My uncle in Oregon can't get into his laptop because his Microsoft account got b0rked and the bloody 2FA won't let him log in because he registered it to his home phone number without thinking about it.
I really want to grab some microsoft exec by the giblets and swing them around until they reach orbital velocity.
My utter disdain and hatred for that ruddy company has ripened and reached 180 proof over the past thirty years.
@RL_Dane
Ah, I remember when my Windows laptop enabled FDE without telling me then locked me out of my account, saying my password was incorrect. I couldn't do a reset without the key unless I willing to lose my data.
I waited literally 7-9 hours in a queue to *virtually chat* with a Microsoft representative. He told me that the key should be backed up to my account.
It wasn't. I lost all my files that weren't synced to GDrive, including the first 43k words of my in-progress NaNoWriMo novel.
@RL_Dane
This is (1) when I made Ubuntu the primary install I'd use rather than just a dual boot I had for kicks and (2) the main inspiration for why I now run hourly backups on most of my data.
@RL_Dane
Anyway, here I am a couple years later and I don't use a single Micro$oft product that I'm not required to for uni. No GitHub (except issue reporting), no npm, no Windows, etc.
@RL_Dane
And never will I recommend a Micro$oft product to anyone.
@RL_Dane
Not sure whether the next step should be de-Applifying or de-Googling.
@benjaminhollon @RL_Dane I would say De-Googling is probably of higher imperative than de-Applifying, but I'm an Android user, so they basically own me.
De-Google your Android!
@RL_Dane @gordoooo_z
Not sure I've ever understood going half-measures; for example, using degoogled chromium rather than something else altogether, like Firefox. If I ever switch away from a mainstream mobile OS (which I hope to someday) it'll almost certainly be to a pure Linux-based system.
@benjaminhollon I have a phone that, in addition to Android can run Sailfish and Ubuntu Touch. Both systems aren't quite there in terms of making them your daily drivers, main problem being the browser not being on par with what you can have on Android. You can work that around with Waydroid (running Android in a container under host os), but that kinda defeats the purpose because using Android as host OS you can always have better battery life —mine lasts for 5 days 🤷
@RL_Dane @gordoooo_z
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane I was really excited about Ubuntu Touch with Convergence, but that seemed to become a stretch goal after Canonical handed things off to ubports :/
I'm just waiting for a Linux smartphone that can make that dream a reality.
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane Personally, I think a future where a laptop is essentially a dumb terminal that wakes up in the presence of a smartphone would make a lot of sense, in a world where a CPU becoming obsolete also makes all of the perfectly functional integrated peripherals obsolete as well.
Same thing happens to phones, but putting a 6" screen in a drawer to die is far preferable to putting a 14 to 17" screen + keyboard + trackpad + speakers in a drawer to die.
@gordoooo_z
MS got it right with Continuum. Unfortunately the whole Windows 10 Mobile thing didn't take of and they've scrapped it. Then the community made it possible to install desktop Windows 10 on ARM and later 11 on Lumia phones. It worked nicely, even though the UI wasn't optimized, you could use it as a phone, but when you plug it into dock with external display and periferals, it's a normal Windows PC.
@benjaminhollon @RL_Dane
@gordoooo_z
I don't know why this still didn't happen, the phone I use now looks too powerful to me, it has an eight-core CPU, the performance core being clocked at 3.0 GHz, it has 8 gigs of RAM and 256 Gb of fast UFS 3.1 storage. I have a 200 Gb SD card in it on top of that. I think it's more powerful than the laptops I use. And device like that is used for answering phone calls and some lightweight web browsing? 🤷
@benjaminhollon @RL_Dane
@m0xee @gordoooo_z @RL_Dane
If I were you I'd figure out some way to hook it up to *be* your main device. Imagine using it while out, then plugging it into your system when at home and it's suddenly got an external monitor and keyboard, etc., to be like a desktop computer. I don't know if it would be actually useful, but I'd definitely be trying it. ;)
@benjaminhollon
It's not some fancy flagship phone, yes an overpowered device like that is a Chinese smartphone that costs less than €300 🤯
It can use external kb/mouse like Lumia could, but not the display. It can do so wirelessly, but I don't like that. And Android is just meh.
Having normal Linux would be great, but I think only Librem 5 and Pinephone can run mainline kernel with all hardware properly supported.
@gordoooo_z @RL_Dane
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane Ubuntu Touch claims that everything functions on the Pixel 3/3A. I've seen at least one video where that was mostly the case, minus GPS, but "everything" does not necessarily include desktop mode currently. I bet you it's doable, though.
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane@fosstodon.orgt woah. Hold the phone (pun very intended)... https://youtu.be/IMIwYaWgttM
@gordoooo_z @m0xee @benjaminhollon
Holy mackerel!!! That is so smooth on such a weak device! WHOA!
@RL_Dane Right? Genuinely surprised, and the XL is only about $170 CAD around these parts...
I don't know how long I can resist.
