My cat was so upset/confused this morning, demanding food while my wife and I were still asleep

Discovered these guys recently. Lot of good stuff off of their latest NO HANDS. WHERE U FROM is especially a major highlight for the unconventional beat alone.

My only comment is I was surprised my work - which uses Windows and has closed source software exclusively - has VLC installed on all workstations and even as the default media player as well. It’s a testament to how ubiquitous and approachable VLC is to be included in such a fashion over just Windows Media Player or some other form.

I heard about this new company called Linux

I thought it was funny at least, so you gave me a good laugh.

I’d say Linux Mint or Ubuntu (you’re familiar with this one) would be good “Out of the Box” options. They run an environment known as “Debian” so they’re super similar and are pretty similar to what Windows offers in all honesty. You just burn them to a USB, run them from your desired computer’s BIOS, and the rest is through a GUI interface you can follow along with. I have no experience with a touchscreen as I’m running Linux Mint XFCE (lightest weight version) on a laptop from the early 2010’s with an Intel N2820 in it, but I’m assuming some workaround can exist to implement that. You also seem somewhat familiar with the alternative programs for different purposes, but rest assured both Ubuntu and Mint come with file explorers (Mint XFCE uses one called Thunar which is pretty effective) and you can easily swap out/install a different file manager to get jobs done as needed.

Plus - any programs you used with Windows which may not have Linux alternatives or versions - can be run through Wine. I’ve encountered a few hiccups when doing this (like a program I needed for school which was unable to pass the initial installation and actually run the program).

I’ve run Linux Mint XFCE as my daily driver for work and school tasks on my laptop for about 2-3 years at this point and it’s been pretty great. Full disclosure: I still run Windows 11 on my main PC at home and have Windows 10 on a HTPC/Server with docker on it (though I’ve been debating switching to Ubuntu for this as well) so I still know there are benefits to a Windows system (while working to remove any and all advertising and AI garbage) but if I were to recommend someone a distro it would be as I’ve said above.

Good luck! Hope you find one that works for you!

I’m all in if something like Peertube gets adopted more fully, but given the sheer amount of space YouTube takes up it seems unlikely to be at the stage it is currently with a provider like Google.

For my own usage: I could substitute background noise with music (either through another provider like Spotify or locally hosting the music and streaming it with Jellyfin), and then more long form content could be done with other providers (Netflix, Disney+, or renting from Google lol) or again using DVD’s or locally hosted videos, but it would certainly be a challenge and I’d miss a lot of the content.

Hashtags are such a great option for following. I’ve found a lot of neat and interesting accounts relevant to my interests that way, alongside just the occasional great photo via following hashtags of my location as well.

The best thing for the Fediverse has been Musk cannibalizing twitter with ever decision he makes it seems.

Twitter imploding -> People finding Mastodon as an alternative -> People discovering federation as an alternative to walled garden social media

The Reddit fiasco.

What made me stay was the concept of federation, and how similar to Reddit Lemmy actually is. I do find that my “home” feed gets stale compared to the refreshing of content Reddit would always have every time I checked, but I find there’s a different style of discussion on Lemmy compared to Reddit, allowing for a more broad perspective than what one platform can provide to me.

As that sentence implies, I still use Reddit, but I divide my time now between there and here, with more niche communities being found on Reddit, focusing on FOSS and technology via Lemmy, and larger events (politics, world news, etc) being spread between both.

We’ll be keeping Spotify, and Prime AFAIK hasn’t announced anything crazy so that will stay as well. We’ll most likely - if we get the “don’t share accounts” screen - will subscribe to Disney+ as we enjoy the Star Wars content and regularly watch movies using this together (Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar are our go tos). Netflix may be on the chopping block but my wife enjoys it more than I do so we’ll have to see.

We don’t subscribe to anything else, partly because the content isn’t appealing and partly because - as Canadians - they don’t even have it up here anyway!

I think the strength of a community shouldn’t primarily be built upon content another separate community or platform produces.

Now there are givens, like major news and art which “transcends” a singular platform. But repeatedly just lifting content from somewhere else (aside from if you are the creator yourself obviously and wanting to share to different platforms) and shipping it over here isn’t a good look when Lemmy wishes to be a separate aggregator from Reddit.

5 TB in total. Let’s break it down.

• 500 MB NVME drive (boot)
• 1 TB SSD (Games)
• 1 TB Work Hard Drive
• 2 TB Supplementary Hard Drive
• 500 MB NAS via adjacent HTPC (I use it for music, photos, videos, and ROMS for emulators)

The only one I’m getting close to filling it the 1 TB SSD, but I’m always happy to look into upgrading.

Loop Hero! It’s free on Epic right now and I’ve been really enjoying it! A nice blend of procedural generation, deck building, and roguelike allow it to be a very rewarding and engrossing experience overall where I feel I’m consistently progressing.

I still haven’t been able to beat The Lich yet, but little by little I’m knocking his health down that much further to make the loop (heh) feel rewarding!

Isn’t mastodon the federated microblogging replacement? Lemmy & kbin are the forum/news aggregator replacement instead, correct?

I haven’t played it but I heard about it on a podcast I enjoy: Podquisition. One of the hosts - Laura K Buzz - seemed favourable towards it and recommended it to those drawn to that style of quick to understand but continuously engaging games with simple tasks to complete, and after listening it genuinely made me want to give it a shot.

The album is pretty good on an initial listen, though I do think the front half far exceeds the back half. It flows pretty well throughout however, but the final track doesn’t really leave a satisfying conclusion, and it may have even been better to end it with TELEKINESIS instead.

Based.

Thank you for creating a safe space. I’m an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and am happy there’s a space not for “everyone”, but for those willing to accept trans folk and silence those against them (while having funny posts on it as well).

I had the same thought process seeing the software repository on Linux Mint for the first time. It really is set up like a MacOS or general Appstore interface.

Happy for your brother getting comfortable with Linux so quickly! Way to go!

A lot of people have already talked about the onboarding/installation experience, so I’ll just chime in and say a lot of new users are unfamiliar with using a terminal for commands and instead favour a GUI experience solely for their tasks. Most modern and commercially appealing distros are moving in this direction (ie applications running the same terminal commands in the background with an easy to understand UI at the front) but I’d still say the community’s insistence on terminal over all other forms of executing a command may be a turn off for the layman trying it for the first time after Windows and MacOS.

Almost makes me think it would be more ideal to reduce the stigma associated with executing commands in the terminal and find some way to get people more comfortable with using it, both via Linux and also CMD for Windows as well.

I did the same when Masahiro Sakurai explained how to do so when revealing Byleth for Smash Bros. Ultimate. It’s come in handy a few times when needing to count things out, and honestly can be a fun exercise for dexterity to just count to 31 on each hand.

Honestly? My old laptop was having issues (not major but not ideal in terms of overall performance) running Windows 10 and it inspired me to try out a few distros. I later learned after trying a few:

• Overall Linux isn’t scary at all, with an abundance of tutorials and documentation provided. (Just be aware of trying not to solve all problems with random hammers, or rather using any tutorial to fix the symptoms you’re having)
• In terms of customization it’s second to none. Privacy wise has been well documented, but even aesthetically via the UI you have a ton of options. (Plug for unixporn@lemmy.ml for some inspiration.)
• Finally it’s nice just to tinker with Linux as a project. There’s only so much you can do with Windows or MacOS, while Linux is open and allows for a variety of programs, tools, and more. It allows you to get more comfortable with your computer and by extension more comfortable with technology in general!