Resplendent606

I have been preparing to delete my Google account very soon. I did a final takout request and I’m waiting for that email (it has been 4 days since the request), but there is a lot of stuff since it is a very old account and I was deep in the Google ecosystem. Over the last six months, I have deleted my Microsoft, Reddit, and Facebook accounts and I don’t regret it. Google has always been the big one and it has taken a lot of work to rearrange my life to cut it out.

Free speech is not all speech. It never has been. People who think everyone should be allowed to say whatever are the same people who just want to say the “N” word and other hateful things without consequences. There should always be consequences for what you say and I don’t care which way it lands ideologically on the subject of free speech, hate speech is wrong, period. It is widely accepted what hate speech is; if you say anything against marginalized groups, you are wrong. If you use religion to justify your hate, you are wrong. If you call for the harm of others, you are wrong. Call it what you want. I am not going to sit here and debate free speech. My point was Odysee is full of the worst kind of people and you should not have to suffer those people because you want an alternative to YouTube.

Odysee’s policies make it unusable. I remember the first video I ever clicked to watch on Odysee was a video titled something like “What I am doing for Pride month.” This video was on the front page at the top. I clicked it and it was some lady preaching about how Pride is evil and perverse and all kinds of hateful rhetoric and how it was ruining our children. I just looked at Odysee again and, months later, I see more of her videos on the front page. Upon exploring Odysee, there is even more of this type of content still freely available to watch. I don’t care which way you lean, hate speech should never be acceptable. It is well known that the platform is a right wing cesspool. Here is a Reddit thread from 5 years ago where people were discussing the same thing, nothing has changed. It is the platform you go to when you are too crazy for YouTube (which is pretty nuts). It is not a viable alternative to YouTube for most people. There doesn’t exist a good alternative, PeerTube being the most promising option at the moment.

Odysee is a nonstarter for me with its lack of moderation, resulting in a lot of right-wing hate filled garbage. Also, their thing with using some virtual currency and paying creators is weird. I want no part of cryptocurrency or “space dollars” or whatever they want to call it. PeerTube is ideal but not enough people are posting to it, which is frustrating. Youtube frontends, like invidious, are our best solution until creators move to something else.

What you are experiencing is called a learning curve. Don’t let it get you angry, learn from it. NVIDIA is known to be problematic for Linux users (I have had my share of issues with my 2080 Ti) but once it is setup it is problem free. Librewolf is known to be one of the chunkier options, but 3gb really isn’t that much for modern systems (especially if you have 16 or 32gb of memory). I would personally take Librewolf’s privacy features over closed-source Vivaldi any day. Linux overall is much more efficient than Windows and I would bet that your system idle memory usage with nothing open is lower than it was with Windows.

That is an older laptop. I run an even older HP laptop on Arch that still feels zippy, even compared to my gaming desktop pc. One thing to remember is POP_OS! is designed for newer computers as it is built by a company who sells them. There are known issues with POP_OS! and Mesa drivers. The Mesa driver might not be efficiently handling the graphical demands of the default POP_OS! desktop. I’m not suggesting to switch your distro, just keep in mind going forward that it is made for newer systems.

Some further troubleshooting you can try:

• Check for Driver Updates: Ensure the system is fully up-to-date by running sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade in the terminal .
• Use a system monitor tool like htop, btop or the built-in system monitor to see if the CPU or RAM is maxing out when opening a program.
• Check for Overheating: Check if the laptop feels unusually warm. This could indicate a need to clean the cooling vents and fan.

Welcome to the GNU/Linux family! Your desktop setup is lovely! I highly approve of the use of Librewolf. Pop_OS! is a great choice choice for a new GNU/Linux user. As for your system feeling slower, you might be missing something. Can you share some of the basic specs, like cpu/ram and/or brand/model of the laptop? What feels slow, the internet or the actual loading/power of the system?

I don’t think people understand just how much power it would’ve consumed. 600MW is about the equivalent of 180,000 homes. It would also use massive amounts of water. In the desert. In Arizona. These things should not exist anywhere, but especially in places with very limited water.

This is so true. I want to like Odysee but every other video is “anti-woke” and alt-right bullshit. It also has some weird stuff related to using a credit card in order to comment when you first signup. It has its own currency, which I am OK with people making money, but seems to be too big of a focus. I have never tried Rumble but it sounds like I don’t want to if its just a worse Odysee. With that said, I still prefer to watch a few of my favorite YouTube creators on Odysee, like Mental Outlaw and Oregon Pacifist.