@m0xee @gordoooo_z @RL_Dane
Heh, fair enough. Yeah, I'm mainly just throwing my dream of my own setup into the mix here; I know there's not really anything at that point yet. ;)
@m0xee @gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
Dang, what monster phone is that? :D
Man, I remember when mobile OSes had to be super lean because the hardware was so weak.
Now the phones are as fast as laptops, and the mobile OSes are bloated garbage.
@RL_Dane Yup. I've grown tired of the whole thing tbh. I don't know how much of the sluggishness of an Android phone is the hardware, vs. how much of it is just Android being a piece of garbage, but it's annoying to have to start fresh every year. It's like having a Windows machine in your pocket.
Then again, my girlfriend and I had the same phones for a couple generations in a row, and in spite of her constantly cycling through mobile games, hers never quite slows down like mine...
@RL_Dane I did discover after a while that my Pixel XL's problem was CX File Explorer's thumbnail cache, so I guess just all the weird nitty gritty stuff I do just gives Android more of a run for its money than just normal human use, lol.
My Pixel 4a 5G was less than a year old when I put Calyx on it. It was already becoming annoyingly sluggish on Stock Android.
It's been light as a feather on Calyx. Zero complaints. I have gotten some slow-downs very recently, but it might just need a reboot. My Calyx install is 18 months old, now.
@RL_Dane
https://m.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_poco_x3_pro-10802.php
Very decent hardware dirt cheap! Bonus points for having community ports of SailfishOS, UT and Droidian.
It has issues though. Looks like soldering isn't good and sometimes these phones die 😩
Mine is about a year old and no hardware issues, but you can find many reports of such cases online.
Mine seldomly runs hot, I need all this computing power like… never. Maybe it'll last longer.
@gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
@m0xee I wonder if it could be solved with a gentle reflow? Maybe they just have to rush them out to hit that price point? I don't know, but that is certainly a lot of phone for the money.
@gordoooo_z Yeah, reballing is how these phones get fixed basically. But you never know if that fix would be permanent so most get rid of their phones after that if it happens. I'm using MacBookPro late '11 with a dead discrete GPU now, same issue. I even used this laptop for gaming when it worked and never had any issues, it worked perfectly for 5 years, then 🍏 anounced a free replacement program, but after the program ended it decided to die on me. Now I'm being wary about this😅
@m0xee I swear those Nvidia Macbooks were the worst. A photographer friend of mine shelled out $3500ish for one of the later ones (maybe 2015?) and it was failing well within the first year. Ended up building her a Ryzen PC the next time around, once she finally got tired of expensive Macbooks dying on her.
@gordoooo_z Mine has ATI/AMD GPU, but the issues are the same. Yes, this was the last drop for me, Apple messing with UI design was bad, but failing hardware was it. There was a brief period of me trying to use Windows (hence the Lumia), but now I'm back to using mostly FOSS stuff like I used to.
It's still a nice laptop: quad core i7, 16 gigs of RAM and a nice 1920x1200 display. Linux makes it easy to disable the dGPU and use the built-in one, it runs just fine.
@m0xee I've been Windows all my life, really. I had a friend around middle/high school who showed me the OS X light (his dad was loaded, so he even got a G5 in his room on release, in 8th grade 😳). Once I dipped a toe in the Linux world, though, I knew I'd be waist deep eventually 😅
@gordoooo_z PowerPC Macs are the best! I still have my G5 tower, it's mostly useless now — I only turn it on to update software a bit and tinker, but I still like this computer. It dual boots Void Linux and Mac OS X (in case I'm up to some old Mac games) now.
And MacMini G4 also running PowerPC port of Void hosts my Pleroma instance and some other stuff.
@m0xee man I would love to get my hands on a G5. Probably not the liquid cooled ones though. Too much of a ticking time bomb, but not owning any Apple devices atm, there are a few more affordable ones with more retro appeal I'd probably hop on first. I really want to get an iMac G3, and I keep seeing eMacs show up on FB Marketplace, usually for under $100.
Not going to pretend that I'm not tempted by the stack of cheesegrater Mac Pros someone is selling for $99/ea, but not quite...
@m0xee ...Interesting enough for to convince me to spend my limited spending money, lol.
@gordoooo_z I strongly advise you not to. Using old PowerPC Mac today for anything meaningful is a massive PITA and not for the faint of the heart.
Here are my rambling on what it is like: https://breloma.m0xee.net/notice/ATDA0AAlo5ZyaQurQ0
Hosted on one of these older Macs 😁
@m0xee For anything useful? That would spoil the fun! :P
Actually to be perfectly honest, trying to make old hardware do something useful is a lot of fun, but that's not quite old enough to flip from "massive PITA" to "ton of fun." Sounds more like work.
@gordoooo_z Well, maybe @chimera_linux will make these computers useful again. Daniel already did a tremendous work with PowerPC for of Void that I'm still running on my MacMini G4 and PowerMac G5. So I'm looking forward to this new project.
