The removal of the black gradient at the bottom is a plus.

Putting the controls in their own grey capsules so they still standout is a plus.

The moving of the volume button to the right is a negative.

I dont like change just for changes sake, but in fairness some of this is a good idea and a welcome design shift. I just hopebthey move the volume button back as having on the left with the main controls is pretty widespread and common design.

Debian has a good page on it and how their set up works:

https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot

Edit: Ubuntu is derived from Debian and then Mint from Ubuntu, but they may have their own differing approachsnto secure boot.

If your linux OS supports secure boot then it does help improve security.

The differing opinions on it are often because it can cause issues in some set ups and in a default set up its only a marginal security gain.

It will add a layer of security at boot by preventing 3rd party unauthenticated processes / software from running and creates a secure boot chain from your BIOS up to the OS. But the default set up also means other authenticated OSes like Windows can be run, so its not as secure as it could be.

To really secure it you could create your own keys and then only your OS could boot. But as a linux newbie thats likely way more than you need and there are risks if you fuck up, to the point of accidentally locking you out of your own machine

So your choice is really just the default set up being on or off. On is a bit more secure but if you experience any issues then turn it off and don’t worry about it.

Its not doing nothing. Linux uses a Microsoft provided key for initial BIOS authentication and then has its own tree of keys that it uses for security. So it does have the benefits of locking out malicious code/processes even in a default set up.

Using your own secure boot and TPM keys is certainly more secure, but it doesnt follow that secure boot with the default set up is doing nothing to help secure your system at boot.

Linux supports secure boot so if a distro supports it it’s worth using it.

Linux can use a key signed by Microsoft in a preboot loader and then itself perform its own key authentications for all other processes and software (a shim), forming a secure chain from the BIOS up during boot. You dont have to play with creating your own keys.

So if your OS supports secure boot it is worth using it for added security at boot. Its far from perfect in this set up (as there are plenty of windows OS that also have permission to boot) but it is better than a free for all without it even if the risk is low for most desktop users.

You can go further an generate your own keys and use secure boot and TPM together to lock down the system further but you dont have to to get some benefits from secure boot.

As per your other thread, incase others are interested. I dont own one but on searching options seem to be limited. It can be jail broken and Kodi installed.

That may be a jumping off point for doing more but I can’t see that anyone has successfully installed linux on it for example.

https://github.com/NSSpiral/Blackb0x

So I dont own one but was interested in what could be done.

As far as I can see the 3rd gen model is less versatile than the 1st and 2nd, because its so locked down and has very limited storage. Its more like an iPhone than a PC.

However apparently it can be jailbroken and Kodi installed onto it: https://github.com/NSSpiral/Blackb0x

Jail breaking means “unlocking” the restrictions apple put on the is on the device so you can do more with it.

But this project is last updated in 2021 and from the looks of it online, fundamentally there isn’t much more that can be done. Jail breaking it would be a first step to do anything with it if you want to experiment.

Kodi would certainly give it a new lease of life but that still keeps it as a media consumption device. Kodi is an open source media tool that has a good TV friendly interface, and a huge range of plugins for streaming video and audio (legally but also illegally; kodi itself is perfectly legit and legal but there are plenty of plugins that essentially allow media piracy). You could then sell it on eBay if its working? Someone might want it even if only for cheap?

Other than that, recycle it? If your local refuse centre doesnt recycle it some companies might?

Regardless of OS version? That sounds like nonsense. Only someone who doesn’t know how Linux works would believe that.

glibc is a fundamental library that underpins Linux. Its been going since the 1980s and is constantly updated and patched.

Similarly the Linux kernel undergoes constant evolution and change.

No one can promise to support Linux regardless of the OS version because by necessity it is constantly changing. Even slow release cycle distros like Debian move forward with each major release. Backwards compatibility is actually a bit of a nightmare on Linux. Ironically it can be easier to get old windows software running on Linux than old Linux software.

