It’s mostly an aesthetic choice, a choice between desktop environments.

Desktop environment (DE) is just the visual bells and whistles that you use to navigate the PC, like that quick animation when you minimize or maximize a program (Apple loves this), a start menu that has cute icons for each program and turns blue when you pass the mouse over it (or a start menu that is just a raw list of program names), etc.

Mint Cinnamon uses a DE that looks like Windows 7 reborn, Mint XFCE uses a DE that looks like Windows XP reborn, and Mint MATE uses a DE that looks like Windows Vista reborn.

People will tell you that these DEs will have a slight difference in consumption of RAM, where the most ‘shiny’ DEs will consume more RAM (XFCE<MATE<Cinnamon) by virtue of having more bells and whistles and some different programs that execute the same function, but the difference is irrelevant in practice (unless you are using a 2gb or less PC, where each 50mb of RAM counts). So it’s mostly what you fancy to look at. I just like the old-school visual of XFCE.

You are still a beginner, and in that case almost everyone rightfully says to go to regular Mint only, instead of LMDE or any other distro. A beginner will not know how to evaluate the situation in case of troubles or follow any complex instruction (like anything involving the terminal that is not completely copy-paste). Mint is fully click-click-install now, something that no other distro has equaled. Linux Mint, regular edition, is widely compatible with all sorts of hardware, that in other distros give black screens or esoteric deep s**t at install or later, which is a show stopper for beginners just making the transition.

I myself am not a beginner anymore, and every other distro (save Mint) has failed me at some point. Debian, LMDE and Sparky Linux have not even booted in one notebook, Bazzite (Fedora) has after a few weeks given me a black screen in a desktop pc with Nvidia that i could not solve, and Arch - Endeavour OS - Manjaro have simply collapsed after a few months (probably by using AUR, which is supposed to be their main advantage, but i could not even discover the source of the problem, in each). Everything was restored in order after a blanck install of Linux Mint XFCE, which is the only distro i use now.

Mano, até chorei de emoção aqui no old.lemmy, totalmente matou as saudades do antigo old.vocesabeonde. Até minha extensão save as eBook, que eu uso para salvar uma página como epub para ter depois, funciona aqui perfeitamente igual ao original. Valeu, muito agradecido.

Signal é um honeypot do governo ianque, então daria na mesma que usar Whatsapp.

They are very niche for the moment, and yes, they do advertise on Linux related youtube channels, like constantly appearing on The Linux Experiment, which itself is trying to be a more accessible linux and foss news channel avoiding the technobabble and too much details on things, but is accessed mainly by converts (with a bigger sized portion of new and potential converts than the norm for linux channels) so the preaching to the choir also applies. But their marketing is of the form we criticised, dry technical explanations. Let’s hope they increase in size and inspire others to up the stakes (or expand themselves), i think a full desktop SteamOS that companies can make a gaming PC around is also on the horizon, seriously challenging the home consoles.

There are some hardware sellers specialized in Linux, no ? the european Tuxedo Computers, and specially the north american System 76 (who is also the developer of PopOS, therefore the closest Linux equivalent of Apple in having both hard and soft wares). They could be the ones to do it by having an incentive (selling hardware in more scale, and merchandising too, also accepting donations). Honestly, a company that focused on just assembling good enough computers that run a very hands-off but functional linux distro (pretty much Ubuntu KDE with flatpaks and lots of pre-installed programs a la Linux Mint), while having a good enough price and most importantly focusing on the marketing in the forms mentioned, could change the status-quo. I agree Fedora, Red Hat, will be catering to companies on the foreseeable future. Ads on Youtube are far reaching and not expensive, and possible to scale with time.

GNU Linux users are stuck in the early 20th century in marketing strategies, including you. Rational marketing explaining objectively how product P will help its consumers in XYZ is not the mainstream strategy of marketing anymore. It was surpassed by Irrational marketing, where a company will try to associate specific ideas and emotions with its brand and products, like an ad with big cars riding in rough natural landscapes that will show to everyone who is the real man in the block, who has high income, who is the most sexy, most adventurous, who the hot girl will want to date, etc (and NOT an ad that explains how the SUV has 6x6 wheels, can travel 555,8 miles, carry 1,8 metric tons of cargo, with air conditioning, etc, even if those informations are true).

Apple did not really explain what their various models of computers are to its clients, they just made several marketing pieces of content (including public performances by steve jobs) that transmitted the ‘‘vibes’’ of what using them ‘‘feels like’’ (i.e. what image apple wanted to associate itself). Being ‘‘futuristic’’, ‘‘smart’’, ‘‘successful’’, ‘‘luxurious’’, ‘‘easy’’, etc.

