to do something meant reading a wiki page and then going back and reading the three other wiki pages that were grounding knowledge and required steps before you could go ahead and do that thing. I had to switch to Linux for a year as a cheap solution after my computer died and had to get the cheapest refurb possible from an e-cycler. It was really neat but goddamn I did not have time for that poo poo on top of my uni classes and part time job. Probably a lot easier now, I've seen some pretty user friendly distros and youtube guides are a thing now. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 18:31
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Linux used to require being a huge nerd to get it working and I think it still has that reputation, even though there are distros (mint, ununtu) that definitely Just Work ™️ and have great broad plug and play driver support and stuff. I remember all the weird hacky poo poo i had to do to get my wifi card working on ubuntu 15 years ago and those days are long gone. But i think that reputation haunts it somewhat.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:56
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Flipperwaldt posted:Linux on desktop is fine if you just need a browser, a media player and have basic office needs. ZorinOS is a neat Ubuntu derived distro that looks much like Windows. ...Uncle needs to install Bonzi Buddy.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:02
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There's also the fact that you can't just call any relative under 40 when you can't figure something out. With Windows, pretty much everyone who knows about computers can help you. With Linux, you're stuck with the turbonerd who installed it for you for support. It's a minor thing compared to bundling and inertia, but it still applies. Like, my mother in law switched from Android to iPhone and she's been calling the entire family asking how to do stuff for a few weeks. That kind of change from Windows to Linux would get my brother in law a whole bunch of calls, and maybe me a few that I couldn't handle anyway. There's something to be said for standard issue stuff, even if the standard issue is quite bad.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:33
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I used Ubuntu for a few years and was pretty happy with it until I had to touch basically any file from anyone else. It was just kind of hacky and cludgey and not exactly right and god help you if you needed someone else to open one of your files. I might do it again one day just on an old laptop that sits in the living room but I won't do it again on my primary device.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:41
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I know there are e-bike and e-unicycle threads, but is there an e-scooter thread anywhere? Like, the ones you stand on, not the Vespa-style ones.
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Jul 28, 2023 02:29
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tuyop posted:Alright how does Mastodon work? How do I find where to go? I skim read https://blog.marcomaas.com/2023/01/11/welcome-to-the-fediverse-an-introduction-to-mastodon/ and it seems like a pretty good guide. https://fedi.garden/ seems pretty good for picking an instance to join. The tl;dr is that instances all talk to each other so it's not suuuuper important which you pick and you can move pretty easily, it's almost like picking an ISP.
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Jul 28, 2023 02:46
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abelwingnut posted:what's the biggest reason linux hasn't become more mainstream at this point? does it still have a lot of compatibility issues? no office/ms stuff? It's fine until you try to plug in your generic USB device that would just work on any random Windows system and have to spend 4 hours researching how to make that poo poo run on the "user friendly" version of Linux you have.
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Jul 28, 2023 03:29
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tuyop posted:Alright how does Mastodon work? How do I find where to go? Just go to mastodon.social, make an account, and treat it more or less like Twitter. The main difference you'll notice is that if you click on someone's profile and they aren't on mastodon.social, you can't just follow them or boost (retweet) their posts, because their server doesn't know that your account exists. You have to go back to your server (mastodon.social in this case), then paste their profile URL into the search box to follow them. The upside is that if some server owner suffers a case of Elon-brain, the rest of the fediverse can sever them from the system and carry on business as usual.
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Jul 28, 2023 04:33
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Ham Equity posted:I know there are e-bike and e-unicycle threads, but is there an e-scooter thread anywhere? Like, the ones you stand on, not the Vespa-style ones.
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Jul 28, 2023 11:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Just go to mastodon.social, make an account, and treat it more or less like Twitter. The main difference you'll notice is that if you click on someone's profile and they aren't on mastodon.social, you can't just follow them or boost (retweet) their posts, because their server doesn't know that your account exists. You have to go back to your server (mastodon.social in this case), then paste their profile URL into the search box to follow them. Thanks! The lack of search is kind of throwing me off here. Can you not just search for a hashtag or something? The relationship with other people on other servers was also confusing me so thanks!