People running systems older than glibc 2.31 really should patch and update their systems. That package itself is already 5 years old.

Yeah I browsed r/all out of bored interest the other day for the first time in nearly 2 years. It was all shitty videos with silly music presumably imitating tik tok? I lasted a few minutes.

Then I browsed an old reddit I used to follow and it was mostly bot posts and karma farming.

I didn’t realise things have gotten as bad as they have.

No, if you like mint and cinnamon then why change?

The only reason to change would be if you want a different desktop environment. You could do that with mint or go with a distro that mains a different DE.

Mint is popular and reliable, so only change if you fancy trying something new and are willing to reinstall if its not to your liking.

I used to be on Mint and left it when I decided to move to KDE. It worked fine in mint but I had lots of app duplication in the menus. I also wanted more cutting edge versions.of software so wanted a different district for that. So I switched to OpenSuSE Tumbleweed (a rolling release distro).

If you do want to tinker and try out other distros then you could also play with distros in virtual machines (KVM or Virtualbox) or if you have a desktop get a second harddrive and install a different distro on it. Its easy to dualboot Linux distros (and safest to have separate hard drives so you don’t make mistakes when partitioning).

And the company remains massively overvalued despite the recent falls in value. It has a long way to fall yet.

I’ve played around with this. I find lutris is good for most games but sometimes you may need to do it yourself using Wine or Proton

I managed to get a game called Discworld Noir working - its almost impossible to get running in Windows itself but in wine it took relatively little effort.

The key for getting old windows 98 games running for example is to create a dedicated own Wine prefix (basically its own virtual environment) and install the needed windows packages into it. I’m using wine but you can also use the gaming focused and optimised Proton in a similar fashion.

For my method you need Wine and Winetricks. Winetricks gives you lots of easy to use tools to configure a wine prefix to your needs.

I followed this guide to create a win98 like environment: https://www.myabandonware.com/howto/wine (I appreciate the sire itself may be objectional to some but the guide itself is OK). The author doesnt quite understand wine so take some of the comments with a pinch of salt.

I’ll summarise here.

1. Create a wine prefix using the command below. The guide I linked creates a prefix into the default folder .wine, but I’d create something named like Win98. The .wine folder is too generic for making dedicated environments and may already exist. You can have as many prefixes as you want in different folders. Also the command below sets it as Win32 but this is redundant on the bleeding edge version of Wine; win64 will be fine if you’re on the latest version (lots of gaming distros like Nobara) use the bleeding edge, just change Win32 to Win64 if you get an error about wow64 :

WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 winecfg

The command basically tells Wine to run winecfg in the prefix; as the prefix doesnt exist wine first creates the prefix folders for you then launches the generic winecfg tool.

2. Winecfg will open. You can set the scaling for the prefix using the graphics tab if its too small (4k screen for example). Set the DPI to around 200 for 4k works well. This useful scales everything including games in a window if you use tools like dxwnd (mentioned later).

3. Close wincfg and now use Winetricks in the prefix using the terminal;

WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 winetricks

This command ensures its using your specific prefix. If you run winetricks from your linux menu it will run on the default prefix for the system, which may be the lutris one or more likely another random default one. You can select a prefix inside winetricks but it can be annoying each time you launch it. Using the terminal to specify the prefix prevents any errors and is just easier imo.

4. Select the option “select the default wineprefix” in the menu. It will stick with prefix you specified in the terminal.

5. In winetricks its a good idea to first install the basic windows fonts so old games and installers work properly. Select “install a font” and then select Core Fonts and Tahoma then click OK. Winetricks will download and install the fonts. It will throw up a dialogue box every so often warning you that wine will be unavailable - its very annoying but not an error, it a bizarre design decision with winetricks. Just click OK/continue each time it comes up. Once it finally finishes the fonts are installed and youre back in the winetricks menu. You may also get wow64 warning boxes if youre on a gaming distro/bleeding edge wine- also annoying but not an error.