They need some actual marketing firm that will do a full psy-ops that manages to associate using linux distros with irrational but desirable traits (ideas, emotions, etc), that common people will identify and start trying to ‘‘Keep up with the Joneses’’ (the joneses being the linux users now). Show using Arch Linux as the knack of genius people that will hack anything they want and earn millions, show using Fedora as the thing of smart successful beautiful rich people, show handsome entrepreneurs doing high middle class work in Mint or Ubuntu, show high score Gamers using RGB PCs with Garuda Linux, etc. That kind of marketing is however generally rejected by Linux proponents.

Eu tenho preguiça de tirar foto video etc, então só vou relatar que eu ainda uso um notebook Toshiba de 2006 com Linux Mint XFCE, tendo só maximizado a memória RAM para opulentos 3 Gb e colocado um SSD de 500Gb. Serve para estudos comuns, ler PDFs de apostilas e escrever textos (obsidian e libreoffice), navegar na internet surpreendentemente bem (vendo aula e youtube, mesmo que prefira colocar em 720p para rodar liso sempre) e páginas normais no firefox (mas nunca mais de 5 abas por vez pra garantir). E usando Ublock Origin + LibRedirect (instâncias alternativas livres de sites comerciais (como invidious pra youtube) para minimar o rastreamento e anúncios, e que de quebra tornam a navegação muito mais leve e rápida também).

If you want to support the author, there is always the option to pirate the book, and see if he or she has pages to receive donations (paypal, bitcoin, patreon, etc) or you can just email then money.

I’m sure in the near future there will be a niche in Israeli cinema and journalism with movies and videos telling sad stories about the suffering of israeli soldiers while in service and their lifes afterwards, and with nothing to say about palestinians.

At the very least, the Porajmos (aka gypsy holocaust) should be considered and taught alongside the holocaust. No one talks about it, and it was the exact same people with the exact same methods doing it, and the average person of that group is having more troubles than average jews in europe now.

But i disagree, having more industry and organisation is just a matter of a particular technological and economic stage, and someone can nitpick the degrees of ‘‘technology’’ or ‘‘organisation’’ being considered relevant to qualify.

Populismo barato e submissão ao Twitter. Os atletas dos EUA pagarão impostos, incluindo o francês e o norteamericano. Se querem menos distorção, apoiem e demandem uma reforma tributária geral, em vez de criar mais uma isenção especial. De privilégio em privilégio pequeno é que construímos nossa quimera fiscal.

Seus fatores não parecem que vão afetar a composição do conselho de segurança. EUA vai declinar em termos de poder relativo sim, e china vai ascender, mas ambos serão potências mundiais, e ambos já estão no conselho de segurança. Percebe que ambos não tem interesses em alterar a composição. Brasil é um anão militar, e um país subordinado politicamente aos EUA, não tem por quê Rússia e China quererem, e mesmo os 3 da otan (frança, inglaterra, eua) não iam se importar por causa do não poderio militar e pela nossa política de neutralidade, eles iam preferir muito mais uma Alemanha ou Japão.

O que pode mudar é a índia e-ou o reino unido. A india será gigante, terá importancia central, poderio militar, etc e em diferentes medidas agrada e desagrada os 5 membros atuais, então eles podem ver com bons olhos uma eventual ascensão indiana. O reino unido pelo lado inverso vai perdendo relevancia internacional com o pós-brexit, com as suas questões internas, com sua subordinação total aos eua, seu papel como representante da europa ocidental ou união européia pode ser melhor cumprido pela França.

Can i call all north americans terrorists, since the KKK is a terrorist organization with several local supporters ? Are the KKK north americans ? Yes (dunno if they accept canadians or other whites though, but probably almost all are USA, hamas probably has non palestinians too). Are they terrorists ? Yes.

Armchair general here, but if i were to guess israel’s plan:

The northern part of Gaza is where the majority of rockets get launched, since they have geographical proximity to several israeli cities from there. IF israel annexes north gaza, that would already be very changing to the military situation. Hamas can obviously launch stuff from south gaza, but the geographical distance to israeli hotspots dramatically increases (by itself an obstacle), AND norh gaza can be transformed into an extended Iron Dome with several military facilities in place to act, not to mention that now Israel only has to watch half the terrain.

The heretofore events point to this possibiliy, since Israel gave the ultimatum to evacuate northern gaza, and south gaza for now seems to be spared from this. Of course, if Israel then eventually proceeds to colonize north gaza with new settlements (aka West Bank 2.0 electric bogaloo) , hamas has a new ‘easy’ target to hurl stuff into, but the military infrastructure in place will be much more impenetrable, and the local jews would be staunch sionists that accepted the risks and have high morale and preparations to deal with this, and not the mainstream israeli society.

i will be honest here: it is morally bad and rewards both invasors, but if i were a palestinian or ukrainian person, i would absolutely try to get out and take my whole family with me (and advise and try to help the extended family, and friends and their families too), to egypt jordania rest of MENA, or europe-US respectivelly. I would not want to take a bomb or get shot in neither terrain.