I really like PeerTube and it is probably the best YouTube alternative after you weigh all the pros and cons. More content creators need to move to PeerTube but there are already some really good ones, especially if you like technology related videos. Some of my favorite creators on PeerTube are Veronica Explains, Gardiner Bryant, and The Linux Experiment. PeerTube also needs a better search and directory systems than the current SepiaSearch, which is often out of date.

Also, if you want to watch live-streaming stuff, like an alternative to Youtube live or Twitch, there is Owncast. The problem with Owncast, though, is there are very few people actually using it. Depending on the time of day, you’ll have people streaming games or tech related stuff (like coding). You can see some of those (who wish to be listed) streaming at any given time at https://directory.owncast.online/. You’ll often see more people live on Peertube than Owncast.

Invidious is fine but it is so hit-or-miss whether you’ll be able to use it, depending on the instance. What I’ve been experimenting with lately, as I still watch a lot of YouTube, is adding all of my YouTube subscriptions (I’ve narrowed them down to about 250) to my RSS reader and loading the ones I want to watch into Invidious. Sometimes, though, it is too frustrating when Invidious instances just don’t work.

Not everything requires a response and at some point you have to pick your battles. They have revealed to you that they are an idiot. It is not your job to fix them.

So, KDE Plasma but even more bugs?

edit: I was kidding. The “KDE is buggy” meme has been a long-standing joke on top of Wayland having a reputation of not running well for many Linux users, especially NVIDIA users.

This is the experience I imagine I would have trying it. It is probably what anyone with a modern system would experience with proprietary firmware. From what I read, Trisquel’s core philosophy is to include only free software and Eiskaltdcpp most likely relies on some non-free dependencies.

I like Debian. I am currently trying Fedora and it has been good, too. Void is on my list of “distros to someday try” as it sounds super interesting using runit, XBPS, and not relying on systemd.

I knew about the Epstein thing and it is pretty offensive but unsurprising. What is surprising is what I just read about the developer in 2005 who mentioned taking time off for the birth of his daughter, essentially implying that contributing to Emacs was a more valuable contribution than having children. That is messed up.

Even worse, apparently there were also old blog posts where he discussed the legalization of sex with minors and child pornography, arguing that certain acts should be legal “as long as no one is coerced” and are only illegal due to “prejudice and narrow-mindedness.”

He’s not a great guy. I appreciate the work he has lead with free software, but he’s said some pretty screwed up stuff.

Sources:

https://blog.codinghorror.com/spawning-a-new-process/

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761718975/free-software-pioneer-quits-mit-over-his-comments-on-epstein-sex-trafficking-cas

While I think it would be too hard for most people to be completely free of proprietary software, atleast he is practicing what he preaches. It is a nice goal to someday get there, but I don’t think its realistic at the moment.

Kind in mind, though, he is 72 and I don’t think he even codes anymore. His computer use probably only consists of mostly Emac (for all text based work) and a web browser (which I read he has a very particular method that involves something similar to wget, lynx, and konqueror). His computer use is very light (I imagine) compared to many Linux users.

While I aspire to and appreciate what the FSF advocates, I don’t see a realistic path for myself as a Linux gamer. The proprietary firmware limitations alone would keep you on 2015 hardware.

Source: https://kottke.org/15/05/how-richard-stallman-does-his-computing

Because Debian does not meet the strict requirements of the FSF. It includes non-free blobs in the kernel and the FSF claims Debian “steers” users with recommendations for installing non-free plugins or codecs. Some “contrib” packages, while free themselves, exist primarily to load separately distributed proprietary programs. There are also references in the Debian documentation and official channels that suggest obtaining non-free software for functionality.

edit: typos

Also, incase you’re wondering, Richard Stallman uses Trisquel GNU/Linux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel#%3A~%3Atext=Richard+Stallman+has+mentioned+that%2Cpreviously+used+the+Lemote+Yeeloong.

How is web browsing on that system? I see you’re using the Mullvad browser. Does is play videos well on that system with such little ram?

This is impressive. Its amazing how well GNU/Linux (Debian in this case) can run on low-ram systems, especially if you don’t use systemd.

I think the trick is finding a balance between ignoring it and keeping up with what is happening. Most of the National News is just reports of what terrible thing the White House is doing today. Those reports are unnecessary and time consuming. Don’t give into the rage bait. A lot of this is easier said than done but try to find a balance.

Congratulations! That must have been quite the journey. I am getting close, but I still need to figure out a calendar service that I am happy with that works with my family and it will be hard curb my YouTube addiction.