Freetype2, fontconfig and cairo are going to be pulled in as dependencies when you install just about any desktop app/library eg firefox, gtk so this is a no-op. Same for installing the jre and fontconfig again. Its pointless. The freetype2.sh line is commented out because that has been the default setting for the last 8 years so it makes no difference. The gfx.webrender.all setting in firefox is an override to force something it is most likely already doing based on the detected environment. If you check about:support the chances are you are already using hardware rendering. And its a performance and not quality setting. Half of this makes no sense.

Installing nicer fonts is always a good idea and also setting your desktop and application default fonts.

Some of the local.conf settings could potentially makes a big difference if your desktop environment defaults/user settings aren't good. Don't know a huge amount about freetype settings but I suspect using assign in there might override desktop environment settings which some people might not want. I set mine in a gui like the monkey I am.

My conversation with any llm tends to go, "you got a, b, c wrong, it should be d, e and f" and it says "sorry, ofcourse it should be d, e and f, my mistake, here it is with d, e, f, g and h". Then I say "g and h are wrong it should be i and j". And it keeps going. In the end I write it myself. Huge time wasters.

Edit: didn't pick up on it immediately but the two symbolic link commands are suss (they are for debian based distros). Endeavor is arch based and fontconfig on arch has the configs in /usr/share/fontconfig and the ones in the conf.default directory should already be linked into /etc/fonts/conf.d. 10-sub-pixel-rgb is in /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.default so that is already linked for me so attempting to do another link without deleting it would be an error - another no-op. I don't like rgb sub-pixel rendering so its overridden in my desktop settings. It shouldn't be necessary on high dpi IMO. The proper path for 70-no-bitmaps is in the /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail directory if you want to link it properly. If you use the wrong path as Claude suggested, its another no-op. If, like me, you don't have any bitmap fonts installed it won't make any difference anyway. Also /etc/fonts/conf.d is created by the fontconfig package so that is another no-op.

Edit 2: The setting's name might be inaccurate but Cleartype is the name of Microsoft's proprietary font renderer and isn't available on Linux. So possibly gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode was picked up from some StackOverflow discussion about Firefox font rendering on Windows. I won't say it doesn't work without reading the Firefox source code and/or trying it but I suspect a setting with that name would not have any effect on Mac or Linux.

I have a Framework 13" DIY running Linux. It is functional. I am reasonably confident I will be able to buy replacements for anything that breaks which is important to me. It is well designed for repair and upgrade but other devices offer better price/performance/features. If you are on a tight budget and care about the environment buy used.

Windows 9x was extremely time consuming to install with multiple reboots and before that it was all config files. Out of the box 95 couldn't play media, connect to the internet (thanks trumpet), even access a cd. Normies bought machines pre-installed and got help when the system shit itself. Before there were scripted alternatives large scale Windows deployments were all imaged because of the hours it took to set up a single machine swapping floppies and writing to spinning rust. You had to reboot numerous times and use third party drivers and apps for everything. I recently installed a disposable Win 10 to do a firmware upgrade and Microsoft have come a long way though having to disconnect the Internet to get a local login is very dark.

I apologise for the language but I am fed up with this shit.

I don't think promoting OpenAI/Microsoft services is very compatible with the open source/free software ethos.

OpenAI pretend to be a non-profit but are controlled by billionaires and Microsoft. I am not going to take up a subscription and have my personal data mined by a company so I can have the arch wiki and man pages developed with millions of hours of volunteer labour served back to me.

I used to attend Linux/free software conferences decades ago and there would always be that one person who thought Facebook or Google were brilliant and that adding everyone's lives and personal data to gmail or facebook was totally fine because the APIs were cool and big companies are totally ethical, "Don't be Evil" etc. I thought they were foolish then and I think time has shown they are even more foolish now.

Every news site and forum I go to, even very non-technical ones, has people appear out of nowhere exclaiming with enthusiasm how OpenAI/copilot solved all their problems in great detail. Whether they are genuine or are just on the hype train created by bots and paid influencers I am at my breaking point with this shit. It is worse than the crypto bros with their NFT monkeys and get rich schemes. It has nothing directly todo with Linux or open source software. I escaped reddit to avoid all the influencers and people peddling shit but it is here as well and people can't see it for what it is.