6. Next we want to install some old windows DLLs and packages. The ones listed by the website work well for me for old games. You want:

• d3dx9_3
• dotnet40
• dotnet452
• vb6run
• vcrun6sp6

You may need slightly different packages for your games.

Again you’ll get lots of warning messages and popups. Just click through and agree to any old windows licenses. Allow the packages to install to their default locations - they’re installing into the prefix in a folder “drive_c” which is your fake windows drive.

7. Once its done you have a functioning Windows prefix which is optimised as if it was 1998.

8. For my game - Discworld Noir - I then had to install the game into the prefix. I used winecfg to mount my CD drive into the prefix and ran the installer off the CD. You can launch winecfg from winetricks and also launch Explorer - this shows you the folders inside your prefix. Running both let’s you change settings and also browse your virtual windows machine, including launching setup files from the CD. Note winecfg doesnt auto update if things change in the host linux system (like yoy mount a new drive). Close and reopen winecfg to see changes - can be important if youre swapping CDs for an install. To be clear the system changes do auto apply to wine, you just can’t see them live update in winecfg.

You can also mount ISOs using linux and winecfg will pick them up as CD drives, or also use Winetricks to launch Windows installer files directly. You can also use the terminal to launch the setup files directly.

WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/Gaming/Win98 wine /path/to/setup.exe

The game will install into the prefix as long as you run the setup file in the prefix.

9. Next, because my game has issues with being fullscreen in Windows I downloaded a windows program called dxwnd - https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/ This is a great tool for older games even on windows - it runs the game in emulated full screen which can solve a lot of unintended errors. It also has lots of config options for games that can help with tinkering.

Unzip the file into your prefixes fake drive C folder. For my example i put it in: ~/Gaming/Win98/drive_c/dxwnd/

Then using winetricks or the terminal, I launch dxwnd. Dxwnd contains loads of template configs for old games in its “export” folder. For my game I import the “discworld noir” config and then right click OK the new entry and select “modify”. I then point dxwnd to the location of the game exe (in my case I also needed to download a modified exe file for the game made to work on more modern systems - it also patches some other game errors so is still needednin my win98 fake machine).

I also then change the game resolution to 800*600 in dxwnd because for my game that is the source of crashes which the default config gets wrong.

Then thats it - I launch the game from the dxwnd launcher and a window 800*600 appears with the game in it. The great thing about dxwnd is that window gets scaled according to the DPI I set in winecfg so its nice and big on my 4k screen.

This is an example - your games may need different config options. Or you could get them running in Steam using proton - just add a “non steam game” find the exe in the lutris wine prefix (lutris/proton both create their own Wine prefixes) and add it.

There is also a tool called protontricks that is very similar to winetricks and allows ypu to modify the proton prefixes into the same way as winetricks for my game.

Protondb.com provides lots of information on popular and modern games, including peoples tips on how to modify the prefix or settings to use on launch to get games working.

It can seem intimidating but essentially wine and proton are doing the same thing: they create a windows environment with config files in a folder in your linux home folder. Lutris automates a lot of this installing the DLLs etc it needs for a game. But when lutris fails to work you can tinker with the lutris prefix using winecfg and Winetricks (launch them from within lutris), or create your own like I did.

I like to create my own prefix for probelmatic games as my lutris set up is now quite complex and has many games installed. So if there is one game with unique needs and tinkering it is useful to be able to create a dedicated prefix - then you dont break your other games if you break the prefix.

Hope that helps. Its honestly not as hard as it can seem and I have managed to get games working on linux that are nigh imposaible to get working on Windows now.

Also I havent even touched on Dosbox/dosbox-x which can run loads of dos games and even run Win98 itself. And of course you can also use KVM/Qemu or VirtualBox to make Windows virtual machines as another route. Generally though so far ive managed to get my windows games working on Wine.

