Here is my problem: I have an old house - nearly 100 years old - that I need to insulate but I have a few problems and concerns I need to deal with. The walls are essentially stone and an old kind on solid cement block.

I've been looking into the insulation solutions available in my market and it is basically a matter of gluing thick boards of styrofoam-like material to the walls.

On the outwalls this is not feaseable as the house faces a road with no sidewalk, so I'd be encroaching onto the road. Inside, adding 5cm of insulation would make small rooms smaller to the point some would be, for all practical purposes, rendered into generous pantries.

Because I live in a somewhat rural area, mice and rodents are a concern, so adding materials they can chew through makes no sense. It would be like supplying an easy to move through medium to run the entire house. I have seen houses and buildings with this kind of insulation chewed into, the moment the smallest of pieces of the hard plaster gets cracked, which is very easy. The added fire hazard is a concern as well, I'll admit.

I've already seen cork insulation but the base color is always brown and does not deal well with being painted on.

What other options may I look into? I'm in southern Europe but in an area with harsh winters.

I have a small plot of land where a few old trees exist.

For what I could gather, these are heirloom trees no longer commercially available, probably even local varieties: one pear (possibly two), one apricot, one peach and one cherry tree.

I would like to reproduce these trees without the need to use root stock.

Talking with arborists always returned the same kind of answer: not commercially viable, too long to obtain fruiting trees and even an argument that the new trees would become "wild" and never bear fruit or only bear unedible fruit. This one I find particularly wild...

Does anyone have any sort of experience trying this? Can anyone recommend a technique?

I've read about a technique that recommends wrapping branches in cloth, with a lump of soil in contact with the wood to promote rooting but the trees I want to prioritize are not eligible for it as they are extremely old, with very thin and frail branches.

Are there any others you would recommend or suggest?

Besides Libre Office, what other programs/solutions exist in the Linux world for writers?

(Please, don't suggest VIM. After all the memes and comments I've read, I've come to dread it).

I like writing but the standard Writer tends to send me in a constant formatting spree.

I want to get back to writing regularly and something that could help me stay focused and somewhat organized would be nice.

It's friday, so lets try to end the week in a positive note with a laugh.

My own: got the first compliment of my life after a locker room raid.

I was told I was pretty easy on the eye with no top on, with a smile and a wink to boot, after a few minutes of playing the toss the bundle around game.

And what do you recommend to hang on walls, for decorative purposes, besides family photos?

Mine are blank and barren, an empty canvas for the maniacal decorator in me, after carefully negotiated with the family.

A few years ago, almost out of despair, I moved away from Debian in order to be able to play a few games natively.

On those days, the main concern with running games on Debian came mostly from unavailable dependencies or older, incompatible versions.

Fast forward today, returning to Debian, all installers from GOG run smoothly, with no error, but many games report errors on launching.

So, as per the title, what crazy voodoo magic is cast upon Debian to create Ubuntu, Mint and others, making those derivatives gaming-capable but their base distro not?

Can someone enlighten me on this, please?

Out of many games I tried, I managed to run three: Kingdom Rush and the Frontiers sequel and Martial Law.

Other titles failed miserably, including Desperados, Eschalon and even Stardew Valley.

Because it's useful/required info:

system

• AMD Athlon II x2 250
• 8GB RAM
• GeForce G210

It's a very reliable work horse, with maxed out memory. The GPU proprietary drivers are no longer available; running nouveau.

When launching from the console, I get this report (example from Stardew Valley):

start.sh: 7: Bad substitution

start.sh: 9: source: not found

start.sh: 12: get_gameinfo: not found

start.sh: 13: get_gameinfo: not found

start.sh: 14: get_gameinfo: not found

start.sh: 29: define_option: not found

start.sh: 32: standard_options: not found

At the bare minimum, as "Sir".

As I'm about to start renewing and expanding the computer fleet in my house I decided I want to have a machine solely for my personal use, where I can use some solutions no one else will feel comfortable with in the house.

I've been wanting to try window managers for a while but after researching on it for a bit I'm none the wiser on which to choose.

There are a few distros out there that already deliver this kind of experience but I want to use the opportunity to learn and start from a stock Debian and build from there to where I want to get to.

I'm fully capable of setting up my computers as is but I'm aware WMs require a bit more involvement, so having at least good documentation is a must.

I'm also not averse to learn some coding, even more when considering I want to have a fully costumized conky, but I've never coded before.

The machine will be used essentially for writing, web surfing and email and, if possible, running Stardew Valley.

Any advice will be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Ever had one those moments in life when you know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, you are making a very, very bad decision, with a great chance for instant regret and a miserable, probably long lasting, outcome and notheless followed that path?

Yeah, that one. Care to share with us?

I'll start. I dated a person, after we had already dated for a very short time, during which I was cheated on and eventually was left for a fourth person.

Yeah, not my brightest moment. And yes, I was cheated on again and again was left for another person.