True, though I believe the Packman repo is still needed for access to patent encumbered codecs, so it’s hard to avoid. It also used to be needed for Nvidia drivers and Steam (and the Flatpak steam is usually not recommended, can have issues over the standard package), though I’m unsure if that’s still the case.

From what I recall, that way isn’t recommended on Tumbleweed/Slowroll. Looking it up now, the openSUSE website still appears to recommend using either the terminal or Myrlyn.

For openSUSE Tumbleweed, zypper dup and Myrlyn is the only recommended way to update the system. Other tools like Plasma Discover or Gnome Software cannot resolve package conflicts which may arise by using external repositories.

I assume Packman would be considered an external repository, which I suspect most people will want to use.

However I wasn’t familiar with Myrlyn until now. It looks a bit like Synaptic (which could be intimidating to newbies due to how old/enterpise-y it looks), but at least there is now a recommended GUI way to do updates.

Do you happen to know if Tumbleweed/Slowroll now mention in a welcome screen anywhere to use those update methods instead? From my time with it there wasn’t any good new user info presented, ya kinda had to dig to find out that sorta stuff.

Do be aware that I don’t think that blogs can be encrypted or made private, I think they’re viewable to any movim user (I haven’t experimented with that feature).

Also, it is possible to disable the chat encryption on Movim, so if you’re going to have any non-tech savvy people using it who may accidentally disable it without knowing, and that could be dangerous, then you may need to opt for a platform where it’s enabled by default instead, like Delta chat (though it does not have any blog-like features, multi-room channels, nor any voice call ability, unlike Movim.

I’m personally a bit hesitant to recommend Slowroll (despite really liking the idea of it), since it’s still considered experimental by openSUSE, and I personally had some issues with it borking the Nvidia driver from an update.

OpenSUSE also comes with some… odd design choices, like the package patterns that can trip people up when they uninstall things, and the lack of a GUI updater for tumbleweed/slowroll (unless that’s changed?).

One of those spray-can extension poles would probably work pretty well.

Movim allows you to host a blog as well as private and encrypted chat channels like Matrix, that might be a good solution.

Saving that link, looks super handy. Thanks for sharing it!

I thought perhaps Ubuntu’s LTS point releases might update it, but after checking, it appears they do not. Kubuntu seems to suggest that they use PPA’s for users who want a newer KDE on an LTS, though I’m unsure how stable that method would be in practice.

Overall it does seem that LTS distros tend not to bother updating KDE, unlike Gnome (which Ubuntu does seem to update in their point releases).

Some KDE devs have spoken about someday making LTS versions of KDE that line-up with major LTS distros release schedules (KDE once had an LTS release but dropped it since none of the distros used it for it being out of sync with their schedules, IIRC), but I haven’t heard any news on that front.

Humanity actually successfully implemented a decentralized egalitarian socialist society without dictatorships in 1936 Spain, which bore out that Anarchist political theory is the most viable long-term solution we have to achieving freedom for all while also ensuring everyone is able to live a fulfilling life by providing free housing, food, transportation and healthcare.

Ehh, the start-up costs would be pretty insane, and it would likely be a financial loss if the AI bubble popped and prices came down. It’d be a very risky move.

Only downside is Debian 13 will likely forever be stuck with KDE 6.3.6, which has some noticeable bugs on my hardware that won’t be fixed until Debian 14.

KDE really benefits from distros that keep it more up to date, to the point where even the KDE devs suggest avoiding KDE on Debian.

Thanks for that! I was able to find a page that details what it checks for:

https://www.seafoam-labs.org/shelly-alpm/docs/security/

Seems like it’s certainly better than nothing, but I’m unsure if the 1500 infected packages in the AUR would’ve been flagged by this, depending on how the malware was introduced. Even with Shelly, I probably wouldn’t recommend most people use the AUR until more protections are put in place by the Arch team.

You mean after trying this preview release of Xfwl4?

Could you explain how Shelly does checks on AUR packages? I can’t find where it mentions doing so on its website, and even in its documentation is says:

Enable AUR - Allows access to the AUR download features, these packages are managed by individual users so access at your own risk

How does Shelly make using the AUR safe for people who do are not able to effectively investigate the install scripts themselves?

Regarding permissions, I highly recommend the use of Flatseal, which is a very polished GUI program that lets you adjust the permissions of any flatpak individually, quite similar to how Android does it.

Stick with verified flatpaks on flathub (they also host unverified packages, avoid those), and Appimages directly from the software maker’s site, if they offer them.

The Gnome Software Store and the Mint software store both have the option to not show unverified flatpaks, which I would suggest using.

Because it looks like this whole requirements thing is pure marketing, and studios needing to keep selling: “Look, shinier graphics that will make the previous generation of games you loved and found incredibly sharp and detailed when theé came out look mild and of bad quality now!”

This is exactly what’s happening. Its been going on for a long time, and is in some ways holding back the industry from progressing in other areas, such as new and innovative forms of actually interacting with game worlds and their narratives.

I’d personally say once 3D graphics were able to represent things without it looking abstract from too few polygons (say, around 2006 or so?), the medium could’ve slowed down the pace of graphical advancements significantly, and the industry would’ve benefited enormously.

Modern indie games that do not have AAA budgets for graphics instead have focused on unique and attractive art-styles, sometimes with retro aesthetics, and are generally able to create far more compelling experiences due to the lack of emphasis on graphics.

Heck yeah :)

Also, I just need to mention that you have a fantastic username.

Well said, Quill. :)

Orwell fought in a Marxist militia (the POUM) during the Spanish Civil War against Franco’s fascists, and got a bullet to the neck for it. He then had to quickly flee Spain while still recovering from the wound when the Stalinist Marxist-Leninist faction turned on both the Marxists and the Anarchists, and began to round them up for imprisonment or execution, justifying the betrayal by calling them ‘secret fascists’ that were somehow collaborating with the enemy (which was obviously absurd).

That event fully soured Orwell on Marxist-Leninist authoritarian communism, inspiring both Animal Farm and 1984, as well as motivating him to make that list of ‘communists’ which he thought sympathetic to authoritarianism and the USSR. I can’t say I would’ve made that same choice, but I can certainly understand why he would’ve wanted to prevent USSR collaborators from gaining more power after what he’d directly experienced.

Saying that, as with most figures of that time, he also had some pretty fucking bad takes, such as being pretty homophobic and antisemitic, and may have included some people on that list for being either of those things (he also possibly could’ve written that list while pretty deluded with advanced tuberculosis, as some later figures have postulated). That’s not to say we should throw out the baby with the bath-water, otherwise we’d also have to dismiss the entire works of most historical figures, such as Bakunin (Antisemite, racist) or Marx (Antisemite, Racist), and certainly Engels (Racist, Antisemite) instead of sifting the good from the bad (though Engels in particular has little to offer, other than justifications for authoritarianism).