Currently there are no binary distros supporting this hardware so you have to build a lot of stuff yourself and hardware is dated to say the least so it takes a lot of time. Of course you can always cross-compile of more performant hardware — part of fun 😁
@m0xee @chimera_linux Oh you're definitely a masochist lmao. I was going to say, sounds like part of the fun, but you took the words out of my mouth :p
I probably won't be getting a G5 any time soon though. Apple stuff definitely holds its value, and with the expandability, and being the most powerful PowerPC Mac, those in particular. I really want to get an iMac G3 running something pre-OS X. OS X on a G4 tower would be great too, but that would be more of a nostalgia trip than what I'd call..
@m0xee @chimera_linux ..."classic computing." Not that I ever owned one myself, but that was when I was in my peak Apple fanboy days, and my best friend's room at the time was basically a G4 era museum, except you could touch everything (especially once he upgraded to the G5, lol).
@m0xee (his dad was loaded lol)
@m0xee @gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
I remember when I got my first cheapo (horrible) android phone in 2017, the Poco phones were just getting to be known and loved back then.
I'd worry about buying a chinese phone, though. :/
> I'd worry about buying a chinese phone, though. :/
Would that include the PinePhone?
@benjaminhollon @m0xee @gordoooo_z
You got me there. But at least the Pinephone is 90% open. Far less likely to have nasty surprises waiting for you in the firmware or baseband
@RL_Dane @m0xee @gordoooo_z
You caught me, it was a trick question. ;)
@RL_Dane
Not much of a choice in Russia right now because of war. I'm afraid I have to flee the country to get that Librem 5 😅
But of course I'm too paranoid to use a Chinese phone for Russian market with OS from surveillance company like Google, I never used it with stock ROM, I waited for a week to unlock bootloader (Xiaomi thing) and installed Arrow OS without Google Play Services.
@gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
@m0xee @gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
Man, war is such a big ball of suckage. I hope you're not of conscription age.
@RL_Dane @m0xee @gordoooo_z
Oof, I had a friend in High School who is now doing his year of compulsory military service in Korea. Not fun.
Brilliant guy, too. I think he's planning to go into computer science.
@RL_Dane
Nah, older than that. I'm also deemed unsuitable for the army — it was popular in my time to bribe them to get this status just to feel safer. And I stayed under the radar for quite some time for the state to forget about me — no property, no bank accounts in my name.
I think I'm safe, but the war is bad as it is, the perspective is still pretty dire even if you stay alive 😩
@gordoooo_z @benjaminhollon
I know my maternal grandfather got called for the Vietnam draft, and he was a pacifist at the time. He ended up deciding against getting out as a conscientious objector, since he didn't want someone else to have to go in his place; he'd just have refused to bear arms.
Anyway, he didn't end up passing the medical exam.
I don't even know what I'd do… I don't think I'm technically a pacifist, but… I sure don't know what the term is.
Basically, I think there are justified wars that should be fought, but I also don't think that any person or persons are qualified to say which ones those are.
@benjaminhollon
This war is far from being just. I was against it in 2014 and I'm still against it. The civil society in Russia failed to keep the state in check and now we face the consequences of that. It's appalling that innocent Ukrainians have to share it with us.
And it's hard to tell what the future holds even after it's over, TBH it all looks pretty bleak at the moment. First COVID, now this… Tinkering with tech helps overcome the anxiety a little 😄@RL_Dane @gordoooo_z
@m0xee @RL_Dane @gordoooo_z
Oh, I'm sure. I wasn't speaking about any war specifically, just my own general philosophy on war.
@benjaminhollon No, I got you. True, sometimes it's the only way. I think all wars happen because some bad things and people get tolerated for too long and then all hell breaks loose. I agree, some conflicts don't have peaceful resolution. Right now I'm not on my country's side because I know that giving in and appeasement will only postpone even worse outcomes.
@RL_Dane @gordoooo_z
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane I can't comment too much on living through war. I'm in Canada so life has been pretty undramatic, but I can at least agree with you that things are pretty bleak atm. Plagues, famine, fascism has never been so close to home. Tinkering is how I stay sane as well (getting off the bird site helped a bit too).
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane But I can't imagine facing the possibility of actually having to go to war, so it feels a little shitty to complain from my quiet, uneventful corner of the world.
@m0xee @benjaminhollon @RL_Dane OMG I knooow! But I didn't know until well after it was dead and buried :/ I remember a couple people who were super all about their Lumias, and I was definitely taken by the hardware, but I was very much a fan of Android at the time. Now I'm not really a fan of anything aa far as mobile goes. I just want whatever works best for me that doesn't want my soul (a steady stream of data) as collateral.
@gordoooo_z
I've been using my Lumia phone like that until recently. The battery got too old and the phone started to shut down randomly and as getting new one is extremely hard, I had to put the old thing in the drawer. I got it in 2015 and I thing it wasn't to bad of an age to retire this device at last.
Purism tries to do that with Linux phones, but AFAIK there are lots of issues with Librem 5.
@benjaminhollon @RL_Dane