BananaTrifleViolin

Ubuntu does work and is a decent distro in many ways. The problems are around how canonical leverages things for its own financial benefit for the detriment of users and the Linux community.

A good example is Snap. It is forced on users - even Firefox is a snap on Ubuntu. This is not an efficient way fo end users to run their system or their most used software.

Instead of making the builds available as standard software, users have to use the Snap or go hunting elsewhere for builds. That's anti-user and is identical to how Microsoft behaves with windows. It doesn't do things to benefit users, it does things to benefit Microsoft.

It's arguable whether what snap does is actually worth the overhead - I can see that it is more secure in many ways. But then so it Flatpak, and that is more universally used for desktop software across Linux distros. Snap has some inherent benefits for server side use but then why force it on end users where it is not as good as Flatpak in many ways? Or Appimage?

So Ubuntu is fine in many ways, but why bother when you can go for alternatives and give the best of both worlds? Mint is an Ubuntu based distro without snap and other canonical elements. I used mint for ages, it's great and there is a reason it's so popular.

I've moved on to OpenSuSE now but the Ubuntu ecosystem is fine, it works well for many, and it's very well documented and supported which often works downstream in Mint and others. It's just Ubuntu itself thats a bit crappy due to the decisions made to suite canonical rather than what users want or would suit them best. In the end it all comes down to personal choice and what people are willing to accept from their distro.

There is no market, or not much of one. This whole thing is a huge speculative bubble, a bit like crypto. The core idea of crypto long term make some sense but the speculative value does not. The core idea of LLMs (we are no where near true AI) makes some sense but it is half baked technology. It hadn't even reached maturity and enshittification has set in.

OpenAI doesn't have a realistic business plan. It has a griftet who is riding a wave of nonsense in the tech markets.

No one is making profit because no one has found a truly profitable use with what's available now. Even places which have potential utility (like healthcare) are dominated by focused companies working in limited scenarios.

Pretty rubbish article to be honest. It's all hyperbole and no data or facts. It includes one embedded tweet with a graph about sharing political content.

While I suspect it's true, it's hard to trust a article that doesn't back up it's claims with any data or even quantify the claims it's making. The closest it gest to data is "millions" but that's pretty meaningless on its own.

I pay for my email (Proton) password manager (last pass), and VPN (nordvpn).

I'd say subs that maintain your privacy and security are well worth it - there is no such thing as a free lunch and instead the tech giants are dining out at the expense of users.

Googles ad monopoly needs to be torn apart. Because YouTube premium prices may actually represent what it really costs to maintain video sites like YouTube, but Google have managed to destroy all competition with the free model and now there is no one realistically able to compete on content or price.

if you're american, manufactured 18 July 2023?

Intel claims to have caught up with the upcoming Lunar Lake series but still to be seen.

That may be too late for whatever new device Valve is working on as given the lead time for such devices they may already have committed to an architecture for devices next year.

Also running X86 games on Arm devices is not likely to be efficient. I doubt the energy efficiency of Arm chips would outweigh the overhead of X86 to Arm translation?

But it's all speculation - even without hardware, getting Proton to work with Arm is good for steam regardless of any specific devices. For example it would allow steam to push the compatability tools onto Mac devices and even potentially mobile devices. Makes sense for Valve to do this without it meaning anything more that it being a god idea in itself.

According to Wikipedia, A028 is an open/free version of Albertus and widely available on Linux.

You could also download versions of Albertus itself to use in KDE - there seem to be lots of versions.

Fonts are easy to install in KDE, if what you want is not in your package manager then download the font files and install it with the Font manager tool in Settings (just look for Fonts). You can install fonts from files you have downloaded or download more from the KDE store (I don't know if A028 is in the store).

It'll be available immediately in LibreOffice, and you can also use Konsole settings to use the font for your terminal.

Just on the KDE front, I'm assuming you've optimised your KDE set up for your PC?

If not, first open your Settings app and in the search box type "Effects" - disable all the fancy desktop effects.

Next, if you're on X11, go into the "Display and Monitor" section and disable compositing (you can also temporairly disable this with Alt+Shift+F12 to see what impact it has). This option is not available in Wayland; but you may be better using X11 if you don't have a dedicated GPU? I'm not sure I'd be messing with Wayland on an old laptop; I've had serious issues on a high end PC - definitely improved with 6.1, but I'm using X11 still.

But KDE 6 isn't as svelt as KDE 5 was, so even optimised it may just not be up to the job.

XFCE is a good shout, and should run nicely on a 2013 laptop.

The oldest intact building in my city is from 1320 - so 700 years old. Baguely Hall, which is an old landowners hall.

The city itself - Manchester - dates back to the roman era and we have the remnants of an old castrum/fort in the city centre dating back to 79 AD - so 1945 years old. Surprisingly there were more complete ruins at the site but much of it was levelled during the industrial revolution.

There are plenty of options for personal computers; you have to make the choice to go private and personal.

I built my own desktop, which remains very common and is relatively easy to do. I have Linux and Windows on it, and use Linux nearly 100% as I agree I don't like ads etc. I use a Firefox with ad blockers and don't get ads; I use lots of open source software even to access services like Youtube (Free tube).

There are also even linux laptops, and the Frame.Work laptop which is fully modular and bring your own OS.

There are open source OS for phones.

You're right about the corporatisation of the internet and services, but it remains up to users to vote with their feet and chose to take back their privacy and person computing.

Linux is at 4% of desktop users in recent months - that is many millions of people actively choosing to exist in a space where they control their personal computers. People don't need to remove computers, just chose to set them up to be what they want them to be.

As others have said, gaming is thriving - AAA and bloated incumbants are not doing well but the indie sector is thriving.

VR is not on the verge of collapse, but it is growing slowly as we still have not reached the right price point for a mobile high powered headset. Apple made a big play for the future of VR with its Apple Vision Pro but that was not a short term play; that was laying the ground works for trying to control or shape a market that is still probably at least 5 if not 10 years away from something that will provide high quality VR, untethefed from a. PC.

AI meanwhile is a bubble. We are not in an age of AI, we are in an age of algorithms - they will and are useful but will not meet the hype or hyperbole being banded about. Expect that market to pop and probably with spectacular damage to some companies.

Other computing hardware is not really stagnating - we are going through a generational transition period. AMD is pushing Zen 5 and Intel it's 14th gen, and all the chip makers are desperately trying to get on the AI band wagon. People are not upgrading because they don't see the need - there aren't compelling software reasons to upgrade yet (AI is certainly not compelling consumers to buy new systems). They will emerge eventually.

The lack of any landmark PC AAA games is likely holding back demand for consumer graphics cards, and we're seeing similar issues with consoles. The games industry has certainly been here many times before. There is no Cyberpunk 2077 coming up - instead we've had flops like Star Wars Outlaws, or underperformers like Starfield. But look at the biggest game of last year - Baldurs Gate 3 came from a small studio and was a megahit.

I don't see doom and gloom, just the usual ups and downs of the tech industry. We happen to be in a transition period, and also being distracted by the AI bubble and people realising it is a crock of shit. But technology continues to progress.

As someone who drives to and around Wales multiple times a year, it's a poorly thought out and implemented policy.

Many people speed and break the limit, particularly on main roads, and it's lack of popular support is an issue in itself.

The policy could work if the speed limits was reverted to 30mph on bigger roads but local councils and the Welsh assembly blame each other for the issues.

There is also little enforcment at present - that is changing and once people start getting fined for breaking the 20mph limit it's likely to become much more unpopular.

It could have probably been implemented successfully and with popular support with more careful designation of 30mph roads. It's a failure of politicians rather than the idea itself.