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Jul 28, 2023 12:11
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Flipperwaldt posted:Linux on desktop is fine if you just need a browser, a media player and have basic office needs. ZorinOS is a neat Ubuntu derived distro that looks much like Windows. Are dual boots still a thing? I'm supper annoyed with Microsoft pushing all sort of stuff on me which I can't definitely decline, just until the next loading. And double gently caress them for showing me ads. So maybe a Linux boot for work - a browser, a media player and basic office needs - and a Windows boot for gaming and everything else?
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Jul 28, 2023 23:18
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Doctor Malaver posted:Are dual boots still a thing? I'm supper annoyed with Microsoft pushing all sort of stuff on me which I can't definitely decline, just until the next loading. And double gently caress them for showing me ads. So maybe a Linux boot for work - a browser, a media player and basic office needs - and a Windows boot for gaming and everything else? Yup. The installer for Ubuntu walks you through the steps to install it alongside Windows. My PC's bios actually has an option to enable a splash screen and choose the hard drive you want to boot to so that's another option if you want it on a dedicated hard drive.
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Jul 29, 2023 00:00
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tuyop posted:Thanks! The lack of search is kind of throwing me off here. Can you not just search for a hashtag or something? I don't search, myself, so I can't help you there, sorry. I would assume that any search functionality would be limited to searching a specific mastodon instance instead of the entire fediverse, though. E.g. searching only mastodon.social, and not seeing things on other servers.
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Jul 29, 2023 01:16
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Depending on which linux flavor you install you may have to go into your motherboard's UEFI settings and disable "secure boot" first. Since 2011 MS tried to kill dual booting by pushing manufacturers to implement this feature where their PCs will only boot into an OS that's signed by a "trusted third party" (i.e. primarily MS themselves). You can turn it off though, and some linux distributions have their own signed bootloaders that will still work with it turned on.
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Jul 29, 2023 01:19
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If you don't want to muck about with dual-booting, you can always run a virtual machine with the other OS. A virtual machine (VM) is essentially an entire "computer" that runs inside a window on your existing system. Ever used an emulator for an old video game system? It's exactly like that, except instead of a console it emulates a full PC and you can install Linux or Windows or whatever you want. Virtualbox is free for personal use and works extremely well. That's what I do -- I run Linux on my daily-driver posting station, but I have a Windows VM running in the background most of the time for when I need to do something on that OS. It can run in a window or full-screened (which works really well with dual monitors, I can have Linux on the left and Windows on the right) and it's just a matter of enabling the option to let the two share the copy/paste buffer or even move files back and forth with drag-and-drop. If you're willing to go slightly further into the weeds you can even have a USB device pass through to to the virtual machine -- I have a joystick set up like that for old flightsims on the Windows VM. There are a few caveats. If you want to use a VirtualBox VM as a server for anything, be prepared to do a bunch of manual network configuration to make it accessible from other computers. And performance will never be as good as it would be if it was installed directly on the hardware -- graphics performance particularly, since it's Very Complicated to let a VM use the GPU directly, so don't expect to do high-end 3D gaming on a VM. And the VM's RAM has to be provided by your computer's actual physical RAM, so if you have only 8 gigs and you start up a VM that you've given 4 gigs to, expect the whole system to feel the pinch until you turn the VM off again. Same goes for the hard drive space, although by default you don't have to block out the whole virtual hard drive at at the start; it'll only take up what's actually in use. As long as you bear all that in mind, VMs are a great way to try out different OSes or make disposable systems for testing stuff. And you're way less likely to somehow gently caress up your computer playing with VMs than you would be if you try to set up dual-booting for the first time. Setup of a new VM is stupid easy these days, you don't even have to run the installer yourself, you can just set everything up in the install wizard and it'll all run unattended on the first boot. (You do want to check the box to install the Guest Additions! That'll enable some very nice quality-of-life improvements like the virtual desktop dynamically resizing when you resize the window the VM is in.)  If you're curious, go install VirtualBox and download a Linux installer .iso file (Linux Mint is a good starter), then make yourself a VM. (And don't worry if you screw something up about a VM! They're easily made and casually destroyed.) The worst that could happen is you'll decide the whole thing isn't for you so you uninstall VirtualBox entirely.
