That’s kind of what I was thinking.

I used to run Folding@Home, as well as others, as a screensaver. It’s been a while, but I think you had some control of how hard to work the computer. As someone who regularly works with 30 year old computers that run 24/7, it seems weird to kill a GPU by running it,but if it runs cooler maybe it will last longer? Although that defeats the purpose kind of.

Now you need to use the money you saved and the $15 in crypto to buy two identical computers, then run one flat out and the other at around 50% and see how long they last. Report back every couple of years.

Excuse me while I look at extreme uptime posts.

That’s exactly why I always enable the Compose key. It’s the fastest and easiest way to just type a variety of Unicode glyphs. The key combinations trend to be intuitive as well.

There’s a good chance the default config file will have a pretty decent selection. Although I have edited the config in the past, I haven’t done it under KDE. The KDE article on setting up the compose key seems to say that KDE uses a different config file anyways.

Turning on the Compose key is pretty straightforward as I recall, just another setting under Keyboard settings. Finding that config file is still useful if you can’t guess the right combo for your desired glyph.

Very useful for using character common in math and science.

Not exactly what you may be looking for, but one of the first things I set up in Linux is the “Compose” key. Sun keyboards in the 90’s had a dedicated Compose key, and you can enable the functionality still. I usually set it to Right Alt.

The Compose key is kind of like an extended shift key, so ‘Compose’ + “c” + “/” for example will give you “¢”.

The key combinations and characters can be edited in a config file (can’t remember off the top of my head).

Not as versatile and an “Emoji picker”, but allows quick insertion of Unicode glyphs into text. Useful for ¢£€¥™×° type characters.

Google soft-forked Linux for Android (maintained in parallel IIRC) but re-merged into the mainline, presumably because why maintain a whole operating system?

In theory the Linux Foundation would keep Google, Microsoft, AMD, whoever playing nice with each other for mutual benefit and maintenance of Linux, but like you said, and the source of my worry, is who else would have Linus’ combination of prestige, principles, and perseverance?

I’m sure there are others who could fill the role, but even Linus is still bullying Nvidia with only partial success. The most vital role Linus probably has had for some time now is leadership. But even someone who might have superior soft-skills wouldn’t have the history, which certainly contributes to his authority.

Glad someone finally mentioned Bus Factor.

On topic, I wonder if Linux technically has a bus factor problem. In theory, anyone could fork, take all the source give and start making Johnix, Tomix, or Whosix. Everything is documented and all the code is available.

In the real world, you have multiple teams and individuals submitting code from all over the world. Sure you’ve got the Linux Foundation, but who would have the respect and authority to keep everyone contributing instead of forking off?

Didn’t think Knoppix was obscure, but that was my gateway to Linux first on all my personal PCs.

I guess the years have passed it by.

I remember when 128 but SSL Encryption was export restricted in the mid 90’s. When I first opened an online banking account, the Bank sent a CD with a customized version of Netscape Navigator with 128 bit SSL, and the bank logo in place of the Netscape N.

I think it was PS3 that shipped with “Other OS” functionality, and were sold a little cheaper than production costs would indicate, to make it up on games.

Only thing is, a bunch of institutions discovered you could order a pallet of PS3’s, set up Linux, and have a pretty skookum cluster for cheap.

I’m pretty sure Sony dropped “Other OS” not because of vague concerns of piracy, but because they were effectively subsidizing supercomputers.

Don’t know if any of those PS3 clusters made it onto Top500.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar is considered a classic, but it’s been 20+ years since I read it. I’m curious how well it holds up.

I was trying to recall some points from C&B and I realized I was muddling much of it up with The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen from the same era, so apparently that made an impression as well.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting by “Values of the Fediverse”, but I was pleasantly surprised! It focuses on what over the decades seem to be the core values of Open Source software movements, such as openness, independence, and freedom to use the software how you choose to use it. Just applied to the concept of social media. Which makes sense.

My main home account is on Lemmy.ca not Lemmy.ml ( or another Lemmy instance) because that is how I’ve chosen to associate, and I can. And I could spin up my own instance, and federate or de-federate with whomever I choose.

This isn’t a novel concept, OpenSource.com has a page on “The Open Source Way” which espouses transparency, collaboration, “Release early and often”, inclusive meritocracy, and community. I remember reading “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” back in the day, and Eric Raymond seemed to extrapolate several values or principle from the open source model.

The free software movement does implicitly have positions on “political” topics. Right to repair, DRM, and privacy come to mind immediately. These shouldn’t be seen as being “Left” or “Right”,

The police also knocked and only entered after he answered it sounded like. While certainly armed and probably prepared for something wild, they didn’t force entry with guns at the ready.

Once again, mostly comparing to videos of US police interactions, which is kind of weird as a non-USian commenting on a German police interrogation. Would be curious to see an “audit the audit” type review of this.

Respect. Only through destruction can we be purified.

VAX/VMS was still around then, and as far as I recall, that was the king for uptime.

Linux back then supported much less hardware. I can remember even in the early aughts, there was while families of popular wireless network chipsets that weren’t supported.

Pretty much exactly what happened to me. Mostly open source apps on Windows. Set up dual boot with Windows default. One day I noticed I was switching to Linux more often than not, so changed to Linux default.

If you can get one of those cassette adapters, you can test the tape deck of interest first.

Technology Connections on YouTube had an episode on those tape adapters, but I can’t remember the reason why she some tape decks don’t work with those cassette adapters.

So far I’ve only had that one tape deck not work.

Love mine, but the newer version that my wife has is just a little bit better all around. Plus the extras it comes with are a pure nostalgia hit.

Yes… in the cassette players that work with those adapters. Annoyingly, the old stereo we have set up at work in one shop doesn’t work with those casette adapters or the Mixxtape.

Also, if you use it in a tape deck, it doesn’t use the spools as inputs. You just set it playing and pop it in. Similar to my old Digisette Duo Aria.

I will admit, I have rarely used the tape deck function, but it has been useful on occasion.

I use the Kickstarter version of the Mixxtape. My wife uses the newer version, which offers some improvements.

It’s fantastically retro, but you will need to use a micro-SD.

I’ve got a 15 year old SD/USB combo card on my keychain. I plugged it into a TV around 6-7 years ago because there were a couple of kids movies on there.

I also know I have some Portable apps on there, but probably a little out of date

This has been my experience. I used Fedora for a while years ago, but rpm was already second fiddle to deb. Plus, I was already selling into my “old man distro” so I kept ending up with some Ubuntu version.

I did recently Manjaro and Linux Mint, but ended up with Ubuntu again, although this time Kubuntu, Ubuntu with KDE!

No shade from me though for going with Red Hat.