And of course on top of all that you have emulation tools like Emulation Station, or EmuDeck, and loads of emulators. I use ScummVM for my old adventure games, and fs-uae for old Amiga games. You can do a lot with linux!

If youre new to linux, then I’d say Linux Mint is the place to start. Use it with XFCE if light weight is what you want.

Not having cutting edge packages is a red herring - you really dont want bleeding edge as thats where the errors and breakages happen. Mint is reliable and secure which is what you need when starting out. You dont want to be a beta tester. Dont confuse latest packages for most secure on linux - plenty of packages have stable older versions which get security patches.

Mint is also very popular, with a huge range of easy to find resources to help set it up the way you want it.

Wayland is also a red herring - its the future but its just not really ready yet. Yes its more secure due to how its built but the scenario you’re using linux in the particular security benefits you’re hearing about are not really going to impact you day to day. And the trade off is that Wayland is still buggy, with many apps still not working seamlessly. Most apps are designed for X11 and x-wayland is an imperfect bridge between the two. I’m not saying Wayland is bad - it’s actually good and is the future. But you dont want to be problem solving Wayland issues as a linux newbie. Dont see Wayland as essentialnfor an good stable and secure linux install.

Personally I wouldn’t recommend Fedora - it has a short update cycle and tends to favour newer bleeding edge tech and paclages. Thats not a bad thing but if what you want is a stable, reliable low footprint system and to learn the basics, in wouldn’t stray into Fedora just yet. It has a 13 month cycle of complete distro upgrades and distro upgrades are the times when there are big package changes and the biggest chances of something breaking. The previous version loses support after a month so you do need to upgrade to stay secure. Most people won’t have issues between upgrades but with any distro when you do a big upgrade things can easily break of you’ve customised things and set up things differently to the base. It can be annoying having to fix thongs and get them back how you want them, and worse can lead to reinstalls. Thats nor a uniquely Fedora problem, but the risk is higher woth faster updating and bleeding edge distros. And in fairness there are lots of fedora spins that might mitigate that - but then you risk being on more niche setups so support can be harder to find when you need it.

For comparison the latest version of Mint supported through til 2029, and major releases also get security patches and support for years even after newer versions are released. There is much less pressure to upgrade.

If the EU were concerned about the US jurisdiction of Linux projects it could pick:

• OpenSuSE (org based in Germany)
• Mint (org based in Ireland)
• Manjaro (org based in France/Germany, and based of Arch)
• Ubuntu (org based in UK)

However if they didn’t care, then they could just use Fedora or other US based distros.

I think it would be a good idea for the EU to adopt linux officially, and maybe even have it’s own distro, but I’m not sure this Fedora base makes sense. Ironically this may also be breaching EU trademarks as it’s masquerading as an official project by calling itself EU OS.

How is it misleading? Plex Pass is a subscription? It would be confusing to many people if it said “Plex pass” instead of “Subscription” as not everyone would necessarily even know what that is. Subscription is very clear.

I use Jellyfin as a home media server - in my set up I have it running on my desktop PC, and I use it to stream a media library to my tv.

A home media server basically just means its meant to be deployed at a small scale rather than as a platform for 1000s of people to use.

Your scenario is exactly what Jellyfin and Plex can do. If you have 5 users then you just need a host device running the server that is powerful enough to run 5 video streams at the same time. The server can transcode (where the server takes on the heavy lifting needing a more powerful CPU) or direct play (where all the server does is send the bits of the file and the end user’s device such as a phone or smart tv does the hard work of making a quality play, so a lower power server device can work).

If this is contained within your home, your home wifi or network should be fine to do this, even up to 4k if your network is good enough quality. If the 5 people are outside your home then your internet bandwidth - particularly your upload bandwidth - and your and their internet quality will be important determinant of quality of experience. It will also need more configuring but it is doable.