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Jul 29, 2023 02:34
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Bucky Fullminster posted:A friend was given a set of Billiard balls, but they’re all purple, except for one black and the white. Someone in the r/Billiards subreddit who collects sets and has over 50 of them has never seen or heard of this, and neither had anyone else in there, so don't beat yourselves up btw
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Jul 29, 2023 04:14
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Someone in the r/Billiards subreddit who collects sets and has over 50 of them has never seen or heard of this, and neither had anyone else in there, so don't beat yourselves up btw It kind of sounds like a snooker set someone took the numbered balls out of.
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Jul 29, 2023 04:46
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:It kind of sounds like a snooker set someone took the numbered balls out of. But snooker doesn't have numbered balls! Or purple balls for that matter!
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Jul 29, 2023 04:59
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This plant volunteered in my extremely weedy front yard; anyone know what it is? It's maybe 4" tall. Location is the California coast, near-ish to San Francisco. Very mild, foggy climate.
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Jul 29, 2023 05:36
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Do architectural blueprints go out of copyright into public domain? If I wanted to build a copy of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, what are the legalities and process for that?
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Jul 29, 2023 09:39
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A friend of mine left this at my place. I assume it's some kind of marijuana device. How do I use it? 
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Jul 29, 2023 13:00
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man
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Stick it up your butt
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Jul 29, 2023 13:13
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:This plant volunteered in my extremely weedy front yard; anyone know what it is? It's maybe 4" tall. Looks like a species of chamomile to me. Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Jul 29, 2023 |
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Jul 29, 2023 14:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:This plant volunteered in my extremely weedy front yard; anyone know what it is? It's maybe 4" tall. My plant app says it is stinknet or globe chamomile, which is an invasive weed in California.
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Jul 29, 2023 15:45
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Humans calling anything “invasive” always gives me a giggle
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Jul 29, 2023 15:50
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Humans calling anything “invasive” always gives me a giggle Game recognizes game
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Jul 29, 2023 16:20
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dokmo posted:A friend of mine left this at my place. I assume it's some kind of marijuana device. How do I use it? On one end, there should be a spot where you can draw on it; I'm going to guess that's an autofire unit, so unless it's dead, you should be good to get wrecked
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Jul 29, 2023 16:53
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Douche4Sale posted:My plant app says it is stinknet or globe chamomile, which is an invasive weed in California. The flowers look right, but from what I'm reading, globe chamomile grows much taller than this stuff. Up to 2 feet, while mine is 4-5" tall counting the flowers. Maybe I got a dwarf variant or something?  EDIT: this PDF also notes that the leaves have a pungent odor, and my plant does as well, so this does seem like the most likely ID, despite the size differential. Thanks all! Guess I'd better go get a shovel and remove it 
TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 29, 2023 |
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Jul 29, 2023 17:39
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regulargonzalez posted:Do architectural blueprints go out of copyright into public domain? If I wanted to build a copy of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, what are the legalities and process for that? Copyright in the US currently lasts for an (insane) 120 years. It looks like Fallingwater was designed in 1935 so the copyright on the blueprints should lapse into the public domain in 2055. However, Disney pays lawmakers to bump the duration up again whenever mickey mouse is about to fall out, and mickey is about 7 years older than Fallingwater. So it might just stay out of the public domain forever.
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Jul 29, 2023 19:32
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:However, Disney pays lawmakers to bump the duration up again whenever mickey mouse is about to fall out, and mickey is about 7 years older than Fallingwater. They didn't do it last time and the oldest Mickey Mouse cartoons are entering the public domain next year.