Hard disagree here, the modern western conception of art (around which the current legal and economic systems were constructed) is really opposite to the idea that the current AI tools should deserve any copyright.
Why ? The concept of art (the modern western one) is that an Art piece is composed of :

1. An Idea
2. A form that is given to that idea by a human artist.

The idea can be given by others, to be constructed by an artist. That is usually a Patron (from where Patreon invented its name) , in spanish Mecenas, that pays the work and directs what idea and even general form it will take (the social practice is called Mecenazgo in spanish, since english has no equivalent word, i will use that ). Example: The Sistine Chapel, which was conceptualized (and paid) by the Catholic Church, including themes and general style, and was given to italian artists like Michelangelo to give the final form, which they drew themselves, with the approval of the church authorities at the end.

The current Ai tools work exacly like the Mecenazgo:

• the human person gives an input (textual, or other), the AI goes brrrrrr, and gives back an image. the person can take ir, or re-iterate the cycle with further inputs until satisfaction.
• This is really analogous with how art production ocurred in the Mecenazgo: The human input is the step 1 (an idea), the AI does the step 2 (give form to the idea). The further inputs by humans is analogous to the rough drafts the artist had to give the Mecenas first, the Mecenas described in more details and specifications what themes and forms he wanted, and that repeated until the Mecenas was satisfied with the final form the artist gave back.

The current copyright legal and economic system gives the intellectual property to the ARTIST, that made the step 2, and NOT to the Mecenas of the step 1. Because the Mecenas only had ideas, and the one who made what is considered artistic work, that deserves the legal privilege of IP, is the artist. If all someone did was tell the AI what to draw (i.e. gave an idea, general theme and general form), then the person is only acting as the Mecenas. The MACHINE is doing the artistic work, and since the machine is not a human that deserves the legal privilege, ir should be considered non copyrighted or public domain, just like the picture some monkey took of itself some years ago.

This was not always nor everywhere the social interpretation of WHO is the agent that actually made the art. Before the Renaissance, the western societies considered the Mecenas of step 1 the TRUE ARTIST, because he-she had the idea, and the person that gave form to the idea was considered a low level construction worker like stonemasons, that did not even have its name recorded. If you are wiilling to go back there, we would have to fundamentally change our interpretation of art , artists and rewrite the Sistine Chapel as created by the Catholic Church , and michelangelo is irrelevant.

The EU already demanded user replaceable batteries, outside of that just not using software lockdowns a la Apple would already allow 3rd party repair and manufacture of equivalent parts, going even further the Fairphone is modular and with open specs, this kind of modularity and open protocols would theoretically allow smartphones to be Ship of Theseus style immortals.

Honestly, if not for security patches, most people could probably use a top of the line 8 year old smartphone, like the Iphone 6, without almost missing any feature or functionality, maybe for 20 years or more. Would certainly be great for the environment if we could use a smartphone for 15 years or more, with all the computational power already available this should be doable on the technical level. Unfortunatelly, it will not be allowed to by mnanufacturers, and we do not have a universally compatible functional linux for phones, that also can pass the locked bootloaders.

Eu não ironicamente amo o minimalismo e funcionalismo ao extremo do LXQt.

Amo o painel que parece um irmão do Windows 95, tudo em texto simples, que eu personalizo a fonte e tamanho, e o tema do sistema eu pus o arch colours dark, tudo fica bonito com fundo azul escuro. Amo quão fácil no painel é só ir com o mouse para categoria e clicar na linha com o icone e nome do programa, nada de descrição inútil ou ícone enorme ou espaço em branco para eu ter que ficar escaneando uma página A5, nada de animação, sombreamento e firulas visuais, apenas uma lista em linhas curtas com o que tem de programa instalado, compacto e funcional. Amo o quão fácil fica achar tudo na central de controle também, e como os menus e opções são direto ao ponto, apenas texto e imagens simples em tudo, não se pode reclamar de ‘‘inconsistencia visual’’ com o LXQt.

Nem preciso falar que em termos de consumo computacional é o melhor de todos, adoro poder usar computador antigo com boa velocidade e mesmo nos recentes, deixar o máximo de potencia para os programas em si, tipo os jogos. Ter um sistema que parece um mod de Windows 95 rodando um Doom moderno é tão estranho que fica divertido.

Eu uso Endeavour OS com LXQt, amo os papéis de parede e protetores de tela dele também, tem uma verdadeira coleção histórica lá, com as coisas dos macs e windows antigos. Com a combinação de base arch e LXQt, deve ser o sistema que garante maior longevidade para um computador, mantendo todas as funcionalidades modernas.

Honestamente também amo o Gemini pelas mesmas coisas, se fosse por mim, nós já estaríamos com Permacomputação a todo vapor e 98% dos designers estariam sem emprego.