It is a compression library that is in the dependency tree for a large number of other packages though not as many as zlib which is in practically everything.

xz development appears to have been compromised by some organisation in a long game targeting sshd in Debian and derivatives. Debian maintainers have a nasty habit of adding lots of patches to upstream sources which occasionally have unintended consequences. I am a long term Debian user but I wish they would stop doing this. Thankfully arch generally doesn't modify upstream as much as Debian and arch sshd doesn't link in the backdoored library.

Growth of a few million subscribers is nothing for a company the size of Netflix and there could be all sorts of creative accounting going on.

Executives patting themselves in the back to justify bonuses is self serving bullshit. Quality and value build long term brand profitability but that is too hard for MBAs. Cost cutting and screwing customers is all they know. In a few years people will be asking what the fuck happened to Netflix.

I was a relatively early adopter of Netflix before it was available in my country and used it via VPN back when Netflix had more to gain by allowing that. They made some interesting shows that justified the very affordable price. Now there is more content and most is crap. I rotated subscriptions for the last year but I am hard out now. And ad supported tiers don't fix it for me because I would rather eat shit than watch them.

Long time family premium user (household of parents and kids). Anything Youtube do to preserve their revenue within reason doesn't bother me too much as long as they don't reduce the split with quality creators. If they were successful with all this bullshit perhaps they wouldn't have needed to notify me that subs are almost doubling next year. My guess is all they are doing is fucking things up for everyone. It is only going to get worse if their premium subscription base reduces. They should be pricing premium as an alternative to ad-blockers but instead they are pushing people including premium subscribers towards ad-blockers.

I already have ad-blockers and apps for circumventing youtube ads. Not using them in favour of a fairly priced (to me) subscription was a choice but sadly one Google seems to be discouraging.

Many areas of machine learning, particularly LLMs are making impressive progress but the usual ycombinator techbro types are over hyping things again. Same as every other bubble including the original Internet one and the crypto scams and half the bullshit companies they run that add fuck all value to the world.

The cult of bullshit around AI is a means to fleece investors. Seen the same bullshit too many times. Machine learning is going to have a huge impact on the world, same as the Internet did, but it isn't going to happen overnight. The only certain thing that will happen in the short term is that wealth will be transferred from our pockets to theirs. Fuck them all.

I skip most AI/ChatGPT spam in social media with the same ruthlessness I skipped NFTs. It isn't that ML doesn't have huge potential but most publicity about it is clearly aimed at pumping up the market rather than being truly informative about the technology.

It could be bunnies

My kids have been gaming all day on Steam. They have zero intellectual curiosity about the system they are using. They have been using Arch for years but it might as well be a console or Mac. They log in and launch a web browser, Steam or a Minecraft launcher and that is it. It makes me a bit sad.

I have a very pragmatic view on capitalism. It isn't inherently good or evil. Social democracy provides the best compromise where regulated capitalism generates wealth and funds innovation while responsible democratic government protects employees and the environment and provides services that have a strong social benefit.

Unfortunately social democratic policies are undermined in many countries and resisted in others to the point where some young people become frustrated and look to answers in hateful extremist politics which really is a horseshoe.

I have been watching system76 from afar for a long time and everytime I upgrade I look at their systems but I was never confident of local support. I bought an equivalent to one of their early laptops from a local company once. I think it is great that they are bringing more design in-house as rebadging generic systems limited their documentation and repairability.

While competition is good I can't look past Framework at the moment. They shipped to me direct from Taiwan as fast as a local delivery and I know I can repair the system so it removes all the concerns I had about dealing with a niche foreign company. I see no value in PopOS or the other user space stuff from system76. Open firmware is an advantage but I think framework will get there eventually. As much as I respect system76s mission I think their business model is dubious. They should have gone in-house open hardware earlier and I think the userspace stuff is a pointless distraction.