It does help greatly in general though, because all of your data will be encrypted when the device is at rest. Theft and B&Es will no longer present a risk to your privacy.

Per-app permissions address this specific threat model directly. Containerized apps, such as those provided by Flatpak can ensure that apps remain sandboxed and unable to access data without explicit authorization.

I'm happy to see it's finally happening, and I hope they left its implementation flexible.

What I'd really love to see (aside from triple buffer) is a real solution to the system tray situation. AppIndicator is problematic for some apps and under certain X11/Wayland desktops, and even when it works well it is cumbersome to use compared to traditional tray implementations. Hoping we see a new approach soon.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying a revisit to KDE Plasma under Kinoite and I have to say I'm really impressed with both DEs!

If a layman may ask, what are folks even using AI/LLMs for mostly? Aside from playing around with some for 10-15 mins out of simple curiosity, I don't have a practical use for platforms like ChatGPT. I'm just wondering what the average tech enthusiast uses these for, outside of academia.

Yep. My only real goal is to reduce the amount of advertising I'm exposed to on a daily basis, and to that end it's working...for now.

No cable, no streaming services, no broadcast radio, automated downloads of media, ad blockers everywhere, DNS sinkhole, etc. Thankfully, it's all low maintenance once in place.

Ubuntu is (mostly) based on Debian. This is simply a move by Ubuntu to further push their own packaging platform which is effectively proprietary at this time. Debian's own packaging will remain unchanged.

I appreciate the writeup and that you've taken the time to post about it here, however I am 100% leery of managing remote access or credentials using closed source software. I'll definitely keep an eye on the project, but it's a hard pass for me until the app is fully open source.

I can't deny that the name's connotation in internet culture is what turned me away from Fedora for many, many years. It is an unfortunate coincidence.

The best and most official explanation I've read is the 2017 GNOME blog post, Status Icons and GNOME.

Essentially, tray icons are a throwback to the days before designated notification and media playback APIs, and they now create some ambiguity for app developers, in addition to being ripe for abuse.

It's a worthwhile read and the writer makes several valid points, but doesn't address as much as I'd like in terms of actual solutions for things like instant messengers.

Personally, I would be happy if most traditional tray apps could be displayed in the dash, with status indicators, and started in a minimized state, but I still see the benefit of having some always-visible panel icons, such as instant messengers and VPN indicators.

I don't think you'll be able to build anything with €100, but you might be able to buy an old PC or laptop locally and use it as is. I've never run nextcloud myself, but from I've read it'll be the most taxing service on your list. Everything seems pretty minimal, though I don't know anything about Photoprism.

You haven't really identified any of your reasons for leaving the previous distros behind. Did they fall short somewhere? If it was simply to try them all out, then by all means, add a notch on your belt for Arch too. You can always install yet another distro down the road if it doesn't pan out.

I'm a former Arch dev, and once upon a time I created its logo. I love the project, and it will always be dear to me. That said, I use Fedora Silverblue for most of my host systems now, and Arch containers for my everyday tasks.

As you likely already know, Fedora provides one of the best GNOME experiences available. I like the additional stability, flexibility, background updates, and easy rollbacks that Silverblue provides, but I can also appreciate that the flatpak and containerized workflow isn't for everyone.

Nope, we love our local library for nearly all of our media needs!

I don't use self-checkouts in retail stores, and I hate that some stores, like Shoppers, will try so hard to direct me to one when I'm in the queue for the cashier. I have put down merch and walked out of stores over this stance, and I no longer visit some stores (like Shoppers).

I'm not entirely against automated purchase systems. A completely touchless system would get a pass from me. I am against retailers forcing their customers to manually scan and check-out their products though, all while treating them as untrustworthy by dictating where they can place their scanned merch, weighing the merch as it's scanned, and checking the receipts after doing so.

Obviously, none of this addresses the question of whether fully-automated retail spaces are actually good for the working class as a whole.