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Jul 29, 2023 19:37
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regulargonzalez posted:Do architectural blueprints go out of copyright into public domain? If I wanted to build a copy of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, what are the legalities and process for that? The building was a one off design very specific to the site it is on, the blueprints wouldn't magically let you copy it. If you were super rich and owned a piece of land with a waterfall, I'm sure you could pay a good architect to make you as close a copy as possible; there's no magic tricks in Wright's design
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Jul 29, 2023 19:47
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You miiiiight want to reconsider Fallingwater, specifically, because it turns out that putting a house directly over moving water is very bad for the house. It takes a lot of work to keep Fallingwater from being Fallingbuilding.
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Jul 29, 2023 20:23
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ultrafilter posted:They didn't do it last time and the oldest Mickey Mouse cartoons are entering the public domain next year. The trademarks will still be enough to destroy anyone trying to make a quick buck.
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Jul 29, 2023 20:25
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Yah you gotta be reallllllly careful with anything that has some stuff out of copyright and some stuff still in. The Enola Holmes movie(s?) got sued by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle because it depicted Sherlock being not a complete rear end in a top hat, basically, and that was only in books/stories still under copyright. I think they settled or got it thrown out eventually, but still expensive to deal with.
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Jul 29, 2023 22:43
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You miiiiight want to reconsider Fallingwater, specifically, because it turns out that putting a house directly over moving water is very bad for the house. It takes a lot of work to keep Fallingwater from being Fallingbuilding. Also I imagine you can only build something like that nowadays somewhere that doesn’t have wetlands review boards.
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Jul 30, 2023 00:57
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I just got an adjustable bed base like the one in the image below. The manufacturer's site mentioned that although it could be installed on its own, it could also be installed with an existing bedframe. Unfortunately, mine doesn't appear to be compatible; the base is supposed to be installed by removing the bedframe slats and having it sit on its own legs, but my frame has drawers that exceed the height of the base's legs.  The slats seem pretty sturdy; there are 14 of them, 2.25" wide and .625" thick each, and they're screwed in so there's no risk of them moving around. Me + the base + a mattress would max out at about 400 pounds. Is there any way I can determine whether it would be safe to just keep the slats on and install the base without its legs? I'm guessing it's not the recommended method because the base would concentrate the weight where it rested on each slat instead of more evenly distributing it like a mattress. Would it help if I put a solid sheet of wood on the slats first? Alternatively, the legs for the adjustable base come in segments that screw into each other and there's no way the legs at the foot end would work in the bedframe due to the positioning of the drawers. If I used some segments from those legs to boost the height of the legs at the center and head of the bed, that would bring the base just high enough that I could have the foot end resting on a half-inch thick board on top of some the slats. That seems like it would provide a pretty solid foundation?
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Jul 30, 2023 03:49
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alnilam posted:The building was a one off design very specific to the site it is on, the blueprints wouldn't magically let you copy it. If you were super rich and owned a piece of land with a waterfall, I'm sure you could pay a good architect to make you as close a copy as possible; there's no magic tricks in Wright's design TooMuchAbstraction posted:You miiiiight want to reconsider Fallingwater, specifically, because it turns out that putting a house directly over moving water is very bad for the house. It takes a lot of work to keep Fallingwater from being Fallingbuilding. Falling Water was just an example, using a house that actually has its own name that would be widely understood. I guess to put it in more general terms: I see a house I like. It is 126 years old and not subject to copyright anymore. It was built following all proper channels. I am a cheap person and don't want to pay an architect to develop an entirely new set of blueprints that copy the house. - are those house blueprints filed with the county Building and Planning department or something? - are they freely available to the public? - if both of the above are Yesses, aside from different building codes is there anything stopping me from using those blueprints? - let's say a house I like is only 10 years old but I found the blueprints on theblueprintbay.org -- technically and realistically, is it viable to use them?
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Jul 30, 2023 04:01
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regulargonzalez posted:Falling Water was just an example, using a house that actually has its own name that would be widely understood. I guess to put it in more general terms: I see a house I like. It is 126 years old and not subject to copyright anymore. It was built following all proper channels. I am a cheap person and don't want to pay an architect to develop an entirely new set of blueprints that copy the house. I have zero clue on all of this, but imagine getting a DMCA takedown notice for your house 
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Jul 30, 2023 04:16
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