This doesn’t need to be expensive. A raspberry pi with storage attached would be able to run Jellyfin or Plex, and would offer a decent experience over a home network if you direct play (I.e. just serve up the files for the end users device to play). You might need something more powerful for 5 simultaneous direct play streams but it would still be in the realms of low powered cheap ARM devices.

If you want to use transcoding and hardware acceleration you’d need better hardware for 5 people to stream simultaneously. For example an intel or amd cpu, and ideally even something with a discrete graphics card. That doesn’t mean a full desktop PC - it could be an old PC or a minipc.

However most end user devices such as TVs, PCs, Phones and tablets are perfectly capable of direct playing 1080p video themselves without the server transcoding. Transcoding has lots of uses - you can change the audio or video format on the fly, or enable streaming of 4k video from a powerful device to a less powerful device - but its not essential.

Direct play is fine for most uses. The only limitation is the files on the server need to be in a format that can be played on the users device. So you may need to stick to mainstream codecs and containers; things like mp4 files and h.264/avc. You could get issues with users not being able to playback files if you have say mkv files and h. 265/hevc or vp9. Then you’d either need to install the codecs in the users device (which may not be possible in a smart tv for example) or use transcoding (so the server converts the format on the fly to something the users device can use but then needing a more powerful server)

I prefer Jellyfin as its free and open source. It has free apps for the end user for many devices including smart tvs, streaming sticks, phones, tablets and PCs. Its slightly less user friendly than plex to set up but not much. And the big benefit is your users are only exposed to what you have in your library.

Plex is slightly more user friendly but commerical. You have to pay for a licence to get the best features and even then it pushes advertising and tries to get your users to buy commercial content. Jellyfin does not do that at all.

Finally if your plan is to self host in the cloud, again this is doable but then you stray into needing to pay for a powerful enough remote computer/server, the bandwidth for all content to be served up (in addition to your existing home internet) and the potential risk of issues with privacy and even copyright infringement issues around the content you are serving. A self hosted device in your home is much more secure and private. A cloud hosted solution can be secure but youre always at risk of the host company snooping your data or having to enforce copyright laws.

Edit: the other thing to consider ia an FTP server. If you just want to share the files, its very simple to set up. What Jellyfin and Plex offer is convenience by having a nice library to organise things, and serving up the media. But direct play from a media server is not far off just downloading the file from an ftp server to your home device and playing it. But you can also download files from a Jellyfin server so I’d say its worth going the extra step and to use a dedicated media server over ftp.

In fairness to the register they also ridicule moving to a dedicatdd ERP in the same article.

You’re r absolutely right there is nothing wrong with Excel. Its powerful software and ultimately it cones down to human and organisational processes about whether its being used to its best or not. You can also have the most expensive top end dedicated ERP in the world and still be a total mess. Similarly business used to run on pen and paper and could be highly efficient.

Software is just a tool, and organisation go wrong when they think it alone is the solution to their problems.

Also I doubt Health NZ overspend has anything whatsoever to do with excel. Instead it’ll be due to rising demand, and inflationary pressures on public finances. We have the exact problems here in the UK with the NHS just scaled up to a £182bn.

I don’t like my food raw.

Roast the Rich

Barbecue the Billionaires

Sauté the Superwealthy

Your submission has been removed as it advocates wordplay and the potential use of a thesaurus. Education and signs of intelligence are against the interests of the rich.

One thing Phil Spencer does not seem to care about is emulation. There are already Xbox and PlayStation emulators that allow access to more of both platforms back catalogues than any of the current generation consoles are capable of…

Xbox could build cloud based emulators off the open source tools already available and make their entire Xbox back catalogue accessible to current users to stream. They could help improve the tools to ensure greater and greater compatibility for titles and then it would be there forever.

The reason it doesn’t happen is money. They dont see money in game preservation so they dont bother beyond a few big name nostalgia hits. Muse AI isn’t about game preservation, its about game development - they’re just pissing around with game preservation to feed it content as a punt on the future for it somehow making game development cheaper.